Beirut - Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini held talks Tuesday with Lebanese officials and will visit his country's contingent in south Lebanon.

Frattini, who is on a two-day visit to Lebanon, met with his Lebanese counterpart Fawzi Salkouh and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman.

After his talks with Salkouh, Frattini said his country backed the Lebanon's parliamentary elections due to be held on June 7.

"Italy backs a stable Lebanon and the elections that should be held freely and democratically," Frattini told reporters.

Beirut - Leban

Beirut  - Lebanese police arrested the gang that kidnapped a
14-year-old outside his home in Beirut, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud
said Thursday.

Baroud told journalists that security forces raided a house in the area
Aley, 30 kilometres east of Beirut, and found Amin Khansa with one of
the kidnappers.

Police identified the kidnappers as Abdel Nasser Hassan al-Moqdad,
Khaled Assaad Shaikho, Ahmad Ali al-Ahmad and Ibrahim Ali al-Ahmad.
They were captured and transferred to the Police Directorate General
for questioning.

Beirut  - A 14-year-old Lebanese student has been kidnapped in Beirut with his captors demanding ransom of 1.5 million dollars, local television networks reported Tuesday.

Amin Jihad al-Khansa was abducted when he was waiting his school bus in the morning outside his house near the Beirut International airport highway district.

Reports said Khansa's parents were not aware of the kidnapping until they received a call from an anonymous man, demanding the ransom.

Beirut  - Thousands of Palestinians mourned on Wednesday Kamal Medhat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation official who was killed in a southern-Lebanon car bombing on Monday.

Followers of rival Palestinian factions from Fatah and Hamas participated in the mass funeral of Kamal Medhat, the PLO's number two in Lebanon, who was killed Monday in a roadside bombing outside the Mieh Mieh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon along with three of his bodyguards.

Beirut  - Lebanon welcomed late Tuesday the appointment of a new Syrian ambassador to Lebanon.

Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh said the ambassador, Ali Abdel Karim Ali, would arrive in Beirut after leaving his current post in Kuwait.

"Lebanon welcomes the new Syrian ambassador Ali Abdel Karim Ali anytime in Beirut to assume his duties," Salloukh said in an interview with the Lebanese Markaziya news agency. He did not disclose when the appointment was made, but said Lebanon's approval had been sent to Damascus.