LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJUNE 24/2011

Bible Quotation for today
The Good News According to John 15/17: “I command these things to you, that you may love one another. 15:18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 15:20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’* If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 15:21 But all these things will they do to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. 15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 15:23 He who hates me, hates my Father also. 15:24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father. 15:25 But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’*

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources 
Many Christians are blind on Assad rule/By: Michael Young/June 23/11
Two Parties Do Not Make a Country/By: Hassan Haidar/June 23/11
The “Humor” Drama in Lebanon/Zuheir Kseibati/June 23/11
Curbing Iranian influence without conflict/By Tariq Alhomayed/June 23/11
While Obama Dithers, Iran and Hezbollah Mobilize to Help Assad/By: Jonathan S. Tobin/June 23/11
Anne Allmeling: Israel and Syria, secret allies/By: Anne Allmeling/23 June/11
Arab Spring exposes Nasrallah's hypocrisy/By: Hamid Dabashi/t Al Jazeera's/22 June/11
The EU must target Syria's merchant class/By: PAUL KINGSTON/June 23/11
Michel Aoun is the funniest man alive/B: Angie Nassar/June 23/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 23/11
'Hezbollah preparing for war against Israel to protect Syria's Assad'/Reuters/Haaretz
Three Russian designers of Iran's nuclear plant die in plane crash/DEBKAfile
RCMP knew about Interpol alert for farmer: lawyer/CBC News
Report: Hezbollah preparing for war with Israel/Ynetnews
US woman Amera Akl jailed for supporting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon/Herald Sun
Syria's Assad running low on credibility: U.N. chief/Reuters
Former Mossad Chief Discounts Arab Spring, Welcomes Prospect of a Sunni Syria/TIME
Syria forced people to attend pro-Assad rallies, activist claims/CNN
Syria Says EU Sanctions Amount to War/VOA
Australia Imposes Sanctions Against Syria/WSJ
Syrian forces move into village near Turkish border, activist says/CNN
Libya, Syria and Middle East unrest - live updates/The Guardian
Hariri: protectors of Rafik Hariri assassins will be imprisoned/Daily Star
Syria accuses EU of meddling as it imposes sanctions/The Guardian
Syria's Moallem denies Hezbollah, Iran helping Assad/Daily Star
'Lebaneseness' of Cabinet formation confirmed/The Daily Star
EU calls on Lebanon to uphold commitment on STL/Daily Star
National Bloc: Aoun implementing Syria's will in Lebanon/Now Lebanon
Lebanese Cabinet policy stalls over STL/Daily Star
Williams warns of “security threats” in South Lebanon/Now Lebanon
Teen killed, sister injured in road accident with UNIFIL/The Daily Star
Lebanon files UN complaint over Israel-Cyprus EEZ deal/J.Post
New Brunswick farmer held in Lebanon wants to be charged in Canada/New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal
People’s interests more important than Aoun’s comments, Marada minister says/Now Lebanon
Lebanon's Arabic press digest - June 23, 2011/Daily Star
Mikati, Hezbollah still at odds over Cabinet policy on STL/The Daily Star
Syria opens account at Lebanese Central Bank: Report/Daily Star
Dispute between March 14 and Aoun gets nastier/The Daily Star
MP Fouad Siniora condemns banning of Iranian film in Lebanon/Now Lebanon
Egypt sentences Israeli spy/Now Lebanon

'Hezbollah preparing for war against Israel to protect Syria's Assad'
Sources close to the Shiite group say it is committed to deflect what it sees as a foreign campaign against Damascus.
By Reuters /Haaretz
Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group is preparing for a possible war with Israel to relieve perceived Western pressure to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, its guardian ally, sources close to the movement say. The radical Shi'ite group, which has a powerful militia armed by Damascus and Iran, is watching the unrest in neighboring Syria with alarm and is determined to prevent the West from exploiting popular protests to bring down Assad. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addressing supporters on a giant screen during a rally near Beirut on August 3, 2010
Hezbollah supported pro-democracy movements that toppled Western-backed leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, but officials say it will not stand idly by as international pressure mounts on Assad to yield to protesters. It is committed to do whatever it takes politically to help deflect what it sees as a foreign campaign against Damascus, but it is also readying for a possible war with Israel if Assad is weakened. "Hezbollah will never intervene in Syria. This is an internal issue for President Bashar to tackle. But when it sees the West gearing up to bring him down, it will not just watch," a Lebanese official close to the group's thinking told Reuters.
"This is a battle for existence for the group and it is time to return the favor (of Syria's support). It will do that by fending off some of the international pressure," he added. The militant group, established nearly 30 years ago to confront Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006. Hezbollah and Syria have both denied that the group has sent fighters to support a military crackdown on the wave of protests against Assad's rule. Hezbollah believes the West is working to reshape the Middle East by replacing Assad with a ruler friendly to Israel and hostile to itself. "The region now is at war, a war between what is good and what is backed by Washington... Syria is the good," said a Lebanon-based Arab official close to Syria.
He said the United States, which lost an ally when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, "wants to shift the crisis" by supporting protests against its adversary.
"For us this will be confronted in the best possible way," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Analysts rule out the possibility of a full-scale regional war involving Syria, Iran and Lebanon on one side against Israel backed by the U.S. A war pitting Hezbollah against Israel was more likely, they said. "There might be limited wars here or there but nobody has the interest (in a regional war)," said Lebanese analyst Oussama Safa. "The region is of course heading towards radical change... How it will be arranged and where it will lead is not clear."
Hezbollah inflicted serious damage and casualties by firing missiles deep into Israel during the 2006 conflict, and was able to sustain weeks of rocket attacks despite a major Israeli military incursion into Lebanon. Western intelligence sources say the movement's arsenal has been more than replenished since the fighting ended, with European-led UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon powerless to prevent supplies entering mostly from Syria.
Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, has regional influence because of its alliance with Iran and its continued role in Lebanon, despite ending a 29-year military presence there in 2005. It also has an influence in Iraq. "If the situation in Syria collapses it will have repercussions that will go beyond Syria," the Arab official said. "None of Syria's allies would accept the fall of Syria even if it led to turning the table upside down -- war (with Israel) could be one of the options."
The Lebanese official said: "All options are open including opening the fronts in Golan (Heights) and in south Lebanon."
Palestinian protests last month on the Lebanese and Syrian frontlines with Israel were "a message that Syria will not be left alone facing an Israeli-American campaign," he said.
Israel and Syria are technically at war, but their frontier had been calm since the war in 1973, when Israel repelled a Syrian assault to recapture the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
For Syria's allies in Lebanon, the first step to support Damascus has already been taken. After months of delay, Prime Minister Najib Mikati formed a new Lebanese government last week dominated by pro-Syrian parties, including Hezbollah. That followed five months of political vacuum after Hezbollah and its allies toppled Western-backed Saad Hariri's coalition in a dispute over a UN-backed tribunal investigating the killing in 2005 of statesman Rafik Hariri, Saad's father. The tribunal is expected to accuse members of the Shi'ite group in the killing, and some Lebanese had believed that the delay in forming a government was deliberate, to avoid the crisis a new government might face when indictments are issued.
"Our people thought at first the vacuum would be in our interest but after the events in Syria we have noticed that the vacuum is harmful," said the Lebanese official.
The still confidential indictment was amended last month after the prosecutor said "new evidence emerged" but Syria and its allies suspect it will now target Syrian officials. Both Syria and Hezbollah deny any role in killing Hariri.
The official said the new government might halt the state's cooperation with and contribution to funding the court, as well as withdrawing Lebanese judges from the tribunal.
"The government in its new form will not allow Lebanon to be used against Syria, or those who are promoting the American agenda on the expense of Syria," he said.
Tension in Lebanon increased in the first weeks of the uprising against Assad when Syria accused Hariri supporters of funding and arming protesters, a charge they denied.
"As Syria stood by Lebanon's side during the July war in 2006 (between Hezbollah and Israel), Lebanon will be on its side to face this war that is no less dangerous," the official said.
So far, Syria's allies believe that Assad has things under control and that the unrest, in which rights groups say 1,300 people have been killed, has not posed a threat on his rule.
While Hezbollah's fate is not linked exclusively to Assad's future, his departure would make life more difficult for the group, which depends on Syria's borders for arms supply.
"Syria is like the lung for Hezbollah...it is its backup front where it gets its weapon and other stuff," said another Lebanese official who declined to be named.
Formed under the guidance of Iran's religious establishment, Hezbollah had a thorny start with late President Hafez Assad, but later emerged as a powerful Syrian ally. Relations improved further after Bashar succeeded his father in 2000. "Hezbollah is extremely tense and they are concerned about the developments in Syria," said Hilal Khashan, a political analyst at the American University in Beirut. "The storm is building up now and after it everything will change...In all cases, no matter what happens in Syria, developments there will not be in favor for Hezbollah." While he dismissed the possibility of a regional war, Augustus Richard Norton, author of a book on Hezbollah, said an Israeli Lebanese war may be possible, adding he believed Israel was likely to strike first. "It is not too challenging to imagine a scenario for a war between Israel and Lebanon to erupt, especially given the Obama administration's diffident and permissive approach to Israel. "It is far more likely that Israel will pursue a war with the goal of crippling Hezbollah and punishing Lebanon than that a war will be intentionally provoked by Hezbollah," he said. In the meantime Hezbollah, which has praised other Arab uprisings and enjoys strong support among ordinary Arabs over its confrontations with Israel, has seen its image tarnished because of its support for Assad.
"The events in Syria have not impacted Hezbollah in a significant strategic sense, but have certainly put the party in an uncomfortable position," said Elias Muhanna, a Middle East scholar at Harvard.  "The fact that (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah has supported the regime's war against the opposition in Syria while attacking similar regime actions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen has been pointed out by many as a blatant double standard." Hezbollah argues there is no contradiction in its position, saying Assad has popular support and is committed to reform. "When the regime is against Israel and is committed to reforms then Hezbollah decision is to be by the side of the people and the leadership through urging them for dialogue and partnership," the Lebanese official said. "That is why the group is in harmony with itself when it comes to Syria. It has its standards clear," he added.
"For the resistance and Iran, the partnership with Syria is a principal and crucial issue, there is no compromise. Each time Syria is targeted there will be a response."

The “Humor” Drama in Lebanon
Thu, 23 June 2011
Zuheir Kseibati/Al Hayat
It is a legitimate dream for Lebanese Information Minister Walid al-Daouk to call for the establishment of a “media city in Lebanon,” similar to the one hosted in Dubai. And far away from any favoritism or comparisons, the minister might have been encouraged by the permanent political spring in Lebanon, the vitality of the chronic conflicts between each loyalist team and each opposition team since the country’s independence, the interaction of ideas and the clashes between the forces, parties and movements which provide a perfect environment for dynamic media.
However, the minister, who is spreading false optimism in regard to the “protected freedoms” in Lebanon – and all journalists hope he is right in this optimism – might fall in the trap of contradictions. As for the falseness, it is due to the complaints presented by dozens of journalists and employees in the audiovisual media ever since they became the hostages of forced classifications and accusations of affiliation with political powers, whenever the battle rages between two political teams or the camps of confrontation especially since 2005.
The core of the contradiction lies between these hidden freedoms – since everyone is in agreement over the principle of “with me or against me” - and the call of the minister on the media institutions to exercise self-censorship at the peak of the division, the challenges and the actions of those denying the spirit of revenge but are exercising it quite skillfully.
The information minister might be asked whether or not the task of these institutions is to exercise censorship over the leaders of forces and movements who say at night what cannot be erased the next day except in Lebanon. What counts is the intention and the extent of the opponent’s sense of “humor,” even if this humor were to carry an eradication inclination. What matters in the democratic game in this small country is that there is no permanent ally or permanent rival, just like it is the case in any political situation. But everything is allowed, as long as the goal is a strong republic. In the meantime, some leaders are allowed to threaten the opponents and accuse them of theft, banditry, monopolization and the triggering of strife. Despite all that, they complain about the decadence of the political rhetoric in times of decadence.
The self-censorship saying pushes us to imagine a role for the journalists in Lebanon as mediators between the bad-tempered and the fierce-tongued, as firemen extinguishing the fires of spite and vengeance and doctors to a patient with a hopeless case – as long as the lies are prevailing and some skilful politicians have almost convinced the Lebanese that they are the demons and that those leading them are volunteering and conceding as a favor to them and their rights.
Either with me or against me. This is a predicament that is renewed in Lebanon whenever it is on the threshold of a transformation or an attempt by some to jump over the misleading facts of the victories that never lasted for any team on the domestic scene or for any side abroad. All that has happened - despite its bloody costs - is disregarded by those who engage along the regional friction line at times, who believe that the fate of American influence in the world will be determined in Lebanon, or who are preparing to eliminate any oppositionist or rival by threatening him while the authority is praising the integrity of the judiciary.
Yet, why does the opponent not have a sense of “humor”? All that has happened in Lebanon since the launching of the term of a government accused of being the product of the confiscation of the real majority, calls for nothing but celebrations and joy (!), despite the rise of poverty and unemployment with the sponsorship of the bad-tempered leaders promising to carry out purification – mobilizing chests to protect clean pockets and deceiving minds with verbal abstinence from maliciousness.
Some in Lebanon may reject the “humor” since a lot of blood is being spilt in the Arab spring, at least out of sympathy for the martyrs in the region. As for the threats in this case, they are a mere attempt to restore consideration outside the planet and volcanoes of this spring.
And while the other camp – i.e. the March 14 forces – ought to recognize its poor luck as it is receiving stabs in the chest following the stabs in the back, no one is disputing its right to stage peaceful opposition in the face of “the government of Syria and Hezbollah.” But until when will this opposition continue, especially if the spring’s winds were to change course and if the extension of the stay of the American forces in Iraq were to require a new deal between Washington and Tehran?
Obama’s America needs its military presence in Iraq so that it is not caught off guard by the new facts in the stage of the Arab uprisings. As for Tehran, it is unable to relinquish the Syrian ally.

