LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِNovember 09/2011

Bible Quotation for today/The Parable of the Weeds
Matthew 13/24-30: "Jesus told them another parable: The Kingdom of heaven is like this. A man sowed good seed in his field. One night, when everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. When the plants grew and the heads of grain began to form, then the weeds showed up. The man's servants came to him and said, Sir, it was good seed you sowed in your field; where did the weeds come from? It was some enemy who did this, he answered. Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds? they asked him. No, he answered, because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them. Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Now Lebanon: Interview with The head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Defense Office, François Roux/November 08/11
Where does Iran’s power lie?/By Tariq Alhomayed/November 08/11
Obama flips on new sanctions, leaves Israel, Saudis head to head with Iran/DEBKAfile Special Report/November 08/11
How the US and Israel let Iran get a nuclear arms capablity/DEBKAfile Exclusive Report/November 7/11
Missiles make borders insignificant/By DAVID NEWMAN/November 08/11  

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 08/11
Activist says Hezbollah involved in abduction of Syrian opposition in Lebanon
Top U.S. Official to Discuss Syria Sanctions in Beirut
Cameron Meets Miqati, Urges Lebanon to Honor STL Obligations
For Lebanon’s Christians, the fear is what might come next
Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai: Lebanon in dire need for loyal citizens
War of Words between Hariri and Berri over Politics and Diving
Mikati says cooperation with STL crucial for stability
Paris Joins U.S. in Warning Lebanon of Consequences over Lack of STL Funding
North gathering says government neglecting Syrian refugees
Lebanese in Israel give Mikati Cabinet ultimatum: report
Hariri says Assad committing atrocities
Beirut, Lebanon Hezbollah and the Lebanon tribunal – paying for your pariah
Hariri takes to Twitter, Berri responds
Britain Urges Sanctions, Not Military Force, against Syria
Syrian troops storm Homs district in new offensive, 100 killed over weekend
Syrian forces move into Homs district after shelling
UN says Syria death toll has passed 3500
Is Syria Monitoring Protesters with German Technology?
Iran: Syria’s Big Brother
Syria Says U.S. behind 'Bloody Events', Urges Arab Help
Putin Slams 'Arrogant World Powers'
Syrian Opposition Launches Diplomatic Offensive
Analysis: Chances slim for stiffer UN sanctions on Iran
'IAEA report on Iran will echo US concerns'
Lieberman Calls for ‘Crippling Sanctions' on Iran
'Kill One of Us, We Will Kill Dozens,' Iran Chief Warns U.S.
Western experts to Haaretz: Iran able to build nuclear bomb within months
Russia accuses Israel of using 'dangerous rhetoric' against Iran
Israel silent on Sarkozy 'outburst' over Netanyahu
Clinton to address 10 months of Arab Spring
U.S. renews financial aid to Palestinians after UN statehood row
Netanyahu: Israeli settlement in West Bank important, but must be done legally

Activist says Hezbollah involved in abduction of Syrian opposition in Lebanon
November 08, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Hezbollah and the PKK are involved in the disappearance of members of the Syrian opposition in Lebanon, a human rights activist told local media outlets, adding that 12 Syrians have disappeared in the country since Sept.20. “Hezbollah and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party have surveyed several Lebanese areas looking for Syrian opposition members, Hezbollah has surveyed Beirut’s southern suburbs where many cases of disappearances have been reported,” Nabil Halabi, head of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, said earlier this weekend. He added that citizens loyal to Hezbollah have assisted the party in abductions.
When contacted by The Daily Star, Hezbollah press office said they had not released a statement on the report.
Halabi also accused the Tashnaq party in Lebanon of asking the PKK to blackmail and threaten Syrian Kurds in Bourj Hammoud and Nabaa and have provided the Syrian Embassy with information about the Syrian Kurds in these areas. Last week, Future Movement MP Khaled Daher accused the Tashnaq party of expelling Syrian Kurds from Bourj Hammoud, especially those who had participated in demonstrations in front of the Syrian Embassy in Hamra.
Tashnaq MP Hagop Pakradounian denied the allegations against his party to the daily newspaper, saying: “We have never, for a day, been agents [working] for the Syrians or anybody else, our loyalty is to Lebanon and our patriotism is not up for bargain.”
Halabi also said that since Sept. 20, 12 Syrian opposition members have disappeared in Lebanon and that the kidnapping and arrest cases that his group was monitoring was based on testimonies of relatives and friends of opposition members.
“We have been informed that during the last three weeks, the Lebanese authorities have arrested four Syrian opposition members, two of them were arrested at Rafik Hariri International airport when they were on their way to Saudi Arabia on suspicion of arms smuggling into Syria,” Halabi said.
“One of them is called Mohammad Shaker Bshalah and the second is Ammar al-Adib who was formerly arrested by Hezbollah but later released after [the party] interrogated him for several days.”
Halabi also said that one Syrian opposition member, who is also Kurdish, was arrested at the airport, but added that General Security had denied the arrest. The fourth man, Mohammad Adwan, was arrested for not having legal identification documents allowing permission into the country.
Hundreds of Syrians, including members of the opposition, have crossed into Lebanon seeking refuge from the unrest in their home country. Most of the refugees do not have IDs as many have used illegal crossings.
The U.N. said Tuesday that 3,500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in a crackdown launched by Damascus earlier in the year to quell protests calling for the departure of President Bashar Assad.
Syrian authorities deny targeting civilians, blaming the deaths on “armed gangs.”
Since the uprising began, the Lebanese and Syrian armies have strengthened their presence along the countries’ border to thwart arms smuggling into Syria, which has also resulted in the decline of refugees entering the country.
The activist, who has previously reported kidnappings of Syrians in Lebanon, said that such arrests and kidnappings of Syrians violated laws governing the presence of refugees in a host country. The laws he said stipulated that Syrian refugees in host countries could only be arrested if they violated the laws of the country.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed in an interview Friday that opposition figures from Syria had been kidnapped in Lebanon, but described the cases as isolated incidents.
In an interview with BBC's Arabic service, Mikati said that the kidnappings had occurred before he formed his Cabinet on June 13.
Last month, head of the Internal Security Forces Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi released reports implicating the Syrian Embassy and members of the ISF of involvement in the kidnapping of Syrian opposition members.
However, the embassy has denied the accusation.

3 people, including 2 nuns, die in separate road accidents
November 08, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Three people were killed, including two nuns, Tuesday in separate road accidents in and around Beirut.
A security source said Sister Zakia Haddad was instantly killed when her car drifted off the Barbara highway, north of Beirut, causing a rollover.
In Maamtein, also north of Beirut, a Toyota flipped over, killing a nun and injuring another identified as 39-year-old Nisrine Toubia.
On the Beirut coastal highway, a man in his 60s was killed instantaneously in a hit-and-run accident, the source said.

Lebanese in Israel give Mikati Cabinet ultimatum: report
November 08, 2011 09:36 AM The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Lebanese refugees in Israel reportedly threatened to resort to international courts if the government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati failed to grant them amnesty.
A report published Tuesday by pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat said the few hundred Lebanese families residing in Israel since the end of the 1990 Civil War have threatened to sue the Mikati government if they are not “honorably repatriated.”
“We will give them two months, until year’s end, after which we will resort to international courts to demand amnesty and to guarantee our financial and moral rights if our repatriation did not take place in an honorable way,” said a letter issued by Lebanese refugees in Israel.
The letter, Al-Hayat said, had been sent to Mikati, President Michel Sleiman and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Parliament last week passed a draft law facilitating the return of Lebanese who fled to Israel in the wake of its withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000.
Under the urgent draft law, which was submitted by MPs from Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanese who joined the South Lebanon Army – an Israeli-allied militia that operated in southern Lebanon during the Civil War – or collaborated with it would be arrested by Lebanese authorities on the border upon their return and tried under Lebanese law.
Fearing retribution for the SLA’s cooperation with Israel, some 6,500 Lebanese left for Israel, where they received residency, eventual citizenship, and some financial support.
In the absence of a written law, the state has been allowing returns to take place with the help of international organizations. Among those who have not come back, and are unlikely to do so in the future, are the SLA members or collaborators who fear arrest under the new law.
In its dispatch from occupied Jerusalem, Al-Hayat said several Lebanese considered the new law as “provocative.”
Saeed Ghattas, who is in charge of the Lebanon dossier at the office of Israeli Minister Yossi Peled, said the new law brought nothing new.
“Hundreds of Lebanese families returned to Lebanon over the past 10 years and hundreds have been sentenced while others paid fines that reached $20,000,” Ghattas said.
Lebanese refugees, he said, reject accusations of collaboration and insist that the Lebanese government grant them “a pardon.”

Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai: Lebanon in dire need for loyal citizens
November 08, 2011/The Daily Star
Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai attends a memorial ceremony for victims killed in a militant attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church in 2010, at the Church in Baghdad October 31, 2011. Fifty-two hostages and police were killed during an attack on the church on October 31, 2010. REUTERS/Saad Shalash (IRAQ - Tags: POLITICS SOCIETY RELIGION CRIME LAW ANNIVERSARY)  BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai hailed Tuesday teachers for raising children for a better future, stressing Lebanon was in dire need for “loyal citizens.” “Today you are preparing generations of good citizens though whom Lebanon can get out of its ordeal,” Rai told a student delegation from the St. Anthony secondary school in Zgharta, north Lebanon. The delegation was headed by Sister Rola Karam. “We are fed up of [political] divisions in Lebanon. This is why I urge you [teachers] to raise real men, teaching them how to be humane and patriotic,” Rai said. He strongly criticized political divisions and called for educating pupils without politics interfering in the scholastic development.
“No one can build communities but educators; and Lebanon is in desperate need for real and honest education with no [political] affiliations,” Rai told the delegation that visited him in Bkirki.
“Lebanon is in dire need for loyal, intellectual citizens with ethics,” he stressed.

