LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 22/2010

Bible Of the Day
Mark 1/35-45: "Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there. 1:36 Simon and those who were with him followed after him; 1:37 and they found him, and told him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 1:38 He said to them, “Let’s go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because I came out for this reason.” 1:39 He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out demons. 1:40 A leper came to him, begging him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, “If you want to, you can make me clean.” 1:41 Being moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said to him, “I want to. Be made clean.” 1:42 When he had said this, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was made clean. 1:43 He strictly warned him, and immediately sent him out, 1:44 and said to him, “See you say nothing to anybody, but go show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.” 1:45 But he went out, and began to proclaim it much, and to spread about the matter, so that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but was outside in desert places: and they came to him from everywhere./Naharnet

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for February 21/10
Hariri: I Didn't Go to Syria to Build a Relationship with Assad, but with the Syrians/Naharnet
Mustaqbal, LF Will Vote Not to Lower Voting Age, PSP to Vote in Favor/Naharnet
Alain Aoun: FPM MPs Won't Vote for Lowering Voting Age at Monday Meeting/Naharnet
Khreiss: Saniora Still Considers Himself Prime Minister/Naharnet
Qassem: Israel is The Problem and Resistance is The Only Solution/Naharnet
Lingering Voting Age Controversy/Naharnet
Pope Stresses Support for Tribunal, Hariri Reiterates 'Sovereign' Lebanon's Commitment to 1701/Naharnet
Sfeir: Recent Events Require Lebanese to Close Ranks /Naharnet
Jumblat: We will Work on Turning the Page of Displaced in Breeh, Abey and Kfarsalwan /Naharnet
Clinton and Hariri for Safeguarding Lebanon from Dangers /Naharnet
Hariri Mulling Damascus Visit to Discuss Bilateral Agreements /Naharnet
Protest in Front of Chamoun Family Burial Ground Prevents Aoun from Laying Wreaths /Naharnet
Jumblat: We Achieved Reconciliation in 2001 Together with Patriarch Sfeir, I Urge New Generation Not to Fall a Victim to Game of Nations /Naharnet
Qassem: We Won't Be Shaken by Objections on the Resistance Because We're the Majority/Naharnet
Syria warns: Next war will be ruinous/Jerusalem Post
Fifth Assyrian Killed in a Week in North Iraq/AFP
Israel: IAEA report confirms ‘military intentions’ of Iran/AP
Hezbollah wants municipal elections postponed, Al-Hayat reports/Now Lebanon
Al-Hayat: Hariri may visit Syria again/Now Lebanon
Jumblatt on Mukhtara meeting with Aoun: Excellent/Now Lebanon

Syria warns: Next war will be ruinous
BY JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP
21/02/2010
Syrian PM says if future conflict erupts it will affect "the region and beyond."
Talkbacks (1)
Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari on Saturday warned Israel that any new Mideast war would be catastrophic for the region and beyond.
Speaking to reporters Saturday after meeting with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, he said that a new war will have dangerous repercussions not only in the Middle East but also on the international level. Syria's foreign minister warned Israel earlier this month that any new war would reach Israeli cities, to which Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded that the Syrian army would be defeated and its regime would collapse in any future conflict. Otari's statements to his French counterpart on Saturday come after several weeks of quiet in the Israeli-Syrian war of words. The United States, meanwhile, has appointed a new ambassador to Syria after the previous administration led by George W. Bush withdrew its ambassador in 2005.
It also withdrew travel warnings saying that American citizens would face security risks if they traveled to Syria. The US did not, however, remove Syria from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. Israel and Syria have held indirect peace talks during the tenure of former prime minister Ehud Olmert. Turkey acted as mediator. The talks came to a halt after Turkey voiced severe criticism of Israel's actions during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter and the Israeli government declared it no longer views Turkey as an honest go-between.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a visit to France late last year, hinted that Jerusalem my prefer that France take over the role previously held by Turkey.
Syria demands Israel cede the Golan Heights, captured during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, as a prerequisite for peace negotiations. Israel says it will not accept Syrian preconditions.
The assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah operative who was killed in his car on a Damascus street, was also attributed to the Mossad, Israel's spy agency. Israel never acknowledged Mughniyeh's death was the work of the Mossad.Syria did not so far react to either of these incidents.