Two Parties Do Not Make a Country
Thu, 23 June 2011
Hassan Haidar/Al Hayat
The ruling Baath Party in Syria and Hezbollah (“the Party of God”), which holds sway in Lebanon, have proven that they were made of the same ideological stuff, despite the apparent difference in form between the two in terms of doctrine. Indeed, the former is a nationalist and supposedly “secular” party, while the latter is religious and committed to the principle of the Iranian Velayat-e-Faqih (“Guardianship of the Jurist”). Yet they are similar in that they each defend the influence of a sect, and in that they both use the same approach to determine their image and their relationship with the political and social constituents that surround them, stressing their own internal “purity” and laying the blame for any problem they face on foreign conspirators who never tire of conspiring.
In this manner, the Baathist regime in Damascus continues to accuse others, most prominently the European Union in particular and the West in general, of seeking to “sow strife and chaos” in Syria, because of their stances against the repression of protesters that is taking place and their support for movements calling for change. And yesterday, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem added the Al-Qaeda organization to the list of those “conspiring” against his country, in a strange mix of contradictions and an insistence on refusing to recognize the existence of a peaceful and pluralistic Syrian opposition.
Concerning Hezbollah, the latest leaks, indicating that a group of its own members, some of them in leadership positions, were revealed to have been dealing with Israel, may be mere media fabrications, as one Lebanese political party moved to say, aimed at preparing for the indictment over the Hariri assassination being issued and at any accusation that might be leveled at Hezbollah being pinned on Israel itself. Yet those leaks, which were not denied by Hezbollah, represent at the same time a blatant turnaround from the assertion reiterated many times by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah that his party was impossible to breach, while accusing those opposed to Syria’s influence in Lebanon of turning Israel into a “friend” when making an enemy of Damascus, describing them as an “environment that embraces” foreign agents, and pointing in one of his press conferences to the fact that even when his own son joined the Resistance, he was forced to answer fifty pages of questions and was not helped by the fact that he was the son of the Secretary-General “because the party does not tolerate any suspicion”.
And although this is not the first time foreign agents have been caught within Hezbollah’s organizational structure, as information has circulated in the past of other spies being arrested, this time it confirms the presence of weaknesses which are only natural within any organization, and which Hezbollah’s leadership had always tried to conceal by stressing the image of iron-fisted discipline and terrifying displays of strength that remove their human features from party members and make them closer to “robots” that are unaffected, unafraid and unbending, so as to be feared by the party’s civilian and military “enemies” alike. The black outfits worn by fighters also enter into this theatrical production to increase their terrifying aspect.
It is that same principle that the Baath Party adopts in putting itself forward by raising slogans such as “pride”, “dignity”, “honor” and other synonyms that come very close to Fascism, as they make it seem as if those who oppose its rule do not have those attributes, which are “restricted” to Baath Party members. This type of behavior is confirmed by the security aspect that dominates membership in the party, where all members undergo military training which has today been revealed to be the breeding ground for the “Shabbiha” (state-sponsored thugs).
Regimes of tyranny and terror are no longer able to go on in the age of globalization and universal openness, no matter how skillful they might be at the art of repression and harassment, and no political party that turns to the absolute power of weapons to engage in dialogue with those who oppose it will be able to rule a country, no matter how much it hides behind slogans and “designations” only it finds acceptable, and none of the two will find any use in exchanging “expertise” in this respect.

Curbing Iranian influence without conflict
23/06/2011/By Tariq Alhomayed/AsharqAlawsat
Seven days after the assassination of the late [Lebanese Prime Minister] Rafik Hariri in 2005, George W. Bush met with his French counterpart Jacques Chirac, who had a close personal relationship with Rafik Hariri. The two former leaders met for dinner in the Belgian capital, Brussels. Bush told Chirac: "I want to immediately punish Syria for the assassination of Rafik Hariri and for Damascus allowing terrorists to cross into Iraq via the Syrian border". Chirac, who was a friend of the late Lebanese prime minister, responded to Bush saying "Let's help Lebanon, and by doing so we will have punished Syria!" He explained that Syria exercises its power in Beirut, and if Syrian influence was removed from the country this would strengthen Lebanon and weaken the Syrian regime. Indeed, the two leaders agreed and helped Lebanon. Subsequently, Bashar al-Assad came out and publicly announced in a speech before the Syrian People's Assembly that "mistakes were made in Lebanon" and that Syrian troops were withdrawing from the country. And today, several years later, the Syrian people are revolting against the al-Assad regime!
This shows that war is indeed a tool of politics, but not the only tool. Here Chirac's wisdom surpassed Bush's zeal, and a far better result was achieved through politics than that which would have been achieved through force of arms. It is enough to consider the deteriorating situation in Iraq today in this regard. The US [military] intervention to overthrow Saddam Hussein was not sufficiently calculated, especially the so-called "day after" [the invasion], or the phase after the collapse of the regime. Therefore, we now find that Iraq's problems are chronic, most notably Iranian interference.
Returning the al-Assad regime to its own borders forced it to confront Syria's real problems, which led to a confrontation with the Syrian people. Therefore, the best chance of eliminating the Iranian threat today would be to send Iran back to within its normal borders, as I said during an interview on the al-Arabiya satellite channel, five days ago. I said that the collapse of the al-Assad's regime would mean the collapse of Iran's foreign policy. Since the time of the Khomeini revolution, and even before it succeeded in taking over Iran, it has sought to establish an alliance that fundamentally aims to create a Tehran – Damascus – Beirut axis, and today Baghdad can also be added to this.
Thus we could assume today, with the political earthquake which has struck the region, and specifically Syria, that the international community will seek to send Iran back to within its normal borders, and this is in order to reform the dysfunctional political situation and destruction in Iraq, so that Iraq is for the Iraqis, from all walks of life, and not for Iran. Tehran's influence would then be curbed from there, just as it was from Bahrain by the Peninsula Shield Force, and today we see that the Syrian revolutionaries are vowing to curb Iran's influence from their country as well.
When Iran is curbed back to within its borders, it will have to face its own people who are suffering from high unemployment, not to mention that the broadest section the Iranian population is the youth, who are convinced that the Khomeinist revolutionary regime has ultimately failed, especially in light of deteriorating economic conditions and the clear political conflicts taking place between the ruling elite in Tehran.
By reforming the situation in Iraq and supporting the Syrian people, we can return Iran to its border and clip the wings of the Tehran regime that is seeking to export its revolution abroad. This would eliminate the Iranian threat without firing a single shot, and it would protect Iraq whilst now necessitating US forces remaining deployed there. Will Obama, and the major regional powers, exploit this opportunity?That is the question!

Three Russian designers of Iran's nuclear plant die in plane crash
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 23, 2011
The three Russian nuclear scientists who planned, designed, built and put into operation Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr this year, died Tuesday night, June 20, when a Rusaero flight from Moscow to Petrozavodsk in northwest Russia crashed. debkafile's sources reveal that they were among the 44 passengers who were killed. Their loss is a severe blow to Russia's atomic reactor industry as well as its nuclear program as a whole, since the three, Sergey Ryzhov, Gennady Banuyk and Nikolay Trunov, specialized in running installations in tandem and synchronizing various systems. The Russian company OKB Gidropress, Moscow, which employed them as chief planners of nuclear plants, is proud of having sold reactors to five countries including Iran. The authorities have ordered an investigation to find out why all three senior nuclear scientists were aboard the same airliner in violation of Russian security regulations which prohibit more than one high-ranking politician, military figure or executive of a sensitive industry taking the same flight.
The cause of the Tu-134's crash is also being probed - although it has a notoriously high accident rate and should not have been used by the three scientists. The eight passengers who survived, who are in critical condition, are to be quizzed to find out what happened aboard the plane before it crashed.
The first assumption was that the disaster occurred due to human error. The three pilots missed the runway while landing at Petrozavodsk's Nikolay Trunov airport because of heavy fog. It caught fire next to a highway. This was the worst Russian aviation disaster since April 10, 2010, when a plane carrying the Polish president, his wife and many other Polish dignitaries crashed in similar circumstances near the city of Smolensk killing 97 people. Our sources report that Iran chose to buy its first reactor from OKB Gidropress because the Russian firm bills itself as designers, builders, planners and operators of nuclear plants, specializing in adapting them to existing nuclear systems. For Tehran this capability was critical because the Bushehr reactor is composed of systems made in different countries, particularly Germany, and experts were needed for synchronizing them into a smoothly functioning plant.
debkafile's intelligence sources quote Iranian and Western intelligence officials as offering the opinion that the Bushehr reactor's mixed components made it vulnerable to the Stuxnet malworm's invasion of its control system two years ago. The three Russian scientists spent February and March 2011 at Bushehr after the Russian Nuclear Energy Commission insisted that the nuclear fuel rods be removed until they were sure the plant would not explode. The rods have since been reloaded and the reactor went online last month.
Wednesday, June 22, the OKB Gidropress Company Web site ran a black-bordered obituary mourning the deaths of Sergey Ryzhov, 52, Director General designer at OKB Gidropress, Gennady Banuyk, 65, Deputy Director and Chief Designer and Nikolay Trunov, 52, Chief Designer-Head of Division.

US woman Amera Akl jailed for supporting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon
Herald Sun/AFP June 23, 2011 /Amera Akl, 38, of Toledo, Ohio, pleaded guilty last month to one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation, the US Department of Justice said. "Money is the lifeblood of terrorist organisations, and stopping the flow is a key component to choking off these organisations," US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Steven Dettelbach, said today. According to court documents, Amera Akl and her husband, Hor Akl, met with a confidential source who was working for the FBI between August 2009 and June 2010 "to discuss ways to secretly send money to Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon". In Amera Akl's presence, Hor Akl told the confidential source that he knew the money was being transported to "terrorists" and the Akls agreed to send money by "concealing it inside a 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer, which they planned to send to Lebanon via a container ship", court documents stated. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar..End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Amera Akl told the source during one meeting that she "dreamed of dressing like Hezbollah, carrying a gun and dying as a martyr" On June 3, 2010, the Akls were given $US200,000 by the source.
After Amera Akl serves her 40-month sentence, she will undergo three years of supervised release. Hor Akl, 38, pleaded guilty last month to a total of five counts, including conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation and conspiracy to violate money laundering statutes. He will be sentenced later this year, the Justice Department said.

Syria opens account at Lebanese Central Bank: Report
June 23, 2011 /The Daily Star BEIRUT: The Syrian Central Bank has opened an account at the Lebanese Central Bank last week, Lebanon’s Al-Liwaa newspaper quoted Thursday a source familiar with the banks. Although it is customary for banks to open accounts at foreign banks, the timing of the alleged move, which reportedly took place fewer than 10 days ago, raises questions, the paper said. The source warned that Lebanon should be careful about opening such accounts on behalf of the Syrian Central Bank, in light of the sanctions currently being imposed on Syria. When contacted by The Daily Star, the Central Bank declined to comment on the matter. Over the past several weeks, the EU and the U.S. have imposed a number of economic sanctions on Syria in response to its crackdown on anti-government protests. The European Union added Assad and other senior officials to a list of those banned from travelling to the EU and subject to asset freezes in May. In the coming days, the U.N. Security Council is expected to put forward a resolution condemning the Syrian government’s use of violence during the past three months of unrest.

Mikati, Hezbollah still at odds over Cabinet policy on STL
June 23, 2011 /By Hussein Dakroub, Hassan Lakkis
The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Efforts to bridge the gap between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah over the divisive issue of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) made no progress Wednesday as a ministerial committee resumed discussion on drafting the government’s policy statement. The 12-member committee met under Mikati at the Grand Serail to continue debating a draft policy statement presented by the prime minister. It was the third meeting by the committee since Mikati formed a 30-member Cabinet on June 13 dominated by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies, ending a five-month political deadlock. The ministers were split over the inclusion of an article on the STL. Some said that the draft made no mention of the STL, while others said the STL was mentioned in the draft but was not discussed during the meeting.
Information Minister Walid Daouk told reporters after the meeting that the committee did not discuss, at all, the issue of the STL.
However, contacts made Tuesday and Wednesday involving Mikati and leaders of the parties participating in the government, including Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, have failed so far to narrow differences between the prime minister and Hezbollah over the STL, ministerial sources told The Daily Star.
According to the sources, Mikati believes his government cannot disregard the STL in its policy statement in view of current international developments, which would see countries interpret this disregard as shirking Lebanon’s international obligations.
For its part, Hezbollah believes that disregarding the STL in the policy statement was in conformity with the new parliamentary majority’s position on the tribunal, which it considers to be politicized and harms Lebanon, a ministerial source said.
Hezbollah and its March 8 allies have called for an end to Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal, which they dismissed as “an American-Israeli project” designed to incite sectarian strife.
Jumblatt supports Mikati’s position, while Berri understands the prime minister’s concerns, and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun is backing Hezbollah’s stance, the source said. He added that the efforts of all the parties would be geared in the next two days toward solving this problem.
The committee will not discuss the STL at its Thursday meeting unless contacts to reconcile the viewpoints between Mikati and Hezbollah reach a satisfactory solution, the source said.
Committee member Hezbollah’s Minister of State for Administrative Reform, Mohammad Fneish, said the article on the STL will be discussed when it is ripe.
Daouk said the committee approved Wednesday a large part of articles related to the government’s economic, financial and developmental policy.
Mikati is coming under heavy pressure from the March 14 coalition and the United States and other Western countries to uphold the STL, which is investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Mikati reiterated Wednesday Lebanon’s commitment to respecting U.N. resolutions and implementing Resolution 1701.
He also said Lebanon is committed to having the “best relations” with the international community. He spoke during a meeting with the European Union ambassadors to Lebanon as part of his meetings with Arab and foreign envoys to brief them on the policies of his government.
“The government’s priorities are security, economy and reviving the Lebanese administration because stable security helps boost the economic cycle,” Mikati said.
Following their meeting with Mikati, the EU ambassadors called on Beirut to adopt a policy statement that supports Lebanon’s international obligations and commitment to the STL.
“The Special Tribunal for Lebanon should continue its work without impediments with the cooperation of the Lebanese authorities,” the EU ambassadors said in a statement read by the EU Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst. “We emphasized the importance of this new government’s support for Lebanon’s international commitments in its policy statement regarding Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1757,” the statement added. During his Wednesday’s meeting with MPs in Parliament, Berri underlined the need to quickly draft the policy statement “in order for the government to get to work to confront internal and external challenges.”“The major challenge facing the new government is to succeed in its work and performance. It t must succeed and it is capable of restoring confidence in Lebanon at the political and economic levels,” Berri was quoted as telling MPs.
Meanwhile, the March 14 coalition pledged to confront by peaceful and political means the Mikati government, which it called “the government of the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.”
“The March 14 parties reaffirm that the recently-formed government was the result of a joint coup carried out by the Syrian regime and Hezbollah and was not the result of a sound constitutional and democratic rotation of power,” the March 14 Secretariat General said in a statement after its meeting Wednesday.
It said that the Syrian regime wanted to use the Mikati government as a fortress in confronting domestic, regional and international objections. “Therefore, the March 14 [parties] are dealing with this government as being from the beginning the government of the Syrian regime-Hezbollah in Lebanon,” the statement said.
“The March 14 parties are united in their determination to confront this government with a peaceful, democratic, popular and political opposition,” the statement added.
On Tuesday night, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly met PSP leader Jumblatt at his residence in Clemenceau to discuss the current political developments in Lebanon, the National News Agency reported. The meeting was attended by Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi and Jumblatt hosted a dinner for Connelly.
Aley MP Talal Arslan, head of the Lebanese Democratic Party, who resigned from the new Cabinet, held talks in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad Wednesday on “the situation in Lebanon after the formation of the government and the importance of combining the efforts of all the Lebanese in order to bolster Lebanon’s unity and immunity,” Syria’s official news agency SANA reported. The talks also dealt with the current situation in Syria, it said. Also, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri contacted Wednesday United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to congratulate him on his re-election for a second term.