Obama flips on new sanctions, leaves Israel, Saudis head to head with Iran
DEBKAfile Special Report
 November 8, 2011/US President Barack Obama is backing away from crippling sanctions on Iran's central bank bank and an embargo on its oil trade. This was decided shortly before the International Atomic Energy Agency was due to confirm Tuesday or Wednesday, Nov. 8-9 that Iran's clandestine military nuclear program had reached the point of no-return, and after Israel intelligence experts found that Iran could build a weapon as soon as it so decided.
Four considerations persuaded the Obama administration to backtrack on new sanctions, thereby letting Tehran prevail in this round of the nuclear controversy:
1. Because it is too late. Even the harshest sanctions would not alter the fact that Iran has arrived at a position wherbey it is capable of building a bomb or warhead any time it chooses.
2. Severe penalties against Iran's central bank and its fuel exports would exacerbate the turmoil on international financial markets.
The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, Nov. 8, "Though US officials had declared they would hold 'Iran accountable' for a purported plot [to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington], they now have decided that a proposed move against Iran's central bank could disrupt international oil markets and further damage the reeling American and world economies."
Instead, say those officials, Washington will seek to persuade some of Tehran's key trading partners, including the Persian Gulf states, South Korea and Japan, to join existing sanctions.
3. For the first time in American history, Washington has admitted its military capabilities are constrained by economic concerns.
This constraint was also reflected in the Washington Post of Tuesday: "The possibility of a US strike is considered remote, however. That is partly because there is no certainty it would successfully stop Iran and partly because of the diplomatic and political repercussions for a cash-strapped nation emerging from two wars."
4. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday in a radio interview that he was not optimistic about tough sanctions because there was no international consensus to support them.
debkafile's intelligence sources report that Russia and China would not only cast their votes against stiff penalties but disrupt them through marketing mechanisms they have already put in place for bypassing international restrictions on Iran's foreign banking and exports.
Those mechanisms have also been placed at the disposal of Syria.
Tehran has therefore been able to pre-empt the IAEA report, however damning it may turn out to be, and can continue to develop its nuclear objectives without fear of punishing sanctions.
The Israeli defense minister noted that while it would be preferable in matters as grave as a potential attack on Iran's nuclear sites to work closely with the United States, Israeli is a sovereign country and its government cannot shirk responsibility for defending its security.
Israel's existence was not at stake, Barak stressed - either from Iran's missiles or Hizballah's rockets. An attack would cause suffering on the home front, he said, but nowhere near the 100,000 mentioned in the speculation of the last two weeks – or even 5,000. He dismissed much of this speculation as wildly irresponsible and unfounded.
If sanctions against Iran fall by the wayside, all other options stay on the table, said the defense minister. Israeli is holding intelligence exchanges with some friends but in the last resort must make its own decisions which he promised would be made responsibly.
Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu no doubt intended to go through the motions of demanding tougher sanctions against Iran after the publication of the IAEA report. But that option has vanished from the Washington landscape, leaving Israel with a choice between a military strike or bowing to the Obama administration's acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran and learning to live with this ever-present menace. The same stark choice confronts Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf.

How the US and Israel let Iran get a nuclear arms capability
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 7, 2011,
Hardly a day has gone by in the last month without new revelations, mostly from US intelligence sources, confirming that Iran has either reached or is within a hand's breadth of a nuclear weapon capability. Sunday, Nov. 6, Iran was reported to have carried out implosion experiments in a large steel container built as a testing capsule for this purpose at Parchin. Such experiments would be hard to explain away for any purpose other than the development of nuclear arms.
Monday, Nov. 7, a Russian nuclear expert Vyacheslav Danilenko was named as having taught the Iranians how to build the R265 generator used for the implosion in the Parchin experiment.
Since Danilenko was back home in Russia by 2005, Iran must be considered to have mastered the critical nuclear detonation technology as far back as six years ago.
It is critical because before a nuclear weapon can be used, a sphere of conventional explosives must be detonated to create a blast wave that compresses a central ball of nuclear fuel into an incredibly dense mass, triggering a nuclear chain reaction and explosion.
For six years, therefore, American and Israeli governments have kept their own people and the world ignorant of the true state of Iran's nuclear program. Indeed in 2007, under President George W. Bush, the American government, military and intelligence agencies published a deliberately misleading National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that in 2003, Tehran had suspended intense work on the design and production of a nuclear weapon.
The Israeli government under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried protesting that the report was false, but when no one listened, he lined up behind Washington. He and his foreign minister at the time Tzipi Livni brushed off anxious queries by retorting that the Iranian nuclear menace was a matter for the international community to deal with, even though the high-wire diplomacy attempted at the time was getting exactly nowhere. But both the US and Israeli knew the truth – that Iran was getting dangerously close to a nuclear capacity, had obtained nuclear explosives, detonators and the technology for triggering them, as well as building missiles. Against this backdrop, the Stuxnet malworm made its first appearance in June 2010. The virus embarked on stealthy depredations of the uranium enrichment facility's control system in Natanz, in order to stall Iran's stockpiling of large quantities of weapons-grade fuel.
It worked for a year or two – no more. According to US sources, Iran has since managed to accumulate enough enriched uranium for four nuclear bombs. That explains the comment appearing in the New York Times of Monday, Nov. 6, from a senior US official. He said the virus had run its course but some recently discovered computer worms suggested a new, improved Stuxnet 2.0 may be in the works. "There were a lot of mistakes made the first time," he said. "This was a first-generation product. Think of Edison's initial light bulbs or the Apple II." Cyber war therefore briefly stalled Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb but never derailed it. The covert assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists were similarly only temporary setbacks soon overcome. The Iran report promised for Tuesday or Wednesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will show plainly that sanctions, the clandestine assassinations of scientists, the Stuxnet virus and a host of covert operations to damage the equipment on its way to Iran, never diverted Tehran long from its ruthless march on a nuclear arsenal. Two leaders, US President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, pledged solemnly when they assumed office never to let Iran achieve a nuclear arms capability.
On their watch, however, Iran has achieved that capability. As things stand today, it is now only a step away from a bomb, separated by little more than a political decision to take it.
Some experts say Iran still needs several months to produce its first weapon and a shorter period to produce each subsequent one.
Does this leave time to intervene? No one knows what the US or Israeli leaders will decide to do, whether in concert or unilaterally, to rectify their grave lapse. Will they opt for living with a nuclear-armed Iran while downplaying the menace thereof or resort to a military offensive to extinguish it? The forthcoming IAEA report will probably disperse some of the opaque mists blurring the Iranian nuclear reality and making possible the obfuscations of the past six years. It is expected to focus on Iran's efforts towards putting radioactive material in a warhead and developing missiles.Once the facts are laid out on the table for all to see, it will be that much harder for interested parties to continue to spin the facts for political expedience.

Iran accuses US, Israel of gearing for military strike
November 07, 2011/By Laurent Maillard /Daily Star
The radar for an Iron Dome short-range rocket interceptor is seen near the southern city of Ashkelon in this picture taken September 7, 2011. Menachem Begin did not pull his punches. In 1981, as work neared completion on an Iraqi nuclear reactor that Israel believed would produce plutonium for warheads, the Israeli Prime Minister dispatched eight F-16 bombers to destroy the plant. Begin later said that the raid was proof his country would "under no circumstances allow the enemy to develop weapon
TEHRAN: Iran accused Israel and the United States of seeking world support for a military strike on its nuclear facilities, which Russia warned on Monday would be "a very serious mistake."The spike in tension comes ahead of the release this week of a report into Iran's nuclear programme by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which diplomats say will focus on the Islamic republic's alleged efforts to put fissile material in a warhead and developing missiles.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in an interview with Egypt's Al-Akhbar newspaper published on Monday, warned against a military attack on Iran and again insisted Tehran's atomic programme was for peaceful purposes only.
"Iran's capabilities are increasing and it is progressing, and for that reason it has been able to compete in the world. Now Israel and the West, particularly America, fear Iran's capabilities and role," Ahmadinejad told the state-run daily. "Therefore they are trying to gather international support for a military operation to stop (Iran's) role. The arrogant should know that Iran will not allow them to take any action against it," he said. Ahmadinejad added that Washington wanted to "save the Zionist entity, but it will not be able to do so."
"This entity (Israel) can be compared to a kidney transplanted in a body that rejected it," he said. "Yes it will collapse and its end will be near."
Ahmadinejad's diatribe against Israel, Iran's arch-foe, come after Israeli President Shimon Peres warned in a television interview on Saturday that an attack on Iran was becoming "more and more likely."He followed this up in comments published on Sunday by the Israel Hayom daily, saying: "The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option. "We must stay calm and resist pressure so that we can consider every alternative," Peres said.
Responding to Peres's comments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned in Moscow on Monday against a military strike on Iran. "It would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences," said Lavrov. "Military intervention only leads to a multiple rise in casualties and human suffering," said Lavrov. "There can be no military solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, just like there can be none for any other problem in the modern world."
Iran has so far refused to freeze its uranium enrichment activities, despite several UN sets of sanctions. Diplomats in Vienna said the new report from the UN atomic watchdog, to be circulated among IAEA members Tuesday or Wednesday, will provide fresh evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons drive. Previous IAEA assessments have centred on Iran's efforts to produce fissile material -- uranium and plutonium -- which can be put to peaceful uses like power generation, or be used to make a nuclear bomb.
But the intelligence update will focus on Iran's alleged efforts towards putting radioactive material in a warhead and developing missiles to deliver them to a target. "The report is not going to include some sort of 'smoking gun'," one Western diplomat told AFP. "But it will be an extensive body of evidence that will be very hard for Iran to refute as forgery, as they have done in the past." Iranian officials have already seen the IAEA's information, diplomats told AFP, and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published in Iran on Sunday that it was based on "counterfeit" claims.
Western officials cited by The Washington Post said the intelligence reinforced concerns that Iran continued to conduct weapons-related research after 2003 when, according to US intelligence agencies, Iranian leaders halted such experiments in response to international and domestic pressures. The newspaper reported Sunday that the Iranian government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon after receiving assistance from foreign scientists. IAEA head Yukiya Amano said in September's report he was "increasingly concerned" about the "possible military dimension" of Iran's atomic activities, including those "related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." On Monday, Iranian hardline cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami warned Amano not to become "an instrument without will in the hands of the United States" against Iran. "If Mr Amano acts like an instrument without will in the hands of the United States and publishes lies by presenting them as documents, the IAEA will lose the little credibility it has left," Khatami said in an address during communal prayers in Tehran marking the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast.
 
