LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJUNE 28/2011

Bible Quotation for today
The Good News According to John 16/17-24: " Some of his disciples therefore said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me;’ and, ‘Because I go to the Father?’” 16:18 They said therefore, “What is this that he says, ‘A little while?’ We don’t know what he is saying.” 16:19 Therefore Jesus perceived that they wanted to ask him, and he said to them, “Do you inquire among yourselves concerning this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me?’ 16:20 Most certainly I tell you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. 16:21 A woman, when she gives birth, has sorrow, because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she doesn’t remember the anguish any more, for the joy that a human being is born into the world. 16:22 Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. 16:23 “In that day you will ask me no questions. Most certainly I tell you, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 16:24 Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full"

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Tensions Rise in Egypt Over Two Missing Christian Girls/AINA/June 27/11
Hezbollah in Latin America – Implications for homeland security/By: Jim Kouri/June 27/11
The de-legitimization myth/By: Dani Magner/June 27/11 
Spy-gadget war rages between Hezbollah, Israel/By: Nicholas Blanford/June 27/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 27/11
Lebanese Authorities Reportedly Handed Indictment as Lebanese Judges Head to The Hague/Naharnet
Iran Denies EU Charges Linking Revolutionary Guards to Syria Crackdown/Naharnet
Netanyahu: Israel will not allow flotilla to breach Gaza naval blockade/Haaretz
Red Cross Denies Plan to Build Syrian Refugee Camp in N. Lebanon
Renewed gunfire sends new wave of Syrians across Lebanese border/Daily Star
Iran to hold 10-day military exercise in response to growing U.S. presence in region/Haaretz
Saudi Arabia denies discriminating against Jewish passengers/Haaretz
Syria's Assad may have passed point of no return: Juppe/Focus News
Efforts intensify for STL solution in policy statement quest/The Daily Star
Patriarch voices support for state’s institutions/Now Lebanon
Houri warns against STL conspiracy/Now Lebanon
Efforts intensify for STL solution in policy statement quest/Daily Star
Tripoli’s Future MPs urge arms-free city in talks with Mikati, Sleiman/Daily Star
Al-Rahi Returns from Rome, Urges Govt. to Shun 'One-sided, Spiteful' Acts/Naharnet
Saniora Vows March 14 to Remain Steadfast in Face of 'Coup, Perpetrators'/Naharnet
President Amin Gemayel Says Party Not Compelled by March 14 General-Secretariat Street Action Remarks/Naharnet
Reports: STL Indictment to Name 5 Hizbullah Members in Next Few Days/Naharnet
UN repeats calls for Lebanon to commit to obligations/Daily Star
Raad: Policy Statement to Be Devised According to New Majority’s Will
March 14 Links Delay in Policy Statement with STL Indictment but Majority Denies/Naharnet
Report: Jumblat Travels after Instructions to Reject ‘Explosive’ Draft Policy Statement/Naharnet
2 Options on Table of Policy Statement Committee Amid More Bickering on STL Clause/Naharnet
ICC Judge Issues Arrest Warrant for Gadhafi, Son/Naharnet
Gaza Flotilla Set to Leave Greece despite Israel, U.N. Warnings/Naharnet
Syrian Dissidents Openly Call for 'Democracy' at Damascus Meet/Naharnet
Syria dissidents meet in Damascus/BBC
Beirut's Legendary St. Georges Hotel Aims for Comeback/Naharnet
Internal Security Drug Control Force Ambushed in Baalbeck/Naharnet

Reports: STL Indictment to Name 5 Hizbullah Members in Next Few Days
Naharnet/The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is expected to make a request to Lebanese authorities to question five Hizbullah members in the next few days after Lebanese judges traveled to The Hague ahead of the expected release of the indictment in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case, informed sources said. The sources told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Monday that the names of the five people would remain confidential for a short period. A source in Paris confirmed to al-Hayat newspaper that the Lebanese judiciary will be informed on Monday or Tuesday about the indictment. The last batch of Lebanese judges who are members of the international court has left Beirut through European airports to The Hague where the tribunal is based, al-Hayat said. Well informed sources told As Safir daily that the judges were summoned three days ago in an effort to protect them ahead of the release of the indictment and in its aftermath. Despite reports that Lebanese authorities had received a copy of the indictment, General Prospector Saeed Mirza denied, telling al-Joumhouria newspaper that he “will announce it” when he receives it. The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the STL and the Lebanese government says that a copy of the indictment would be delivered to the general prosecutor without passing through the foreign and justice ministries first.