Lebanon's Arabic press digest - June 23,
The Daily Star /Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Thursday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.
As-Safir: Policy statement: Economic differences, adoption of proportional representation elections
If all goes well, the draft policy statement of the new government is expected to be finalized by the end of this week.
While Gen. Michel Aoun’s team and March 14 forces continued to exchange heavy political shelling, the ministerial committee held another session Wednesday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Najib Mikati in which the review of the statement was completed.
The STL issue, however, had been postponed to the final stage of discussions that may take, according to Cabinet ministers, more than one or two sessions to be finalized.
During Wednesday’s ministerial committee meeting, discussions also touched on the electoral law. There was a near total agreement on the adoption of an electoral system of proportional representation with a pledge that the government will develop a modern law no later than a year from the date of the elections.
Speaker Nabih Berri, meanwihle, told As-Safir that the “Americans, as well as many of their European allies, believed that we will not succeed in forming a government, as was the case with a number of their allies, the Europeans … But the formation of the government came as a surprise and a shock to many in more than one place, both internally and externally."
“Frankly, the Americans want to get their own man to head the [Lebanon] government … they repeatedly give us lessons in democracy,” Berri said.
He said March 14 “has not yet believed, and does not want to believe, that it is no longer in power.”
Al-Akhbar: Third [committee] meeting: STL [debate] delayed
After installing the diamond triangle "the army, the people and the resistance," the ministerial committee tasked with drafting a policy statement eased Wednesday and began tackling financial and development issues. The golden article, however – “Tribunal” [Special Tribunal for Lebanon – did not find its way to the table.
Information Minister Walid Daouk was repeatedly asked about whether the committee had discussed the STL in its third meeting Wednesday, but he asserted this item had not been discussed at all.
What had not been discussed during the ministerial committee meeting was however discussed at a meeting between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and EU ambassadors, who defined in a joint statement what is "important" for the new government – the adoption of a ministerial statement that supports Lebanon’s commitments to international obligations, not least with regard to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1757 on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and determined what the government “should” do – allow the STL to follow-up on its work without hindrance and with the cooperation of Lebanese authorities.
An-Nahar: No agreement on [Cabinet policy on] STL
High-ranking ministerial sources told An-Nahar that that article in the policy statement dealing with the “army, people and resistance” had been approved at Wednesday’s ministerial committee meeting after the inclusion of some comments made by members of the committee.The sources said there had been a tentative agreement on the adoption of an electoral system based on proportional representation. Other items on the policy statement dealing with ministries, departments had been discussed and are expected to be tackled again in a fourth meeting scheduled for Thursday. Al-Liwaa: March 14 leaders meet overnight, set up crisis management cell
According to information made available to Al-Liwaa, March 14 leaders plan to hold an expanded meeting tantamount to Bristol-2 meeting, in which ex-PM Saad Hariri is likely to participate as part of preparations for the battle against the government inside Parliament, where there will be an overwhelming presence of opposition MPs.
A delegation from the March 14 secretariat general is also likely to head to Paris in the coming days for talks with Hariri, who has authorized the Future Movement to coordinate with the opposition. Discussions will focus on preparations for the confrontation “which may sometimes require sacrifices,” according to a March 14 official who visited Hariri in Paris a few days ago. MP Marwan Hamadeh and former MPs Fares Soueid and Samir Franjieh had joined that meeting. A source familiar with the Paris meetings with Hariri said that the meetings resulted in an agreement to set up a management cell to deal with March 14’s day-to-day political position in its open battle with the Hezbollah- and the Syrian-led Lebanon government in an attempt to bring it down.Al-Liwaa also learned that March 14 leaders met late Wednesday over this matter. Al-Mustaqbal: Campaign against Aoun ongoing … Mikati ‘reassures’ international community of Lebanon’s commitments As long as this revengeful-authoritarian mentality blinds prominent [political and government] leaders, particularly the "Rabieh general" – Michel Aoun – March 14 forces will not take long to declare their willingness to "close ranks to face off the Hezbollah, Syrian-made Lebanon government.”March 14 will also not take long to declare a “popular, political, democratic and peaceful opposition’ so as not to allow some crisis-plagued figures in the government to continue their crises at the expense of the homeland. Preparations are already under way by March 14 forces “to face all those seeking to undermine both Lebanon's stability and security.”

People’s interests more important than Aoun’s comments, Marada minister says
June 23, 2011 /State Minister Salim Karam said on Thursday that the people’s interests are more important than Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun’s latest stances.
“Aoun’s comments are a personal reaction amid the difficulties suffered by March 8,” the Marada Movement minister told Voice of Lebanon (93.3) radio. Karam also said that his party is waiting for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) indictment to be issued before forming a stance on it. The cabinet will not accept a politicized STL indictment, he added.
The Marada MP said that the cabinet’s relationship with the STL is a “basic matter” because everyone accepts international law. Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said on Wednesday that a possible solution for the ministerial statement concerning the STL would be for the text to mention justice in general, and not the tribunal.Before bringing down Saad Hariri’s cabinet in January, Hezbollah had been pressing him to disavow the STL, which is probing the 2005 assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri and likely to implicate members of the Shia group.
The Ministerial Statement of Hariri’s government recognized the STL.Aoun said on Friday evening that former Hariri’s style of governing “impoverished” Lebanon, adding that “the Hariri plan is over.” The new Lebanese cabinet—headed by PM Najib Mikati—was formed last week after almost five months of deliberations between the March 8 parties.
-NOW Lebanon

Dispute between March 14 and Aoun gets nastier
June 23, 2011
By Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The March 14 coalition blasted Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader Michel Aoun Wednesday, calling on President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Najib Mikati to deal with what they termed the “sick Aoun phenomenon,” in the latest escalation of a war of words between the Future Movement and the FPM leader.
Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri has vowed to stand against anyone who targets any of his Future Movement loyalists, in a clear allusion to Aoun, who has threatened to send Future officials to jail.
The exchange of rhetoric began last Saturday when Aoun said that Hariri has been issued a “one-way ticket out of Lebanon and the government,” adding that the Future Movement leader’s “era of paralyzing state institutions in a bid to control the country” was over.
Responding to Aoun, Hariri stressed that only the killers of his slain father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and their protectors will be sent to jail.
“In response to what lawmaker Michel Aoun said today [Tuesday], [former] Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s media office would like to stress that the only persons whose fate will be prison are the killers of martyr [former] Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and all martyrs of the Cedar Revolution and the sick people who protect them,” said a statement issued by Hariri’s office shortly after midnight Tuesday.
“With regard to lawmaker Aoun’s recent remarks on the two-way tickets and the expansion of wards in Roumieh prison, we stress that we are waiting for the honor of confronting any hand that targets any of the honorable people in Lebanon,” the statement said.
For its part, the March 14 Secretariat General lashed out at Aoun, saying that his statements confirmed the “coup nature” of Mikati’s government, which is dominated by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies.
“The March 14 parties consider that statements issued by MP Michel Aoun confirmed the government’s coup nature on the one hand, and contained threats of exile, imprisonment and killing against the opposition on the other,” the March 14 Secretariat said in a statement after its meeting Wednesday.
“The March 14 [parties] hold the president of the republic and the prime minister responsible for this sick Aoun phenomenon and reject their attempts to disavow Aoun’s statements while they bear responsibility for boosting his position in spite of the seriousness of his threats,” the statement added.
Faris Soueid, general coordinator of the March 14 Secretariat General, expressed regrets that Aoun was part of “a political team which seems to have lost its senses.”
“We heard today a member of this team [Syrian Foreign] Minister Walid al-Moallem saying that Europe no longer existed [on the map]. Gen. Aoun wants to expand the prisons in Roumieh and another wants to break the head of the United States from Beirut,” Soueid told reporters. “It is unfortunate that this team, which is in a crisis, is putting Lebanon and the Lebanese and their interests in a confrontation with the world.”
Aoun threatened Tuesday that many Future Movement officials would end up in prison for alleged wrongdoings.
Speaking to reporters after chairing the weekly meeting of his Change and Reform bloc at his residence in Rabieh, Aoun lashed out at the Future Movement for what he considered a misinterpretation of remarks he made over the weekend against Hariri.
“The word one-way ticket does not mean [that I am threatening Hariri’s life], I was given one of these [tickets] in 1990 and I rebelled and returned [to Lebanon],” Aoun said, in reference to his forced exile in France between 1990 and 2005.
“[Former] Prime Minister Saad Hariri can rebel and return.” In his threat against Future Movement officials, Aoun said, “Since they rejected the one way out, there is the one way in, as there is a big section in Roumieh prison being prepared to host them.”
Hariri’s parliamentary Future bloc also lambasted Aoun, saying his rhetoric and that of other FPM officials reflected “hatred and tension.”
Aoun’s rhetoric has “revealed the truth of the vengeful intention aimed at eliminating the others in the country is a policy which Hezbollah has created and mastered in its political orientation and practices,” said a statement issued after the bloc’s meeting chaired by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Siniora responded Sunday to Aoun’s earlier remarks, saying that Aoun was delusional to believe he could end Hariri’s political career because it would imply the marginalization of millions of Lebanese. “I tell those who are delusional, seeking to issue one-way tickets to millions of Lebanese, that it is easier for them to issue their own tickets and leave the country,” Siniora said.
Hariri has been out of Lebanon since April amid reports of a plot to assassinate him. The French newspaper Liberation reported last week that Hariri was taking “refuge” in Paris, as the U.S. and Saudi Arabia continued to believe that the former prime minister’s life is threatened by the Syrian regime in a plan to divert attention from its domestic problems

Many Christians are blind on Assad rule
June 23, 2011
By Michael Young/The Daily Star
Last week I happened to catch a program on OTV, the Aounist television channel. The topic was Syria and at one stage the host described how he had seen footage of people recently demonstrating in the city of Hama. A sign held up by a protester read “We will not forget Hama 1982,” or some similar phrase. For the host this illustrated the “vengeful intentions” of the Syrian uprising.
It was revealing that the presenter should have interpreted the perfectly creditable remembrance of an episode of mass murder, one in which tens of thousands of innocent people are estimated to have lost their lives, as something reprehensible. What the Aounists believe, as do quite a few Lebanese Christians with them, is that if the Alawite-dominated Assad regime falls, this will play out to the advantage of the Sunnis, and more specifically of Sunni Islamists.
Throughout his political career, Michel Aoun has been adept at making bad choices. He sided with Saddam Hussein just before the Iraqi leader became an international pariah in 1990. He flirted with Syria and its envoys before returning to Lebanon in 2005, only to see the Syrians withdraw their army in April after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister. In pursuit of the presidency in 2006 and 2007, Aoun allied himself with Hezbollah against the parliamentary majority whose support he needed to win office, on the assumption that the party, along with Syria, would impose his election. They didn’t, and during the 2009 elections Aoun was unable to secure a parliamentary majority with his partners, actually losing Christian votes when compared to the results four years earlier.
Today, Aoun and his followers may be on the verge of making a far more critical mistake: They are wagering that Syrian President Bashar Assad will crush the ever larger demonstrations against his authority. Indeed, they are hopeful that this will happen. However, in the process they are setting themselves up, and Christians in general, for a potentially decisive, long-term rupture with Lebanon’s Sunnis, but also down the road with a post-Assad government in Syria.
Aoun is not alone responsible for this situation. However, he merits the greater blame for allowing his entourage to articulate most forcefully the foolish notion that Christians have an interest in allying themselves with other Middle Eastern minorities, against the Sunnis. It has been alarming to hear a sizable number of Lebanese Christians expressing fear that the Assads’ defeat would spell disaster for their community. They forget that no one has done as much as the Syrian regime to undermine Lebanese Christian power in the past decades.
It should be obvious by now to those watching the unrest in Syria that those hostile to Assad rule have mostly avoided resorting to sectarian symbolism. Rather, sectarian violence has been largely the work of the Assads’ praetorian units and security forces. Not many people, inside Syria or out, believe the regime’s narrative that the protests are the work of armed Sunni Islamists, nor have the Assads’ propaganda outlets provided any convincing evidence. An inept Information Ministry spokeswoman was fired for pointing out that the thousands of refugees flowing into Turkey from Jisr al-Shoughour were merely visiting family members across the border. But her bankruptcy, both professional and moral, only reflected that of the leaders she served.
And yet there are those Lebanese Christians buying into the Syrian government’s fabrications. Aounist spokespersons will pen stories in foreign publications echoing uncritically the disinformation peddled by Damascus. They seem incapable of reading the Syrian unrest in political, as opposed to sectarian, terms. For them it’s about religion, about the Sunni menace, not about a multi-sectarian population striving for emancipation from a despotic clique. In defense of Christian interests, they deem it justifiable to endorse scoundrels.
You would have expected the Christians to learn from their coreligionists in Iraq. The fate of Iraqi Christians is often cited by the Lebanese as an example of the dire future awaiting them and their Syrian brethren if the Assads disappear. How odd, for the real lesson offered up by Iraq’s Christians was that siding with Saddam Hussein against a majority of the Iraqi population was an existential blunder.
The safety and security of minorities cannot possibly reside in taking a stance against their fellow countrymen – especially joining with another minority in stifling the legitimate aspirations of a majority. The wheel of fortune turns. That is why the only solid protection for Arab Christians lies in transcending their minority status by reinforcing links with other communities, and between communities, while preserving their own individuality and ensuring that the rights of all are respected within a consensual, democratic context.
It is difficult to see how Bashar Assad’s regime will survive what is going on in Syria today. His regime may last for awhile, or it may collapse more rapidly than we imagine, but Syria is not going back to where it was three months ago. In the framework of domestic Lebanese communal relations, how should Christians prepare for this eventuality? Praying for the Assads to crush the revolt is morally outrageous and politically shortsighted. By the same token, cynically gambling on a Sunni victory in Syria makes no sense, because the revolt may proudly impose itself as a non-sectarian phenomenon.
A third alternative seems more promising. The Christians of Lebanon may be on the verge of a rare and valuable moment in their modern history, one in which they can contribute to forging a historical reconciliation between a democratic Syria and a democratic Lebanon. Rather than playing religious politics, they should think in terms of values – those of liberty, of pluralism, of representative government – and define their behavior now and in the future by such values.
This may sound terribly naïve. However, Michel Aoun and his supporters conveniently forget that they once portrayed their confrontation with the Assad regime in precisely those terms. The best safeguard for minority rights in the Arab world is democracy and the rule of law, within free societies. It is not, and cannot ever be, a dictatorship that readily exterminates its own people.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle” (Simon & Schuster), listed as one of the 10 notable books of 2010 by The Wall Street Journal. He tweets @BeirutCalling.