Analysis: Chances slim for stiffer UN sanctions on Iran
Russia and China oppose sanctioning Tehran's energy sector; new tougher sanctions may have to come from the US and US, not the UN.
By REUTERS
11/07/2011 09:10
UNITED NATIONS - There is little chance that the UN Security Council will impose tough new sanctions on Iran anytime soon, despite a new UN report expected this week to contain evidence suggesting Iran wants atomic weapons. The reason for this, Western diplomats say, is the reluctance of Tehran's traditional sympathizers China and Russia, which have the power to veto any council resolution, to sanction Iran's oil and gas sectors.
As a result, it will be hard to get anything out of the UN that is tougher than the last round of Iran sanctions passed in June 2010. "The reality is that a new substantive step forward on sanctions will be very difficult," a senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "The last set of sanctions were very substantive, and essentially the next stage would be to go into the oil and gas sector," he said. "If you get into the oil and gas sector, then obviously there will be opposition from China in particular, but also from Russia. More so China."
China depends heavily on oil exports from Iran, the world's fifth biggest crude exporter, to fuel its growing economy. The report by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, due out later this week, may strengthen suspicions that Tehran is seeking to develop the capability to make atomic bombs but stop short of explicitly saying that it is doing so, diplomats said.
The IAEA report will arrive weeks after the United States accused Tehran of plotting to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington. Although Iran vehemently denied the allegation, the furor revived speculation that a new UN sanctions resolution against Tehran might be on the cards.
But US hopes for fifth sanctions resolution by the 15-nation UN Security Council against Iran appear unrealistic, not least because many countries are skeptical about the US plot allegations.Power plants or weapons? Tehran maintains that its nuclear energy program is simply to provide energy and has ignored UN demands to halt its uranium enrichment, which could produce fuel for nuclear power plants or weapons. Four sets of UN sanctions passed since 2006 have hit Iran's nuclear and missile industries and people linked to them. They have also targeted Iranian banks and other firms while steering clear of Iran's energy sector.
Although Moscow and Beijing backed all four rounds of UN sanctions they did so reluctantly and only after working hard to dilute the measures.
One diplomat said the combination of US, European Union and UN sanctions and sabotage operations like the Stuxnet computer virus that temporarily hobbled Iran's enrichment program have succeeded in slowing Tehran's nuclear progress. If the UN Security Council does not act, diplomats say, the United States and its European allies will likely pursue unilateral national sanctions outside the United Nations. It may be possible for the Security Council to add a few more names of Iranian individuals and entities linked to the UN blacklist of those facing travel bans and asset freezes, though Western diplomats say such moves would be symbolic.
"The UN is important because it's the international community," a diplomat told Reuters. "But you're not going to stop Iran's nuclear program with lowest common denominator sanctions by the UN Security Council.""The EU, the US and others will have to wield the sledgehammer with national sanctions and drag the UN Security Council after them," he said.
Russia has pushed for new negotiations with Tehran and is attempting to revive a stalled nuclear-fuel-swap deal that Iran accepted in October 2009 but later backed away from.
Russia and China are also keen to revive negotiations between Iran and the five permanent Security Council members and Germany, even though five years of fitful talks have led nowhere.

'IAEA report on Iran will echo US concerns'
Washington believes report by UN's nuclear watchdog will focus on Iran's failure to meet international obligations. Germany warns debates 'strengthen Iranian leadership.' Sources: Israel expects 'debilitating sanctions'
Attila Somfalvi Latest Update: 11.08.11, 00:44 / Israel News
Israel expects the international community to impose "debilitating sanctions" on Iran following the findings presented by the IAEA in its new report on Tehran's nuclear efforts, Ynet learned Monday. Defense establishment sources said that the reports will include "unequivocal proof of Iran's true intentions. This has great importance. Hopefully Russia and China will join the sanctions, despite their reluctance."The United States, France and Britain are very concerned and "the more nations join the call for truly harsh sanctions against Iran, the more unyielding they will be," a senior source told Ynet. "It has always been clear to Israel what the Iranian intensions are. Now the rest of the world will know it too."
Israel hopes the report will offer more details on the Iranian nuclear program, including information as to its missiles array and the uranium enrichment program.
"Even if the UN Security Council will find it hard to issue dramatic sanctions, Iran could still suffer from financial sanctions – it has financial interests which are vulnerable," a Jerusalem source said. Earlier, the White House said that it expects the pending IAEA report on Tehran's nuclear capabilities to echo US concerns over Iran's behavior and its failure to lmeet its international obligations. Still, White House Spokesman Jay Carney would not address the specific findings of an International Atomic Energy Agency report expected to be released in the coming week.
'International community still has recourse'
Diplomats have told AP that the IAEA's new intelligence suggests Iran has created computer models of a nuclear warhead, as well as other previously undisclosed details on alleged secret work by Tehran on nuclear arms. Carney said that the US continues to focus on using diplomatic channels to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program. But he said that the US continues to keep all options open when it comes to dealing with Iran. Meanwhile, Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that the debate about a military strike against Iran is "dangerous" and "strengthens the leadership of the Islamic Republic rather than weakening it."
Israeli media have been rife with speculation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to secure cabinet consensus for an attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
Western powers suspect Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons and have imposed sanctions in an attempt to curb its program. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says its atom program is for power generation.  "I warn against floating the idea of military options," Westerwelle told Hamburger Abendblatt. "These are debates...that strengthen the Iranian leadership rather than weaken it." The UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is expected this week to issue its most detailed report yet on research in Iran seen as geared to developing atomic bombs. But the Security Council is not expected impose stiffer sanctions as a result. Westerwelle said, however, that if Iran was not cooperating, the "international community will not simply return to business as usual". "Iran has the right to use nuclear energy for civil purposes but also the duty to exclude a military use," he said. Reuters and AP contributed to the report


Top U.S. Official to Discuss Syria Sanctions in Beirut
Naharnet /A senior U.S. official will on Monday launch a three-country campaign to firm up sanctions against Syria and to tackle transnational organized crime, the U.S. Treasury Department said. Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser will travel to Beirut, Moscow and Amman for a week-long visit.
In Lebanon and Jordan, Glaser is expected to press the authorities to "remain vigilant against attempts by the Syrian regime to evade U.S. and EU sanctions."
The financial sectors of both nations are seen by Washington as a possible avenue for Syria to circumvent international sanctions.
On August 17 U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against the Syrian regime because of what the White House termed a "continuing escalation of violence against the people of Syria."The sanctions froze all Syrian government property in the United States and banned U.S. citizens from doing new business with the country, or importing petroleum products. And on August 10 the U.S. imposed sanctions on Syria's largest commercial bank, the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, and its Lebanon-based subsidiary.
The Lebanese subsidiary denied Washington’s "unfounded political allegations" that it dealt with North Korea and Iran. "Since the establishment of our institution, we have never had any operation with either a North Korean or an Iranian entity even before the existing sanctions," the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank said. "As a result, we deny all accusation of being involved in any illegal activity with any suspected country," a statement added. The United States Treasury had charged that the Commercial Bank of Syria allegedly supported Syria and North Korea's efforts to spread weapons of mass destruction. It froze the U.S. assets of the businesses targeted and prohibited U.S. entities from engaging in any business dealings with the two banks. In Moscow Glaser is expected to discuss "the threat posed by transnational criminal organizations."
Source Agence France Presse/Naharnet