U.N. repeats calls for Lebanon to commit to obligations
June 27, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The United Nations expects the new Cabinet’s policy statement to clearly commit Lebanon to all of its international obligations, especially Security Council Resolution 1701, the U.N.’s special coordinator told Prime Minister Najib Mikati Monday. “I reiterated my expectation and the expectation of the secretary-general that the government will restate its full support and commitment to the full implementation of 1701 in its ministerial declaration,” U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said after his meeting with Mikati in the Grand Serail. “I also restated the expectation of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the government’s policy platform contain a clear commitment to all of Lebanon’s international obligations,” Williams said adding that Mikati had expressed his commitment to 1701 on several occasions. Mikati has been under international pressure to uphold U.N. resolutions including UNSCR 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel and called for the implementation of the U.N. resolution regarding the disarmament of Hezbollah, and UNSCR 1757 which established the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2007, with the funding of the Lebanese government, to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hezbollah an its allies in the March 8 alliance have repeatedly questioned the credibility of the tribunal, describing it as an American-Israel conspiracy targeting the resistance. March 8 hold the majority in Mikati’s Cabinet. “I am confident that [Mikati] recognizes Lebanon's international commitments and greatly respects them and he is looking forward to implementing them,” Williams told reporters

dissidents meet in Damascus to discuss transition
BBC/The dissidents want to discuss ways to a peaceful transition to democracy in Syria
At least 150 Syrian dissidents are attending a conference in Damascus on Monday to discuss the country's crisis.
It is the first such event in Syria since anti-government protests broke out in March. Some of those attending have spent time in prison in the past for their political activities.
But they do not represent activists involved in recent protests, and some opposition figures cast doubt over the validity of the meeting.
The Syrian authorities are said to have been informed of the meeting at the Semiramis hotel in Damascus and have not blocked it. No government representation was expected at the event.
The participants say they are not making concessions to the government and they want an end to the violence and killings.
The event organiser, Lu'ay Hussain, gave the first address of the day, saying this was an unprecedented event, and that no such meeting has been held in Syria for decades.
"Those attending this meeting are not armed, [as they are not] terrorists or saboteurs," he said, adding "the system of tyranny must end".
The BBC's Lina Sinjab in Damascus says the government is making a show of looking for the middle ground to solve the crisis, but they are also seen to be playing for time.
So this certainly is not an opposition conference, this is just a meeting of intellectuals all discussing the future of Syria ”
There has already been unease expressed by some opposition activists, who fear that holding such a meeting while the violence and repression continue could confer legitimacy on the regime. "The Damascus Declaration coalition - this is the main opposition coalition in Syria - have actually come out against this meeting," Malik al-Abdeh, an editor of Barada TV, a Syrian opposition channel, told the BBC World Service's World Today programme. "The regime is obviously happy for this conference to take place."
"In Syria, there are three or four opposition figures who spent time in jail, who are actually attending this meeting. But apart from that, all the other people I have seen on the list, they are not known to be opposition figures," he added. "So this certainly is not an opposition conference, this is just a meeting of intellectuals all discussing the future of Syria under, I have to stress this, under the close watchful eye of the Syrian security." Others have insisted that those taking part must stick to a basic demand - that the regime has to go, and make way for democracy.
The meeting comes three months after pro-democracy protests started, as the authorities in Syria continue with their security crackdown.
The opposition says more than 1,300 people have been killed and thousands arrested since pro-democracy protests began on 18 March. Several hundred members of the security forces are also believed to have died. Some 11,000 Syrians have sought refuge in neighbouring Turkey to escape the fighting.

Renewed gunfire sends new wave of Syrians across Lebanese border
June 27, 2011/By Daily Star Staff Agencies
BEIRUT: Syrian troops pushed toward the Lebanese border Sunday, intensifying their crackdown on popular protests in towns in central Syria, as hundreds of Syrians crossed into Lebanon. Gunfire rattled in central Syrian towns overnight, activists said, while a security source told The Daily Star that more than a thousand people, some wounded, have crossed into Lebanon since Thursday. More than 400 people crossed the border into Lebanon Saturday night, according to the source, and more than 20 wounded were taken to hospitals in the north.
One military source said Saturday that six wounded Syrians, who had crossed earlier in the weekend and underwent major surgery at a hospital in Akkar, were soldiers who told doctors that they had defied Syrian authorities’ orders to shoot civilians.
The recent influx of refugees followed violence in the town of Qusair, while thousands of Syrians fled to Wadi Khaled in May, escaping an attack by the Syrian army on the town of Talkalakh. Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP in Nicosia that shots rang out overnight in Qusair, which is 15 kilometers from the border with Lebanon, and in Homs.
“Shots were heard overnight Saturday in the town of Qusair,” he said quoting residents, adding that, further north, gunfire was heard in several neighborhoods in Homs.
“Yesterday [Saturday] hundreds of residents fled from Qusair to Lebanon,” Abdel Rahman said. Four civilians were shot dead by security forces Saturday, two in Qusair and two in Kiswah, south of the capital. Activists said that security forces began strengthening their presence in the town Friday, while troops have been deployed to areas in Homs for several days, as part of a policy to crush pro-democracy protests. Refugees have crossed into Lebanon through the Arida border crossing and the Nahr al-Kabir. Some are staying with relatives in the Akkar region, which has close links to southern Syrian towns, while others are staying in tents provided by non-governmental organizations.
A cleric and prominent village figure said hundreds of people, mostly Lebanese living in Syria, had sought a safe haven in the northern Akkar region over the weekend.
Around 350 to 400 people streamed into Kuneissat Friday and Saturday, said Ali Hammoud, a cleric from the Lebanese border village, adding that most came from the villages of Al-Hit and Dweik and some from Qusair. Future bloc MP Khaled Zahraman said that NGOs and the Higher Relief Committee were providing food and first aid to the refugees in cooperation with the Social Affairs Ministry. Speaking to a local television station Sunday, Zahraman said that the fear of being killed or arrested was preventing refugees from returning home. The Akkar lawmaker said there were no precise figures on the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The International Committee of the Red Cross dismissed in a statement Sunday media reports that it was planning to establish a camp for Syrian refugees in north Lebanon in cooperation with the Lebanese Red Cross. President Bashar Assad has repeatedly described the three-month-long protests in the country as a foreign conspiracy against the government, but the Syrian government’s crackdown, which Syrian rights groups say has led to the deaths of 1,300 protesters, has prompted international condemnation. Several countries have pushed for a United Nations Security Council resolution to condemn the violence and Friday the European Union announced further sanctions against Syria.