The EU must target Syria's merchant class
PAUL KINGSTON
Globe and Mail
Published Thursday6 comments Email Print Decrease text size
Increase text size The European Union, which intends to extend the list of Syrians banned from travelling to the EU and subject to asset freezes, is considering broader sanctions that would target selected Syrian companies doing business in Europe. This is a good idea.
Syria’s merchant class has traditionally provided strong support for the Baathist regime, support that has not gone unrewarded, especially in the 11 years since Bashar al-Assad took over the presidency from his father. While economic liberalization remains far behind even the timid experiments in other Arab countries, there have been some significant changes – notably the loosening of state control over foreign exchange flows, the privatization of banking and a significant reduction in corporate taxation.
Internet shaming site While these changes have not trickled down to the average Syrian, they have certainly benefited the more empowered commercial classes, especially those with ties to the ruling establishment. This has translated into compliance with the Assad regime. How else can one explain the absence of significant revolt in Damascus and Aleppo?
Can expanded EU sanctions reverse this situation? There’s no guarantee. Many Syrians prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t. The recent experiences of Lebanon and Iraq are ever-present in their minds.
There remains resilient support for Mr. al-Assad, not only from the merchant class that has benefited from his economic reforms but also the more empowered, educated middle class. They continue to make distinctions between the corrupt core of the Baathist regime and Mr. al-Assad himself. While the educated urban youth of Tunis and Cairo emerged as leaders of their revolutionary moments, the educated youth of Damascus and Aleppo have largely remained on the sidelines. It’s the unemployed youths on the periphery that have basically made up the anti-Baathist revolt so far.
There are three reasons why new EU sanctions could have some influence.
• The EU has some economic leverage. It’s Syria’s top trading partner, with overall trade amounting to €5.4-billion in 2009, or 23 per cent of all Syrian trade. Sanctioning Syrian companies will directly affect the country’s faltering economy and the regime itself.
• The regime is already being squeezed fiscally. In a bid to buy itself time and support, it has increased public-sector salaries, restored fuel subsidies and orchestrated the removal of key economic reformers from government. Merchants, whose businesses have been devastated by the uprising, are increasingly being asked to share this economic burden. To stem inflationary pressures, banks have been forced to raise interest rates by 3 per cent and their capital reserves by tenfold – squeezing valuable credit away from commercial activities. Broader sanctions may help to push the merchant class closer to the opposition.
• The emergence of powerful voices within Syria’s merchant community calling for regime change has the potential to offer the weakly integrated opposition forces the social power they lack. Indeed, if there’s any chance of a negotiated political transition, much of that hope lies in the ability of the merchant community to exert a collective voice and power. Broader EU sanctions could help to bring this outcome closer.
**Paul Kingston, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, recently returned from a sabbatical at the Institute français du Proche-Orient in Damascus.


RCMP knew about Interpol alert for farmer: lawyer
CBC News
Jun 22, 2011
The lawyer of jailed potato farmer Henk Tepper says the RCMP knew as much as a year ago that there was a red alert out from Interpol relating to Algeria, but didn't talk to Tepper about it.
Tepper was detained in Lebanon under a criminal warrant March 23 issued by Interpol at the request of the government of Algeria.
Rod Gillis, Tepper's lawyer, said Tepper was part of an official Canadian delegation to promote the export of potatoes in Lebanon, paid for by the Canadian government.
Tepper is accused of altering the Canadian Food Inspection Agency documents that went with the potato shipment.
Gillis has said the documents were altered, but by someone in Algeria — not his client.
Rod Gillis said the RCMP didn't say anything to Tepper, allowed him to go and spend the taxpayer's money to get to Lebanon and now he's spent almost 90 days in prison.
"He's obviously been misled by some officials or the RCMP," Gillis told CBC News Wednesday.
Gillis said Tepper told him Wednesday that if he'd known about the red flag, he never would have gone to Lebanon.
He said the RCMP made one contact with Tepper about a year ago, wanting to interview him.
Gillis said he and Tepper told the RCMP they would meet with them and give a statement, provided he'd be given his charter right to have a lawyer present.
Gillis said once the RCMP officials knew Tepper wanted his lawyer present, they were no longer interested in the interview.
Gillis is urging the federal justice minister to charge Henk Tepper, allowing him to leave Lebanon and return to Canada.
Gillis said if there was a crime, it related to a Canadian document, a Canadian certificate allegedly forged in Canada, by a Canadian, and those are all elements of a Canadian crime. Gillis said he spoke with Tepper Wednesday.
"He's not well," said Gillis. "You can actually appreciate, there's some anxiety in his voice. He's getting somewhat desperate."
Another lawyer from Gillis' office, James Mockler, was in Beirut meeting with Tepper Wednesday. Gillis said Mockler told him that Tepper aged ten years.

Michel Aoun is the funniest man alive
Posted by: Angie Nassar
Wednesday, June 22. 2011
I love that this is coming from a morally incompetent, irrational douchebag with no demonstrable grip on reality who is solely motivated by self-glorification.
MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday accused the March 14 alliance of not having a sense of humor after he got flack for saying he’d booked former Prime Minister Saad Hariri a one-way ticket out of Lebanon.
And this was his comedic response:
“Since they rejected the ‘one-way ticket’ out statement, we will issue them a ‘one-way ticket’ in. There is a big section of Roumieh Prison that is being renovated and it fits a lot [of people]. God willing, some [members of the March 14 coalition] will be in it.”
Bravo, sir.
Simply, bravo.
Only a god of the comedic universe could enlighten my ears with such humor-filled perfection. I want to write poems and haikus and books upon books of grammatically-correct prose dedicated to this joke.
This joke has given me a new reason to live.
I want to quit my job to dedicate every moment of my waking life to running a marketing campaign for this joke until it is “discovered” by record executives who will turn it into a top-40 hit song. And when it inevitably wins a Grammy award, I will not give an acceptance speech, no.
I will simply regurgitate this joke in the form of rainbow-colored paints as opera singers stand beside me and perform.
I want to make lots of babies and name them after this joke.
I want to crash on a deserted island, be forced to drink my own piss, eat the carcasses of my best friends, and climb to the top of the highest mountain just to scream this joke out loud before my last dying breath.
You want people to have a sense of humor, Mich Mich?
Be funnier.
Slinging your impotent Willy around with dramatic effect to ensure your personal damnation with the invisible sky people would be a good start.
Or to put it simply: Don’t be an asshole.
Tinkle twat, come home!



Egypt sentences Israeli spy
June 23, 2011
An Egyptian accused of spying for Israel was sentenced on Thursday to 25 years in jail by a special court.
Cairo's supreme state security court found Tarek Abdel Razek, who was arrested last year, and two Israeli officers guilty of "acts of espionage" on Israel's behalf.
The court sentenced in absentia the two officers, who according to the Israeli judiciary worked for the Jewish State's Mossad intelligence agency, also to 25 years in jail.
Razek, who runs an import-export company, was accused of providing the two Israelis, from May 2007 to May 2010, information on Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese working in the field of telecommunications and selecting those likely to cooperate with Mossad.
-AFP/NOW Lebanon




MP Fouad Siniora condemns banning of Iranian film in Lebanon
June 23, 2011
Future bloc leader MP Fouad Siniora issued a statement on Thursday condemning the Lebanese authorities’ decision to ban the screening of the Iranian film “Green Days,” which deals with protests against the 2009 re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
This movie’s screening was permitted by the previous cabinet, but “it was banned by the newly-formed one-sided cabinet,” the statement said.
“The decision made us wonder about the motives of the restrictions and the danger of targeting the freedom of expression in the country,” the statement quoted Siniora as saying.
Siniora also called on the cabinet to reconsider the ban, which he added is a real threat to the freedom of expression in Lebanon, according to the statement.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced last week the formation of a new 30-member cabinet, in which an alliance led by Hezbollah - which is close to Iran - holds the majority.
-NOW Lebanon



 Lebanon files UN complaint over Israel-Cyprus EEZ deal
By JPOST.COM STAFF
06/22/2011 11:24
Lebanese minister says that Beirut's absence from Israeli-Cypriot economic zone talks violate Lebanon's right over area's resources.
Beirut has issued a complaint to the UN over an agreement made between Cyprus and Israel demarcating an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) at the maritime border between the two Eastern Mediterranean countries, Lebanese English-language newspaper the Daily Star reported Tuesday.
According to the report, Lebanese Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Adnan Mansour issued a letter to Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon, saying “This agreement is a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and economic rights and threatens peace and security in the area."
Speaking to Hezbollah affiliated news channel Al-Manar Tuesday, Mansour said that Lebanon's absence from Israeli-Cypriot EEZ talks was a violation of the country's right to exploit resources that fall within its maritime borders. He said that Beirut will take all the necessary steps "within a legal framework," and will work to create a full report on the Lebanese share of the economic zone. Earlier this month, the National Infrastructures Ministry gave permission to US company Noble Energy to begin the development of the "Noa North" natural gas reservoir, adding it to Tehtys and and Tamar as drilling sites for natural gas. Scientists discovered the Leviathan gas field in June 2010. It is one of the largest offshore gas finds in the past decade, and rests some 130 kilometers west of Haifa. Lebanon has claimed since the discovery that the field spills over into Lebanese territory, and says that Israel ignores this fact.
Israel has responded by saying that it would defend its resources, with National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau warning that the country would not be afraid to "use force" in protecting the area, Bloomberg reported. According to Al-Manar on Tuesday, Monsour said that Lebanon is seeking UN assistance in demarcating the maritime line with Israel because of the country's enemy status with Beirut. The UN Convention on the Law of the Seas stipulates that an EEZ can be established up to 200 nautical miles of the territorial sea, giving the coastal nation the sole exploitation right over natural resources. The issue has become contentious in the Eastern Mediterranean, resulting in conflicts between Greece and Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, and now Lebanon.

Cabinet policy stalls over STL
June 22, 2011/By Hassan Lakkis The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Discussions over the government policy statement were stalled Tuesday over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, pending an agreement between Hezbollah and Prime Minister Najib Mikati. A political source told The Daily Star that the ministerial committee tasked with finalizing the draft policy statement will hold daily sessions until consent is reached over the article on Lebanon’s commitment to international resolutions, particularly the U.N.-backed STL. Mikati, who headed the committee’s meeting, said discussions were positive and will be followed up Wednesday. Hezbollah Minister of State for Administrative Reforms Mohammad Fneish told reporters at the Grand Serail to “forget about the Tribunal,” when asked whether the committee tackled the issue in its second meeting Tuesday. “There are more important points, like the economy,” he added.
Information Minister Walid Daouk said that the committee will finalize its work over the draft policy statement during the session Wednesday.
Daouk added that the article touching on Lebanon’s commitment to the Tribunal had not been completed. “We are almost done with the statement’s political section … Discussions over the issue of the STL were not completed and there are ideas being assessed and will be finalized in the next meeting,” he told reporters. Hezbollah ally Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun had said earlier in the day that the ministerial policy statement will not be at odds with justice but added that the March 8 alliance opposed the manipulation of the truth.
“We will not confront anyone and we want justice but we refuse forgery and decisions taken in violation of international law. Our struggle with them is legal,” Aoun said, referring to the March 8 argument that the U.N.-backed tribunal was established illegally. The STL, tasked with investigation of the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, is one of two fiercely disputed issues between the March 8 and 14 camps. Discussions over the disputed issue of Hezbollah’s weapons were concluded as expected, after the committee decided to endorse in its policy statement its commitment to support the “tripartite equation of the Lebanese Army, resistance and people,” similar to the previous government.
The March 14 alliance had withdrawn its support for the above article, which former Prime Minister Saad Hariri had originally approved in his Cabinet policy statement, before a U-turn when Hezbollah and its allies toppled the government in January after Hariri refused to halt Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal.
Hariri’s media office said Tuesday that the Future Movement leader had left for Montreal, Canada, on a private visit with his family after having held talks with March 14 officials over two days in Paris.Political sources told The Daily Star that the ministerial statement would be concise, in contrast to the previous government’s statement.
Mikati’s formation of a Cabinet, in which Hezbollah and its allies hold a majority of seats, has raised fears in the West of the Cabinet’s intention to end cooperation with the STL.
A U.S. official recently described the government make-up as disappointing. However, U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams welcomed the formation of the new government after a meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri Tuesday. “I welcomed the formation of the Lebanese government last week and also the positive role that Speaker Nabih Berri played in its formation,” Williams said. “Speaker Berri and I agreed that Lebanon now has the opportunity to address many challenges, for example social and economic challenges, that affect the Lebanese people. Security in Lebanon is another challenge,” he added. Williams added that he agreed, during talks with Berri, over the need to support the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. Among other topics on the Cabinet’s agenda is the approval of a new electoral law, which is likely to adopt proportional representation. Sources said that the adoption of the new electoral law was discussed during the ministerial committee’s meeting and will be featured in the policy statement.