Pope Stresses Support for Tribunal, Hariri Reiterates 'Sovereign' Lebanon's Commitment to 1701
Naharnet/ Pope Benedict XVI has expressed support for the international tribunal that would try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's suspected assassins, hoping the perpetrators would be brought to justice.The pope also lauded during a meeting with Premier Saad Hariri at the Vatican the Lebanese cabinet's latest decision to make March 25 a national holiday to celebrate the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He praised the role played by the Maronite patriarchate and head of the church Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and referred to the Synod on the Middle East which will take place in October 2010. Hariri, in his turn, urged the pope to work on protecting Lebanon and exercising pressure on all countries involved "to avoid any mistake in Lebanon or the Middle East." He said contacts between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and President Michel Suleiman were aimed at warding off Israeli threats against Lebanon. The prime minister said Lebanon is "a sovereign state and takes its own decisions as a state, institutions and government," reiterating the country's commitment to Security Council resolution 1701 "which is an international resolution that protects Lebanon against any attack or Israeli threat."
Beirut, 21 Feb 10, 08:39

Sfeir: Recent Events Require Lebanese to Close Ranks
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir said during his Sunday sermon that recent events require the Lebanese to be extremely cautious and close ranks. Sfeir also urged the Lebanese to cooperate and strengthen the bonds of love. Such efforts are the only path for tranquility, he said. Beirut, 21 Feb 10, 10:15

Clinton and Hariri for Safeguarding Lebanon from Dangers
Naharnet/U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned Prime Minister Saad Hariri while he was on a visit to the Vatican on Saturday, the PM's press office said. The two officials discussed "efforts to relaunch peace talks and the importance of the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701," the office said in a statement.
Clinton and Hariri also stressed Lebanon's protection from all regional dangers, the statement added. Beirut, 21 Feb 10, 08:44

Hariri Mulling Damascus Visit to Discuss Bilateral Agreements
Naharnet/Prime Minister Saad Hariri is mulling to visit Syria on the head of a ministerial delegation to discuss agreements signed between the two countries, ministerial sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. The sources said that Hariri has taken note of involved ministers' comments on the agreements. However, the order and date of the visit haven't been issued yet. They added that Hariri is mulling to make the visit before his Syrian counterpart Naji Otari's trip to Beirut. Beirut, 21 Feb 10, 09:48

Jumblat: We will Work on Turning the Page of Displaced in Breeh, Abey and Kfarsalwan
Naharnet/Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat vowed to turn the page of the displaced issue in the towns of Breeh, Abey and Kfarsalwan saying it is Prime Minister Saad Hariri's responsibility to provide funds to the displaced. In remarks to An Nahar daily, Jumblat described Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun's visit to the Mountains as "excellent" saying "the meeting between me and him was very friendly." "This visit stresses political diversity in Mount Lebanon," the Druze leader said, adding that "Aoun represents an essential force in the Mountains and other areas." "I back his statement on openness so that next generations could enjoy better lives to shield Lebanon from the game of countries," the PSP leader told An Nahar. He stressed that his meeting with Aoun at the Lebanese embassy in Doha earlier in the week was not planned. Jumblat also reiterated that he would announce the date of his visit to Damascus when time is ripe. Hizbullah's al-Manar TV quoted informed Syrian sources as saying that "nothing in politics prevents PSP leader Walid Jumblat's visit to Damascus."
"It is only a matter of time," the sources said. Beirut, 21 Feb 10, 09:23