Efforts intensify for STL solution in policy statement quest
June 27, 2011 /By Hussein Dakroub The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A ministerial committee assigned to draft the government’s policy statement resumes its meetings Monday amid intensified efforts to find a solution to the dispute between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah over a U.N.-backed court probing the 2005 assassination of statesman Rafik Hariri, ministerial sources said. Hezbollah’s Minister of State for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish, part of the 12-member ministerial committee, said the committee has not yet discussed the divisive issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon during the four sessions it has held in the past two weeks. However, Fneish acknowledged that there are at least two or three different viewpoints inside Mikati’s 30-member Cabinet on the STL.Asked how Hezbollah, which entirely rejects the STL, is going to bridge the gap with Mikati, who has voiced support for the tribunal, Fneish told The Daily Star Sunday night: “Our position on the tribunal is well-known. We have not yet reached the issue of the tribunal in the committee’s discussions. We do not want to anticipate things. Let’s see what Prime Minister Mikati will propose in his draft policy statement.”
“We will decide how to approach the tribunal issue after seeing Prime Minister Mikati’s draft proposal,” he said.
The committee, headed by Mikati, has held four meetings since Mikati announced the formation of a 30-member Cabinet on June 13 dominated by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies.
Although the committee has not yet approached the STL, backstage contacts have been launched in a bid to narrow differences between Mikati and Hezbollah over the tribunal which is supported by the March14 coalition and rejected by the Hezbollah-led March 8 camp.
“Contacts are taking place from outside the committee between Prime Minister Mikati and the concerned parties with a view to adopting a joint stance on how to address the issue of the tribunal in the policy statement,” a source close to the committee talks told The Daily Star.
“Once it is done with economic and political issues, the committee is expected to discuss Mikati’s draft proposal on the tribunal based on the prime minister’s announced policy constants,” the 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.
Mikati is coming under heavy pressure from the March 14 coalition and the U.S. and other Western countries to uphold the STL as the only means to uncover Hariri’s killers. Mikati, seeking to avoid a confrontation with the international community, was trying to find a formula acceptable to all the parties participating in the government.
Mikati has reiterated Lebanon’s commitment to international obligations, including the STL and U.N. Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, even before he formed his Cabinet.
In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel Friday night, Mikati said Lebanon cannot unilaterally annul a U.N. Security Council decision that established the STL.
Asked to comment on the sensitive issue of the STL, Mikati said: “No matter what is being said, Lebanon cannot abolish the decision to form the tribunal because it is an international decision. We respect international legitimacy. There is no ambiguity in this issue.”
In a televised speech Friday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said: “We are not concerned with the issue of the tribunal.”
Meanwhile, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai said Sunday that he hoped the ministerial committee would finish the policy statement soon so that the government could get to work and meet the challenges facing the country at all levels.
Speaking to reporters at Beirut airport on his return from a one-week visit to the Vatican during which he met with Pope Benedict XVI, Rai said the pontiff congratulated him on the formation of a new government in Lebanon, wishing it success.
“We too are looking forward because there are big challenges at all levels. We all hope that this government will fulfill the aspirations of the Lebanese despite the difficulties. But we trust it and we trust each other,” Rai said.
Rai, who voiced support for Mikati’s Cabinet before leaving for the Vatican, said: “We hope that this government will actually assume comprehensive responsibility and work in a comprehensive manner, rather than in an individual or vengeful manner as they say. This is a big challenge.” March 14 parties have accused the government of planning to take vengeful measures against its political opponents in the March 14 camp.
Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, head of the parliamentary Future bloc, said the March 14 parties are determined to launch popular and democratic opposition against the government.
“In Lebanon, we are adamant on our positions and uphold the values and principles for which we have struggled,” Siniora told a student graduation ceremony in the southern port city of Sidon. “In confronting the coup and those who staged a coup against the democratic system with the force of arms and intimidation, we will not be dragged to seeking force as a means or as a goal. Rather, we will rely on democracy and the popular and parliamentary opposition in order to remain in harmony with ourselves and our aspirations,” Siniora said.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement and its March 14 allies have accused Hezbollah and its March 8 of staging a coup after Hariri’s Cabinet was toppled on Jan. 12 following the resignation of March 8 ministers in a long-simmering dispute with the STL.
Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi, from MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, told the Voice of Lebanon radio station that the opposition has the right “to fight the government with all democratic and legitimate means.”But the opposition must wait and not issue judgments before seeing the new government’s work, he said.

