LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 08/10

Bible Of the Day
Luke7/18-23: "The disciples of John told him about all these things. 7:19 John, calling to himself two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, “Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for another?” 7:20 When the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptizer has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?’” 7:21 In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits; and to many who were blind he gave sight. 7:22 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John the things which you have seen and heard: that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 7:23 Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.”

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
The Nick Kaldas bombshell/By: Michael Young//January 07/09
Report: Lebanon's 'Adamant Refusal' to Reach Deal with Israel is Delaying Ghajar Pullout/Naharnet/January 07/09
When Egypt clenches its iron fist/By Zvi Bar'el/Ha'aretz/January 07/09
Iran from the inside/By: Farhad Bisotooni/Now Lebanon/January 07/09

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for January 07/09
France Preparing to Add More Countries to Risk List: Will Lebanon be One of Them?/Naharnet
Barak: Missile shield will protect Israel from Lebanese border threats/Now Lebanon
Israel completes testing a high-tech defense system that intercepts incoming rockets/AP
Report says son of bin Laden left Iran for Syria/WashingtonTV
Israel hails rocket shield test 'successful'/BBC News
Report: Syrian-made explosives found planted in south Lebanon/Ma'an News Agency
Sison Discusses Ministries Projects with Bassil, Aridi/Naharnet
Hariri's Jordan Visit: Agreement to Activate Military, Economic Cooperation/Naharnet
Zahra: Government is Only Side Entitled to Carry Out Appointments/Naharnet
Salhab: Jumblat-Aoun Meeting Fragile Unless Political Consensus is Reached /Naharnet
Grieving Family Asks for Info on Probe into Murder of Mounir Mansour in Kiev/Naharnet
Haaretz: Hizbullah Buried Explosives Near Khiam to Attack Infiltrating Israeli Patrol /Naharnet
Cassesse to Visit Lebanon Soon, Kaldas Resigns/Naharnet
Israel Tests Anti-Rocket System Designed to Repel Rockets of Hizbullah, Hamas/Naharnet
Qassem: Memorandum of Understanding with FPM a Solid Base to Endure for Decades/Naharnet
Aoun-Jumblat Meeting Postponed/Naharnet

Israel completes testing a high-tech defense system that intercepts incoming rockets
Associated Press Writer
January 6, 2010
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has successfully completed testing a high-tech rocket defense system designed to protect its civilians from attacks by militants in Gaza and Lebanon, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
The Iron Dome system successfully "intercepted multiple threats at the same time," the ministry said in a statement. "All the (rockets) were shot down by the system with total success."
It said the system will be delivered to an anti-aircraft regiment in the air force soon, but did not give a date for when it becomes operational. Channel 10 TV said the first battery would be deployed in May.
The system is effective against short-range rockets like those used by Gaza and Lebanese militants.
The Iron Dome system uses cameras and radar to track incoming rockets and shoot them down within seconds of their launch, according to the Defense Ministry. The system can change its calculations to account for weather or other conditions in fractions of a second. It then fires a hailstorm of projectiles that home in on the rockets, detonating them in the sky.
Gaza militants have fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel over the years and the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah bombed northern cities with rocket barrages from Lebanon during fierce fighting in the summer of 2006.
Millions of Israeli civilians are within range of the Hamas and Hezbollah rockets, and the Israeli military have been unable to stop the attacks up to now.
Israel has been looking at anti-rocket systems since 2003 but intensified the search after the 2006 war.
Developed at a cost of more than $200 million, the Iron Dome system is intended to eventually be integrated into a multilayered defense umbrella to meet all missile threats.
To defend against long-range threats, like an Iranian attack, Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. are producing the Arrow missile, which has been successfully tested and deployed.
The most advanced version, the Arrow II, was specifically designed to counter Iran's Shahab ballistic missile, which may be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
The Shahab-3 is said to have a range of up to 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel well within striking distance.
Israel views Iran as its biggest threat because of its nuclear program and long-range missiles. Those fears have deepened by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to the destruction of the Jewish state.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Israel Tests Anti-Rocket System Designed to Repel Rockets of Hizbullah, Hamas
Naharnet/Israel has completed tests on its "Iron Dome" anti-missile system, designed to provide a response to the thousands of rockets fired at Israel by Hizbullah and Hamas, the Israeli defense ministry said. The system, which can intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells, underwent its final tests in the past 48 hours, a statement said.
"For the first time, Iron Dome faced multiple threats simultaneously. All the threats were intercepted with complete success," the statement said.
The next phase in the development of the system was to integrate it into the army, the statement said.
Israel hopes the system will provide it with a means to dealing with rocket fire from Lebanon and from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Palestinian militants have fired thousands of home-made rockets into southern Israel, prompting Israel's devastating assault on the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008.
Hizbullah also fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 2006 war with Israel, which now believes Hizbullah has an arsenal of some 40,000 rockets.
"Making Iron Dome operational will transform Israel's political and security situation on the northern and southern fronts," said Pinhas Buchris, the ministry's director general.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 06 Jan 10, 21:31