Fifth Assyrian Killed in a Week in North Iraq
2-20-2010
Assyrian International News Agency
http://www.aina.org/news/20100220114044.htm
htt:p://www.aina.org
(AFP) -- Iraqi police said they found a Christian shopkeeper shot to death in the restive northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the fifth Christian killing in a week thought to be related to March elections.
Adnan al-Dahan, a 57-year-old Syrian Orthodox, was found with bullet wounds to his head in the northern Mosul district of al-Belladiyat, police and his relatives said.
Dahan had been kidnapped from his grocery shop last week in the neighbourhood of Al-Habda, also in northern Mosul, according to a police officer who did not want to be named.
"He was kidnapped last week from his shop but we did not reveal this publicly because we were trying to get him back by paying a ransom," one of Dahan's relatives said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Dahan was the fifth Christian to have been killed during the past week in Mosul, which is located about 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Baghdad and has a Christian population of between 2,000 and 3,000. Local leaders had expressed concern Christians could be targeted ahead of the March 7 parliamentary election in a country wracked by sectarian violence since the US-led invasion of 2003. In November, Human Rights Watch warned minorities in the oil-rich north including Christians were the collateral victims of a conflict between Arabs and Kurds over who controls Iraq's disputed northern provinces. On Wednesday, 20-year-old Assyrian Christian student Wissam George's bullet-riddled body was recovered after he went missing the same morning. A day earlier, a gunman killed 21-year-old engineering student Zia Toma and wounded 22-year-old pharmacy student Ramsin Shmael, both Assyrian Christians.
Greengrocer Fatukhi Munir was gunned down inside his shop in a drive-by shooting late on Monday, and armed assailants killed Rayan Salem Elias, a Chaldean, outside his home on Sunday. In late 2008, a systematic campaign of killings and targeted violence killed 40 Christians and saw more than 12,000 flee Mosul.
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Counter-terror adviser: Give Hezbollah more power
Wants U.S. to encourage greater assimilation of Iranian-backed jihad group
February 17, 2010
By Aaron Klein/© 2010 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – The U.S. should encourage greater assimilation of the Hezbollah terrorist organization into the Lebanese government, argued President Obama's counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan.
Outside of al-Qaida, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah has the distinction of having killed the most Americans in terror attacks. It is also responsible for scores of terrorist actions targeting Israelis, including rocket launchings against civilian population centers. Hezbollah's attacks against the Israeli north in 2006 killed 43 Israeli civilians and wounded more than 4,000.
In a July 2008 article in The Annals, a publication of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Brennan argued it "would not be foolhardy, however, for the United States to tolerate, and even to encourage, greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon's political system, a process that is subject to Iranian influence."
Continued Brennan: "Hezbollah is already represented in the Lebanese parliament and its members have previously served in the Lebanese cabinet, reflections of Hezbollah's interest in shaping Lebanon's political future from within government institutions. This political involvement is a far cry from Hezbollah's genesis as solely a terrorist organization dedicated to murder, kidnapping and violence."
Also, at a press conference in August at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Brennan declared, "Hezbollah started out as purely a terrorist organization back in the early '80s and has evolved significantly over time. And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization."
Maintenance of a civilian unit of doctors and lawyers by terrorist groups is not uncommon in the Middle East. Hamas has long brandished a civilian wing that provides medical care and education to the Palestinian population. According to Israeli security officials, Hezbollah and Hamas emphasize this outreach to endear their terror groups to the local population.
Brennan went on to state, "Quite frankly, I'm pleased to see that a lot of Hezbollah individuals are in fact renouncing that type of terrorism and violence and are trying to participate in the political process [in Lebanon] in a very legitimate fashion."
Brennan, assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, did not cite specific examples of Hezbollah members renouncing violence. Hezbollah routinely affirms its so-called armed wing operates to target Israelis. Just yesterday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened Israel's international airport.
Hezbollah in 1983 carried out a massive attack on the American Marines barracks inside Lebanon in which suicide bombers detonated truck bombs, killing 241 American servicemen, representing the highest single-day death toll for the Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II.
Brennan has come under fire the past few days after a video surfaced showing a question-and-answer session for Muslim law students last week at New York University.
At the session, Brennan stated that having a percentage of terrorists released by the U.S. return to terrorist attacks "isn't that bad," since the recidivism rate for inmates in the U.S. prison system is higher.
He also criticized parts of the Bush administration's response to 9/11 as a "reaction some people might say was over the top in some areas" that "in an overabundance of caution [we] implemented a number of security measures and activities that upon reflection now we look back after the heat of the battle has died down a bit we say they were excessive, okay."
Brennan is also coming under fire for previous remarks he made about jihad.
"Nor does President Obama see this challenge as a fight against 'jihadists,'" said Brennan.
"Describing terrorists in this way – using a legitimate term, 'jihad,' meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal – risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself. And this is why President Obama has confronted this perception directly and forcefully in his speeches to Muslim audiences, declaring that America is not and never will be at war with Islam."