Cameron Meets Miqati, Urges Lebanon to Honor STL Obligations
Naharnet /During talks with Premier Najib Miqati in London, British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday urged Lebanon to honor its international obligations concerning the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Cameron pressed Miqati on the “need for Lebanon to meet (its) international obligations on (the) Tribunal,” British Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher said on his Twitter account after the two men’s meeting. The two also agreed on the need to respect U.N. Security Council resolutions relating to the Middle East, Fletcher said. For his part, Miqati tweeted that his meeting with Cameron was “excellent.” He described the talks as “a step in the right direction for UK-Lebanese bilateral relations.”Miqati’s government has come under increasing Western pressure to fund the U.N.-backed court probing the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri. Before the talks on Monday, Miqati’s press office said the premier would discuss with Cameron the situation in the region, bilateral ties and ways to receive British technical, administrative and military assistance.
Earlier on Monday, Miqati met with Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Lord David Howell. He also discussed with Ambassador Fletcher the preparations for his meeting with the British PM. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman warned on Saturday that ties with Lebanon would suffer if Beirut fails to pay its share of funding to the tribunal. "I’d expect the same thing in terms of some other countries as well," he said. Lebanon is responsible for meeting 49 percent of the costs of the court. But the Hizbullah-led government has yet to pay its share, estimated at $33 million. Miqati said Thursday that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah did not rule out funding the STL.
“I did not conclude that (Nasrallah) said ‘no’ to the tribunal,” Miqati told the BBC. In remarks to Lebanese personalities residing in Britain, the premier stressed Monday “the need to fully cooperate with international resolutions including 1757” that established the STL. “We can’t be selective in asking the international community, the Security Council and the U.N. to support the full implementation of 1701 in southern Lebanon and at the same time say that we don’t want to implement another resolution,” he said. “I am sure that the cabinet will be at the level of responsibility” when the STL funding is put up for discussion, Miqati said. “Whenever we find a solution to the issue of Lebanon’s share in the STL funding … we could go ahead in resolving the remaining essential issues,” he said. Miqati also urged the Lebanese to remain united and preserve the stability of the nation.

Syria Says U.S. behind 'Bloody Events', Urges Arab Help
Naharnet /Syria has sent the Arab League a letter asking for support against what it called U.S. involvement in "bloody events" in the country, the 22-member pan-Arab group said in a statement on Monday. The statement said the letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Washington "of actual involvement in bloody events in Syria" and asked the League to "condemn the involvement and to do what is necessary to end it." In the letter, Syria, which is under growing pressure to implement an Arab plan to end violence against protesters, sought Arab assistance "to provide the appropriate atmosphere to implement the agreement," said the statement. Muallem also sent the letter to the foreign ministers of Russia, China, India, South Africa and Brazil, chairman and members of the Arab ministerial committees, the Arab League secretary general, the U.N. secretary general, and the president of the U.N. Security Council, Syria’s official news agency SANA said. “After the Syrian Arab Republic took an important step to stop violence by calling upon armed men to hand down their weapons … Syria was surprised by the statement of the U.S. Department of State's spokeswoman calling upon the gunmen not to hand over their weapons to the Syrian government,” SANA quoted Muallem as saying in the letter.
Muallem added that Syria sees the U.S. call as a “direct involvement in the sedition and violence in Syria which cost the Syrian army, police and civilians innocent victims.”
“Syria considers the U.S. call an encouragement to the armed groups to continue their criminal acts against the Syrian people and state, which negates the claims of peaceful protests and shows a desire to obstruct the initiative and efforts of the Arab League,” SANA quoted Muallem as saying.
The top Syrian diplomat “briefed the foreign ministers that the Syrian government has reacted positively to the AL initiative and is exerting efforts to implement it, hoping they would … exert every effort to put an end” to the alleged U.S. involvement, SANA reported.
The Arab League on Sunday accused Syria of failing to honor the plan it agreed last week to end violence against protesters, and said Arab foreign ministers would meet on Saturday to discuss their next step.
The meeting, it said, was called because of "the continuation of violence and because the Syrian government did not implement its commitments in the Arab plan to resolve the Syrian crisis."
The League's deputy secretary general told Agence France Presse on Monday that Syria had sent a letter detailing the steps it took towards carrying out the plan, but he refused to elaborate. The plan called on President Bashar al-Assad to open talks with his opposition, parts of which on Monday called for international protection of civilians in the central city of Homs, which is besieged by Assad's troops.
Damascus on Saturday strongly condemned Washington after the U.S. State Department advised Syrians against surrendering following an amnesty for those who give up weapons.
"The American administration disclosed again its blatant interference in Syria's internal affairs, and its policy which supports killing, in addition to its funding of the terrorist groups in Syria," SANA said quoting a foreign ministry official. Syria's interior ministry announced an amnesty on Friday for people who surrender their weapons between Saturday and November 12 in a concession to mark the Eid al-Adha feast, state television reported.
The State Department on Friday advised Syrians against surrendering to President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "I wouldn't advise anybody to turn themselves in to regime authorities at the moment," said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, adding Assad's regime had so far failed to live up to the deal reached with the Arab League.
"This would be about the fourth amnesty that they've offered since I took this job about five months ago," she told reporters. "So we'll see if it has any more traction than it's had in the past."
Declaring Homs a "humanitarian disaster area," the Syrian National Council urged Monday the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League to act "to stop the massacre committed by the regime." The SNC, which groups the main currents of the opposition, also called in its statement for the evacuation of civilians away from "areas that are under shelling and destruction."
The group said the regime had "launched a large-scale attack" overnight Sunday to Monday on the districts of Homs and that "indiscriminate slaughter is being committed by the regime's militias." The latest deaths bring to at least 70 the number of people killed since Assad's government signed on to the Arab League peace plan on Wednesday last week.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy artillery clashes erupted overnight between soldiers and presumed army defectors in Homs leaving "dozens of dead and wounded in both camps." "Shooting could be heard in Homs where neighborhoods came under heavy machinegun fire at dawn," said the Observatory in a statement, adding "more than 40 explosions were heard." The United Nations estimates more than 3,000 people have been killed in Syria in the brutal security crackdown since anti-regime demonstrations erupted in mid-March. *Source NaharnetAgence France Presse

Putin Slams 'Arrogant World Powers'
Naharnet /Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out Monday at "arrogant world powers" as he hosted his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao for a regional security summit Moscow bills as a counterpart to NATO. Russia's likely new head of state after next year's presidential elections accused Western nations of hypocrisy for backing revolutions in North African countries that previously enjoyed their strong support. "It really is just like you said -- these are arrogant world powers," Putin said in response to remarks from Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Saint Petersburg.
"They also supported the old North African regimes," news agencies quoted Putin as saying in a clear reference to European powers and the United States. "But what is interesting, they also supported the North African revolutions as well, the ones that overthrew the old regimes." Russia strongly opposed NATO's air campaign in Libya and has warned the West against acting tough towards its close Soviet-era ally Syria. The 10-year-old SCO joins Russia and China with the four ex-Soviet states of Central Asia in a loose security union that Moscow hopes to develop into a more powerful force rivaling the Brussels-based NATO bloc. Iran is one of three nations along with Pakistan and India to have applied to join the organization. Mongolia also has observer status. Monday's summit brought together mainly prime ministers from the SCO's member and observer states.
But the group made no formal decision on expansion at Monday's meeting and was short on other concrete results. "Russia would welcome the positive review of applications to join our organization in one form or another from any interested nation," Putin was quoted as saying. Pakistan's application has been under review since 2006 and some analysts question the nation's actual ability to closely coordinate their policies on major international security issues such as Afghanistan.**Source Agence France Presse

Britain Urges Sanctions, Not Military Force, against Syria
Naharnet /British Foreign Minister William Hague called Monday for "ever-increasing" international pressure, rather than military intervention, to end the violent repression in Syria.
"I don't think the answer to (the repression) now or subsequently would be a military intervention from outside," Hague told reporters in Strasbourg after a meeting of Council of Europe ministers. The situation in Syria is "dramatically more complex" than that in Libya before NATO intervened in March, he said. "We will not be able to apply the same answer in Syria as in Libya," he said. "I do think however we should apply ever-increasing international pressure to the Assad regime." Additional sanctions against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad are the way forward, Hague said. "Of course, the UK would like to be able to pass a resolution at the U.N. Security Council bringing the condemnation of the world on the use of force against civilians by the Syrian regime," he said. Syria is currently under EU and U.S. sanctions, but Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution against Damascus in October.
Hague's comments came as the opposition Syrian National Council called for "international protection for civilians" in the flashpoint central city of Homs, besieged by government forces and the scene of deadly clashes between soldiers and alleged army deserters. Hague said he "deplored" the brutal crackdown since anti-regime protests broke out mid-March, in which around 3,000 people are thought to have died, according to U.N. estimates. "Obviously we have to judge the Syrian regime by its actions, not by its words. Its actions remain completely unacceptable and in total violation of the most basic concept of human rights," Hague said. "It's particularly disappointing that it is taking place now, after the Syrian government said a few days ago that it had accepted the request of the Arab League to withdraw its forces from towns and cities, to release political prisoners and to end the killings," Hague said.
The Arab League has accused Syria of failing to honor its commitment to an Arab-sponsored plan to end violence against protesters. The United States said Monday it would firm up sanctions against Syria. Source Agence France Presse

