Lebanon's General Suleiman set to become President

LEBONON: Lebanon's parliament is set to vote in army chief General Michel Suleiman as the country's 11th president on Sunday, filling a post left vacant for six months by a crisis that threatened a new civil war.

A Qatari-brokered deal between rival Lebanese leaders last week defused 18 months of political stalemate that erupted into street fighting this month. Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters briefly seized parts of Beirut, routing government loyalists.

Members of parliament from the U.S.-supported ruling majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition will attend a parliamentary session at 1400 GMT to elect Suleiman as president, as stipulated by the Doha agreement.

The vote had been postponed 19 times because of the crisis. The deal achieved most of the opposition's demands and secured the election of a president who has good ties with Syria and Hezbollah.

Beirut, Sunday, Reuters