Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.recently stated that he is relying on an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...to ’protect’ Leb.
According to Naharnet, Hariri said he is "putting Russia in the picture of the Lebanese situation’s developments" as well as "his stance on the file of the relation with the Syrian regime," a media report said.
Hariri is reportedly relying on his Russian counterparts to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees because he does not have any diplomatic relations with Syria.
"By relying on an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the PM-designate is trying to protect the country from any plunge into the conflict of axes in the region, especially that Moscow, with a green light from the U.S., is playing the role of the regulator of the Syrian file and its related issues," the al-Rai News reported, citing diplomatic sources.
"This would provide further balancing elements for the Lebanese situation, which would prevent it from deviating from the constraints of political stability," the sources went on to say.