Press advocacy groups have joined politicians and others in condemning Wednesday's attacks on journalists after a national "day of rage" organized by former prime minister and Washington ally Saad Hariri spiraled out of control.

The largest riots took place in the northern city of Tripoli, where an angry mob set fire to a satellite truck belonging to the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera. The news crew, which was reporting from the roof of a nearby office, took refuge in the building along with reporters from the local Lebanese station New TV until they were evacuated by the Lebanese army, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and others.

By all accounts, Hariri's supporters made life a nightmare for journalists trying to cover one of the biggest international news stories so far this year. 

Following a week of twists and turns in Lebanon's unfolding political crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal, feuding Lebanese parties are heading for a showdown as scheduled talks to pick a new prime minister threaten to stall once again.

On Sunday night, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah took to the airwaves to say that his group and its political allies would decide "in the coming hours" whether talks could take place on Monday as scheduled.

According to Lebanon's confessional political system, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, but Hezbollah and its main Christian ally have flat-out rejected the reelection of current caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Hariri is a Washington favorite and leader of the movement championing the tribunal, which is currently reviewing indictments thought to implicate Hezbollah members in the assassination of Saad Hariri's father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“Our initial response was to topple the government, which was unable to protect Lebanon and face the repercussions of the [tribunal]," said Nasrallah, referring to the mass walkout of opposition lawmakers last week that led to the collapse of the government.

"If [Hariri and his allies] want to use this stage to pressure us, my response is that after the release of the indictment, we will not yield to anything that has been imposed on us," he said without elaborating.

Following last week’s decision by Hezbollah to bring down the government of Saad Hariri, Lebanon has likely entered a period of extended crisis with a caretaker government. It will be marked by fitful attempts to form a new government; negotiations, scheduled to begin this week, have already been postponed.

This is the latest escalation in the long crisis over the U.N. special tribunal investigating the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

For the time being, the security situation remains calm, although tense. The crisis remains at the political level, and Hezbollah’s overwhelming military force makes it unlikely that its opponents will try to challenge it on the street.

On Monday, the tribunal announced that the prosecutor had submitted his sealed indictment to the pre-trial judge. The judge, Daniel Franson, is expected to take between six and 10 weeks to weigh the evidence. Franson can confirm or reject the indictment in whole or in part, or ask for more evidence.

Parliament remains divided between the March 8 coalition, backed by Hezbollah, and the March 14 coalition of Saad Hariri. Although the March 14 coalition has made clear that it will nominate Hariri for another term and the bulk of the opposition has said it will nominate an alternative -- probably former Prime Minister Omar Karami -- the outcome is uncertain. Druze leader Walid Junblatt and parliament speaker Nabih Berri have been urging both sides to return to negotiations. But tensions are riding high and no consensus is emerging.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah gave an address on TV on Sunday night to lay out Hezbollah's rationale for orchestrating the collapse of the government last week.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah and its allies withdrew from the cabinet, dissolving the government and throwing Lebanon into a new phase of tense uncertainty.

Nasrallah explained in the clearest terms yet Hezbollah's demands of the Lebanese state regarding the U.N.-backed tribunal that is expected soon to indict members of Hezbollah accused of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Emboldened Arab citizens are taking on their own leaderships as the region watches with anticipation to see whether Tunisia's recent uprising will successfully replace the oppressive regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali that ruled for 23 years.

Most regional leaders have stayed silent on Ben Ali's flight into exile amid national riots, a reticence that many observers have interpreted as fear. But even staunch supporters of the Tunisian protest movement are cautious to call "revolution" too early.

"Right now the Arab regimes are annoyed, but they aren't afraid," said Munsif Ben Ali, a Tunisian expatriate in Beirut and the head of the local solidarity movement in Lebanon (he shares a last name but no relation to the ousted president).

Ben Ali spoke to Babylon & Beyond on the sidelines of a demonstration on Sunday as several hundred activists gathered in front of the United Nations headquarters in downtown Beirut to express support for the Tunisian protesters.

"Many of the symbols of Ben Ali's regime are still in place," he said. "When real change is completed, then [the Arab leaders] will be terrified."

While the official reactions have been muted, reactions to any perceived support for Ben Ali and his government have been swift and angry, and not just from secular reformists like the ones who made up most of the rally in Beirut.

Labor Minister Butros Harb on Tuesday vigorously defended his controversial draft law that would ban the sale of land between Christians and Muslims for the next 15 years on the pretext of protecting Lebanon's Christian community.

Outraged critics have pointed out that the law is not only discriminatory and unconstitutional, but also fails to address the economic and political pressures pushing Lebanese of all sects to leave the country.

"There are suspicious sales of Christian lands as if there is a tendency to uproot Christians from their areas," he was quoted telling a local television news station by the news website Naharnet.

Harb's proposal does not appear to affect the sale of land by Christians to wealthy Muslims from Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula countries who have invested heavily in the Lebanese real estate sector. Civil-society activists, politicians and ordinary people have reacted with disgust to the proposal, which some have called fear-mongering.

The draft law "is actually a direct violation of the constitution and the coexistence that is part of the constitution," said Kamel Wazne, head of the Center of American Strategic Studies. 