Israel: IAEA report confirms ‘military intentions’ of Iran
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR AND AP
21/02/2010
Report states ‘Teheran resumed or never stopped enriching uranium’; US: Findings consistent with ‘ongoing concerns about Iran’s activities.’
Israel praised an International Atomic Energy Agency report released on Thursday that says Iran may be developing a nuclear warhead.
“The new IAEA report deals more sharply and clearly than its predecessors with the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Friday.
Noting that the report is the first during the term of new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano of Japan, Israel said it “establishes that the agency has a lot of trustworthy information about the past and present activities that testify to the military tendencies of the Iranian program.”
Among these activities were the recently declared decisions to enrich uranium to 20 percent and the continued construction of the Qom nuclear facility, kept secret until it was discovered by Western intelligence agencies and made public in recent months.
The UN nuclear agency report suggested for the first time that Teheran had either resumed such work or had never stopped when US intelligence thought it did.
Thursday’s report appeared to put the UN nuclear monitor on the side of Germany, France, Britain and Israel. These nations and other US allies have disputed the conclusions of a US intelligence assessment published three years ago that said Teheran appeared to have suspended such work in 2003.
The US assessment itself may be revised and is being looked at again by American intelligence agencies. While US officials continue to say the 2007 conclusion was valid at the time, they have not ruled out the possibility that Teheran subsequently resumed such work.
The confidential IAEA report said Iran’s resistance to agency efforts to probe for signs of a nuclear cover-up “give rise to concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, told the official IRNA news agency that the report “verified the peaceful, nonmilitary nature of Iran’s nuclear activities.”
But in Washington, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the findings were consistent with what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been saying “on our ongoing concerns about Iran’s activities.”
The language of the report appeared to be more directly critical of Iran’s refusal to cooperate with the IAEA than most of those compiled by Amano’s predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei of Egypt.
It strongly suggested that intelligence supplied by the US, Israel and other IAEA member states on Iran’s attempts to use the cover of a civilian nuclear program to move toward a weapons program was compelling.
“The information available to the agency... is broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved,” read the report, prepared for next month’s IAEA board meeting.
“Altogether, this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” said the report, which was also sent to the UN Security Council.
According to Israel, the report reflects “the lack of cooperation from Iran with the agency’s investigation of its activities” and “the continuing systematic violation of decisions of the Security Council and the IAEA’s Board of Governors.”
Meanwhile on Friday, Russia’s foreign minister said he was “very alarmed” over Iran’s failure to prove its nuclear program is peaceful, suggesting Moscow may be closer to acceding to Western demands for new UN sanctions against Teheran.
“We are very alarmed, and we cannot accept that Iran is refusing to cooperate” with the IAEA, Lavrov said on Ekho Moskvy radio. He added that he did not understand the need for Iran to conduct its nuclear program in secret, withholding information from the IAEA.
However, Sergey Lavrov’s deputy said later on Friday that Russia still opposed crippling sanctions, returning to the traditional rhetoric Moscow has used for its “partner” and business ally.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov seemed to step back from support for sanctions in comments reported by Interfax.
“We find the term ‘paralyzing sanctions’ completely unacceptable. Sanctions should follow the aim of strengthening the regime of nuclear nonproliferation,” he said, adding that Russia would fulfill its contract with Iran to deliver S-300 missile systems that Israel and other states fear would be an effective defense against possible Israeli or Western military strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used a Friday visit to a newly launched Iranian guided-missile destroyer in the Persian Gulf to deny that Teheran was seeking nuclear weapons, and to criticize the US military presence in the Gulf.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said his country was not developing nuclear weapons because Islam forbids weapons of mass destruction.
“Because of this reason, we don’t have any belief in the atomic bomb and don’t pursue it,” he said after taking a tour of the destroyer Jamaran. State television, which broadcast the event, said the warship was the country’s first domestically built destroyer and a major technological leap for Iran’s naval industries.
Khamenei, who also is the commander-in-chief of his country’s armed forces, said Washington was trying to frighten Iran’s Arab neighbors into buying US weapons. He also said America and Israel were trying to sow divisions between Iran and Arab nations.
“The US and the Zionist regime are trying to spread divisions to distract the attention of Islamic nations from the main enemies of the Islamic world, which are the US and Israel,” Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state TV.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said the IAEA report “underscores that Iran continues to flout its international obligations” and indicates that Teheran is pursuing “a nuclear weapons program with the purpose of evasion.”
The United States has circulated elements for a possible new UN sanctions resolution to other veto-wielding UN Security Council members – Russia, China, Britain and France – and Germany. The six countries have been trying, to no avail, to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and return to negotiations on its nuclear program.
Rice told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that the report also demonstrates “the urgency” that Teheran must now engage the international community on its nuclear program or “face increased international pressure.”
The French Foreign Ministry went further in a statement on Friday, saying the IAEA report “shows how urgent it is to take resolute action to respond to Iran’s lack of cooperation.”
“We now have no other choice, given this report, than to seek, together with our partners, the adoption of new measures by the UN Security Council over the next few weeks,” the ministry said in a statement.
The United States and its Western allies have been pushing for a fourth round of UN sanctions. But China, which relies on Iran’s energy exports, is skeptical of any new sanctions.