France Preparing to Add More Countries to Risk List: Will Lebanon be One of Them?
Naharnet/In response to the failed bombing of a U.S.-bound aircraft last month, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux is seeking to add 23 countries to a list of countries whose air travelers face tighter security measures. Hortefeux, in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper, did not specify which countries he wanted to add to the "risk list," which now only includes Syria, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria and Mali. Le Figaro believed Nigeria would feature in the list, given that the suspect charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day was from there. The United States has already added Nigeria to its own watch-list. The measure drew angry protests from the Nigerian government.
The suspected terrorist has been identified as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23. His father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, was a former minister and well-known banker, recently retiring from his chairman position at First Bank Nigeria, Nigerian newspaper "This Day" has reported. Hortefeux, one of President Nicolas Sarkozy's closest allies, said France has to "expand the list of zones at risk" from 7 to 30 countries. "This is not about stigmatizing the countries concerned, but we have to bear in mind the transit points of extremist Islamist networks," he said.
Beirut, 07 Jan 10, 09:17

Haaretz: Hizbullah Buried Explosives Near Khiam to Attack Infiltrating Israeli Patrol
Naharnet/Bombs discovered by U.N. peacekeepers near the southern town of Khiam last month were most probably placed at the site by Hizbullah fighters to attack an Israeli army patrol that might try to infiltrate Lebanon, Israeli daily Haaretz quoted sources as saying.
"The well-made bombs, approximately 10 in number, believed to be made either in Iran or Syria, contained a total of about 300 kilograms of explosives," Haaretz said Thursday.
It said that a Spanish contingent discovered the bombs while patrolling the eastern sector of southern Lebanon, near the town of Khiam on December 26.
"The U.N. soldiers, using night vision equipment, saw a number of suspicious figures digging holes in the ground. When the soldiers approached, the figures fled," Haaretz said.
Lebanese daily An Nahar said on December 27 that peacekeepers had found 12 boxes loaded with TNT explosives. It said the TNT, which was believed to be old, was not set to explode.
Haaretz, however, said that a day after the incident, UNIFIL issued a statement saying an investigation had been launched in cooperation with the Lebanese army to ascertain the type of explosives and the identity of those suspected of placing them at the site.
The daily quoted senior government officials in Jerusalem as saying that following the incident Israel approached UNIFIL officials as well as the U.N. headquarters in New York to note that it believes Hizbullah was behind the incident, rather than World Jihad, which had fired rockets into Israel in recent months.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Yossi Gal, who is scheduled to meet with UNIFIL commander Maj. Gen. Claudio Graziano on Thursday, is expected to congratulate Graziano on finding the explosives, according to Haaretz. Gal wants to stress to the UNIFIL commander that the incident once again shows Hizbullah is involved in armed action south of the Litani in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the newspaper added. Beirut, 07 Jan 10, 08:27