"Today they are calling for not selling land to someone from another sect, tomorrow they will want to outlaw intermarriage," he said. "The premise for the law is very racist, and if this is allowed to pass in Lebanon, it will set a very bad precedent for the country."

Harb did not respond to several requests for comment.

Good news for a tense region, if you believe in psychic predictions, that is.

Michel Hayek, the Arab world's most celebrated clairvoyant, foresees a Middle Eastern "war for peace" in 2011, assuring the audience that tuned in for his annual televised New Year's Eve predictions that calm will prevail despite threats of war.

"The region is moving slowly toward peace, despite indications of threats and war," the Lebanese soothsayer predicted (Arabic link). "Lebanon, specifically, will be negotiating" on its own behalf, he said, "rather than being negotiated over."

Although Hayek did not speak at length about the United States or U.S. policy in the region as he has in the past, he did predict that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would suffer an on-camera breakdown.

One of his more tragic predictions already seems to have come true.

On Jan. 1, just hours after Hayek predicted a "darkness" would fall over some leaders of the Coptic church in Egypt, at least 21 Coptic worshippers were killed and dozens more injured in a bomb attack on a church in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria.

Huge gas fields discovered recently under the Mediterranean seabed have raised high hopes in Israel, a small, high-consumption country seeking alternative energy resources and a greater degree of
  independence from imports.

In a different geopolitical reality, the discovery could benefit the whole region — if it was on speaking terms. Everyone wants to tap natural resources — but this one taps into standing regional squabbles.

Israel and Lebanon, for example. The deposits extend into areas controlled by Lebanon, and it has accused Israel of moving in on its natural resources. Not so, says  Israel, which maintains that the fields lie between its territory and Cyprus.  Israel's minister of national infrastructures, Uzi Landau, even said Israel would "not hesitate to use force" to protect the fields and uphold international maritime law.

The Gaza-Israel border has been heating up in recent weeks, with an increasing number of incidents on the fence, and rocket and mortar fire from the strip into Israel sharply on the rise.

Alongside calculated retaliation including airstrikes on tunnels, militants and -- for the first time since the military operation known as Cast Lead nearly two years ago -- hitting Hamas targets, Israel is keeping a close eye on things and assessing the rationale for the recent escalation.

Most rocket fire is carried out not by Hamas but by smaller, more radical organizations in Gaza, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said this week, estimating that the smaller, more radical organizations opposing Hamas are trying to drag it into renewed conflict with Israel.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah appears to have acknowledged the credibility of WikiLeaks, breaking with the official stance of the group's patron, Iran, that the leaked diplomatic cables are part of some American and Israeli-backed conspiracy.

By supporting WikiLeaks, Nasrallah now finds himself in the same camp as an unlikely figure: Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who said in comments published Saturday that the documents expose Iran's "vulnerability."

In a speech late Friday night, the Hezbollah leader said the resistance would be targeted by conspiracies even greater than those already revealed in the leaked United States diplomatic cables, hinting mysteriously at more to come.

During the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, the party and its supporters "faced serious threats and conspiracies" from many sides, Nasrallah said, adding: "This is what we see in WikiLeaks day after day, and which we will see on a greater [scale]" (Arabic link).

Was Nasrallah's ominious prediction a rhetorical flourish, or does he have knowledge of sensitive cables on Lebanon that have yet to be published?

The massive aerial offensive is over. The efforts of dozens of assorted aircraft that flew hundreds of sorties in three days were crowned by two round trips of the gigantic Evergreen supertanker that finished off the job, the peak of a splendid air show. The commander of Israel's air force thanked the many foreign teams that took part in the huge effort, and the skies over Haifa are suddenly silent. 

After days of flames that gripped the Israel's Carmel woodlands and mesmerized the nation, came the magic word everyone was waiting for. "Control has been attained," announced Fire Chief Shimon Romach Sunday evening, and police officials allowed all but one evacuated community to return to their homes.

Still, "control doesn't mean it's over," cautioned firefighter Boaz Rakia, who expects renewed outbursts of flames in numerous hot spots. Firefighters will remain widely deployed, he said.

Earlier in the morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the weekly cabinet meeting in Tirat HaCarmel, one of the affected communities where thousands of people had been evacuated. "We must help the evacuees, rebuild their homes and rehabilitate the infrastructures and we must do so as quickly as possible," he said.

Netanyahu instructed ministers to expedite damage assessment and compensation plans and allocate an immediate $17 million. He also asked to see a plan for rehabilitation of the Carmel landscape and wildlife within 21 days.

Initial figures estimate the overall damage caused by the fire at $450 million, according to the Maariv daily, which also said that had the money been spent in the right place at the right time, these costs could have been avoided.

A majority of Muslims around the world welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries' political life, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, but have mixed feelings toward militant religious groups such as  Hamas and Hezbollah.

According to the survey, majorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria would favor changing the current laws to allow stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion. About 85% of Pakistani Muslims said they would support a law segregating men and women in the workplace.

Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and Jordan were among the most enthusiastic, with more than three-quarters of Muslims polled in those countries reporting positive views of Islam's influence in politics: either that Islam had a large role in politics, and that was a good thing, or that it played a small role, and that was bad.