Spy-gadget war rages between Hezbollah, Israel
June 27, 2011
By Nicholas Blanford The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah’s acknowledgment that three members of Hezbollah had been caught spying, two of them for the CIA, is the first time that the party has admitted in public that a Western intelligence organization has infiltrated its ranks. The internal security of Hezbollah is known to be formidable. Israel for years has attempted to penetrate the upper ranks of the party, although unsuccessfully as far as anyone can tell. Hezbollah’s secrecy stems not only from pervasive and tireless counter-espionage and internal security departments, but also from the sense of personal security adopted by the cadres. Newly arrived strangers in a town, village or neighborhood where Hezbollah predominates are quickly noted and their presence reported. Anyone who has spent time travelling around areas of Lebanon under Hezbollah’s control will probably at least once have been tailed by a grim-faced fighter riding an off-road motorcycle, or possibly stopped and questioned, politely but sternly, as to the purpose of one’s visit.
It was reported recently that the military attaché at the Dutch Embassy in Damascus was detained by tribesmen near Baalbek and transported to Syrian territory before he was released. According to diplomatic sources, however, the attaché was picked up by suspicious Hezbollah men when he was caught roaming around remote and sensitive areas of the northern Bekaa Valley.
Apparently, that was not the first time that the inquisitive diplomat has found his passage blocked by armed and uniformed Hezbollah fighters while driving along dirt tracks in Lebanon’s mountains.
Although the Lebanese security services and Hezbollah have rounded up dozens of Israeli-paid agents in the past two years, none of them have been card-carrying members of the party.
Marwan Faqih, the owner of a garage in Nabatieh who allegedly planted GPS tracking devices within vehicles of Hezbollah members, was potentially the closest Israel has come to penetrating the organization in recent years.
Given the difficulties of recruiting agents within the party, Israel relies heavily on technology to peer beneath Hezbollah’s veil. These technologies vary from the ubiquitous reconnaissance flights of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, to wire taps and surveillance devices incorporating long-range cameras which can transmit data via short-burst transmissions.
Hezbollah also relies not only on its ever-watchful cadres for its security, but upon the extraordinarily sophisticated signals intelligence and electronic warfare assets it currently possesses.
Much attention is paid by analysts and observers to Hezbollah’s acquisition of new weapons, such as long-range guided rockets or anti-aircraft systems. However, it is Hezbollah’s advances in communications technology that really illustrate the enormous leap the resistance has made over the past decade.
The extent of that technological advance is unclear, but it has come a long way since the days of hand-cranked field telephones connecting Hezbollah positions in Jabal Safi in the 1980s. Hints were given during the 2006 war when Hezbollah communications officers allegedly overcame the Israeli army’s frequency-hopping encrypted radios system to intercept and translate communications traffic and pass on the information to their field commanders.
When the Israelis electronically jammed the frontline areas during the war, (knocking out the cell and satellite phones of journalists) Hezbollah fighters were still able to communicate with their walkie-talkies because the party’s technicians were able to discover which frequencies were blocked and thus instruct cadres to switch to clear channels. Fighters in Bint Jbeil could even break into the encrypted radios used by Israeli soldiers to send teasing warnings, as part of an ad hoc psychological warfare campaign.
Since the war, the technology has grown even more sophisticated with both Israeli and Hezbollah technicians engaged in a daily struggle to outwit and out-maneuver each other. A similar competition of one-upmanship was fought in the 1990s over the increasingly complex and deadly roadside bomb in what Brigadier General Amos Malka, the head of Israeli military intelligence in 1998, described as a “contest of technology and a contest of brain power.”
In the early 1990s, the roadside bomb was a simple Claymore-style directional device triggered by a trip wire or remote radio control. By 1999, after Israel had developed various jamming and detection techniques, Hezbollah had developed explosively formed projectiles which were detonated by infra-red beams and hidden beneath hollow fiberglass rocks painted to match the local geology.
UNIFIL peacekeepers and observers would only learn of each new bomb-making or counter-bomb-making development when it was exposed on the battlefield.
The same holds true today. In October 2009, Hezbollah detected a tap on its fiber-optic network near Houla. A team of Hezbollah technicians walked the line, checking the buried cable every few meters while being tailed by an Israeli UAV. Eventually, they discovered in a valley near Houla a highly complex device consisting of an interceptor hooked into the fiber-optic cable, a transmitter and a battery pack.
The Israelis, realizing the device had been discovered, attempted to blow it up with booby-trapped explosives. But only the transmitter was destroyed. The explosion alerted UNIFIL and Lebanese troops – both of whom were unaware until then of the drama unfolding along the border.
When the peacekeepers and soldiers arrived to investigate, the Israelis were obliged to contact UNIFIL and warn them to stay away.
The interceptor and battery pack were successfully blown up the following day but only after the equipment had been inspected and photographed by UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army.
Similar discoveries were made by Hezbollah last December and March when Israeli surveillance devices were uncovered in the Sannine and Barouk mountains and near Naqoura.
Since early 2010, some UNIFIL battalions have been picking up rocket launch signals on their ground radars. The radars show the source of fire inside Lebanon, track the trajectory and mark the impact point in Israel. Only there were no rocket launches. UNIFIL has been unable to determine whether Hezbollah has found a way to trick radars by transmitting false launch signals or whether the fake readings are a form of Israeli interference.
Either way, although not a shot has been fired across the border by Hezbollah since 2006, the covert war of espionage and technology continues uninterrupted.

