Le Président de la République Michel Sleiman a affirmé, jeudi, que la politique d’Israël de fuir en avant et de se dérober à la pression internationale, indique que le gouvernement de l’ennemi n’est pas prêt à des pourparlers sérieux avec les Palestiniens pour aboutir à une solution globale, juste et permanente au Moyen-Orient, garantissant aux Palestiniens leurs droits, notamment celui du retour.

Le Président du Conseil des Ministres Saad Hariri a reçu jeudi matin au Sérail l’ambassadrice des Etats-Unis au Liban Michelle Sisson. La réunion a porté sur les derniers développements au niveau régional et international et sur les relations bilatérales entre le Liban et les Etats-Unis.

Paul Martin, a British freelance journalist arrested by Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month and held on suspicion of espionage for Israel, was released on Thursday, his lawyer and a Palestinian official said.

United States Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Jordan on Thursday for talks with key regional ally King Abdullah II on a Middle East peace process marred by Israel's announcement of more settlement plans for east Jerusalem.

Preliminary results from Iraq's national election began to trickle in on Thursday, showing Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ahead in the country's largely Shiite south.

Real Madrid were accused of throwing 250 million euros ($339 million) down the drain on Thursday after being dumped out of the Champions League by Olympique Lyon.

Real president Florentino Perez returned to the world's richest club by revenue for a second term last summer and brought in top players including Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka in a bid to end five years of failure in Europe's elite competition.

However, Thursday's Spanish newspapers suggested the construction magnate's investment had been a waste and the nine-times European champions had focused too much on glamour and spectacle at the expense of sporting success.

"You don't buy titles, you win them," columnist Jose Samano wrote in daily El Pais following the last 16 exit.

"When the ball is in play it's the business of the players and Hollywood-style theatre is irrelevant," he added. "Everything is possible in sport except for those who consider the pitch a stock market."

Real's elimination by Lyon, 2-1 on aggregate following Wednesday's 1-1 home draw, ended Perez's dream of winning a 10th European title at the club's Bernabeu stadium, where May's final is to be held.

Real were also humiliated by third-tier Alcorcon in the King's Cup in November and the domestic league is their only remaining chance of silverware this season.

"The catastrophe suffered by this pharaonic Madrid team is as if an earthquake had destroyed the Valley of the Kings," Orfeo Suarez wrote in El Mundo.

"Watching the competition to which they owe their legend from the sidelines will be their penitence and torment."

Sixth galactic failure" and "More than 250 million euros down the drain" were the headlines in conservative daily ABC, and columnist Julian Avila said Real were left looking for answers despite their "stratospheric spending".

"The jewel in the crown, Cristiano Ronaldo, Champions League finalist in the past two seasons, is out of the tournament at his first attempt in a white shirt," Avila noted.

Carlos Marcote, writing in daily El Periodico, said Perez had failed in his attempt "to bulldoze Madrid back to the summit of world soccer".

"Not even winning the league ... will remove such a scandalous stain, the worst in the recent history of Madrid given the such lofty heights they were obliged to reach."

Each Monday, the richest man in the world likes to sit down to a home-cooked Mexican meal of quesadillas or chile relleno in his simply-furnished family home.

With just six bedrooms and a modest swimming pool, from the exterior the house is worlds apart from the sprawling mansions inhabited by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates – whom he yesterday beat to the top of the Forbes list of The World’s Billionaires.

But inside the clues of Mr Slim’s vast personal fortune of $53.5bn (£35.8bn) are all around: the walls are adorned with the paintings of Van Gogh, Renoir and Diego Rivera, while the rooms are dotted with sculptures by Auguste Rodin – of which Mr Slim is the world’s foremost collector.

Mr Slim’s vast family empire controls more than 200 companies spanning industries including banking, telecoms, road-building and restaurants.

His influence is all-encompassing in his homeland of Mexico, and it is rapidly spreading across the border into the USA and beyond.

But at 70 he remains committed to his humble roots. He idolises his father, Julian, who emigrated from Lebanon at the age of 14 and made his fortune trading property in the 1910-17 Mexican revolution.

Mr Slim’s own business ambitions were compounded when he read an article about Jean Paul Getty, the American oil billionaire, in Playboy magazine.

He invested in Government saving bonds at the age of 11, tracking his purchases in a detailed ledger. By the age of 15 he had bought a small shareholding in Banco Nacional de Mexico – then the country’s largest bank.

After taking a degree in civil engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, he began working 14-hour days to build his own stockbroking company.

By the age of 26, in 1966, Mr Slim was worth a $40m through a series of investments and acquisitions.

The following year he married Soumaya Domit Gemayel, also a Lebanese-Mexican, with whom he would go on to have six children before her death from a kidney ailment in 1999.

Mr Slim’s big break, like his father’s, came at a time of national crisis: he took advantage of a countrywide “fire sale” of assets by local and foreign investors in the Mexican recession of 1982 to build on his business empire.

During this period of economic turbulence he formed Grupo Carso, which now owns retail outlets such as Sanborns and Sears, as well as a raft of manufacturing businesses.

It also owns T1MSN – the Latin American version of Microsoft's MSN website – ironic since Mr Slim refuses to use computers and demands that advisers present everything he needs to know about each business deal on a single sheet of paper.

Eight years after the recession, Mr Slim took charge of Mexico’s national telecoms company, Telmex, beating off competition from 35 other bidders.

His mobile telephone network, America Movil, has opened up swathes of Latin America to the mobile market and now serves more than 153 million customers in 11 counties including Brazil and Ecuador.

Last year he extended his tentacles into North America when he announced plans to inject £250 million into the struggling national newspaper, the New York Times, in which he already owned a 6.4 per cent stake.

Mr Slim’s interests across the border include a 1 per cent share of Citigroup, the troubled banking conglomerate, which he bought last year.

But – apart from his lavish art collection – Mr Slim is a man of simple tastes. He has eschewed the billionaire’s obligatory Rolex in favour a plastic wristwatch that doubles as a calculator, and his offices in Mexico City are littered with paperwork with not a computer in sight.

When not at work he spends his evenings with his family, and enjoys lavishing attention on his grandchildren.

The son of Lebanese immigrants is known for his philanthropy – though not on the same scale as Mr Gates or Mr Buffett, whose charitable efforts he has previously mocked.

Most recently, he joined forces with Bill Clinton, the former US President, and Frank Giustra, the Canadian mining tycoon, to launch an anti-poverty campaign in Latin America.

Earlier this month he pledged $6bn for his three charitable foundations.

Meanwhile, his infrastructure firm, Ideal, is working on a project to develop a shopping centre, schools and a hospital in Mexico City.

But the billionaire has made it clear that he has no plans to retire from business to concentrate on charitable work, as Mr Gates has done.

In a recent interview, he said: "Wealth is like an orchard. You have to share the fruit, not the trees."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew into Riyadh on Wednesday for talks expected to focus on Iran's nuclear program and Washington's push for tough sanctions against Tehran.