Syria Army Seizes Zone, in Spite of Arab Truce
.smaller Larger By NOUR MALAS /Wall Street Journal
Syrian security forces seized a neighborhood in the city of Homs after days of intense fighting with dissident soldiers there turned the city into a "humanitarian disaster," activists said, in an apparent violation of the Arab-brokered plan to stop the violence.
Monday's storming of Homs's Baba Amr neighborhood is the first time in months activists say the government appeared to seize control of part Homs, which has been a stronghold for opposition activists and dissident soldiers fighting the army.
The renewed attack on Homs, a focal point of violence since the early days of Syria's eight-month-long uprising, raised the pressure on the Arab League to react to the Syrian government's apparent violation of the so-called peace roadmap.
Under the plan, which Damascus accepted Wednesday, Syria committed to immediately pull its forces from cities, release prisoners detained during the uprising, give media free access and start talks with the opposition by Nov. 16. At least 100 people have been killed, activists say, since the Arab League announced Syria accepted the plan.
Foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting for Saturday at the body's Cairo headquarters to discuss what the group called Syria's "noncompliance" with the plan. The league didn't comment on Monday.
On Sunday, Qatar's prime minister, who heads Arab League efforts to broker an end to Syria's crisis, called for the meeting "in light of the continuing violence and the government's failure to meet its obligations under the Arab Action Plan," Egyptian news agency MENA reported.
Syria on Monday accused the body of impartiality. The country's permanent representative to the Arab League, Youssef Ahmad, said the body's role was to coordinate with the Syrian government on the plan, "not proclaim itself a party against the Syrian government," the state news agency reported. Syrian foreign minister Walid Moallem said Syria "is exerting efforts to implement" the roadmap, the news agency reported.
The comments came as The Syrian National Council, an opposition umbrella group, called Homs "a humanitarian disaster," appealed for humanitarian aid and renewed its request for civilian protection and international and Arab observers in Syria.
British foreign secretary William Hague, in a post on his Twitter account, urged the Arab League "to respond swiftly" to the "terrible violence."
Homs, Syria's third-largest city, has been dubbed by some activists "the capital of the Syrian revolution." Activists there have staged some of the largest protests in the uprising, while defected soldiers have converged on the city and its surrounding areas to fight the army.
Homs has appeared to repeatedly defy attacks. Residents report near daily battles between dissident soldiers and the army in outlying towns, while an organized network of young activists are supported by some of the city's largest Sunni merchant families on opposition moves like civil strikes that some residents say have managed to paralyze business in the city.
Since the summer, it has also seen Syria's worse sectarian fighting, with activists in the city reporting at least 100 people killed over the past week in gruesome revenge killings between Sunni Muslims, from Syria's majority sect, and Alawites, from the minority Shiite offspring sect to which Mr. Assad and his family belong.
That has created a volatile mix of violence that has consistently drawn in repeated attacks from regime forces, concentrated on a few neighborhoods including Baba Amr. By the estimates of some activists in the city, more than 1,500 people have been killed and as many as 10,000 detained in Homs since Syria's protests began in March. Activist groups put the overall death toll from the uprising at over 4,000.
"What's happening now is they are trying to gain control before negotiations because that will put them on stronger ground," said Moaz Sibai, a Homs native and member of the opposition Syrian National Council who lives abroad.
The government moved in thousands of troops last week to man two entry-points to the city, with Baba Amr under siege by security forces and tanks firing machine guns for the past six days, an activist in Homs said. "There's a shortage of food, no medicines, and people can't move because of constant gunfire," the activist said.
The council, and most young activists steering the protest movement, oppose talks with the government after months of unmet promises to halt a bloody crackdown and limited concessions from Mr. Assad. In a speech Saturday, on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid, the council's head Burhan Ghalioun renewed the pledge not to compromise with the regime.
"We will not negotiate on the blood of casualties or martyrs," Mr. Ghalioun, a native of Homs, said in an eight-minute address aired on Arab broadcasters that was his first formal appearance as head of the opposition body.
The speech, which many activists described as emotional and eloquent, appeared to reflect a push from the group to pose itself as a transitional body that would eventually serve as a transitional government.
A video posted on YouTube shows men identifying themselves as dissident soldiers from the Free Syrian Army in Baba Amr on Saturday. About a dozen of them, most in army costume and carrying rifles, ride through a street as some passersby begin to chant them on and gunfire rings in the background. "We call on the Arab League to take decisive action against the regime and not to work with this regime," a soldier identifying himself as First Lt. Walid al-Abdullah says on the video. "Baba Amr is under siege and is being bombed."
Activist network the Local Coordination Committees said 40 people have been killed in the neighborhood in the past week, and at least 100 have fled their homes.
Another person in the city said that while Baba Amr was locked down by gunfire, other parts of the city appeared to operate normally with shops open and families out amid the Eid holiday. The person described families walking and children playing in nearby neighborhood as sounds of gunfire boomed out of Baba Amr.
Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com

Missiles make borders insignificant
By DAVID NEWMAN /Jerusalem Post
11/07/2011 23:37
The heavens above Beersheba and the south of the country have opened with a mixture of cursed missiles and blessed rain during the past ten days.
The sirens of the anti-missile defenses heralded the firing of the Grad missiles from Gaza ever further afield into the towns of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba.
Few people actually make it to the fortified rooms in their houses or the neighborhood shelters in the few seconds that it takes for the rockets to hit (or miss) their targets, or for the recently constructed Iron Dome defense system to fire its own missiles in an attempt to explode the Grads in mid-flight. For weeks, talk on the street, in the supermarket or in local synagogues has focused on where you were when the sirens went off, or whether the booms you heard were the sounds of Palestinian missiles exploding or of anti-missile defense systems hitting their targets.
The schools were shut down for a few days throughout the region, leaving parents to find alternative means of caring for their children while they were at work, or alternatively having little choice but to take the time off and stay at home.
Whether the crowded shopping malls are a safer place for the children and their parents to congregate than the schools themselves is highly questionable, but no one in their right senses is going to take the responsibility of having schools full of children when there is a real threat of more missiles being fired during the day.
Even Ben-Gurion University was shut down on the first day of the new academic year until the all-clear was given for studies to commence. Other university functions, including research and administration, did continue as usual, but many of the secretaries and auxiliary staff were missing as they stayed home to look after their young children.
OVER THE last few days, life has slowly gotten back to normal in the south, but the mental scars remain, especially for the young children who subsequently react traumatically to any siren, even if it’s totally unrelated to the security situation.
According to media reports, which are not discounted by our political leaders, Hizbullah missile systems in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad systems in Gaza have become even more sophisticated during the past few years. This is, to put it mildly, troubling.
Iranian-supplied missile systems in South Lebanon, and – if the information is correct – systems poached from the Libyan weapon arsenal finding their way to Gaza in recent months, have bolstered the ability of Israel’s enemies to cause havoc.
This, arguably, is the most significant change to have taken place in Israel’s defensive posture over the past 60 years, namely the ability to bring the impact of war and destruction directly to Israel’s towns and villages, rather than have the IDF undertake its actions across the borders inside the neighboring territories of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or Egypt.
This new situation demonstrates just how insignificant the demarcation of borders is in terms of the country’s defensive posture. We first became aware of this twenty years ago during the first Gulf War, when long-range missiles fired from Iraq fell inside Israel, some of them even reaching the heart of the Gush Dan metropolitan region. At the time, the feeling was that as long as we could push the threat ever further away from the borders and, over time, neutralize the neighboring countries – such as Jordan or Egypt – so that their territories would not be used as bases for the firing of missiles, we could deal with the problem adequately.
But the changed political situations in both Lebanon and Gaza, and the relative simplicity with which missiles can be fired by local “civilians” who require neither expertise or fixed bases (today, they can be fired from the backs of jeeps or from simple rocket launchers carried on the shoulder) makes it increasingly difficult to prevent.
The Iron Dome technology is slowly developing and has succeeded in bringing down many of the missiles, but there remains much to be accomplished if Israel’s skies are to become totally safe from the missile threat, if indeed this will ever be possible.
Retaliatory raids by the IDF have shown themselves to be of relatively limited success.
Israel is, rightly, reticent to commit its troops to full scale warfare, and while the recent wars in both Lebanon and Gaza may have caused enough damage on the ground to temporarily cease the firing of missiles, the collateral damage, be it the death of Israeli soldiers, or the killing of innocent civilians and children on the other side, have not worked in Israel’s favor. Nor have they provided the country with anything more than a short-term respite as the other side has quickly restocked their missile stores.
Much has been written about the need to negotiate and make peace with even the worst of our enemies. But all too often, this approach is wrongly construed as meaning a total coming together of enemies, some of whom do not even recognize the legitimacy of the other side.
We weren’t too far off from that at the time of the Oslo Agreements, but that has already been consigned to history, as more extreme groups have emerged, and as the sophistication of warfare technology has evolved.
A truce, rather than peace, is about the best that either side can achieve at the moment, and even that will only hold up for a limited period of time if the larger political situation – the status of the occupation and the non-emergence of an independent Palestinian state – are not resolved. Even that does not guarantee the State of Israel total security and safety from attacks and missiles, but it does change the ground rules, not just within the local and regional spheres, but also within the wider international debate concerning the legitimacy of retaliatory actions when our sovereignty is infringed by a neighboring independent country.
In non-conventional warfare of this nature, no longer do we possess the total military superiority which can defend our civilian population. The greatest damage caused by the missile attacks is their demoralizing impact upon the population at large, rather than the actual physical damage inflicted. Our worsening defensive capability on the home front in the face of the missile attacks, while not threatening the existence of the State of Israel, can only get worse unless we start to address the root problems of the unceasing conflict.
*The writer is dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben Gurion University. The views expressed are his alone.