Arab Spring exposes Nasrallah's hypocrisy
The Shia leader is happy to support protesters in Bahrain and Egypt, but he won't criticise Syria's violent crackdown.
Hamid Dabashi/t Al Jazeera's/22 Jun 2011 16:15
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has not criticised his Syrian or Iranian allies for their attacks on protesters [Reuters]
Hassan Nasrallah is in trouble. This time the troubles of the Secretary General of Hezbollah, which were hitherto the source of his strength, are not coming from Israel, or from the sectarian politics of Lebanon. Seyyed Hassan's troubles, which this time around are the harbingers of his undoing as an outdated fighter, are coming from, of all places, the Arab Spring.
The Arab Spring, the transnational uprising of masses of millions of people from Morocco to Oman, from Syria to Yemen, is making the aging warrior redundant - his habitually eloquent tongue now stuttering for words. Two years ago, he thought he got away with rejecting the democratic uprising in Iran (whose brutal ruling regime is his principle patron and financier), as a plot by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. And he did - aided and abetted by the moral and intellectual sclerosis of a segment of Arab intellectuals who thought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic theocracy were the vanguard of "resistance" to US/Israel imperialism in the region and thus should be spared from criticism. And then Tunisia happened, and Egypt, and Libya, and Bahrain, and Yemen - and then, Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei's nightmare, Syria happened. It is a sad scene to see a once mighty warrior being bypassed by the force of history, and all he can do is to fumble clumsily to reveal he has not learned the art of aging gracefully.
Deja vu
When Hasan Nasrallah came to the defence of Bashar al-Assad's murderous regime in Syria, signs of frailty were all over the old fighter's countenance. He asked Syrians for patience. He admitted mistakes had been made by Syrians in Lebanon. He promised Assad would do reforms. He pleaded for time. Deja vu: For an uncanny moment the Hezbollah fighter sounded and looked like the late Shah of Iran days before his final demise early in 1979: desperate, confused, baffled by the unfolding drama, worriedly out of touch with what was happening around him.
"Hassan Nasrallah," according to an Al Jazeera report on 25 May 2011,"has called on Syrians to support president Bashar al-Assad and enter into dialogue with the government to end weeks of ongoing protests across Syria."
This is a far different cry than when the democratic uprising in Iran started in June 2009 and Nasrallah readily dismissed and ridiculed it as an American plot. These were Arabs up against their corrupt and cruel leaders, not "them Persians" whose money was good but their historic struggles for their civil liberties a plot by the Saudis, the Israelis, and the US.
"Bashar is serious about carrying out reforms," he was now pleading with his audience, "but he has to do them gradually and in a responsible way; he should be given the chance to implement those reforms." When Nasrallah made these remarks more than 1000 Syrian civilians had been gunned down by Bashar Assad's army and security forces, serving the Assad dynasty for about forty years.
Many Syrians have fled the country after a violent crackdown by the government [AFP]
More criminal atrocities were to follow, forcing Syrians to abandon their own homeland and flee to Turkey. The cruel and gruesome torture and murder of Hamza al-Khateeb was still in the offing, where "in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's security forces," as reported by Al Jazeera, the 13-year-old boy's "humanity [was] degraded to nothing more than a lump of flesh to beat, burn, torture and defile, until the screaming stopped at last."
Nasrallah, who could not care less for such revolting behavior by his patrons, now for second time in a row, was siding with brutal, vicious tyrants and their criminally insane security forces against the democratic aspirations of their people - once in Iran and now in Syria. A "freedom fighter"? Really? What kind of a "freedom fighter" is that? Forget about the Shah, Hassan Nasrallah now sounded more like President Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) who once famously said about the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza (1896-1956) that he "may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Hassan Nasrallah too did not care if Khamenei and Assad tortured and murdered their own people - so far as they kept him in business.
"Peaceful Syrian citizens," declared a statement by hundreds of Syrian filmmakers and their colleagues from around the globe, "are being killed today for their demands of basic rights and liberties. It is the same oppression and corruption that kept Syrians prisoners and swallowed their freedom, properties and lives for decades, that is assassinating their bodies and dreams today." Hassan Nasrallah would have none of this, as he had no patience or sympathy for the kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered bodies of scores of young Iranians during the civil rights uprising of 2009. A belligerent segment of Arab and American intellectuals (ignorant or indifferent to the historic struggle of Iranians for their civil liberties) sided with him in dismissing the Green Movement in Iran as a Saudi-CIA plot. Shame, everlasting shame on them!
The only language that Hassan Nasrallah understands is the language that keeps him in power, condemning the US, the EU, Israel, and the Saudis - all hitherto truisms that have, thanks to the Green Movement and the Arab Spring, lost their grip on reality even more than Nasrallah.
Hypocrisy
Nasrallah's predicament with Syria had been moving towards him apace. He has been dillydallying since the commencement of the Arab Spring as to how to calibrate his positions. When Tunisia happened he said,"we must congratulate the Tunisian people on their historic revolution, their struggle, and their uprising."
He thought this was happening only to European allies, and he thought this was good. When Egypt happened, he said, "in Tunis and Egypt, tyrants have gone away... we call on the people of Egypt and the people of Tunis to unite, because division could be a prelude to the resurrection of the ruling regimes." This is when he thought these were happening only to the US allies. Nobody was watching him, but he was already in trouble. How come he never sent any encouraging word to "the people of Iran," when they did precisely what Tunisians and Egyptians had done - rising up against tyranny?
He (and he had his allies on this matter among the leading Arab and non-Arab "left") categorically denounced the Iranian uprising. He sided with identical tyrants like Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. He said Iran was in the capable hands of his friend "Grand Ayatollah Khamenei". He did not even blink on al-Manar when he said that. It was payback time for him.
When Libya happened, Hassan Nasrallah said, "a group of young men and women rose and they were faced with bullets; war was imposed on the popular revolution. What is taking place in Libya is war imposed by the regime on a people that was peacefully demanding change; this people was forced to defend itself and war broke out in the east and the west, with warplanes, rocket launchers, and artillery. It brought back to our memory the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and all of Israel's wars. Such serious crimes should be condemned and the revolutionary people of Libya should be helped so as to persevere." How splendid!
But what is the difference between Iranian or Syrian and the Libyan people? In Iran and Syria too: "a group of young men and women rose and they were faced with bullets." Were arbitrary arrest, torture, and even rape not "imposed by the regime on a people that was peacefully demanding change" in Iran and then Syria too? Is Iranian or Syrian blood any thinner than Libyan blood in the mighty warrior's estimation? Is there a word for this barefaced hypocrisy in any language? What sort of "resistance" is this - and resistance to what? Resistance to Israeli expansionism by a band of militant thugs maiming and murdering their own people in Syria and Iran? Is this the choice that our people must make?
When Yemen happened, Nasrallah said, "it is not possible to keep silent about killing and oppressing the demonstrators. We praise the steadfastness of the Yemeni people and their commitment to their peaceful movement, although we know that Yemen is full of weapons." But how come it is possible to "keep silent about killing and oppressing the demonstrators" in Iran? No, sorry, he was not silent at all about Iran. He was positively elated and quite verbose that his dear friend Ayatollah Khamenei had managed to oppress those identical demonstrators. As masses of millions of Iranian were pouring into streets calling the presidential election of 2009 a charade and a fraud, Hassan Nasrallah was quick to congratulate Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "great hope to all the mujahedin and resistance who are fighting against the forces of oppression and occupation". As even more millions of people took to streets risking arrest, incarceration, torture, and even cold-blooded murder, Nasrallah assured the world that "Iran is under the authority of the Wali Al Faqih and will pass through this crisis." He never praised "the steadfastness" of the Iranian people "and their commitment to their peaceful movement." Why? What's the difference between Iranians and Yemenis?
Nasrallah supported protesters in Bahrain but not in Iran or Syria [GALLO/GETTY]
When Bahrain happened, Nasrallah said, "why is the movement [in Bahrain] condemned and the injured accused? Just because they are Shias?... We've always been with the Palestinian people, but the sect of the Palestinian people was never an issue for us. Nobody asked about the confession and sect of the Tunisian and Egyptian peoples; we have an obligation to stand by the downtrodden. Iran stood by the people of Palestine, Tunis, Egypt, and Libya; was this based on secular considerations? I find it very weird to hear some people calling on Egyptians to take to the streets, Libyans to kill Gaddafi, but when Bahrain is involved, their ink dries out, and their voices dampen."
This was indeed very ecumenical of the Hassan Nasrallah. But was his own ink dried and his own voice dampened when Iranians were being clubbed to death, tortured, and even raped by the security forces of his friend "Ayatollah Khamenei?" How come he did not feel obligated to stand by millions of human beings for whom spoke two bona fide Shias, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi? Were they not Muslims, Shias, human beings? And yes, Iranians have "stood by the people of Palestine, Tunis, Egypt, and Libya" - but not because they are Muslim, or Sunnis, or Shias, but based on their shared aspiration for a free and democratic future. Will Hassan Nasrallah have a place in that democratic future, with this kind of record, of siding with criminal thugs that deny and seek to prevent it?
And then Syria happened, and Hasan Nasrallah began stuttering. "First, we should be committed to Syria's stability, security and safety." Syrians' security and safety - or Bashar al-Assad's? Scores of Syrians are being gunned down, tortured, and killed. There is a massive humanitarian crisis on the Syrian-Turkish border, finally forcing Turkey to sever its ties with Syria. Syrians are fleeing their homeland en masse, fearing for their lives from Bashar al-Assad's murderous army. What about their security and safety?
"Second," he said, "We call upon the Syrian people to maintain their regime of resistance, as well as to give way to the Syrian leadership to implement the required reforms and to choose the course of dialogue." Really? Isn't that what Clinton also says about Bahrain? How come if Clinton says it about Bahrain it is bad and imperialistic, but if Hassan Nasrallah says it about Syria it is good and revolutionary - while both Bahrainis and Syrians are being slaughtered by identically corrupt ruling regimes? The magnificent aspect of the Arab Spring is that it exposes the identical hypocrisy of both the US (on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) and Hassan Nasrallah (on Iran and Syria).
"Third, we as Lebanese shouldn't interfere in what is going on in Syria, but let the Syrians themselves to deal with the issue." Truly? How come "you as Lebanese" interfere anywhere from Morocco to Iran, from Bahrain to Yemen, but not about Syria? Why? Aren't Syrians humans? If you shoot them do they not bleed? If you torture and mutilate them do they not suffer and die? "Fourth, we should reject any sanctions led by US and the West asking Lebanon to abide by them against Syria, which is the most important goal of [Assistant US Secretary of State Jeffrey] Feltman's recent visit to Lebanon." Why? How come UN resolutions against Israel are good, but UN resolutions against Syria are not good? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Right?
Promoting democracy?
There is an old expression in the film industry, "continuity clerk", which refers to a member of the crew responsible to ensure that there is continuity and consistency - especially in matters of dress, make-up, etc. - in successive shots of a film, particularly when these shots are filmed on different days. The grand Hezbollah leader badly needs a "continuity clerk". You cannot wear a revolutionary garb one day and then a pathetically apologetic disguise another.
That Hassan Nasrallah is not altogether aware of what is happening around him is also evident in the fact that it seems just to have dawned on him that the US is "seeking to hijack the wave of pro-democracy popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world." Of course they are - but what is Hassan Nasrallah doing to safeguard and promote it, siding with Bashar al-Assad and Ali Khamenei? Hassan Nasrallah is now outmaneuvered, checkmated, made redundant by history, by, of all things, a magnificent Arab Spring, in which he has no role, no say, and no decision. Nothing. He could and he did dismiss Iranian uprising and he got away with it. Syria and the rest of the Arab Spring are doing away with him. He has failed the test of history—of knowing when to abandon tyrants benevolent to him for their own reasons but abusive and criminal to their own people.
It is not accidental that Iran's Ahmadinejad is on the same page with Hassan Nasrallah in defending the Syrian regime - for they are all made of the same cloth. What is happening in Syria, Ahmadinejad believes, is a plot by a number of countries in the region, "because Syria is in the frontline of resistance and the Islamic Republic is standing shoulder to shoulder with the Syrian state and nation"? Not so fast. The Syrian state is now murdering the Syrian nation. You cannot be on both sides. Siding with the regime is endorsing its murderous record of killing its nation, as indeed the Islamic Republic, on Ahmadinejad's own watch, has done against Iranians, with Nasrallah's approval.
Ahmadinejad's protestations in support of the Syrian regime, however, should not muddy the clear conception of why the Islamic Republic supports Hamas or Hezbollah. In defending the allocation of funding for Hamas and Hezbollah, the military strategist of the Islamic Republic make no bones about why is it that they support the Palestinian and Lebanese causes. "The Palestinians are not fighting for Palestine," one leading Iranian military strategist is seen recently explaining to a captivated audience, "they are fighting for Iran; the Lebanese are not fighting for Lebanon; they are fighting for Iran. To have the courage to say this and the courage to demonstrate this means to provide a strategic conception [of what we do]." Does Hassan Nasrallah know this, or is he taking advantage of the Islamic Republic the way the Islamic Republic is taking advantage of him. And what do millions of human beings caught in this massive hypocrisy have to do with these political and strategic machinations?
During protests in Iran, when scores of young Iranian men and women were being brutally tortured and killed in the dungeons of the Islamic Republic, Nasrallah was not keeping silent. He was voluminously loquacious in siding with tyranny, exposing his utter and pervasive hypocrisy.
**Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

EU Agrees to Expand Syria Sanctions
VOA News/June 22, 2011
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem speaks during a news conference in Damascus, June 22, 2011.European Union diplomats say the 27-nation bloc has agreed to expand sanctions against Syria, adding seven individuals, including three Iranians, linked to a Syrian crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising. The diplomats said Wednesday the seven individuals will be added to a list of 23 people and entities already under an EU asset freeze and travel ban. The list includes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Iranians and other newly-targeted individuals are suspected of providing military equipment and support to the Syrian government in suppressing an opposition movement that began in March. The crackdown has killed at least 1,400 people. The expanded EU sanctions are due to be adopted on Thursday and come into force on Friday. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem denounced EU sanctions Wednesday, saying they are hurting the livelihood of Syrians and represent an "act of war."Speaking at a news conference in Damascus, he said Syria "will forget Europe is on the map" and rejects foreign interference in its internal affairs. Moallem denied that Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are helping Syria's government to crack down on the unrest. He said some of the violence may be the work of al-Qaida.

