LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 31/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 13,44-46. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 30/08-Naharnet
National Dialogue Preparations Underway-Naharnet
Lebanese Troops Deployed to Intercept Smuggling from Syria Attacked-Naharnet
Feltman: Hizbullah's Main Enemy is an Effective Lebanese State-Naharnet
Hizbullah's Islamic Resistance Issues its First Communiqué Since 2006-Naharnet
Hizbullah's Islamic Resistance Moves into Policy Statement ...Naharnet
Lebanese Troops Deployed to Intercept Smuggling from Syria Attacked-Naharnet
Security official: Soldier killed in eastern Lebanon attack-Jerusalem Post
Mofaz heads to Washington for talks on Iranian threat, Lebanon ...Jerusalem Post
Iranian official: Hezbollah swap a victory for the Muslim world-Ha'aretz
Israeli-Syrian peace talks to resume under Turkish mediation-AFP
Syria puts 12 on trial over call for democracy-Khaleej Times
Jumblat Puts End to Rumors, Hariri Stresses Partnership-Naharnet
Fatah Commander Injured in Ain el-Hilweh Bomb Blast-Naharnet
Tueni: Why Keep Weapons if They Don't Want to Use them?-Naharnet
Israeli FM Admits She Was Mossad Agent-Naharnet

Lebanese Troops Deployed to Intercept Smuggling from Syria Attacked
Naharnet/Lebanese troops deployed to intercept smuggling across the borders with Syria were attacked by unidentified assailants before dawn Wednesday. A soldier was killed and another was wounded. The army outpost targeted by the attack is 200 meters west of the borderline with Syria at the remote village of Quld al-Sabaa in the Hizbullah stronghold of Hermel province. The region is a reputed smuggling trail abutting Syrian territory in the rough terrain of east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The reports said army troops responded to the sources of fire and a chase was carried out for the gunmen who withdrew further east towards Syrian territory. It could not be determined, however, if the gunmen had managed to cross into Syria. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006 had banned the smuggling of weapons from Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. It couldn't be determined, however, if the assailants who attacked the army post on Wednesday were smugglers. The army casualties were identified as Saadallah Khalil Yazbek, who was killed in the initial clash, and Ahmed al-Khatib, who was wounded in the early stage of the chase. Local reporters said at least two of the gunmen were wounded in the clash with the army, but they haven't been arrested.
The Army Command, in a communiqué, said a soldier was "martyred" and another wounded when gunmen opened fire at an army outpost in the northern sector of the Bekaa Valley. Army units "responded to the sources of fire," the communiqué said. The gunmen, according to the communiqué, "escaped" and "casualties in the ranks of the attackers could not be determined."The Hermel Province, a reputed Hizbullah stronghold, also is home for clans that traditionally live on smuggling between Lebanon and Syria. Beirut, 30 Jul 08, 12:54

National Dialogue Preparations Underway
Naharnet/Nazim al-Khoury, political advisor to President Michel Suleiman, held talks on Wednesday with Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun on the national dialogue's mechanism. Khoury on Tuesday made separate visits to Democratic Gathering leader Walid Jumblat, Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri and MP Michel Murr. Khoury was apparently informing the various officials of preparations that are underway by Baabda Palace circles to issue invitations to leaders of the Lebanese factions to take part in the national dialogue that the president would sponsor in line with the Doha Accord. The proposed dialogue is to tackle such controversial issues as Hizbullah's weapons and its Islamic Resistance. Beirut, 30 Jul 08, 14:49

Hizbullah's Islamic Resistance Issues its First Communiqué Since 2006
Naharnet/The Islamic Resistance has issued a statement condemning Israel's alleged violations of the ceasefire that ended the July-August 2006 War, the newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Wednesday saying it was close to adopting "operational steps" against the Jewish state.
Al-Akhbar quoted informed sources as saying it appears that the Islamic resistance, "which waited since May 2000 to stop these violations, and then waited for two years (more) for Lebanese and international diplomacy to succeed in stopping these violations, is close to taking operational steps in order to compel Israel to stop these violations.""The Israeli enemy's persistence in its violations of Lebanese airspace, territorial waters, and territory, especially during the last few days, is an unacceptable provocative escalation that calls for condemnation and serious action on the part of the concerned Lebanese authorities as well as U.N. bodies," the statement by the Islamic resistance said. This was the first statement of its kind to be issued by the Islamic Resistance since the end of military operations in August 2006.The Islamic Resistance also asked the authorities in Lebanon and at the United Nations what measures should be taken to stop these violations, the daily reported. The statement went on to say that "if merely one violation of Lebanese airspace and borders represents a blatant aggression against Lebanese sovereignty, if the aggression is repeated hundreds of times in one week, day and night, from north to south and from east to west, accompanied by mock maneuvers above the southern coast in which warplanes, reconnaissance airplanes, and helicopters participate, in full view of the international forces and their warships, which represents an impudent diligence in targeting [Lebanese] sovereignty and an affront to national dignity as well as a violation of international laws, it is necessary to put an end to these violations right away, and all parties concerned must assume responsibility for completely stopping these flagrant violations." Beirut, 30 Jul 08, 13:37

