Beirut - Lebanon's anti-Syrian Druze leader and head of the progressive Socialist Progressive party, Walid Jumblatt, insists that the conflict between the Lebanese rival factions is based on political, not confessional, grounds.

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa, Jumblatt accused what he described as some "Western states and Israel of transforming Lebanon's conflict into a confessional one to benefit from it and thus enhance it like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Cairo - Egypt's criminal court postponed on Saturday a hearing in the murder charges against business tycoon and lawmaker Hisham Talaat Moustafa to mid-November to allow for further investigations into the case.

Moustafa is accused in the murder of Lebanese singer Suzane Tamim.

A former chairman of Egypt's largest publicly traded real estate company and a member of the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament, Moustafa was arrested on September 2 and charged with ordering and paying for the killing.

Cairo - Washington would "never permit Syria to intervene militarily in Lebanon," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview to Al-Arabiya TV broadcast Friday.

"A clear message has been delivered to Damascus stating that Washington will not tolerate a Syrian military intervention in Lebanon." Rice said.

Recent military attacks in Tripoli and Damascus should not be used as a justification for Syrian military intervention in Lebanon, she said.

Beirut - Lebanon is to set up its first embassy in Syria in the Abu Rimmaneh district of Damascus, a Lebanese foreign ministry source said on Friday.

According to the source the Lebanese embassy in the Syrian capital is to be operational before the end of the year.

The source did not specify if the compound would also be the residence to Lebanon's ambassador to Syria, who is yet to be named.

He added that Syrian Foreign Ministry has asked the Lebanese Foreign Ministry to help in finding a venue for the Syrian embassy in Beirut that would be "suitable from a security point of view."

Beirut - The head of Lebanon's Christian Phalange Party Amin Gemayel warned Friday against "racial cleansing" targeting Christians in Iraq since the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2005.

Thousands of Iraqi Christians have been reported leaving their homes, particularly in the northern city of Mosul, following attacks.

Gemayel was quoted by local media as saying a caMpaign targeting Iraqi Christians was "part of a campaign to displace them, similar to the displacing of Palestinians" by Israel.

Iraq's Christians, he said, had provided the "first example of Christian-Muslim coexistence."

Cairo - A day after Syria and Lebanon signed an agreement to create formal diplomatic ties for the first time ever, Samir Geagea, head of a major Lebanese Christian party and an implacable opponent of Syria - called for a strong state to ward off Syrian influence, and also the disarmament of Hezbollah.