National Bloc: Aoun implementing Syria’s will in Lebanon
June 22, 2011 /The National Bloc issued a statement that Change and Reform leader MP Michel Aoun is implementing the will of the Syrian regime in Lebanon. “We would like to ask General Aoun: who booked him a ‘one-way ticket’ and exiled him? Today he is one of the fiercest defenders of the Syrian regime that exiled him, he’s even executing its orders in Lebanon,” said the statement. The statement also added, “His speech is full of hatred and it nourishes extremism. It is not a simple joke, it is a hatred project that doesn’t end when he ends his speech.” Regarding the new cabinet headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the statement said, “We will be waiting for their actions, not the vengeful ones… but the issues that they used to criticize and take advantage of.”The National Bloc also called for confiscating Palestinians’ arms from outside their refugee camps in Lebanon.The new Lebanese cabinet was formed last week after almost five months of deliberations between the March 8 parties. The March 14 coalition had announced it will not take part in Mikati’s government. On Tuesday, Aoun accused the Hariri-led March 14 coalition of lacking a sense of humor, adding that some of its members should be given a “one-way ticket” into prison. Aoun was exiled to France in 1990 after Syria defeated his forces. He returned to Lebanon in 2005 following the Syrian withdrawal. -NOW Lebanon

Israel and Syria, secret allies?
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Neither the Syrian government nor Israeli hardliners favor a democracy in Syria.
By ANNE ALLMELING
Al Arabiya
The hardliners in Israel are rejoicing: Bashar Al Assad is fighting his own people! By doing so, the Syrian president achieves what his enemies in Israel have never really managed to during the past few years: discrediting the Syrian regime internationally.
Only a few months ago, it seemed as if Syria and the West were coming closer together. Mr. Assad received politicians from France and Germany, and it was only in December that US President Barack Obama appointed the first American ambassador to Syria since 2005.
The Bush administration had withdrawn its diplomat from Damascus in protest at the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al Hariri. Syrian intelligence officials are suspected of being behind the attack – something that Mr. Assad has always denied.
During the past few years, the Syrian president managed to gradually gain the respect, however grudging and opportunistic, of the United States and Europe; he was regarded as essential for brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. His image as a technocrat and cautious reformer who opened up the country after his father’s death also helped.
However, all this changed during the past few weeks. Facing major uprisings in many parts of the country, Mr. Assad proves to be adamant and unbending – just like his enemies in Israel have always described him. The youngest president of the Arab world does not investigate the killing of thousands of people, he does not offer any real reforms and he does not listen to the international community.
The Israeli hardliners are rubbing their hands with glee: As long as Mr. Assad is in power, no one will insist that Israel makes concessions to Syria. The Syrian Golan heights will stay under Israeli control, and the Israeli settlements on Palestinian soil will continue to grow.
And Israel’s hardliners are not alone in wishing Assad’s regime a long life. Russia has made it clear that NATO actions with a UN mandate similar to those in Libya will not be repeated – a position celebrated by Mr. Assad’s loyalists in Damascus. If the Syrian president falls, most Western states fear a repetition of the chaos Iraq experienced after 2003. Their calls for more democracy sound rather shallow.
Iran, on the other hand, does everything in its power to prop up its only real Arab ally. And other Arab states are more interested in stopping the Arab Spring than in getting rid of an Iranian foothold in the Arab world.
It came as no surprise that Mr. Assad made it clear on Monday that he has no ambition to introduce real change and open up his country for democracy. In this respect, the Syrian president and Israel’s hardliners are secret allies: Neither of them is seriously interested in a democratic Syria. The president wants to stay in power – at any cost. And Israel’s hardliners fear a stable democracy in their neighborhood because it would force Israel in the long run to make concessions to its Arab neighbors.
(Anne Allmeling, a contributor to Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: anne.allmeling@gmx.de)

EU calls on Lebanon to uphold commitment on STL
June 22, 2011/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The international community exerted further pressure on Lebanon Wednesday to uphold its commitment regarding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as the European Union asked the country to eliminate any obstacles facing the court. “The Special Tribunal for Lebanon should continue its work without hurdles, with the cooperation of the Lebanese government,” European Union ambassadors said in a statement following their meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati. The statement also asked the new government to commit to United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1757. “We emphasized the importance of this new government's support for Lebanon’s international commitments in its policy statement regarding Security Council Resolutions 1701 and 1757,” the statement added. Resolution 1757 established the STL to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and spells out the Lebanese government's responsibility in financing the court. Resolution 1701 ended the summer 2006 war with Israel and called for a halt in border violations between the two states and the termination of arms shipments to Hezbollah. The ambassadors also reiterated the importance of the independent and democratic work of Lebanese institutions and urged Lebanon to implement the country’s reform program to face domestic challenges. “Lebanon is an important partner for the European Union and we are looking forward to cooperating with Lebanon based on political and economic cooperation,” the statement added. With the formation of the new government headed by Mikati and dominated by the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance, the international community, including the U.S., fear that Lebanon may disavow the court and halt its funding. The STL is a contentious issue in Lebanese politics. The Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance has described it as an American-Israel tool targeting Hezbollah and has questioned its credibility.

Williams warns of “security threats” in South Lebanon
June 23, 2011/In an interview with As-Safir newspaper published on Wednesday, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams warned that there are currently security threats in South Lebanon, adding that he does not think they are linked to Israel. He added, however, that UNIFIL commander General Alberto Asarta assures him that the situation in the south is stable. Williams also voiced hope that incidents related to security do not occur in the south, adding “there are no signs that the security situation will possibly deteriorate [there.]”
The UN envoy said that forming the cabinet is a good step, and voiced hope that the Ministerial Statement commits to international commitments particularly the UN Security Council Resolution 1701.Williams also voiced hope that parliament will accept the Ministerial Statement and grant confidence to the cabinet, adding “Lebanon will then be more stable and prosperous.” The new Lebanese cabinet was formed last week after almost five months of deliberations between the March 8 parties. The March 14 coalition had announced it will not take part in Najib Mikati’s government.-NOW Lebanon

Lebanon's Hezbollah may fight Israel to relieve Syria
June 22, 2011/ By Mariam Karouny/ Reuters
Hezbollah and Syria have both denied that the group has sent fighters to support a military crackdown on the wave of protests against Assad's rule.
BEIRUT: Lebanon's Hezbollah is preparing for a possible war with Israel to relieve perceived Western pressure to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, its guardian ally, sources close to the movement say. The radical Shiite group, which has a powerful militia armed by Damascus and Iran, is watching the unrest in neighboring Syria with alarm and is determined to prevent the West from exploiting popular protests to bring down Assad. Hezbollah supported pro-democracy movements that toppled Western-backed leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, but officials say it will not stand idly by as international pressure mounts on Assad to yield to protesters. It is committed to do whatever it takes politically to help deflect what it sees as a foreign campaign against Damascus, but it is also readying for a possible war with Israel if Assad is weakened.
"Hezbollah will never intervene in Syria. This is an internal issue for President Bashar to tackle. But when it sees the West gearing up to bring him down, it will not just watch," a Lebanese official close to the group's thinking told Reuters. "This is a battle for existence for the group and it is time to return the favor (of Syria's support). It will do that by fending off some of the international pressure," he added. Hezbollah, established nearly 30 years ago to confront Israel's occupation of south Lebanon, fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Hezbollah and Syria have both denied that the group has sent fighters to support a military crackdown on the wave of protests against Assad's rule.
Hezbollah believes the West is working to reshape the Middle East by replacing Assad with a ruler friendly to Israel and hostile to itself. "The region now is at war, a war between what is good and what is backed by Washington... Syria is the good," said a Lebanon-based Arab official close to Syria. He said the United States, which lost an ally when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, "wants to shift the crisis" by supporting protests against its adversary. "For us this will be confronted in the best possible way," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
SYRIA NOT ALONE
Analysts rule out the possibility of a full-scale regional war involving Syria, Iran and Lebanon on one side against Israel backed by the United States. A war pitting Hezbollah against Israel was more likely, they said. "There might be limited wars here or there but nobody has the interest (in a regional war)," said Lebanese analyst Oussama Safa. "The region is of course heading towards radical change... How it will be arranged and where it will lead is not clear."
Hezbollah inflicted serious damage and casualties by firing missiles deep into Israel during the 2006 conflict, and was able to sustain weeks of rocket attacks despite a major Israeli military incursion into Lebanon. Western intelligence sources say the movement's arsenal has been more than replenished since the fighting ended, with European-led U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon powerless to prevent supplies entering mostly from Syria. Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, has regional influence because of its alliance with Iran and its continued role in Lebanon, despite ending a 29-year military presence there in 2005. It also has an influence in Iraq.
"If the situation in Syria collapses it will have repercussions that will go beyond Syria," the Arab official said. "None of Syria's allies would accept the fall of Syria even if it led to turning the table upside down -- war (with Israel) could be one of the options."The Lebanese official said: "All options are open including opening the fronts in Golan (Heights) and in south Lebanon."
Palestinian protests last month on the Lebanese and Syrian frontlines with Israel were "a message that Syria will not be left alone facing an Israeli-American campaign," he said.
Israel and Syria are technically at war, but their frontier had been calm since the war in 1973, when Israel repelled a Syrian assault to recapture the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
FIRST STEP TAKEN
For Syria's allies in Lebanon, the first step to support Damascus has already been taken. After months of delay, Prime Minister Najib Mikati formed a new Lebanese government last week dominated by pro-Syrian parties, including Hezbollah. That followed five months of political vacuum after Hezbollah and its allies toppled Western-backed Saad Hariri’s coalition in a dispute over a U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the killing in 2005 of statesman Rafik Hariri, Saad's father.
The tribunal is expected to accuse members of the Shiite group in the killing, and some Lebanese had believed that the delay in forming a government was deliberate, to avoid the crisis a new government might face when indictments are issued.
"Our people thought at first the vacuum would be in our interest but after the events in Syria we have noticed that the vacuum is harmful," said the Lebanese official.
The still confidential indictment was amended last month after the prosecutor said "new evidence emerged" but Syria and its allies suspect it will now target Syrian officials. Both Syria and Hezbollah deny any role in killing Hariri. The official said the new government might halt the state's cooperation with and contribution to funding the court, as well as withdrawing Lebanese judges from the tribunal. "The government in its new form will not allow Lebanon to be used against Syria, or those who are promoting the American agenda on the expense of Syria," he said.Tension in Lebanon increased in the first weeks of the uprising against Assad when Syria accused Hariri supporters of funding and arming protesters, a charge they denied.
"As Syria stood by Lebanon's side during the July war in 2006 (between Hezbollah and Israel), Lebanon will be on its side to face this war that is no less dangerous," the official said.
So far, Syria's allies believe that Assad has things under control and that the unrest, in which rights groups say 1,300 people have been killed, has not posed a threat on his rule.
While Hezbollah's fate is not linked exclusively to Assad's future, his departure would make life more difficult for the group, which depends on Syria's borders for arms supply.
"Syria is like the lung for Hezbollah...it is its backup front where it gets its weapon and other stuff," said another Lebanese official who declined to be named.
Formed under the guidance of Iran's religious establishment, Hezbollah had a thorny start with late President Hafez al-Assad, but later emerged as a powerful Syrian ally. Relations improved further after Bashar succeeded his father in 2000."Hezbollah is extremely tense and they are concerned about the developments in Syria," said Hilal Khashan, a political analyst at the American University in Beirut. "The storm is building up now and after it everything will change...In all cases, no matter what happens in Syria, developments there will not be in favor for Hezbollah."While he dismissed the possibility of a regional war, Augustus Richard Norton, author of a book on Hezbollah, said an Israeli Lebanese war may be possible, adding he believed Israel was likely to strike first. "It is not too challenging to imagine a scenario for an Israel-Lebanon war to erupt, especially given the Obama administration's diffident and permissive approach to Israel.” "...It is far more likely that Israel will pursue a war with the goal of crippling Hezbollah and punishing Lebanon than that a war will be intentionally provoked by Hezbollah," he said.
TARNISHED IMAGE
In the meantime Hezbollah, which has praised other Arab uprisings and enjoys strong support among ordinary Arabs over its confrontations with Israel, has seen its image tarnished because of its support for Assad. "The events in Syria have not impacted Hezbollah in a significant strategic sense, but have certainly put the party in an uncomfortable position," said Elias Muhanna, a Middle East scholar at Harvard."The fact that (Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan) Nasrallah has supported the regime's war against the opposition in Syria while attacking similar regime actions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen has been pointed out by many as a blatant double standard." Hezbollah argues there is no contradiction in its position, saying Assad has popular support and is committed to reform. "When the regime is against Israel and is committed to reforms then Hezbollah decision is to be by the side of the people and the leadership through urging them for dialogue and partnership," the Lebanese official said. "That is why the group is in harmony with itself when it comes to Syria. It has its standards clear," he added.
"For the resistance and Iran, the partnership with Syria is a principal and crucial issue, there is no compromise. Each time Syria is targeted there will be a response.

Report: Hezbollah preparing for war with Israel
Ynetnews/22 June/11
Lebanon's Hezbollah is preparing for a possible war with Israel to relieve perceived Western pressure to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, its guardian ally, sources close to the movement say. The radical Shi'ite group, which has a powerful militia armed by Damascus and Iran, is watching the unrest in neighboring Syria with alarm and is determined to prevent the West from exploiting popular protests to bring down Assad. (Reuters

Syria's Assad running low on credibility: U.N. chief
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS | Wed Jun 22, 2011
 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has pledged to reform the country and engage in a dialogue with pro-democracy protesters, is running low on credibility, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday.
"I do not see much credibility (in) what he has been saying, because the situation has been continuing like this way, and how long should the situation be going (on in) this way," Ban told reporters when asked how credible he considered Assad's pledges of reform and other statements to be.
The remarks from Ban, who was unanimously re-elected to a second five-year term as U.N. secretary-general on Tuesday effective in January 2012, were his strongest criticism to date of the Damascus government, which has blamed armed gangs for the violence in Syria. Ban said he took note "in a positive way" of Assad's announcement of a general amnesty and a promise of reforms and national dialogue in a speech on Monday, only the Syrian president's third since the outbreak of protests in which rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed.
But he added that any measures Assad takes "should lead to genuinely inclusive dialogue." Many Syrians and world leaders dismissed Assad's pledges as inadequate. Violence continued on Tuesday with the killing of seven people by gunmen in two cities during rival protests by Assad loyalists and opponents, an opposition activist said.
Britain and France have pushed the 15-nation U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the violence, but Russia and China have suggested they might use their veto powers to block it.Council members South Africa, Brazil and India also have problems with the draft resolution, U.N. diplomats say, which has made the impasse on Syria even more difficult to overcome. Lebanon, the sole Arab council member, has had a troubled relationship with its neighbor Syria and is also opposed.
Ban said he hoped the council could eventually weigh in on the question of Syria.
"If and when the Security Council takes a decision for their future course of action ... (on Syria) in a unified way, that would be very helpful," he said, adding that he had been speaking with individual council members on the issue. A senior Western diplomat said on condition on anonymity on Wednesday that Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, backed by Washington, are continuing to negotiate on the draft resolution to break the impasse and have no plans to withdraw the text.
The draft resolution would not impose sanctions on Syria but would condemn it for the crackdown and suggest Syrian security forces might be guilty of crimes against humanity.
(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Lebaneseness’ of Cabinet formation confirmed
 June 22, 2011/By Antoine Ghattas Saab/ The Daily Star/ We have seen news reports of Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirming to Arab and foreign ambassadors his commitment to international resolutions, including the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and displaying his insistence on fulfilling the people’s basic needs in economic and food security.
At the same time, President Michel Sleiman received at Baabda Palace a Hezbollah delegation, who met to convey the greetings of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah; discuss the ongoing preparations to write a draft of the ministerial statement; and speak on the importance of working collaboratively in the Cabinet – far from vengeful and malicious acts.
It is clear, according to those close to the course of current events in Lebanon, that these two men complement each other in the new political arrangement, a situation that echoes a recent statement from Deputy Prime Minister Samir Moqbel. The deputy’s statement asserted that the new government is a Sleiman-Mikati-Lebanese Cabinet, in reply to attempts to link its formation to a regional axis, whose states and regimes don’t appear to be in strong position from which they would be able to use neighboring arenas of influence to negotiate with the United States and its allies.
If there are any hints at a Syrian role in the birth of the Cabinet, it should be pointed out that Syria is facing today two dangers which may prevent it from keeping up with the developments in Lebanon: the current foreign conspiracy carried out through the operations of some armed groups, and the challenge of reform, which was one of the most important headlines from President Assad’s third speech in front of his people, the Arab nation and the world.
It seems that President Sleiman, when it comes to the events in Syria, supports both maintaining stability and adopting demanded reforms, a position based on his awareness of the dangers of walking in the wake of regime change in Damascus, including the implications it could have on the domestic scene, especially the fragile security situation which threatens to turn at any moment into an arena for the exchange of fire between international and regional players.
A survey of departments of the presidential palace to assess the state of communications with the Syrian leadership suggests that Sleiman will not soon pay a visit to the Syrian president in Damascus unless it is necessary. It was also noted that his previous visits happened suddenly, sometimes even without the knowledge of some advisers, not for lack of trust but in order to avoid its exploitation in the local media market, which is always ready to fabricate analyses and speculation to serve narrow political interests.
Official political sources said that a phone call between Sleiman and Assad took place two days ago, during which the leaders held a comprehensive discussion of developments in the past weeks and months concerning Cabinet formation. In the discussions, it became apparent that they held similar views and were in agreement over the dangers posed by Lebanon remaining in a political vacuum. They also discussed the importance of what had been reached through Sleiman and Mikati’s efforts, which added to the initiative of Speaker Nabih Berri who gave up a Shiite seat to “gain all of Lebanon.”
These sources also revealed that coordination is continuous between the two countries on the highest levels in ordinary as well as exceptional circumstances, in order to reinforce an atmosphere of mutual trust and ensure that the leadership of the two countries is moving forward with prudence to implement policies to reinforce their steadfastness, their sovereignty and their independence from foreign conspiracies, from whichever direction they come.