Lebanese Troops Deployed to Intercept Smuggling from Syria Attacked
Lebanese troops deployed to intercept smuggling across the borders with Syria were attacked by unidentified assailants before dawn Wednesday. A soldier was killed and another was wounded. The army outpost targeted by the attack is 200 meters west of the borderline with Syria at the remote village of Quld al-Sabaa in the Hizbullah stronghold of Hermel province. The region is a reputed smuggling trail abutting Syrian territory in the rough terrain of east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
The reports said army troops responded to the sources of fire and a chase was carried out for the gunmen who withdrew further east towards Syrian territory.
It could not be determined, however, if the gunmen had managed to cross into Syria. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006 had banned the smuggling of weapons from Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. It couldn't be determined, however, if the assailants who attacked the army post on Wednesday were smugglers.The army casualties were identified as Saadallah Khalil Yazbek, who was killed in the initial clash, and Ahmed al-Khatib, who was wounded in the early stage of the chase. Local reporters said at least two of the gunmen were wounded in the clash with the army, but they haven't been arrested.
The Army Command, in a communiqué, said a soldier was "martyred" and another wounded when gunmen opened fire at an army outpost in the northern sector of the Bekaa Valley. Army units "responded to the sources of fire," the communiqué said. The gunmen, according to the communiqué, "escaped" and "casualties in the ranks of the attackers could not be determined."The Hermel Province, a reputed Hizbullah stronghold, also is home for clans that traditionally live on smuggling between Lebanon and Syria. Beirut, 30 Jul 08, 12:54

Feltman: Hizbullah's Main Enemy is an Effective Lebanese State
Naharnet/Former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman has described the creation of a strong Lebanese state as Hizbullah's main enemy, expressing the Bush administration's concern over the Shiite group's "destabilizing role." The Bush administration remains concerned about "the destabilizing role of Hizbullah and its continuing efforts to build its military capabilities," Feltman, who is now a deputy assistant secretary of state, told the House Foreign Affairs Mideast and South Asia subcommittee on Tuesday. Hizbullah's main enemy is the creation of an effective Lebanese state that is responsible towards its people through the democratic institutions, Feltman said. He said Hizbullah continues to receive weapons from Syria, adding that the group has made "a number of statements asserting it will not relinquish its weapons, even if the disputed Shebaa farms territory is handed over to Lebanon."
He said the U.S. believes that a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-occupied farms issue would "undermine Hizbullah's spurious "resistance" credentials and complicate the group's efforts to maintain an armed state-within-a state." "A diplomatic solution to the Shebaa farms dispute, beginning with the Syrian-Lebanese delineation of their border would constitute an important step toward implementation of one part of (Security Council) Resolution 1701," which ended the Israel-Hizbullah war in August 2006, Feltman told the subcommittee. About the Israel-Hizbullah prisoner swap earlier in the month, Feltman said he was displeased with an official reception for released Lebanese prisoner Samir Qantar.
"We also are troubled by Hizbullah's efforts to exploit the July 16 return to Israel of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured in 2006 in exchange for the return to Lebanon of five prisoners, including Samir Qantar, and the remains of nearly 200 fighters," he said. The diplomat also brought up the issue of Hizbullah's own telecommunications network and its surveillance of the Beirut airport, which triggered fighting between the Shiite group's gunmen and al-Mustaqbal movement supporters in Beirut and other areas last May. The network and surveillance "are lingering examples of its (Hizbullah's) challenge to Lebanon's institutions," he said.
He said the U.S. continues to press Damascus to normalize relations with Beirut and to cooperate in delineating the common border between Syria and Lebanon.
"Syria must move from mere jargon to undertake the concrete actions required to formally establish diplomatic relations in a way beneficial to both countries," Feltman stressed. He also urged the need to disarm all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1559, 1680 and 1701. Feltman said that President George Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are committed to supporting a sovereign and democratic Lebanon.
"We will continue to seek full implementation of all U.N. Security Council resolutions on Lebanon and remain engaged with our partners working in support of this goal," he said. Beirut, 30 Jul 08, 08:55