Hariri says Assad committing atrocities
November 08, 2011/By Thomas El-Basha/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: For a fourth day in a row, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri took part in a live Q&A session on his Twitter account Monday in which he blasted President Bashar Assad for what he described were “massacres” committed under his leadership, saying change was needed in Syria.
Hariri also expressed his belief that Lebanon under the present government headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati would fail to fund its share toward the court probing his father’s assassination.
“Before answering questions I want to condemn what happened today in Homs and the atrocities that Assad is committing,” Hariri, under the Twitter name of @HaririSaad, wrote in his first tweet Monday night, referring to recent reports by activists that troops loyal to the Syrian leader had moved into a residential district of Homs after six days of tank bombardment.
Describing the events as “a massacre,” Hariri warned that the Arab League should “move quickly” lest faith in the organization should falter.
Hariri’s live Twitter session came hours after a statement from his office ruled out the possibility that recent posts under @HaririSaad on the popular social network were other than from the Future Movement leader himself.
“The press office of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri would like to point out that the only Twitter account that PM Saad Hariri uses to tweet, personally and directly, with his followers is: @HaririSaad,” the statement said Monday.
Hariri, who fielded questions for some two hours, acknowledged he was a vocal critic on the subject of Syria and said he would continue speaking out against Damascus as “this regime must be faced no matter what and changed.”
Hariri, who had sought to mend ties with Damascus during his term as prime minister, said the Syrian leader was unlikely to change his strategy in dealing with the crisis in his country.
“Let’s stop lying to ourselves that he will change or make reforms. This is not going to happen and his massacres are on the eve of Eid [Al-Adha],” Saad Hariri said.
Protests against the rule of Assad have raged since earlier this year. The U.N. says over 3,000 people, mostly civilians have been killed in the crackdown by Damascus. Syrian authorities deny targeting civilians, blaming the deaths on "armed gangs" who are part of a conspiracy targeting the country.
Hariri also expressed his belief that his successor would fail to fund Lebanon’s share toward the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which in late July indicted four members of Hezbollah, a key player in Mikati’s government that has voiced outright rejection on the controversial matter.
In answer to a tweet that read: “do you expect that Najib Mikati will carry out his promises to the financing of the court or whether he would yield to Hezbollah,” Hariri responded: “let’s see, I think he won't finance the tribunal.”
When asked by another tweeter what scenarios he expected would follow should Lebanon fail to fund its share, worth $32 million, Hariri said: “he [Mikati] says he will resign. I doubt it but there will be consequences on [the] people and I hope not on Lebanon.”
Hezbollah denies involvement in the assassination of Hariri's father and says the Hague-based court is part of a "U.S.-Israeli project" aimed at targeting the resistance group and sowing strife in the country.
On other domestic issues and future steps he intends for Lebanon, Hariri said his Future Movement had achieved a lot of reforms but that it needed to do more. “This is an ongoing process," Hariri added. Hariri also said he would seek for more women to be included in future electoral lists and expressed a desire for a rapprochement with former Tripoli MP Mosbah al-Ahdab, whom he had a falling out with during the previous election.
“We would love to have Mosbah with us,” Hariri said when asked if he would promise to include Ahdab in the 2013 general elections campaign.
As in previous live sessions that have run for five consecutive days, Hariri said he would be back in the country, “sooner [rather] than later.”

Where does Iran’s power lie?
By Tariq Alhomayed
Asharq Al-Awsat
In both the Arab and Western worlds, voices are becoming louder saying that the power or influence of Iran in the region, specifically in Iraq, is in decline. These attitudes have emerged with the announcement by Washington to withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of this year. In order to determine whether the Iranian role is truly in decline, we must ask the fundamental question: Where does Iran’s power lie?
If we know the true nature of Iran’s power in Iraq, or the region, then we can gauge whether its influence has actually declined or not. To answer this question, the real power of Iran lies in subversion, through Shiite militias in Iraq and other Shiite religious parties affiliated to Iran in Iraq and the wider region, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Huthis in Yemen and al-Wefaq in Bahrain, alongside other groups, whether in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia and so on. The strength of Iran throughout the reign of its ruling regime after the Khomeini Revolution does not lie in Iran’s economy or culture, or what is known as “soft power”. It does not even lie in its military capabilities, for example, but rather its subversion. When Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Salehi, in an interview with this newspaper, defended the commander of the Quds Force, General Qasim Sulaimani, saying that he does not possess the staff of Moses in Iraq, especially against 150,000 U.S. soldiers, this is typical of the Iranian political premise. The U.S. forces’ objective is to impose security and order in Iraq, whilst the objective of Iran’s Quds Force is to create unrest and chaos. As the proverb says: “a stone thrown by one crazy person can hinder the work of hundreds”. The Iranian stone thrower is not crazy, but the objective is clear, namely to fragment the Iraqis and ignite the flames of sectarian strife between them. Here we find the answer to a specific question which is: Why have pilots, university professors, political elites and tribal leaders been targeted, ever since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, alongside those who objected to al-Qaeda such as Abu Risha, and even national Iraqi Shiite leaders, such as [Abdul Majid] al-Khoei?
Of course, there is nothing in this story that comes as a surprise. Anyone who follows Iran’s methods in the region finds that Iran’s power lies not in its arsenal of weapons, nor in its economic or cultural soft power. Iran is not the America, China or even Turkey of the region, Iran’s power lies in its sabotage. We must remember that those who seek to destroy are unlike those who seek to build. The Iranian regime intentionally exploits sectarian sentiments in the region, and builds alliances on that basis, but Tehran does not hesitate to even exploit Sunni fundamentalist groups in the region, including al-Qaeda. The objective of Iran in the region, and specifically the Arab world, is not construction but demolition, and the difference is clear and large.
Thus, all indications before us say that the danger of Iran is still present, because Iran’s goal is clear and simple. It seeks to negotiate with the West within the confines of Tehran’s influence, within the region that it exploits, and the issues it manipulates. Iran is strengthening its trump card to negotiate with the West, nothing more, nothing less.
We must always remember that from the Khomeini Revolution until this day, Tehran has not provided any successful model of cooperation between Iran and the region, whether economically or even culturally. Iran’s mission is subversion, and this is the engine behind its power.

Hezbollah and the Lebanon tribunal – paying for your pariah
8 November 2011
Radio Netherlands
The funding of the special tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is a divisive issue in Lebanese politics. Lebanon must pay its share of the annual budget in a few weeks but five months after the release of the first indictments many here doubt if Lebanese politicians will manage to agree.
By Daisy Mohr, Beirut
Lebanon is responsible for 49 percent of the court’s finances but has not yet paid its $33 million share for 2011. Hezbollah and its allies have repeatedly rejected cooperation with the court, let alone funding it. They insist that the tribunal set up to prosecute persons responsible for the death of Rafiq Hariri is part of a ‘US-Israeli conspiracy’ aimed at targeting the resistance group and inciting sectarian strife in the country.
During a televised speech Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said he would leave the issue of funding the court to the cabinet, stressing that ministers should seek consensus on the matter and if not, then put it to a vote. Najib Mikati is now facing his toughest test since he became prime minister.
“My position is constant, and that is complete cooperation with international decisions, including resolution 1757 that concerns the court and its funding. This is my position as prime minister of Lebanon and there are constitutional institutions that we need to refer to,” said Mikati who was nominated for the premiership backed by Hezbollah and its allies that dominate his government. “Anyone who wants to finance the tribunal let him do it from his own pocket,” said Nasrallah in a reference to Mikati, a billionaire businessman. Hezbollah toppled the previous government headed by Saad Hariri over its refusal to cut ties with the tribunal.
International pressure
International pressure is now mounting. The USA, Russia and the EU have warned of possible sanctions if Lebanon won’t pay. US Ambassador Maura Connelly stated that Lebanon could face ‘serious consequences’ should it fail to pay its share. “Those who oppose the special tribunal seek to create a false choice between justice and stability,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Stefan Fule, EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy, following a series of talks with senior Lebanese officials, said he was confident Lebanon would come up with the money. “We have confidence in this country and its political elite to find a solution to this delicate but important issue,” Fule said. “I have not come to discuss plan B or plan C. I have come to discuss plan A.” Lebanon can ultimately be referred to the United Nations Security Council if it refuses to pay.
Public fatigue
The Lebanese public is growing tired of the political debate surrounding the STL. A poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information this summer revealed that 63.5 % of Lebanese did not consider the STL credible. Only 36.8% believed in the independence of the Tribunal.
Trials are expected to start mid-2012 but in Lebanon few believe the suspects will ever appear in court. Last June the STL issued arrest warrants for four Hezbollah members and while the Lebanese authorities reported measures were being taken to track them down, they were not arrested within the 30-day deadline. In the hope of speeding up the arrests the tribunal made the indictment public in August and released the names, photographs and details of the suspects.
In absentia
Few analysts expect the Internal Security Forces to even attempt to apprehend the four suspects and hand them over to the STL. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied involvement in the assassination and in a speech earlier this year Nasrallah vowed the accused will never be caught ‘not even in 300 years’. While it appears almost certain that the trial will proceed in absentia, the judges first have to be convinced that enough efforts were made to apprehend the accused.