While Obama Dithers, Iran and Hezbollah Mobilize to Help Assad
Jonathan S. Tobin /Commentary
06.22.2011 -
While the Obama administration continues to do nothing about the ongoing violence in Syria, the Assad regime’s allies in Iran and Lebanon are not sitting around waiting to see whether the dictator will fall. Ha’aretz reports Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is operating throughout Syria helping the government suppress dissent and possibly being involved in the slaughter of protesters.
Sources told the newspaper men in beards (which are banned in the Syrian army) speaking poor Arabic or Farsi were seen among the forces backing the government. The Iranians were also seen along the border with Israel on May 15 and June 5, when Syria organized protests aimed at penetrating the international frontier between the two countries.
Meanwhile, other reports have surfaced that if Assad is viewed as being in big trouble, his allies in Lebanon will seek to start a war with Israel in order to create a diversion. According to Reuters, Hezbollah will do whatever it takes in order to help the Assad regime, up to and including starting another border war with Israel that would serve to reduce pressure on Damascus. With the help of Iran, Hezbollah has completely re-armed since its last all-out fight with Israel in 2006.
This illustrates the notion of a regional movement for democracy is somewhat misleading. The idea the “Arab Spring” would overturn all the tyrants in the Middle East was a misnomer. Islamists in Egypt backed the protests against Mubarak because that put them in position to gain power. But in Syria, they are determined to defend a dictator closely aligned with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.
These developments again show just how clueless is the Obama administration’s timid approach to Syria. Assad is not just another Middle East dictator whose people should be encouraged but not supported as they strive for democracy. He is a key element in a regional alliance orchestrated in Tehran whose goal is the perpetuation of war against Israel and the struggle against the West. Sitting back and waiting to see what will happen in Syria has not simply given Assad and his cohorts the leeway to conduct massacres against their own people. It has also given Iran the time to mobilize help for Assad and increased the chances his Hezbollah surrogates will unleash more bloodshed.
The stakes involved in the outcome of the struggle in Syria are enormous. But Obama is still too obsessed with engaging with Islamists rather than confronting them to act decisively as did his predecessor. The result of this American dithering has been an opening for Iran to preserve its regional empire.

Syria’s Moallem denies Hezbollah, Iran helping Assad
June 22, 2011 The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Moallem Wednesday denied that Hezbollah and Iran were helping the Syrian regime in its three-month-old crackdown on protesters.
“We categorically deny any Iranian or Hezbollah interference in Syria,” Moallem told a packed news conference broadcast live on Syrian TV Wednesday.
“Yes, there is political support to Syria in an effort to overcome the crisis and there is support for the reforms pledged by Assad,” he said, but he insisted there was “no military support.”
Moallem, throwing his support behind Syrian President Bashar Assad, also denied there had been any Syrian meddling in Najib Mikati’s Cabinet lineup.
“Syria did not play any role in the Lebanese government formation. It is 100 percent Lebanese,” Moallem said, adding that Assad “had no time to interfere in Lebanese affairs.”
Moallem, however, refused to comment on Friday’s armed clashes in Tripoli, north Lebanon, between the pre-dominantly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen and the mainly Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh. “I will not comment on this issue, just like I reject any foreign interference in our affairs,” he said.
Syria has come under increasing international pressure and sanctions over its brutal crackdown on a growing protest movement. The opposition estimates some 1,400 people have been killed. The Future Movement-led March 14 coalition has accused Syria of the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and at least a dozen other Lebanese politicians.

Former Mossad Chief Discounts Arab Spring, Welcomes Prospect of a Sunni Syria
Posted by Karl Vick/TIME
Wednesday, June 22,
Meir Dagan, who until February ran Israel's overseas intelligence agency for nine pretty successful years, has been making a new name for himself as outspoken retiree. Earlier this month he warned from a Tel Aviv stage that bombing Iran to stop its nuclear program was "a stupid idea," and suggested that with the recent departure of himself and two other top security officials paid to see the world clearly -- former military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet (internal security) director Yuval Diskin -- hawkish prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak might do something rash.
The remarks caused a sensation and cost Dagan a courtesy usually afforded retired Mossad directors, the continued use of a diplomatic passport, revoked by Netanyahu's office. On Tuesday he was on stage again, advising graduates of Israel's Netanya College ("At least I didn't need a passport to get here!") against being overwhelmed by the Arab Spring.
"Difficult times are destabilizing regimes all around us. They have received labels such as 'Arab Spring' and 'Democratic Tsunami', but I would recommend not making too much of labels and definitions because a deeper look reveals rifts and conflicts that existed before, and which have been swept under the rug, but are now bursting out in the form of protests and in many places purposeful violence," Dagan said in remarks reported by the online Y-net news service.
He expressed the usual concern from the Israeli perspective about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt but added that "Israel is not alone" in working to counter it. In any event, on the chessboard of the Middle East, the Jewish State prefers the advance of Sunni pieces against the dark king that is Iran. Which brings us to Syria, still on fire after weeks of protests.
Israeli intelligence sources quoted in the Hebrew press lately are predicting that officers in the minority Alawite sect of President Bashar Assad will soon be making deals with counterparts in the Sunni majority. That prospect does not appear to bother Dagan. The status quo, after all, has been a concrete alliance between Syria and Iran, which together arm the Shi'ite militia Hizballah, which has some 40,000 missiles pointed at Israel from neighboring Lebanon, where both Syria and Iran wield great influence.
"They may not be lovers of Israel," Dagan said of Syria's Sunnis, "but there is is no doubt this would harm Hizballah, weaken it, harm the strategic backing it receives from Syria, minimize the Iranian influence in the field, increase the influence of Saudi Arabia and Gulf States on it, and increase the chances it would open up to the West."
That assessment offers not confirmation but at least helpful context for another report in the Israeli press today: a front-page report in Haaretz alleging that Iran's Revolutionary Guard are in the thick of Assad's efforts to suppress protests inside Syria, complete with reports of bearded officers speaking bad Arabic to Syrians and Persian between themselves.

 

Hariri: protectors of Rafik Hariri assassins will be imprisoned
June 22, 2011/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri warned Wednesday that anyone protecting the assassins of his father Rafik Hariri would be imprisoned, in response to comments from Michel Aoun that March 14 lawmakers would end up in prison. “The only people whose fate will be in prison are those who murdered martyr-President Rafik Hariri and those who protect these murderers,” Hariri said in a statement, adding that the Lebanese were aware of slogans and empty promises made by Aoun and the March 8 alliance.
Following his meeting Tuesday with the Free Patriotic Movement, Aoun said many Future Movement officials would end up in prison. “Since they rejected the one way out, there is the one way in, as there is a big section in Roumieh prison being prepared to host them. Aoun also criticized Hariri’s policy in Lebanon Saturday, saying it was aimed at paralyzing state institutions in a bid to control the country and adding that Hariri had been issued a one-way ticket out of Lebanon and the government. “We will face anyone who might target any honorable person in Lebanon." Hariri said. Since the formation of Prime Minister Najib Mikati's Cabinet on June 13, Aoun and the Future Movement have exchanged verbal attacks, deepening the political divide between the March 8 and the March 14 coalitions.
 

Syria accuses EU of meddling as it imposes sanctions
Syria calls measures the equivalent to 'war' while promising to turn country into model democracy
Nidaa Hassan in Damascus
Ian Black guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22
Syria has lashed out at international "meddling" in its internal affairs and lambasted new EU sanctions that also target the commander of the al-Quds force of Iran's revolutionary guards, accused by the west of helping crush the unprecedented unrest.
Walid al-Moallem, Syria's foreign minister, called the sanctions the equivalent to "war", while promising to turn the country into a model democracy.
He accused EU states of trying to "plant strife and chaos" after they agreed to extend punitive measures against Bashar al-Assad's regime in response to the repression of protests that has cost 1,400 lives in three months.
The Guardian has learned that the sanctions target General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite al-Quds, who is already subject to US sanctions. Moallem denied that Tehran or Syria's Lebanese protege Hezbollah had been involved.
He singled out France for harbouring ambitions derived from its history as Syria's colonial ruler and urged Turkey to "reconsider" its increasinglyown hostile stance. Moallem blamed al-Qaida for killings of security personnel. Around 300 soldiers and other members of the security forces have been killed, alongside civilian casualties, in this bloody chapter of the Arab spring.
The minister's comments showed the Syrian regime flexing its muscles amid the overwhelmingly negative reaction to reform proposals Assad made in his speech on Monday. The US called for "action, not words" in response to that address – only Assad's third since the crisis began.
"We will forget that Europe is on the map and we will look east, south and towards every hand that is extended to us," Moallem said in a televised speech. Russia and China are continuing to block western attempts to pass a UN security council resolution condemning Syria.
British officials dismissed his remarks. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "It is the regime's own brutal repression of peaceful protest that is harming the Syrian people and the Syrian economy. We will continue to increase the pressure on President Assad and those around him until they recognise that the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people must be met with reform not repression."
The new EU sanctions target individuals and companies in Syria's business community to increase economic pressure on the regime, as well as on Soleimani and two other Iranians accused of "providing military equipment and support".
Syria is no stranger to international isolation. During the 2003 Iraq war many in Washington regarded it as an easy target for criticism. Tensions were heightened in 2005 when Lebanon's ex-prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri was assassinated – though Damascus always denied responsibility.
"Most Syrians would be horrified at the thought of reliving the isolation endured by Syria in the 80s and part of the 90s," said Rime Allaf, a Syrian analyst at the Chatham House thinktank in London. "While the idea of foreign intervention is overwhelmingly rejected by regime fans and critics alike, diplomatic pressure is to be expected from Europe."
But analysts believe the regime still thinks it can contain this crisis through a mixture of repression and reform.
Moallem promised reforms that would allow Syria to "give lessons for others in democracy". A draft law to regulate new political parties, potentially ending Ba'athist dominance, has been published. After Assad's speech, state media announced a presidential decree granting amnesty to prisoners, excluding political detainees.
But domestic opposition, which appears to be slowly growing, rejected the pledges as insincere and too little, too late. "The parties law is not bad," said one opposition analyst who asked for anonymity. "But no one really believes that the regime will allow true power-sharing because it will ultimately lead to its downfall."
It is equally unclear who will take part in a national dialogue. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), a group of grassroots opposition activists, rejected calls for dialogue as a way to "gain more time" for the regime. Veteran opposition figures who had been meeting the government, including Louay Hussein and Michel Kilo, have refused to continue.
Meanwhile, the LCC said security forces had raided Damascus University dormitories on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday morning making arrests, smashing computers and leaving one student dead.
The raid came after at least people were shot dead by pro-government forces in Homs, Hama and Deir Ezzor on Tuesday amid rising tensions as pro-regime rallies and anti-regime demonstrations poured onto the streets.
*-*Nida Hassan is the pseudonym of a journalist working in Damascus
 