Report: Lebanon's 'Adamant Refusal' to Reach Deal with Israel is Delaying Ghajar Pullout
Naharnet/Israel is not withdrawing from the northern part of Ghajar because of Lebanon's "adamant refusal" to reach an understanding with Israel over security arrangements in the Lebanese part of the village, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday. "The Lebanese government, apparently under pressure from Hizbullah, is not willing to provide any kind of commitments" that would allow a UNIFIL plan on Ghajar to be put into practice, The Post said. Beirut "fears" that the plan's adoption would be seen as giving Israel legitimacy, according to the newspaper.
"The talks, therefore, are solely between Israel and UNIFIL, with Lebanon unwilling to participate even indirectly," the Israeli daily said. "The negotiations with UNIFIL are over what security arrangements and commitments UNIFIL - not the Lebanese - will provide." Foreign Ministry Director-General Yossi Gal and his team are scheduled to hold a second round of talks with UNIFIL commander Maj. Gen. Claudio Graziano and his staff Thursday. The first round of talks on the Ghajar issue was held in early December. The Israeli government has reportedly approved a plan to turn over control of the northern half of the village to UNIFIL. Under the plan no physical barrier would be built between the northern and southern parts of Ghajar, but rather UNIFIL would patrol both the northern half and the perimeter. Graziano is to be replaced by Spanish Maj.-Gen. Alberto Asarta Cuevas on January 28. The Post said Israeli officials denied that Graziano's departure was a deadline for "closing" the Ghajar deal, saying the Jewish state would continue talking to UNIFIL about the issue until it gets a commitment. According to Haaretz daily, Gal is also expected to congratulate Graziano on finding explosives near the Lebanese town of Khiam on December 26. Beirut, 07 Jan 10, 07:57

Sison Discusses Ministries Projects with Bassil, Aridi
Naharnet/U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison met Thursday with Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil and Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi.
At the Energy and Water Ministry, Sison and Bassil discussed the details of the pending Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. government and the ministry for two new water projects funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) totaling $28 million.
USAID's Lebanon Water and Wastewater Sector Support program "will assist all four Lebanese water authorities maintain financial and operational sustainability and USAID's Litani River Basin Management Support program will provide technical support to the Litani River Authority," according to a press release issued by the U.S. Embassy.
At the Public Works and Transportation Ministry, Sison and Aridi discussed the ministry's public works project priorities for the coming year. "Sison conveyed to both ministers the United States government's desire for continued cooperation with the Lebanese government on important economic growth, development and reform priorities," said the press release of the embassy. Beirut, 07 Jan 10, 17:39

Hariri's Jordan Visit: Agreement to Activate Military, Economic Cooperation
Naharnet/Prime Minister Saad Hariri has reached agreement with Jordan's King Abdullah II to activate military and economic cooperation between the two countries.
The agreement was the fruit of talks in Amman on Wednesday between Hariri and King Abdullah.Pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Thursday said Hariri agreed with King Abdullah to activate the Joint Supreme Committee for the development of bilateral economic cooperation. It said the two leaders also agreed to continue discussion on military cooperation in terms of equipping and training the Lebanese army. Hariri said that the Joint Supreme Committee will meet in March. The Jordanian monarch, for his part, stressed his country's support to the Lebanese people, adding that he has faith in Hariri government's ability to "promote national reconciliation and unity of the Lebanese people."Hariri, in turn, hailed Abdullah's role in moving the peace process forward. A statement issued by the Jordanian Royal Court said Hariri and Abdullah discussed ongoing efforts to relaunch the stalled peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Beirut, 07 Jan 10, 08:04

Zahra: Government is Only Side Entitled to Carry Out Appointments
Naharnet/Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra said Thursday that the government was the only side entitled to carry out administrative appointments. In an interview with Al-Sharq radio station, Zahra said the various political factions which make up the Lebanese government have "stressed their commitment to reactivate state institutions."
"Administrative appointments are the test of their personal commitment," he warned. Beirut, 07 Jan 10, 13:04

Qassem: Memorandum of Understanding with FPM a Solid Base to Endure for Decades
Naharnet/Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem on Wednesday hailed "all the efforts seeking to bring the Lebanese together, especially those exerted by the Free Patriotic Movement." After meeting with a delegation from the FPM headed by its Media and Public Relations Officer Nassif Qazzi, Qassem said: "The memorandum of understanding between FPM and Hizbullah is the solid base that will endure for tens of years." The delegation informed Qassem about the preparations that followed the Baabda reconciliatory meeting between MPs Michel Aoun and Walid Jumblat under the auspices of President Michel Suleiman. It also put Qassem in the image of the work plan that FPM and Progressive Socialist Party intend to implement in order to conclude the issue of the displaced people and to facilitate the process of their return to Mount Lebanon's villages. Beirut, 06 Jan 10, 17:53