Patriarch voices support for state’s institutions
June 26, 2011 /Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai voiced on Sunday support for the state’s institutions. “We [support] every constitutional institution, and we hope every institution, the government or any other one, will do [its work],” the National News Agency quoted him as saying. “We hope this cabinet works for everyone, and not for a certain team,” he added. The Patriarch also voiced Pope Benedict XVI blessings which were extended to the newly-formed cabinet. Rai visited the Vatican earlier this week where he met with the Pope and other Catholic Church officials. The new Lebanese cabinet—headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati—was formed last week after almost five months of deliberations between the March 8 parties.-NOW Lebanon

Houri warns against STL conspiracy
June 26, 2011
Future bloc MP Ammar Houri said on Sunday that transferring the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s file to the national dialogue table is a conspiracy which targets the efforts of the STL.
“We will not accept to transfer the STL file to the national dialogue table, it should be dealt with in the cabinet,” he told Future News television. “We insist on including the STL in the ministerial statement,” Houri added. He also said that the other team is trying to transfer the STL file to the national dialogue so as to divert the discussions from the issue of non-state arms.
The new Lebanese cabinet—headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati—was formed last week after almost five months of deliberations between the March 8 parties. 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 Saad Hariri’s government recognized the STL.-NOW Lebanon

Israel puts Hamas leaders in solitary, report says
June 26, 2011 /Israel has moved several of its Hamas prisoners to solitary confinement, Israeli media reported on Sunday, three days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make their conditions harsher. Internet news site Ynet said that "at least seven senior Hamas operatives" had been transferred.Israeli public radio said prisoners with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas planned to hold a one-day hunger strike on Monday in protest. A spokesperson for the Israel Prisons Service refused to comment on the reports. Netanyahu on Thursday said that as Hamas refused to allow Red Cross visits to an Israeli soldier it has been holding for five years, he was going to cut privileges of Hamas militants in Israeli prisons, such as external university courses. "There will be no more master's degrees in murder or doctors of terrorism," he told an international seminar in Jerusalem. "This party is over."-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Efforts intensify for STL solution in policy statement quest
June 27, 2011/Hussein Dakroub
 The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A ministerial committee assigned to draft the government’s policy statement resumes its meetings Monday amid intensified efforts to find a solution to the dispute between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah over a U.N.-backed court probing the 2005 assassination of statesman Rafik Hariri, ministerial sources said.
Hezbollah’s Minister of State for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish, part of the 12-member ministerial committee, said the committee has not yet discussed the divisive issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon during the four sessions it has held in the past two weeks.
However, Fneish acknowledged that there are at least two or three different viewpoints inside Mikati’s 30-member Cabinet on the STL.
Asked how Hezbollah, which entirely rejects the STL, is going to bridge the gap with Mikati, who has voiced support for the tribunal, Fneish told The Daily Star Sunday night: “Our position on the tribunal is well-known. We have not yet reached the issue of the tribunal in the committee’s discussions. We do not want to anticipate things. Let’s see what Prime Minister Mikati will propose in his draft policy statement.”
“We will decide how to approach the tribunal issue after seeing Prime Minister Mikati’s draft proposal,” he said.
The committee, headed by Mikati, has held four meetings since Mikati announced the formation of a 30-member Cabinet on June 13 dominated by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies.
Although the committee has not yet approached the STL, backstage contacts have been launched in a bid to narrow differences between Mikati and Hezbollah over the tribunal which is supported by the March14 coalition and rejected by the Hezbollah-led March 8 camp.
“Contacts are taking place from outside the committee between Prime Minister Mikati and the concerned parties with a view to adopting a joint stance on how to address the issue of the tribunal in the policy statement,” a source close to the committee talks told The Daily Star.
