LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِSeptember 22/2011

Bible Quotation for today/Testing and Tempting
James 1/12-15: Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him. If we are tempted by such trials, we must not say, This temptation comes from God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But we are tempted when we are drawn away and trapped by our own evil desires.15 Then our evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
A Syria with no Syrians/By: Husam Itani/September 21/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for September 21/11
US preparing for Assad's downfall, paper reports

Turban Bomber Kills Top Afghan Peace Negotiator

3 Dead, 15 Hurt in Downtown Ankara Bomb Blast
Egypt resumes gas flow to Jordan – but not to Israel

Gadhafi Still in Libya, Interim Leader Tells Obama
UN welcomes Libya's new leadership; Obama pledges support
Israel's president requests heads of state to oppose Palestinian UN bid

Netanyahu to meet world leaders in bid to thwart Palestinian statehood

Israel's FM tells Canadians: Palestinians not ready for statehood

Abbas barrels on toward statehood

Refugees largely optimistic of success at U.N.

Lebanese Finance minister unveils tax proposal

Lebanon's House Speaker, Berri calls for legislative session to pass power bill

All Lebanese Maronite leaders to attend Bkirki meeting

Al-Rahi, Ignatius IV: Only a Just State Can Protect Everyone

Lebanon's Future bloc condemns Syrian army incursion

2 Accomplices of Mastermind Behind Estonians Kidnapping Killed in Clash with ISF

Deraled Micheal Aoun: Assad will not fall, Hariri at fault on maritime debacle

Mustaqbal Blames Surge in Security Incidents on 'Culture of Arms'

Lebanese Forces bloc MP George Adwan: State should hold war and peace decision
 

US preparing for Assad's downfall, paper reports
September 20, 2011
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the United States was increasingly convinced that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime would fall and was preparing for a possibly violent aftermath. The newspaper said Washington was quietly working with Ankara to plan for a post-Assad future that could see Syria's various ethnic groups battle for control of the country, potentially destabilizing neighboring states.It said that despite calling on Assad to step down, the United States had yet to withdraw its ambassador, Robert Ford, because it viewed him as a vital conduit to the opposition and Syria's disparate ethnic and religious groups. The New York Times said intelligence officials and diplomats in the Middle East, Europe and the United States increasingly believed Assad would not be able to quash the months-long revolt against his family's four-decade-long rule. "There’s a real consensus that he’s beyond the pale and over the edge," the paper quoted a senior official in US President Barack Obama's administration as saying. "Intelligence services say he’s not coming back." Assad has deployed tanks and troops in an increasingly violent response to anti-government protests inspired by the Arab Spring, with at least 2,600 people, mostly civilians, killed since March 15, according to UN figures.-AFP/NOW Lebanon
 