Hezbollah and the Arab revolution
The group's leader keeps his ear close to the ground, bonding with the dispossessed and speaking their language.
By: Larbi Sadiki /Al Jazera/ 21 Jun 2011
Is there something amiss within Hezbollah?
It rose from the ignominy of oblivion, feudal exploitation, sectarian bias, and overall marginalisation to occupy political centre stage. In fewer than thirty years it converted Shia socio-political weightlessness into a counterbalancing political gravity.
It stood up against the Israeli Goliath. It survived the "incendiaries" dropped on it by Arab politicians arrayed against it from Amman to Cairo. It outclassed its enemies within and outside of Lebanon, with imaginative political guile and fine calculation against all odds.
But resisting the Goliath of Tel Aviv while embracing the lion of Damascus risks a decreasing commitment to Arab revolution within "the Party of God" - and to its own revolutionary standing.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: Born in revolution
He was born to lead.
Most leaders are born within existing political organisations. Not Sayyed Hassan. His political birth preceded the founding of Hezbollah by four years.
He was no stranger to revolution, Palestinian and Iranian. But it was within the bosom of the Iranian revolution that his leadership was conceived.
At 21 years of age, Nasrallah was acclaimed as a rising star by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in the Jamaran Husseiniyyah, North of Tehran in 1981. The young Nasrallah was in the company comrades-in-arms from Amal, another Shia political organisation, and the gist of the discussion was about ways of supporting the Palestinian cause and humbling the supremacist powers of the West.
Impressed with the young Nasrallah, Khomeini sealed Sayyid Hassan's leadership by consecrating and empowering him for the collection and distribution of religious taxes - known as hisbiyyah - including the khums (one-fifth of gain or profit) and the obligatory Islamic alms-giving tax, zakat.
Khomeini was very selective as well as frugal in assignment of hisbiyyah roles, roles not assigned to the party's first Secretary-General, Subhi al-Tufaily until 1987 and to his successor, Sayyid Abbas Musawi, the young Nasrallah's mentor, in 1986.
Moreover, the anointment was additionally sealed by Khomeini's address to the young Nasrallah as a "Hojjat al-Islam", a ranking denoting high scholarly accomplishment.
Musawi, Nasrallah's teacher in the Holy Najaf seminary, and later his mentor as Secretary-General of Hezbollah until his assassination in 1992, also saw leadership potential in the young Nasrallah. This explains the camaraderie that bound the two men. They joined and split from Amal, then fought it, moving on with others to mould a small band of zealous combatants into a formidable political and military organisation: Hezbollah.
'Lebanon's Che Guevara'
"Praise to God … who chose a martyr from my family, bestowing upon us the gift of martyrdom, and including us in the community of the Holy Martyrs' families." Thus Sayyed Hassan celebrated the killing by Israel of his eldest son Hadi in combat in September 1997.
In that same speech, Nasrallah expressed relief at Hadi's martyrdom for putting him and his family on equal with all other parents who lost their sons in the fight against Israel.
This is a story worth recounting, for two reasons. Firstly, Sayyed Nasrallah strikes a chord with his Arab constituency for having always acted, thought, and spoken as one of them. He knew poverty; he saw action in the battlefield; and he consistently commits himself to the ideals he has preached.
The other reason, and specifically in relation to the cast of leadership Arab revolution is sweeping away, Nasrallah stands out: the privileges accrued by Arab leaders, their families, sons and daughters - from Libya to Syria - are never tolerated by Hezbollah.
Hadi Nasrallah was neither a Saif Gaddafi nor a Gamal Mubarak; and Nasrallah's cousin, Hashim Safi Al-Din, assigned to the command of the Southern Lebanon region since November 2010, is no Rami Makhlouf, Syria's corrupt billionaire.
'Oracle of the oppressed'
For me two leitmotifs explain Hezbollah: "deprivation" and "resistance". They go hand in hand. They set people like Raghd Harb, and before him Musa Al-Sadr, who engineered Shia empowerment, on a fascinating course of political history: resistance within against "deprivation" or hirman, and against occupation.
Hezbollah's 1985 first political manifesto, The Open Letter, ["al-Risalah al-Maftuhah"], resonates with Che-Khomeini rhetoric: the language of "world imperialism" mixed with meaning about "the oppressed", "down-trodden", "justice", "self-determination" and "liberty".
The sea of people I saw in August 2006 that came to greet and listen to Nasrallah after the 34-day war with Israel related to these messages. They still do. Many more do the same from Rabat to Sana'a.
Nasrallah's oratory in the "Divine Pledge" [al-Wa'd al-Sadiq] before hundreds of thousands, was electrifying - as ever, the oracle of the down-trodden, crushed by injustice and occupation. In Nasrallah's mantra of change via resistance, or muqawamah, they find solace, a kind of redemption, and hope for reconstitution as equals to all free human beings.
This is why in 2006, as in 2000 when Israel was forced to end its occupation of Lebanon's south, Nasrallah rode high on a wave of pan-Arab and pan-Islamic popularity not known in the Arab world since the death of Nasser in September 1970. A leader from the minority sect of Islam replaced Sunni Nasser as the emblem of resistance and freedom.
Inspired by Imam Khomeini, Nasrallah modernised Hezbollah and articulated a political project, which embodied empowerment, transforming Ashura and the entirety of the Karabala imaginary into a potent inventory for re-inventing not only the political, but also Shia identity in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Syria's Revolution
Heralded by millions of Muslim fans as "the mastermind of the resistance" - or "the Muslim Che Guevara" - while demonised by the US Congress and Israel as a "terrorist", Nasrallah's rhetoric vis-à-vis the Syrian regime makes him an oddity in two ways.
Firstly, resistance is not divisible. Resistance is resistance, whether deployed against a colonial oppressor or against the indigenous oppressor, occupying, in this instance, the Arab state.
The same goes for freedom; it is not divisible. Resistance in the quest for freedom applies to the occupied Lebanese and Palestinian as much as to the oppressed Syrian or Yemeni.
Nasrallah was among the first to lend support to Arab revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and later to the down-trodden protesting against marginalisation in Bahrain. Withholding support for the uprising in Syria - because the regime supports muqawamah and opposes imperialism - is speaking with two tongues vis-à-vis Arab revolution.
It is the Syrian masses who stand behind Hezbollah's resistance. The credit does not belong to the Assad dynasty. Some credit is due to the state even if the Assads, for whatever reasons or interests, prefer resistance by proxy, in Gaza and Southern Lebanon - but not in the Golan Heights.
The Assads will depart some day. The Syrians are here to stay.
Syria: Maher or Bashar?
Secondly, Nasrallah did not need state endorsement of the Syrian regime - even though his speech back in May expressed equal appreciation to the Syrian people and concern for stability.
Back in 2006, a pearl of wisdom from Sayyed Hassan suggested the Jordanian and Egyptian leaders held their tongues instead of criticising Hezbollah at a critical time - when bombs were raining on the South and al-Dahiya. Silence may have been more eloquent on this occasion too, rather than speaking in favour of a regime that was at the time guilty of massive brutality against many Syrian towns and their communities.
Protests from average citizens eloquently state that they desire a Syria of the people, from and to the people. Not a dynasty. This casts doubt as to whether the current regime is still favoured by a majority of the people - Nasrallah's information suggests otherwise.
Arab revolutions have been indicative referenda in countries where no such things take place - and when they do they are pre-ordained.
Equally important is whether Bashar al-Assad is even in charge - and if he is a lame-duck president completely bamboozled by younger brother Maher and the likes of brother-in-law Asef Shawkat, then Bashar is no longer of use either to the muqawamah in Lebanon or to his own people.
It may be that Bashar represents the gentler side of politics in Syria - as his rhetoric about planned reforms months ago seemed to intimate. But how are Syrians to ascertain that ,when no reforms have taken place? Moreover, today it is Maher's tanks that are doing the talking and leading in Syria.
The only difference between the martyrs whose pictures ornate the streets of al-Dahiya and Harat Hrayek, including Sayyed Hadi Nasrallah Boulevard and the hundreds killed in Syria is the latter are victims fallen at the hands of compatriot rulers.
Is Bashar still in control? If he is he must stop Maher's killing fields.
Hirman - marginalisation and misery
The displaced and dispossessed of Lebanon, including the Shia population, know the full meaning of hirman or deprivation and misery. Thus, they are the first to relate to the Arab revolution. It is the fodder of the protesting masses and the very trigger that led Mohamed Bou'azizi back in December 2010 to set himself alight.
The language of deprivation is an inseparable bond between the deprived of the streets of al-Dahiya al-Janubiyyah and Sidi Bouzid, Dar'aa, Taiz or Imbaba. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has always had his ear close to the ground, bonding with the dispossessed. This is the real and secret moral arsenal Hezbollah is in possession of, not its rockets and military prowess.
Perhaps his eloquence will rediscover that language in order to re-edit, on this occasion, a clumsy transcript. Particularly, to edit out his endorsement of those responsible for oppression in Syria, to counsel radical reform, a government through popular choice, as stated in The Open Letter, Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto, and to reconnect with the ethos of peaceful resistance as a natural right for the downtrodden.
In politics, it is never late to do so.
**Dr Larbi Sadiki is a Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, and author of Arab Democratization: Elections without Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2009) and The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (Columbia University Press, 2004).
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: Al Jazeera

Foreign minister: Syria 'will forget Europe exists'
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 22, 2011 1
(CNN) -- Syria "will forget Europe exists on a map," the nation's foreign minister said Wednesday as the European Union considered extending sanctions against the authoritarian state.
Foreign Minister Walid Moallem also said Syria would emerge through national dialogue as an "unprecedented democratic model." He also denied that Iran or Hezbollah was playing a role in the current unrest.
The EU is set to vote Thursday on extending sanctions imposed in May by adding seven people and four business entities to the list, said an EU official, who is not authorized to comment on the proposal and wished to remain anonymous.
The originial sanctions included the freezing of assets and travel restrictions on 13 Syrian officials connected to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
In an address on state television, Moallem lashed out at those who were critical of al-Assad's vague promised of reform amid global calls for swift change in Syria.
Al-Assad has cracked down brutally on anti-government demonstrators calling for democracy in Syria. He said he was "working on getting the military back to their barracks as soon as possible" but also warned the government would hold accountable whose who "plotted" in the bloodshed.
"I only want to say to them one thing: stop interfering in Syrian affairs, don't provoke chaos, don't provoke strife," Moallem said. "The Syrian people ... can make their own future away from you."I categorically deny that there is any interference by Iran or the Hezbollah Party with regard to what is happening in Syria," he said. "Yes there is political support from Iran and Hezbollah to help Syria in passing this crisis, and there is support for the reforms that the president announced, but there is no military support on the ground."
Also Wednesday, a human rights campaigner from the country told CNN that Syrian workers and students were forced to attend rallies in support of al-Assad this week.
Government workers were ordered to attend the rallies, said Ammar Qurabi, chairman of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.
Qurabi provided CNN with a copy of what he said were leaked official government documents saying that government workers who refused to attend would have their pay docked and would be considered absent from work for the day.
CNN could not independently confirm the authenticity of the document. Syria has not responded to Qurabi's allegations.
Qurabi, who is from Syria but is currently in Egypt, says his organization received complaints from dozens of college students across the country that were forced to attend the rallies or face losing academic credits for the year.
Executives of pro-Assad corporations such as Rami Makhlouf's SyriaTel also required employees to attend the rallies by threatening to dock pay, Qurabi charged.
Syria's official news agency SANA reported Tuesday that "millions of Syrian citizens gathered in the public squares in support of the comprehensive reform program under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad."
State TV showed images Tuesday of thousands joining pro-regime rallies in Daraa, Aleppo and Homs. Some in the crowds chanted, "With our blood, with our souls, we will sacrifice for you, Bashar" and "God, Syria and Bashar only."
In addition to the pro-Assad demonstrations, fighting raged in Homs Tuesday, with at least two people killed and several others wounded, an activist group said.
Clashes erupted between protesters and security forces, according to the Local Coordination Committee in Syria, a network of activists that promotes and documents demonstrations across the country.
They occurred in al-Khalidiya neighborhood, and video said to be from the Homs unrest shows protesters running and throwing rocks and contains sounds of heavy gunfire. CNN cannot independently confirm the information.
Demonstrations critical of the government began in the southern city of Daraa months ago and were swiftly suppressed by security forces. Anti-government fervor caught on nationwide as more protests were met with tougher crackdowns.
After three months of protests, more than 1,100 have died and thousands more have been jailed, according to human rights activists.
Qurabi, the activist with the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, said Tuesday that dozens of protesters were arrested the day before during peaceful anti-government demonstrations in the city of Aleppo.
The world's attention has been focused on the plight of Syrians displaced from their homes by violence.
At least 10,718 Syrian refugees, many of whom fled a military advance in and around the city of Jisr al-Shugur, have crossed the border into Turkey.
The U.N. refugee agency Tuesday said it participated in a government-sponsored mission to Jisr al-Shugur the day before, a trip that included diplomats, reporters and U.N. agencies.
"There was no evidence of people working in the fields. Jisr al-Shugur itself was almost deserted, with most shops shuttered and closed," the agency said, which "indicates significant displacement."
The agency said many people are "severely traumatized" by the ordeal.
"Syrian refugees spoke to our team about their fears and trauma. Many had lost family members, who they said were either killed, missing or in hiding. Our team heard accounts of murders, targeted assassinations, assaults, civilians getting killed in crossfire, torture and humiliation by the military," the agency said. "Most of these people had lost virtually all their belongings and property. In many cases their livestock were shot, fields were torched, and homes and businesses destroyed or confiscated."


New Brunswick farmer held in Lebanon wants to be charged in Canada
By Adam Huras, New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal June 22, 2011
New Brunswick potato farmer Henk Tepper who who has been detained in Lebanon since March 23. His family is getting increasingly frustrated over the lack of response they’re getting from the federal government on the issue.Photograph by: Tepper Family, Photo HandoutHenk Tepper's New Brunswick lawyer is asking the federal government to charge the Grand Falls-area potato farmer with the same alleged offences that landed him in a Lebanese prison for the last three months.
The move would mean Lebanon would have to extradite him to Canada to face the charges here, taking precedence over a call to deport him to Algeria, according to Rodney Gillis.
Gillis travelled to Ottawa on Tuesday and sat next to N.B. Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc in a Parliament Hill Centre Block conference room to call on Justice Minister Rob Nicholson to act.
"It's strange for a lawyer to go to the media or confront the minster to say, 'Charge my client, or either arrest him. Send a warrant for his arrest and we will even pay for his airfare home and you can put him in jail when he comes home,'" Gillis said. "But that would get Mr. Tepper out of Lebanon and back to Canada."
Tepper remains detained on an international criminal warrant issued by the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol, at the request of the Government of Algeria.
The Interpol "red notice" requested by the Algerian government called for Tepper's detainment and subsequent extradition to Algeria.
Algeria alleges that Tepper forged documents to sneak potatoes through Algeria customs.
On March 23, Tepper was arrested by Lebanese customs officials after landing in Beirut on commercial business and has been in jail ever since.
"There are now two ways that could get Mr. Tepper out," Gillis said.
"Either Interpol reviews and withdraws the red notice and then Lebanon says it has no reason to hold him, or the second would be to have a competing claim of arrest warrants."
Gillis said Canada has the right to charge Tepper with the alleged crime which is forging Canadian inspection documents on Canadian soil.
It would also allay the federal government's continued concern that it would be intruding on another nation's sovereignty, as Canada would not be involving itself with Algeria's charges.
"That's not interfering with a foreign country," Gillis said.
An Interpol decision is three to four months away, but with a push from Canada that timeline could be reduced to a week, according to Gillis.
Gillis travelled to Interpol headquarters in France roughly a month and a half ago to make a presentation, disclosing the information necessary to begin a review.
The Saint John, N.B.-based lawyer also said Tuesday that Tepper's deportation to Algeria has been stalled as Lebanon doesn't have an extradition treaty with Algeria.
"It's stuck in the Lebanese system," Gillis said. "Mr. Tepper is stuck in a judicial no man's land between two countries and no ability to go to court.
"All this amounts to is that he could be stuck in jail, never being charged with an offence forever in Lebanon, denied the right to respond to what they suggest is a truly Canadian offence."
N.B. Senator Pierrette Ringuette also joined Gillis and LeBlanc on Tuesday in a call to return Tepper to Canada.
LeBlanc later raised the issue during question period in the House of Commons.
"All of the elements of the alleged offence happened in Canada, so he should properly be charged in Canada," LeBlanc said. "Mr. Tepper is anxious to make full answer and defence to the charges in Canada where he will have a fair judicial process.
"If he was facing charges in Canada, the Lebanese authorities would ship him back to answer the charges here in Canada."
Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to Canada's minister of foreign affairs, reiterated that the government will continue to assist Tepper and his family.
"This government is very concerned about this case and of Mr. Tepper's family during this difficult time," he said. "We will continue to engage senior Lebanese authorities to request due process and a timely and transparent handling of his file."
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