“Once it is done with economic and political issues, the committee is expected to discuss Mikati’s draft proposal on the tribunal based on the prime minister’s announced policy constants,” the 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.
Mikati is coming under heavy pressure from the March 14 coalition and the U.S. and other Western countries to uphold the STL as the only means to uncover Hariri’s killers. Mikati, seeking to avoid a confrontation with the international community, was trying to find a formula acceptable to all the parties participating in the government.
Mikati has reiterated Lebanon’s commitment to international obligations, including the STL and U.N. Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, even before he formed his Cabinet.
In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel Friday night, Mikati said Lebanon cannot unilaterally annul a U.N. Security Council decision that established the STL.
Asked to comment on the sensitive issue of the STL, Mikati said: “No matter what is being said, Lebanon cannot abolish the decision to form the tribunal because it is an international decision. We respect international legitimacy. There is no ambiguity in this issue.”
In a televised speech Friday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said: “We are not concerned with the issue of the tribunal.”
Meanwhile, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai said Sunday that he hoped the ministerial committee would finish the policy statement soon so that the government could get to work and meet the challenges facing the country at all levels.
Speaking to reporters at Beirut airport on his return from a one-week visit to the Vatican during which he met with Pope Benedict XVI, Rai said the pontiff congratulated him on the formation of a new government in Lebanon, wishing it success.
“We too are looking forward because there are big challenges at all levels. We all hope that this government will fulfill the aspirations of the Lebanese despite the difficulties. But we trust it and we trust each other,” Rai said.
Rai, who voiced support for Mikati’s Cabinet before leaving for the Vatican, said: “We hope that this government will actually assume comprehensive responsibility and work in a comprehensive manner, rather than in an individual or vengeful manner as they say. This is a big challenge.” March 14 parties have accused the government of planning to take vengeful measures against its political opponents in the March 14 camp.
Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, head of the parliamentary Future bloc, said the March 14 parties are determined to launch popular and democratic opposition against the government.
“In Lebanon, we are adamant on our positions and uphold the values and principles for which we have struggled,” Siniora told a student graduation ceremony in the southern port city of Sidon.
“In confronting the coup and those who staged a coup against the democratic system with the force of arms and intimidation, we will not be dragged to seeking force as a means or as a goal. Rather, we will rely on democracy and the popular and parliamentary opposition in order to remain in harmony with ourselves and our aspirations,” Siniora said.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement and its March 14 allies have accused Hezbollah and its March 8 of staging a coup after Hariri’s Cabinet was toppled on Jan. 12 following the resignation of March 8 ministers in a long-simmering dispute with the STL.
Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi, from MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, told the Voice of Lebanon radio station that the opposition has the right “to fight the government with all democratic and legitimate means.”But the opposition must wait and not issue judgments before seeing the new government’s work, he said.

Syria's Assad may have passed point of no return: Juppe
27 June 2011/FOCUS News Agency
Paris. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have gone so far in his crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners that there is no way back, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Sunday, as quoted by AFP. Assad had reached "a point of no return", he told France's RTL radio. "I would be happy to admit I'm wrong, but I don't think so," he added. "I regret that the repression continues to unfold in conditions which calls into question the region's security, because we have reached more than 10,000 refugees in Turkey...," he added. He also commented on the refusal of China and Russia, veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council, to lift their opposition to a resolution there condemning the Syrian crackdown. "I regret it, we are continuing to work to get Russia and China to change, to get a declaration that ... calls on Bashar al-Assad to resume the process of reform." But he added: "I don't believe in the ability today of the Syrian president to reverse the tendency, things have gone too far, the repression has been too brutal and too savage." According to the Syrian Observatory, 1,342 civilians have been killed in the government's crackdown and 342 security force personnel have also died.