All Maronite leaders to attend Bkirki meeting

September 21, 2011/By Hussein Dakroub The Daily Star
BEIRUT: A meeting of Lebanon’s rival Maronite leaders and lawmakers will be held as scheduled Friday, with full attendance expected, officials said Tuesday, despite a nationwide controversy sparked by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai’s recent statements on Syria and Hezbollah’s arms.
The meeting, to be held at the patriarch’s seat at Bkirki, north of Beirut, comes against the backdrop of a new schism within the Maronite community following Rai’s remarks which have jolted the Christian heartland.
Doubts about the meeting were raised, especially after Rai upheld his controversial statements during a tour of a Hezbollah stronghold in the Baalbek-Hermel region at the weekend, ignoring March 14 Christian politicians’ harsh criticisms.
“The Maronite leaders’ meeting will be held as scheduled Friday. So far, Bkirki has not received any notification from any leader that he will not attend,” Walid Ghayyad, the Maronite patriarch’s media adviser, told The Daily Star. He said the Maronite leaders have one major topic to discuss: a new election law.
Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra denied reports that LF leader Samir Geagea has demanded a postponement of the Bkirki meeting in view of the row over Rai’s statements.
“The Bkirki meeting will be held as scheduled. Dr. Geagea will attend along with Lebanese Forces MPs,” Zahra told The Daily Star. He said a quadripartite committee, tasked with making proposals for a new election law, will meet on the eve of Friday’s meeting to finalize its proposals.
Asked if Rai’s statements caused a strain in the patriarch’s relations with the LF, Zahra said they jolted the Christian areas.
“There is nothing new in the LF’s relations with the Maronite patriarch. The patriarch might have opinions and attitudes on which we don’t agree. But there has been no change in the LF’s relationship with the patriarch and Bkirki,” Zahra said.
While Rai has been visited by President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun in a show of support for his stances since his return from a one-week visit to France on Sept. 11, no officials or MPs from the LF or the Kataeb (Phalange) Party have visited the patriarch.
Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel sent his wife, Joyce Gemayel, who met Rai accompanied by journalist May Chidiac at Bkirki. Gemayel’s son, MP Sami Gemayel, lashed out at Rai’s critics, saying that anyone who has something to say against the patriarch should do so in Bkirki rather than through the media outlets.
Rai has scrambled to contain the political storm sparked by his statements in Paris. He said his remarks that linked the fate of Hezbollah’s arms to an overall Middle East peace settlement and called for giving embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad a chance to carry out political reforms were taken out of context. Rai also warned that the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise in Syria would threaten the presence of Christians there.
Rai’s remarks drew harsh criticism from some March 14 politicians who said that the patriarch’s comments on the divisive issue of Hezbollah contradicted with the concept of state building and the Maronite Church’s position in support of state authority. However, Rai’s statements were praised by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies.
Rai upheld his stances in speeches during a two-visit to the Baalbek-Hermel region at the weekend, the first by a Maronite patriarch to the predominantly-Shiite area where he got an unprecedented warm welcome by Muslim residents and was honored by a senior Hezbollah official in Baalbek. Rai also renewed the fears he voiced in France about the presence of Christians in the region as a result of the popular uprisings in the Arab world.
The Bkirki meeting comes a day before the LF’s annual ceremony to commemorate the “Lebanese Forces martyrs” – LF militiamen killed during the 1975-90 Civil War – at a rally to be sponsored by Rai in the coastal town of Jounieh. Rai will be represented by former Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir who will lead the Mass.
Friday’s will be the third meeting of rival Maronite leaders and lawmakers hosted by Rai in an attempt to end political divisions within the Maronite community. A similar meeting in June issued a call to safeguard Lebanese land, preserve Lebanon’s special identity and its diversified society, and achieve an equal division of civil service posts between Christians and Muslims.
Rai sponsored a high-profile and ice-breaking meeting in Bkirki on April 19 of the country’s top Maronite leaders: Aoun, Gemayel, Geagea and Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh. Lebanon’s leading Maronite parties are divided between the opposition March 14 coalition and the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance.
The Maronite Church has voiced concerns over the issue of Christian land sales and foreign ownership of land. Property sales and high emigration rates have raised fears over organized efforts to alter the country’s demographic balance, as Lebanon’s Christian community has fallen to almost 40 percent, threatening the continued viability of a power-sharing system based on equality between Muslims and Christians. Meanwhile, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, head of the Higher Shiite Council, spoke by telephone with Rai Tuesday, praising the patriarch’s tour in the Bekaa region and his “uniting national attitudes which help in boosting coexistence among the Lebanese.” Former President Emile Lahoud praised Rai’s stances. He said the warm welcome given to Rai during his pastoral tours reflected public support for the patriarch. “The Church’s strength lies in the people rallying around its teachings and attitudes,” Lahoud said.
He added that he supported Rai’s warning of a plan to dismember the Arab region into “sectarian and confessional entities similar to the Israeli entity with its aggressive racism.”
Rai received a number of visitors in Bkirki Tuesday, including former Minister Nassib Lahoud, head of the Democratic Renewal Movement

Lebanese Forces bloc MP George Adwan: State should hold war and peace decision
September 20, 2011 /Lebanese Forces bloc MP George Adwan said on Tuesday evening that the best means to confront aggression is for the state to hold the war and peace decision.
Adwan called for not linking the Palestinian cause to Hezbollah’s arms, adding that linking the latter to any cause “is useless.”“A strong, capable state will not rise as long as there are [non-state] arms,” the MP told Future News television. He added that “the weakness the government is suffering from” is due to the presence of non-state arms. “The cabinet’s positions and decisions are not united.”Asked about President Michel Sleiman’s positions, Adwan said, “Sleiman’s positions change. On many issues, [Sleiman] is closer to not having a position. [Recently] his positions are no longer close to ours.”-NOW Lebanon