U.S. Trying to Salvage Gains in Mideast Talks
Naharnet/Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice invited top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to Washington this week to preserve modest momentum in Mideast peace talks begun under U.S. sponsorship last year. The Bush administration is trying to secure a few concessions from Israel and the Palestinians by the end of this year, leaving the details of any real peace deal to the next president. The talks have yielded no measurable gains in public. Rice has taken to mediating three-way sessions and was expected to press Wednesday for a more formal accounting of the progress she has said the two sides are making behind closed doors.
"Our goal as the United States is to work as hard as we can to encourage the parties to resolve the differences between them," Rice said Tuesday. "They are working very, very hard. They are also working very seriously."Rice met Tuesday with the senior Palestinian negotiator. She planned a one-on-one session Wednesday with the top Israeli negotiator, followed by a joint session scheduled to last more than two hours.
In recent weeks, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have scaled back their ambitious goal of a signed deal before Bush leaves office in January, saying the best that could be hoped for was the outline of an agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday backed away from a target date — announced at a U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference in November — for reaching a deal with the Palestinians by year's end.
Olmert met last week with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who pledged that if elected he would work harder from the start than President Bush did to get a peace deal. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain also would continue talks with both sides.
"Our focus is to work with both sides to get as far as we can in achieving a settlement on all final status issues by the end of the year," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tuesday.
So-called final status issues include the final borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, competing claims to the holy city of Jerusalem, the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and Israeli security concerns. Rice said she had been assured that Israel remains committed to working for a deal on the hardest problems this year, but she made no big promises during a news conference Tuesday.
"I expect to continue to help the parties find points of convergence, to help them to continue to try to work toward this," Rice said. "I'm assured that they're all committed to trying to make it happen, but nobody should underestimate the difficulty of doing that."
Olmert's comment that the sides will need more time to bridge differences over Jerusalem was the clearest indication yet that the Israeli leadership sees that target as unattainable."There is no practical chance of reaching a comprehensive understanding on Jerusalem" in 2008, Olmert told a closed-door meeting of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to an official present at the gathering. The status of disputed Jerusalem has long been the toughest problem in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Olmert has been meeting directly with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a public display of good will that the Bush administration wants to preserve, in part to hand a new U.S. administration a working process. Lower-level Israeli and Palestinian negotiators meet regularly to address Jerusalem, the final borders of an independent Palestinian state and the rights of Palestinians and their descendants who left homes in what is now Israel.
Palestinian leaders have sounded more pessimistic than the Israelis for months, with Abbas complaining of no progress and other officials accusing Israel of undermining its public pledge to peace by expanding Jewish settlements on what would become Palestinian land.(AP)
Beirut, 30 Jul 08, 10:57

Fatah Commander Injured in Ain el-Hilweh Bomb Blast
Naharnet/A Fatah military commander was seriously wounded in an explosion on Tuesday in the refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh in south Lebanon, a medic said.
Talal al-Asmar "had surgery to the legs and is in stable condition," doctor Yehiya Shehab of the Labib Medical Center in the southern port city of Sidon, outside Ain el-Hilweh camp, told AFP.  Asmar was still scheduled to have eye surgery, the doctor added. Fatah official in Ain el-Hilweh Mounir al Makdah, however, downplayed reports that said Asmar was a Fatah commander. "Talal, who is a low-ranking Fatah official, suffered minor injuries and is resting at his home," Makdah told Naharnet by telephone. He said the motive behind the explosion was not yet known. Earlier a Palestinian official had said that Asmar, who belongs to the Fatah faction loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, had been killed in a bomb attack in the sprawling camp.
That report was later contradicted by another Palestinian official who said that Asmar was "seriously wounded in the head and the body" and "in critical condition" after undergoing surgery. According to Palestinian officials, the bomb that targeted Asmar was activated by remote control and exploded outside a Fatah office.
One Palestinian official linked the attack to the death of three Palestinians earlier this month in Ain el-Hilweh in fighting with a joint force of Palestinian factions which police the camp. One of those killed was Shehade Jawhar of the Islamist group Jund al-Sham, who had been wanted by the Lebanese authorities for murder.
"It was retaliation for the assassination of Shehade Jawhar," the official said. Ain el-Hilweh has in recent months become the theater of clashes between Fatah and Jund al-Sham, a Sunni group comprising mainly Lebanese without a clear hierarchy. Members of extremist groups believed to have links with al-Qaida have settled in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, especially in Ain el-Hilweh, which has a population of more than 45,000. The camps are outside the control of Lebanese authorities, with Palestinian factions, including Fatah, in charge of security.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 29 Jul 08, 19:37