Tensions Rise in Egypt Over Two Missing Christian Girls
6-26-2011/(AINA) -- Tension is escalating over the case of 14-year-old Nancy Magdy Fathy, and her 16-year old cousin Christine Ezzat Fathy, who have disappeared and allegedly converted to Islam. Many parties are being pulled into the row over their future, including Al Azhar, the Church, activists and lately Islamist organizations, which are threatening violence against church.
The story of the missing girls became public after they disappeared while on their way to church on Sunday June 12.  the two day sit-in staged by Copts in front of the Minya Security Headquarters, demanding Nancy and Christine's return, focused attention on their story. Rumors in the media emerged as to their whereabouts, the identity of the perpetrators and whether the girls were actually traded to another Muslims gang.
Nearly two weeks after they disappeared, Nancy and Christine were found in Cairo wearing Burkas. They were incidentally stopped in the street by a police officer when he noticed that one of them had a cross tattooed on her wrist, as many Copts have. The girls told the policeman they converted to Islam and did not marry any Muslims sheikh as the newspapers said, but fearing the wrath of their parents, they sought shelter at the home of a Muslim man. He issued a report of the incident and let them go.
Nancy and Christine subsequently surrendered at a Cairo police station.
An investigation into their disappearance was launched, as their parents accused two Muslim brothers from a neighboring village of abducting them. They were also asked about the video clip which appeared on the Internet, taken in Tahrir Square, where Nancy and Christine allegedly converted to Islam.
According to the investigators, the Christian minors said they converted to Islam of their own free will, and refused to return to their families, and even applied for protection from them. The prosecution decided to put them in a state care home and provide protection for them, until the completion of the investigation. Authorities also wanted an Al-Azhar scholar to determine if they really believe in Islam.
This has angered their families, who said their girls are minors and should not be subjected to such procedures. Both families and the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights Organization protested on Saturday, June 25 in front of the office of the prosecutor general, and demanded for their children to be returned to them.
Al Azhar and the Fatwa (religious edict) Committee denied that the two Coptic teenagers had converted to Islam, because they are still minors and have not yet reached 18 years of age, as is required by law.
The families' lawyer, Dr Naguib.Gabriel, said the decision to deliver the girls to the state care home belonging to the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood is contrary to the law, because they are still minors, noting that Al-Azhar said that it does not recognize their conversion, and therefore the two girls should be returned to their families. Gabriel added that he had made a complaint to the Egyptian Public Prosecutor, on behalf of the families, as they oppose handing Nancy and Christine over to the care home. He explained that the decision taken by prosecution in this case confirms the hypothesis that they converted to Islam, despite that being contrary to the law and the Al-Azhar fatwa.
Dr. Gabriel said that there is a possibility the two girls were subjected to pressure in order to say they converted to Islam of their free will, or they fear the reaction of their families in case they return home, especially since they come from an ultra conservative Upper Egyptian society, where the disappearance of a girl for days is considered a scandal and a shame. He said he will obtain a pledge from their families to protect them, and not to harm them in any way upon their return.
The security director of Minya told Al-Ahram newspaper on June 17 the two girls are considered minors before the law and the authorities and therefore their conversion to Islam and their marriage is not recognized officially as they do not yet have the necessary ID card, which is issued from the age of 16. On this basis, anyone involved in the incident will be punished according to the law.
The two Muslim brothers accused by the fathers are in detention pending investigation. The family of the accused protested today, calling for their release because Nancy and Christine said they left home on their own accord and where not abducted.
The Egyptian daily newspaper ElYoum published a statement from the Islamist "Alliance for the support of New Muslim Women," in which the group threatened to carry out "extended protests" in all governorates in Egypt if Nancy and Christine are returned to the church. The Alliance emphasized in its statement the protests this time will escalate violently: "We will not retreat this time, until each captive is free and out of the monasteries in which they are held as prisoners." The statement also said "We say it openly, that we will not go back again to the era when newly converted Muslim women were delivered to the church, which wants to tempt them away from their religion, or forcibly detain them in reprisal for choosing freely their faith."
In the past the Alliance had staged over 20 demonstrations every Friday in support of Kamilia Shehata, the priest's wife whom they claim converted to Islam but was held captive by the church, despite of Al Azhar confirming that she never set foot there and her appearance twice in public to refute all their claims of her conversion (AINA 9-18-2010).
"The daily abduction and forced Islamization of Coptic minors, conducted by Muslims funded by Saudi Arabia, has escalated to new levels after the January 25th Revolution," said Coptic activist Mark Ebeid, "and has greatly enraged the Copts. Everyone is now fearing that they might not be able to stand it any longer with the continuous Islamists provocations."
By Mary Abdelmassih