LBCI: Sleiman, Hariri on the phone
January 7, 2010
President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Saad Hariri discussed the cabinet’s upcoming administrative appointments during a phone call on Thursday, according to LBCI television. The station reported that Sleiman and Hariri agreed to set up a method for making administrative appointments with the help of Minister of State for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish. Hariri’s only conditions for the appointments, according to LBCI, are to hire qualified employees and maintain an equal distribution of jobs between the country’s sects.
-NOW Lebanon

The Nick Kaldas bombshell
By: Michael Young,
January 7, 2010
Now Lebanon
The statement released yesterday by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon announcing that its chief investigator, Naguib “Nick” Kaldas, will be leaving on February 28 is more bad news for the prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare. While officially Kaldas is departing because he committed only for one year, and will resume his duties as deputy commissioner of the New South Wales police, there is doubtless more to the matter than that.
How obvious that becomes when reading the tribunal’s statement. If Kaldas’ end of term was scheduled, then why has Bellemare not already started identifying a replacement, as the statement reveals? Then there is the telltale wording suggesting the decision was not routine. The passage indicating Bellemare’s expectation that Kaldas might have renewed his contract, surely possible in itself, was yet indicative at this late date of limited coordination between the investigator and prosecutor.
Then there were the more apparent contradictions, especially Kaldas’ obligatory expression of “optimism” in an investigation he described as “ground breaking”, followed by the jarring intimation that, despite this, he had to return to more pedestrian pursuits in New South Wales. Any investigator worth his salt, like Kaldas, literally lives for a complex, interesting international case like the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri. Four years into a high-profile affair, chief investigators do not sign on for a year, nor did Bellemare go to the trouble of picking Kaldas for him to clock in for so restricted a period. He hired him to lead an investigation on behalf of a tribunal expected to function for several years.
The statement released by the tribunal is mostly nonsense. Kaldas’ departure is a severe blow to Bellemare’s efforts, another to be added to his forced release of the four generals last April; his inability to foresee, let alone capably contain the repercussions of, the Der Spiegel article last May; and his incomprehensible, and unexplained, decision to declare Muhammad Zuhayr al-Saddiq a person “no longer of interest” to his investigation, when Saddiq was named a suspect in Hariri’s murder, lied under oath, and may have been a Syrian plant to discredit investigators.
This raises the more interesting question of why Kaldas left. We can only speculate, but there are relatively few possible answers. Perhaps the investigator failed to get on well with Bellemare personally, and therefore preferred to go home, as happened with the tribunal’s former registrar, Robin Vincent; or there was fundamental disagreement between Kaldas and Bellemare on the methodology of the investigation; or Kaldas felt that the tribunal would not reach what he deemed to be a successful, or a thorough, outcome; or a combination of these factors.
Whichever reason it is, Bellemare’s delivery of an indictment has again been hampered. We can ruminate further. If Bellemare had been on the verge of issuing an indictment, it is highly unlikely that even personal differences between him and Kaldas would have led to the latter’s leaving at this time. Usually in such situations, a modus vivendi is reached between prosecutor and investigator. Bellemare could have persuaded Kaldas to stay on until an indictment was issued, to avoid undermining their shared objective, and only then would the two have parted ways.
If this conclusion is correct, it means that Bellemare may be further from an indictment than many people believe. It may also imply that Kaldas’ problems have more to do with the mechanics of the investigation and where the trial might lead, or not lead, than anything else.
There was little encouraging in Bellemare’s decision last week to acquiesce in the unfreezing of the assets of Syria’s former intelligence chief in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh. Those assets were frozen at the recommendation of Detlev Mehlis, the first United Nations commissioner looking into the Hariri assassination. At the time, Mehlis had considerable reason to suspect Ghazaleh. In December 2005, the UN commission interviewed the Syrian officer in Vienna, along with colleagues of his, after the Security Council reinforced Mehlis’ mandate.
The fact that Bellemare permitted the Lebanese authorities to release Ghazaleh’s assets appears to confirm that the prosecutor will not, or cannot, aggressively pursue the Syrian angle in the assassination--therefore that his focus may end up being on those suspects in Lebanon. And yet, from much of the information emerging during the past four years, Syria for a long time remained at the heart of the United Nations inquiry, something evident in reading even the more uninformative reports published by the independent international investigation team.
If today Bellemare is unwilling, or unable, to pursue the Syrian connection, that may be because he inherited a weak dossier from his predecessor, Serge Brammertz. That very accusation has been directed against Brammertz by his detractors, notably Detlev Mehlis. However, in my own research, I heard such criticism echoed by senior Lebanese officials involved in advancing the Hariri investigation and tribunal.
As for Bellemare, part of his responsibility before he became UN commissioner was to accurately assess the effectiveness of the dossier he had received from Brammertz. Bellemare essentially legitimized Brammertz’s activities by taking on the case, and in doing so must now demonstrate, beyond mere expressions of confidence, that there was something to build on. Yet with no indictment in sight, Bellemare’s judgment is under scrutiny. Kaldas’ exit hardly reassures us on that count.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.