Iran: Syria’s Big Brother
Iran’s rulers are as brutal as Syria’s, and a far bigger threat to us.
Mark D. Wallace /National Review Online
When it comes to harsh words and denunciations from the West, Iran and Syria run neck and neck. Yet when it comes to taking meaningful action, the international community regrettably hesitates to do for Iran what it has done for Iran’s junior partner.
In recent months, EU member states and the Obama administration have not only been vocal in denouncing Syria’s brutal treatment of protesters, but have also backed up their words with serious penalties. Specifically, the European Union sanctioned Syria’s Central Bank on October 13, after deciding on September 2 to ban EU member states from importing Syrian oil. The embargo was particularly consequential, given that oil has been a major source of revenue for the Syrian regime, and 95 percent of its customers were EU members.
What is puzzling is that both the Obama administration and the EU have been disinclined to impose the same penalties on Iran, even after the October 11 revelation of the regime’s plot to commit terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. While punishing Syria is wholly justifiable, the same can’t be said of EU member states’ silence toward Syria’s big brother (exemplified by their resistance to banning oil imports from Iran), or the Obama administration’s reluctance to sanction Iran’s Central Bank. The truth is that Iran’s rulers are by all accounts just as brutal as Syria’s, and just as deserving of similar sanctions.
When it comes to human rights, Syria and Iran are kindred spirits. The Iranian regime tops every human-rights organization’s list of abusers, and it is currently on an execution binge that has claimed more than 200 lives so far this year. Iran continues to track, spy on, and arrest political protesters and dissidents, and the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in Iran recently released a report claiming that authorities conducted 446 secret executions in 2010 and 2011. The Iranian regime is notorious for prosecuting citizens for “crimes” such as being homosexual, Christian, or a journalist, and has made a habit of publicly hanging people from construction cranes.
Worst of all, Iran is an even bigger threat to the U.S. and the world than Syria. The regime is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, is allied with al-Qaeda, and is responsible for the deaths of American and NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As mentioned, Iran has now been revealed to have plotted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and of course it continues to pursue nuclear weapons in defiance of international law.
It is time for the Obama administration, the EU, and the rest of the free world to confront this grave threat before it is too late. Iran certainly merits the same sanctions already imposed on Syria, and now is the perfect time for them. Iran’s fragile economy would incur severe harm from an oil ban by the EU states, on which its trade revenues now depend. Even President Ahmadinejad has admitted that current sanctions are working. Ratcheting them up now would put even more pressure on the regime.
Specifically, sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank — which have the support of 92 U.S. senators but have reportedly been tabled by the Obama administration — would sever Iran from the international banking system and thus hinder its ability to trade. The administration needs to take this action, and must also make clear that any further acts of war by Iran will be met with a swift military response.
Lawmakers can also take immediate action to ensure the enforcement of existing sanctions. First, while U.S. law rightly forbids American companies to do business with Iran, some, such as Honeywell, sell sensitive energy products there through foreign subsidiaries. This foreign-subsidiary loophole should be closed immediately, as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) and other members of Congress have recently proposed, and the offending companies should be sanctioned by the U.S. government for their irresponsible circumvention of long-standing bans on trade with Iran.

Second, the Obama administration must enforce existing provisions in Iranian energy sanctions, such as the certification requirement which bans companies that do business in Iran’s oil sector from receiving U.S.-government contracts. A recent GAO report revealed that a number of companies, including South Korea’s Daelim, receive contracts from the Pentagon while also doing business in Iran. This is outrageous. The Obama administration must immediately sanction such companies and affirm that U.S. tax dollars will not go to businesses that are in bed with a regime that is supporting terrorists and killing American troops.As jarring as it was to learn of the recent Iran-sponsored terrorist plot, significant good can result if it serves as the catalyst for the Obama administration and the international community to impose the sorts of sanctions on Iran that have already deservedly been imposed on Syria. A template for imposing effective measures in response to a brutal regime’s intransigence has been established with Syria. It should now be applied to Iran.
*—Mark D. Wallace is president of United against Nuclear Iran. He served in the George W. Bush administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. representative for U.N. management and reform.

North gathering says government neglecting Syrian refugees
November 08, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Religious and political leaders from the northern city of Akkar have warned the Lebanese government against withholding medical treatment to Syrian refugees and leaving them to die.A statement issued at the end of a lengthy meeting held Monday at the residence of Future bloc MP Mouin Merhebi accused Prime Minister Najib Mikati of denying medical care for Syrian nationals fleeing an eight-month crackdown by the Syrian regime.
The meeting comprised of Akkar Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rifai, Azem Ayoubi, head of a local Islamic group; Khaled Taha, lawyer and coordinator of the Future Movement in Tripoli and Zakaria Abdullah, head of the Union of Municipalities for the area.
The group said Mikati had ordered the government-run Higher Relief Council to freeze medical care to Syrian refugees.
While acknowledging that the government-run Higher Relief Council had “to some extent” fulfilled its duties toward Syrian refugees in terms of hospitalization and health care for the sick and wounded, the participants said they were “surprised” by Mikati’s decision to halt medical assistance.
“This decision is a violation of all rules of treatment of refugees provided by the human rights charter and the laws of the United Nations, putting dozens of [Syrian] refugees at risk of death from medical conditions, and their inability to return home to seek the necessary treatment,” the group said in its statement.
“We hold the prime minister, who heads the Higher Relief Council, fully responsible for the outcome of this unjust and arbitrary decision ... and we hold the government and the relevant institutions [responsible for] the consequences of their support for the Syrian regime for the sake of implementing its bloody and criminal schemes,” the statement added.
The group, which said it stood in solidarity with the Syrian people, hailed the protesters as determined heroes in the face of “killing and terrorizing the people for more than four decades.”
“It is the duty of the government and the head of the government to deal with these refugees in line with international law and the human rights charter, especially with the entire world knowing they’re being killed, arrested, intimidated and tortured if they return to their homeland of Syria,” the group said in the statement.
It said that providing assistance and attention for the Syrian refugees was a religious, humanitarian, legal and national duty.
The participants also accused the Lebanese military of imposing a “media blockade” in the Wadi Khaled border area.
“The Syrian people are exposed to a campaign of intimidation by the Assad regime, seeking to keep them from freedom and dignity,” read the statement.
In its latest report on the refugee situation in the region, the U.N. Higher Commission for Refugees states that there are now 3,505 Syrians registered with the agency and with Lebanon’s High Relief Commission. Protests against the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad have raged since earlier this year. The U.N. says over 3,000 Syrians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the crackdown by Damascus. Syrian authorities deny targeting civilians, blaming the deaths on "armed gangs" who are part of a conspiracy targeting the country.

UN says Syria death toll has passed 3,500
BBC/The UN says repression of protests is continuing despite the proposed peace deal
More than 3,500 people have died in months of anti-government protests in Syria, according to the UN. A UN spokeswoman blamed "the brutal crackdown on dissent" for the figure, which was based on sources on the ground.
Last week the Arab League said Syria had agreed proposals for a peace deal involving the opposition.
The UN says since then more than 60 people have been reported killed - many in the central city of Homs.
"Syrian troops continue to use tanks and heavy weaponry to attack residential areas in the city of Homs," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Opposition activists say security forces have been mounting a heavy offensive on the city over the past few days, particularly on the contested Baba Amr district.
They say troops are going house-to-house to make arrests, although many residents are reported to have fled.
Ms Shamdasani described the situation in Baba Amr as "particularly appalling," adding that according to information the OHCHR has received, the area has remained under siege for seven days, with residents deprived of food, water and medical supplies.
The claims are impossible to verify as the Syrian government has severely restricted access for foreign journalists.
The government said last weekend that it had released political prisoners as a first step to implementing the peace deal.
However, Ms Shamdasani said that despite the release, "thousands continue to remain in detention and dozens continue to be arbitrarily arrested every day".

For Lebanon’s Christians, the fear is what might come next
patrick martin
Beirut— Globe and Mail Update
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
“Tell me, sir, do you think there’s any hope for us?”
I was almost embarrassed by the pleading nature of this inquiry.
The speaker was a woman of a certain age, owner of a franchise shoe store in an affluent part of predominantly Christian East Beirut. She wore her coloured blonde hair pulled back in a European style, spoke halting English, perfect French and, like so many of Lebanon’s Christians, far from perfect Arabic.
After selling me an excellent pair of walking shoes, she learned I had visited the country several times and travelled the region as a journalist.
Hence, her question.
I knew exactly what she meant by it. Christians throughout this region are feeling imperilled. Events are happening quickly, regimes are tumbling; the old order isn’t what it used to be. And to Christians – in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – that’s a cause for concern.
I told her the whole region is in upheaval and many good things might come out of it. I acknowledged that Christians in nearby Syria, about 100 kilometres to the East, were very fearful of what might come of them should an extreme Sunni Islamic government take power in Damascus. Until now, Syrian Christians had felt reasonably safe under the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“Better the devil you know …” she said, nodding. “But what about us here in Lebanon?”
The woman spoke from painful experience, having endured 15 hard years of civil war that mostly amounted to one long, bloody battle between Muslims and Christians.
I pointed to a possibly positive outcome, at least as far as she was concerned. If Mr. al-Assad falls, I said, then Iranian support for Hezbollah might dwindle (since Syria serves as Iran’s paymaster and arms dealer for the Shia movement in Lebanon). If Hezbollah’s potency is diminished, then the balance of power in Lebanon could shift to the point where moderate Christians and Muslims are again in the political majority in Lebanon.
The woman smiled in a world-weary way. She knew that was a long shot.
It was the same look a man had given me just the night before. It was sunset, just before 6 p.m. Sunday evening, and the man was standing with his three children – two daughters and a son; the oldest, a girl, was 16. They were outside the beautifully rebuilt Greek Orthodox church in the renovated downtown of the city, waiting for a wedding party to arrive. The man, of about 50 years, said they were relatives of the bride.
As the guests filed into the church, he too spoke with alarm about the future for his children in Lebanon. Having learned that my friend and I were Canadian, his beautifully turned out older daughter burst out with the words: “I’m Canadian too.”
It seems the family had fled to Canada during the civil war, as so many other Lebanese had, and acquired Canadian citizenship. They moved back to Lebanon once things had quieted down and took up life here again.
But recent events, such as the establishment of a Hezbollah-influenced government and the possible overthrow of the neighbouring al-Assad regime, left him wondering whether he’d made the right choice.
“I think it would be better for the children if we returned to Canada,” he said.
Looking at his daughter, he spoke of there being more opportunities in Canada, but he meant opportunities for survival, not just economic opportunities.
It was fear he was feeling – fear of what might come next for Christians in the region, and fear that his indecisiveness might prevent him from making the tough decision to again leave the country before it’s too late.
More related to this story