Hezbollah in Latin America – Implications for homeland security
By: Jim Kouri /Canada Free Press
Sunday, June 26, 2011
On Thursday, July 7, 2011 the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing entitled “Hezbollah in Latin America – Implications for U.S. Homeland Security,” according to Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), the committee’s chairman.
Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah continue to expand their presence in Central and South American taking advantage of their already close relationship with Venezuela’s despot President Hugo Chavez, a top U.S. general said as he described developments within the U.S. Southern Command to lawmakers.
Air Force General Douglas Fraser, commanding officer of the U.S. Southern Command, said Iran has significantly increased the number of Iranian embassies in the region while building “cultural centers” and mosques in more than 15 Latin American countries. Intelligence sources claim the Iranian built Mosques teach a radical brand of Islam to the impoverished people in Latin America.
Gen. Fraser has already reported to the Senate Armed Services Committee that military intelligence confirmed Iranians hosted heads of state from three countries: Bolivia, Guyana and Venezuela.
This was not the first time lawmakers from both parties are being warned about Latin America’s vulnerability to radical Islam. In 2007, the Bush Administration’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, warned members of the Armed Services Committee that elements of radical Islamic groups were active in South America recruiting and training terrorists.
Pace mentioned Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, yet the Democrat-controlled Senate ignored Gen. Pace’s warning.
Gen. Fraser described a close relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They have had at least nine visits during Chavez’s 12 years in office. Fraser said the alliance remains largely for diplomatic and commercial purposes but said there still were too many unknowns.
“There are flights between Iran and Venezuela on a weekly basis, and visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela or Bolivia or Nicaragua. So we don’t have a lot of visibility in who’s visiting and who isn’t, and that’s really where I see the concerns,” said Gen. Fraser.
There have also been intelligence reports that allege the Iranian-supported terrorist group Hezbollah, is also a dangerous presence in Latin America. Fraser stated to that the ties between the two countries are based on several shared interests, such as access to military and petroleum technologies and avoiding international isolation.
Iran’s growing influence in Latin America is a “potential risk” to the region, the head of the U.S. Southern Command continues to warn U.S. lawmakers and the Pentagon.
Fraser, who heads U.S. military operations in 31 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, expressed “real concern” about the Islamic Republic’s links with “extremist organizations” in the region. Fraser said, “It is a concern, and it is an issue we will continue to monitor for any increasing activity.”

The de-legitimization myth
Ynetnews
Dani Magner/06.27.11,
The buzzword in the political-diplomatic discourse at this time is “legitimacy,” or more accurately, “de-legitimacy.” In most cases, the term describes the anti-Israel offensive by Muslim and radical leftist groups that seek to deny the State of Israel’s right to exist by ceaselessly condemning it.
The common public perception that Israel’s international status is at an all-time low not only glorifies the extent of de-legitimization in the eyes of the public, but also gives rise to the conclusion that “if all of this is happening, we must be doing something wrong.” Leftists translate this conclusion to “the government is at fault.” Yet before we rush to level such charges, we better examine whether this is indeed the case.
In 2000, we were told that Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon will undermine the legitimacy of Hezbollah. We were told that Hezbollah’s very essence and reason for being was expelling the IDF from Lebanese territory, and hence, immediately upon Israel’s retreat the group would lose its right to exist. Well, since that time, Hezbollah has turned from a terror group to an organized guerilla army, while in practice taking over power in Lebanon. All of this happened “thanks” to moves that were meant to undermine the organization’s legitimacy.
In 2005, Israel uprooted any Jewish presence from the Gaza Strip, be it civilian or military, while our political and military leaders made it clear that Israel would have full legitimacy to respond harshly to any Hamas violation. Since that retreat, more than 7,000 rockets and mortar shells had been fired from the Strip. When Israel finally chose to respond harshly, we got “de-legitimization” from the international community in the form of the distorted Goldstone Report.
Legitimacy no more than fiction
There are numerous such examples. The fact that Gaza’s markets are booming and that the Rafah Crossing has been reopened does not undermine the bogus legitimacy of the organizers of the latest flotilla to Gaza. The proven effectiveness of the security fence in curbing terrorist infiltrations does not grant it legitimacy in Europe’s eyes. Elsewhere, it appears that the Iranian president’s and Syrian president’s illegitimacy does not stop the former from pursuing nuclear weapons and the latter from butchering his own people with tanks and gunships.
In a self-interested world lacking objective moral standards, legitimacy is no more than fiction. It is a fluid term that is certainly not objective. Hence, Israel cannot gain “legitimacy” and Israel’s enemies cannot lose it.
Instead of speaking in terms of legitimacy, Israel must speak in terms of “public opinion” and not allow bogus legitimacy to guide its decision-making processes. Make no mistake about it: We must not downplay what is known as the “de-legitimacy offensive,” which constitutes a well-organized effort to enlist global public opinion against Israel. However, we must understand that this effort is a result of anti-Semitism.
De-legitimacy will always find a pretext: The security fence, the status of Israeli Arabs, the nuclear arms Israel is said to possess, Palestinian return demands and so on. De-legitimacy will continue with or without the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria, with or without the Golan Heights, with or without east Jerusalem, and with or without the whole of Jerusalem.
Even a peace treaty will constitute no more than a painkiller for this phenomenon and certainly not uproot it; its roots have to do with the sharp rise in the number of Europe’s Muslim inhabitants and the anti-Semitism entrenched in large parts of the population there. Proponents of diplomatic moves or concessions in response to the de-legitimacy offensive are proposing that we take painkillers at the cost of renouncing the State of Israel’s opening positions and strategic assets.
I finally got it when a Canadian guy named Brandon, who I correspond with on Facebook, told me that this year Israel razed 12 mosques in Tel Aviv and built “Zionist business towers” on their ruins. This example illustrates that the public opinion battle between us and our haters has no connection to objective reality. Hence, Israel must focus on changing global public opinion, rather than capitulate to its capricious dictates