Tueni: Why Keep Weapons if They Don't Want to Use them?
Naharnet/MP Ghassan Tueni said Tuesday he was hopeful that the policy statement would be finalized soon, but wondered why Hizbullah clings to its weapons when it claims it doesn't want to use them. "We should find a true concept of the resistance," Tueni told reporters after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri at his Ain al-Tineh residence.  "We want entire Lebanon to become a resistance state and a resistance society just like the Israeli society," Tueni said. "They (Hizbullah) don't want to wage a civil war, they want to keep their arms thinking that they could possibly need them domestically," he added. Tueni said Hizbullah has set a precedent with the use of arms against fellow countrymen, a reference to Hizbullah's takeover of west Beirut last May. "For this reason, caution should be observed," he said, asking: "If they don't want to use weapons, then why do they want to preserve this right?" Beirut, 29 Jul 08, 16:32

The roots of Muslim anger
Salim Mansur, National Post
Published: Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Before resting its recent case against Mohammed Momin Khawaja under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act, the prosecution presented Momin's former fiancee, Zeba Khan, as the final witness via a video link from Dubai. Ms. Khan reportedly stated in her testimony: "You will not meet a young Muslim man in the world who is not angry about something. Anyone who watches the news, if he wasn't mad then, a) there's something wrong with him, or b) he's ignorant."
Obviously, not all angry young Muslim men are engaging in violence -- nor, of course, are all Muslims terrorists. But many terrorists are found to be Muslims. Ms. Khan's remark purports to explain the linkage.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Mr. Khawaja has Pakistani roots. In recent years, Pakistan has become a haven for al-Qaeda terrorists. For longer than that, jihadis have recruited Pakistani boys and men to fight in Kashmir and Afghanistan. These brainwashed men may be volunteers headed out to fight infidel "invaders" and "occupiers" of Muslim lands, but it cannot be said that they are acting entirely on their own initiative.
These Muslims are responding to the political values and religious ideology promoted and financed by influential radicals. These values -- reflected in Ms. Khan's comment -- provide the framework for the wider political discourse in Pakistan and across much of the Arab-Muslim world, as well.
I know Pakistani society quite intimately from studying and living among the Pakistani people. The Pakistani culture is based on collective loyalty to faith, history and politics. This makes it difficult for the country to keep up with the demands of the modern world.
I have also travelled in various other Muslim nations -- from Algeria to Indonesia. Many of these societies, I've come to understand, are essentially failed states. Their cultures are mostly closed, authoritarian and patriarchal. While Muslim men of all ages can be genuinely friendly to strangers, theirs is a culture of boasting and quick tempers.
But when one engages them individually (especially younger men) in polite discussions of politics and history -- even in a place such as Qom, Iran, whose most famous product is the late Ayatollah Khomeini -- the mask falls and there is much sorrow expressed over how greatly the Muslim world has degenerated into a pathetic shadow of its past.
What is privately admitted cannot be publicly affirmed or discussed. The character of Muslim society is exemplified by the mosque culture, whereby the authority of the man on the pulpit is final and public dissent is disallowed.
Similarly, inside of homes, most discussions flow in one direction from the patriarchal centre of power and influence downwards. Any critical review or independent examination of controversial subjects is frowned upon, if not repressed. Anger in such circumstances is mostly an effect of the pent-up resentment bred of life in a society without any sort of freedom.
Khawaja Momin's former fiancee is likely just as immersed in this culture as are the angry young Muslim men she speaks of. These men are their parents' "jewels," and given special care by mothers as their future protectors in a male-dominant society -- while their fathers and imams angrily condemn the world around them for corrupting their faith and way of living.
This culture has been exported to Muslim immigrant enclaves in the West, including parts of our own country. In a very revealing book, The Islamist, Ed Husain -- a former jihadi born and raised in Britain by parents from Bangladesh -- discusses the culture of such enclaves in the making of angry young Muslim men. In the end, some head out to kill innocent civilians, as did the 2005 London suicide bombers.
This sort of disaster has not happened in Canada -- yet. But it may, if we are not careful to monitor the rise of radicalism amongst the likes of Mohammed Momin Khawaja.