The best defense
Talking to STL Defense Office Head François Roux
Arthur Blok, November 8, 2011
Leidschendam — The head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Defense Office, François Roux, says he does not expect the trial to take place before the summer of 2012. “The defense team will need months and months to prepare their case,” Roux told NOW Lebanon in an exclusive interview at the seat of the STL in Leidschendam, Holland. “The defense team needs to investigate everything brought forward by the prosecutor in the indictment,” which was released in June and named four men for their involvement in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. “Trust me that will take some time,” he said.

So no trial before March 2012?

François Roux: No, absolutely not. First there will be a public hearing before the trial chamber on Friday, November 11. The chamber will decide if there will be a trial in absentia or not. If so, all the case files will be forwarded to the pre-trial judge. At that point the pre-trial judge will ask me to appoint a permanent defense counsel. Once I have assigned the permanent counsel, the prosecutor has 30 days to present to us the unedited version of the indictment. But do not expect a decision from the chamber on November 11. They will need a few weeks to decide on the matter. It took the pre-trial judge six months to study all the files the prosecutor brought forward in his indictment. The defense counsel will need at least a minimum of six months to prepare themselves, maybe more. The STL does not have an investigative judge. This means that every party has the right to investigate matters themselves. Investigation takes time.

What if the cabinet of Lebanese PM Najib Mikati decides to withhold this year’s payment to the STL? What would that change for you as the head of the Defense Office?

Roux: Until this moment I have not seen any official information regarding this issue. I do not wish to react to speculation. I will wait for an official report on the matter.

But the clock is ticking, and we only have a few more weeks before the end of the year. So far the cabinet has no clear position on the payment issue. Would it be acceptable to you to work on behalf of a country that formally does not want to cooperate with you anymore?

Roux: Again, this moment has not arrived yet. During the past few months the newspapers have been full of speculation. I suggest waiting until we have a formal reaction from the government.

How difficult is it to lose an icon like Judge Antonio Cassese, who died in October?

Roux: The death of Judge Cassese came as very sad news to all of us, but I think the best tribute to pay to him is to continue the work of the STL.

What about the fact that the other icon of the STL, Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, has been on sick leave for the past few months?

Roux: I have read the same press releases as you have, and I am sure you realize that the prosecutor is continuing his work from wherever he might be. From my standpoint I can assure you we have been receiving regular submissions from his office regarding the upcoming hearing. It is business as usual.

Were you bothered by the speculation in the Lebanese media that President Cassese stepped down from his position because he had a bad relationship with Bellemare?

Roux: I do not like to comment on that kind of speculation in the media. There are four heads of the different organs of the STL. What I can tell you is that we always worked together for the sake of the STL since my arrival. That does not mean we always are in agreement with each other, but we always make sure that we can work together.

What will be your main focus during Friday’s hearing?

Roux: It is not as simple as you might think. The DO is working very hard to prepare for this hearing. The only thing I am prepared to say at this point is that the DO will do everything in its power to make sure the rights of the accused are observed. I will give you an example. The statute of the STL and the rules of procedure and evidence provide for several innovations. One of them is trials in absentia, and another one is the possibility for an accused person to appear by video conference or through representation by counsel. This means that if an accused decides to appear by video conference, he remains a free man. That is absolutely new in international law. By issuing arrest warrants against the accused in the way they were issued this summer we actually turned them into fugitives. This prevents them from appearing before the court as free men.

Are you saying that if there would have been no arrest warrant against them, you would have expected them to come to Leidschendam?

Roux: The late President Cassese called in August for the accused to appear before the court. After this call, arrest warrants were issued against them. This is in fact against the statute of the STL. We as the DO are here to ensure that all the rights granted to them in the statute are observed. And in this case they are not.

Today if one of the accused decides to leave home to go to his lawyer’s office, for example, that person is subject to arrest if caught. This is contrary to the spirit of the statute. He should be granted the possibility of appearing before the court as a free man, which is now impossible because of the arrest warrants.

Are you going to raise this issue on November 11?

Roux: We will be making many submissions on November 11 when the hearing is held. This is an issue we already raised in our written submissions before the chamber; at the hearing we will make public statements regarding this. It is our duty as the DO to make it clear to the judge that at this point the rights of the accused are not being properly observed.

What position will you take on November 11 on the possibility of a trial in absentia?

Roux: On November 11 the dialogue will be mainly between the chamber and the prosecution. The DO is invited to attend the hearing, just to hear what the judges and the prosecutor have to say. At the hearing the DO is there to defend the principles of justice, just like in the past.

Have you had contact with any of the accused?

Roux: No.

Not even with the organization they allegedly belong to, Hezbollah?

Roux: No. And as far as I know Hezbollah is named in the indictment but not as the accused. The indictment mentions only four persons. The DO did not have any contact with the four persons accused in the indictment.

How do you decide on a strategy to defend the accused if you don't have any contact with them?

Roux: The DO is not the one tasked with deciding on the strategy of defending the accused. We assigned a temporary duty council to defend the rights of the accused. It is up to the defense counsel in a later stage to decide on the strategy. We are here to provide legal and logistical support.

Why are you not a little bit more active in approaching the suspects? You could have picked up the phone and called Hezbollah’s office in Beirut yourself.

Roux: We are very active. We send many messages through the media, and I made it very clear that my door is open. That is all I have to say about this topic.

How are you going to defend suspects properly without actually having contacted them?

Roux: It is absolutely clear that if we are going to have trials in absentia, the defense counsel will not have any contact with their clients. It is a difficult situation, but by no means an impossible one. The defense counsel will be made up of very seasoned lawyers. And I [am very confident] that they will be able to conduct an efficient and vigorous defense of their clients.

The trial can roughly be divided into two phases. In the first phase the prosecutor will present his evidence. This could take weeks, months or even years. During this phase the prosecution can present witnesses, experts, documents and so forth to support its accusations. In this phase the defense counsel can challenge basically everything that is brought forward by the prosecutor. Sometimes the defense counsel is so successful in challenging the evidence that the case collapses. In that case the judges have to acquit the suspects, even before starting the second phase in which the defense will present its case.

However, at the same time it cannot present what we call an affirmative defense. That means, for example, that they cannot present an alibi.

Is this not the basis of any defense?

Roux: No, not exclusively. I have defended many people in front of an international tribunal, but I never presented an alibi as the basis of my defense.

Is this appointed permanent defense counsel actively going to approach the suspects?

Roux: No. If there is a trial in absentia, the accused always has the right to ask for a retrial at a later stage in his presence. Only then, because if there were to be contact with the counsel they would forfeit the right to a trial in absentia.

What about the issue of the unconstitutionality of the STL as a whole? And then, in particular, the way it was established with neither the consent of the Lebanese president nor the blessing of the Lebanese parliament. How does the DO see that?

Roux: The defense teams have every liberty to raise and argue all of these issues for the chamber in their bid to defend the accused. Last week we had a working session with the duty counsel to update them on what is going to happen in the upcoming hearing. As part of that working session, Professor Salim Jreissati gave a lecture on the issue of the legality of the STL. Professor Jreissati will remain at our disposal for any future inquiries on the issue.

Let’s talk about the indictment. Don’t you think it is very weak?

Roux: We have to wait and see what will happen in court. What I can say about the content is that [neither] you nor anybody else has any access to supporting documents of the indictment. So we have to be very careful when commenting about the indictment at this stage. Nobody knows exactly what those supporting documents contain. We are, however, now aware of the path of the prosecutor’s decision.

Still, don’t you think the indictment is weak because it was based only on circumstantial evidence?

Roux: That is why I recommend caution when judging the indictment that is on the table now.

Do you think it is in the interest of the prosecutor to present you with all the evidence he has at this stage?

Roux: Of course not. All we have before us at this moment is just a basic indictment—as basic as they come. But that is completely normal in international law. If you had seen the initial indictments that came before the ICTR [International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda], many of those were much more basic. As a lawyer I can assure you that there will be many issues we can argue about and challenge. But again, before we say anything we have to wait before we have seen all the documents.

This interview has been edited.