Iran from the inside
Farhad Bisotooni,
January 6, 2010
Now Lebanon
Protestors hold a candle-light vigil to commemorate those killed in recent demonstrations in Iran on January 2 in the central German city of Frankfurt am Main. (AFP / Mario Vedder)
Modern Iran is a lot like the classic story “The Emperor’s new clothes.” In the story, the ruler of a country is fooled into thinking he is wearing a fancy new suit though he is in fact wearing nothing at all. Even though the emperor is parading around naked, all of his subjects pretend to admire the suit for fear of being persecuted. Finally, a brave little child screams, “The emperor is naked!” The Green Movement in Iran is that child.
For me, it began one day after I had just finished my class at university and I was driving home. My new shoes were pinching, so, as it wasn’t a crowded street, I stopped to put on a pair of slippers I had in my car. It was a decision that could have cost me my life. A few seconds after I opened the trunk to get my slippers, five armed men had me surrounded and were pointing their rifles at me. I didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed or scared. I slowly changed my shoes and drove away. As it was, I had stopped too close to the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence office, a building I had no idea was there.
It didn’t stop there. Last week, I was driving at night on a street in North Tehran when I was blocked by the Basij, the paramilitary volunteer militia founded in 1979 and commanded by the Revolutionary Guards. Most were nothing more than aggressive teenagers, but I was scared. There was no reason for them to stop me; they just wanted to flex their muscles by harassing passersby.
It occurred to me right at that moment that back in 1979, the Revolutionary Guards were supposed to be, as the name would suggest, the guardians of the Revolution. Of course, the Revolution was also supposed to be the revolution of the people. But now they have become the enemy of the ordinary citizen.
Like me, the people of Iran are unhappy. They are struggling in their everyday lives, in their poverty; they are threatened with execution if they speak up, all while their government is spending billions of dollars to finance organizations like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The riots began in universities around Iran because many students and teachers are dissatisfied with the situation in the country. When you take a look at the high-ranking universities in Iran you can see what I call “displacement”; people who are not in the positions they deserve. Some of the professors cannot pass their own exams, but as long as they can pass the “commitment to the values of the government test”, they are secure.
The threat of execution is always there. We must hold our tongue. If we dare to criticize the government, we are deemed to be against Islam, Allah, the Prophet and the Supreme Leader. The demonstrators arrested in the last two weeks all face execution.
The dissident Grand Ayatollah Hussein Montazeri declared that we want freedom for the people, not for the government. The people are not free. A year before the elections I witnessed how people in a little city in Western Iran rose against a new policy of fuel distribution. Around ten of them immediately disappeared. They were said to have been taken to the Mehran area, next to the border with Iraq, held in a container without food or water, and locked for two months there, in the desert. The Revolutionary Guards spread rumors about the punishments to set an example for any uprising or resistance. The families were told to keep their mouths shut.
But when I look at myself and my friends who graduated from the best universities in Iran I just see disappointment. We don’t even have the right to access the free world, via internet or satellite or any other media. The government is using technology bought mainly from China to control anything we communicate with: mobiles, SMSs, e-mails and even blogs. After the recent Green Movement protests, the filters have become even tougher; you have to use a proxy to reach foreign websites. Checking your emails now takes two hours.
The Green Movement has brought hope to Iran. The “children” who scream “The Emperor is naked” are growing in number. I’ve seen people looking at each other and asking “Is this possible?” The answer seems to be a more determined “yes” by the day. Even an illiterate person living in a small town, like my father, who could not even imagine that he could criticize Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is now a critic. “He is not doing well, doing what he is doing. He must respect the people,” he told me the other day. His words mean more to me than any article criticizing the government in Tehran.