Future bloc condemns Syrian army incursion
September 21, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The Future parliamentary bloc condemned the recent incursion by the Syrian army into Lebanese territories, stressing that the Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces must protect the country’s borders. In a statement after their weekly meeting Tuesday, the Future bloc criticized recent security incidents along the country’s border with Syria.
“The bloc condemns the repeated incidents of gunfire on the northeastern border by the Syrian troops,” said the statement, which was read by Bekaa MP Jamal Jarrah.
“[The Future bloc] condemns all incidents at the border under any pretext … especially last week’s attack on border villages that left several people wounded,” said Jarrah.
Last week, one Lebanese Army vehicle and several houses in border villages on the Lebanese side came under fire following a swift raid carried out by the Syrian army, which said that it was after shepherds who had illegally fled Syria. For its part, the Lebanese Army said that it was not present in the area when the Syrian army entered into Lebanese territories.
The bloc also condemned the rampage this week in Beirut’s Ras al-Nabaa neighborhood that took the lives of seven people.
The bloc blamed the rise of security incidents on the proliferation of weapons in the country. “Such a situation was caused by the culture of arms and the party of arms [Hezbollah],” said the statement. The bloc said it is closely following developments in Syria and the ongoing use of force by the Syrian regime against pro-democracy demonstrators.
According to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, more than 2,600 people have been killed since the start of the popular demonstrations in March, and thousands of other Syrians have been reported to be missing. “The only solution [in Syria] is to listen to the demands of freedom and democracy raised by the people … and these won’t be accomplished through the use of violence and killing people,” said the statement. “It would be solved by withdrawing the army from the streets and towns and by holding accountable all those who oppressed the Syrian people and by introducing real democratic reforms,” the statement said, adding that Lebanon should stand behind the rights of the Syrian people at the U.N.
“Lebanon, which has always stood behind the self-determination of all people at the U.N., should stand against the oppression and persecution of the Syrian people.”
The bloc also praised Palestine’s bid for full U.N. state membership, calling it an “important and historical step for the Palestinian struggle.”
The Future bloc described Lebanon’s presidency of the U.N. Security Council as a great opportunity to oversee the Palestinian efforts to gain membership at the U.N.
The statement added that the Lebanese government should fulfill its international commitments while it holds the presidency of the Security Council. “Such a failure would negatively affect Lebanon’s position, role and credibility,” said the statement in reference to the government’s commitment to pay its share of funding for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Aoun: Assad will not fall, Hariri at fault on maritime debacle
September 21, 2011/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun ruled out Tuesday the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. “There is no [country] in the world that wants regime change in Syria,” Aoun told the reporters. Speaking after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabieh, Aoun praised recent statements from Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai on Christians in the Middle East, adding that they reflect the true fears of minorities in the region. “Rai’s statements express the concerns of the minorities because he is entrusted with the Synod for the Middle East,” said Aoun. Aoun also called for peaceful change in Syria to avoid further bloodshed in the country. “Gradual changes doesn’t harm stability and wouldn’t get Syria into the [same] troubles as Palestine, Iraq, Libya and Yemen,” the FPM leader said.
As pro-democracy demonstrations in Syria enter their seventh month, the Syrian regime has continued its brutal crackdown, describing protesters as religious extremists and terrorists.
However, demonstrators across Syria have not backed down from their demands, escalating their calls from political reforms to bringing down the Syrian regime.
According to Aoun, some of the Syrian demonstrators are armed and they are bringing destruction to the country. “The Syrian government cannot but bring order to the country,” said Aoun, adding that the majority of Syrians have accepted the government’s reforms.
Aoun also called for putting former Prime Minister Saad Hariri on trial for not approving the demarcation of Lebanon’s maritime borders.
“Had he sent the approval of the demarcation to his Cabinet, we would have been done with this maritime story by now,” he said, calling Hariri a “refugee” in Europe.
The Lebanese government agreed on the demarcation of Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone Monday, three months after the Israeli government approved their own version of the borders. The Lebanese government had described the Israeli move as an “aggression” against its natural gas and oil rights in the Mediterranean Sea, as both countries make future plans to drill for oil and gas in the maritime area between them. Lebanon shares maritime borders with Turkey, Cyprus, Palestine and Israel. The dispute with Israel over a maritime area that spans some 860 square kilometers is an obstacle to developing oil and gas projects.
Several offshore drilling companies have reportedly expressed fears that it would be difficult to carry out projects in the disputed area.
President Michel Sleiman, who flew to New York Tuesday, is set to press Lebanon’s demarcation of its EEZ in the Mediterranean during his meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week. Commenting on Palestine’s bid for full U.N. membership this week, Aoun said that Friday’s meeting at the U.N. is “very important.”

Egypt resumes gas flow to Jordan – but not to Israel
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
September 20, 2011,
Egyptian natural gas is flowing again to Jordan – but not to Israel, debkafile's exclusive sources report. Both Cairo and Amman are keeping quiet about the resumption of supplies through the Sinai pipeline which was sabotaged five times since the Egyptian revolution in February. Jordan has agreed to top up payment for the gas by an extra $250 million, but Cairo has broken off negotiations with Jerusalem on new prices so making sure that supplies to Israel are cut off for good. That is not the only cause for concern about the state of peace ties between Egypt and Israel. While Israeli officials optimistically forecast the early reopening of the Israeli embassy in Cairo after it was wrecked 10 days ago by a radical Islamic mob, officials in Cairo quickly put a damper on this forecast by announcing that the Israeli ambassador would not return to Cairo any time soon.
And in a symbolic snub, the military junta banned the traditional export to Israel of palm fronds for the Four Species blessing on the Sukkot festival next month. Last year, Israel imported 650,000 palm fronds from northern Sinai.
The Prime Minister's Office and defense officials shy away from admitting that relations with the Supreme Military Council ruling Egypt are going from bad to worse. They explain that the new rulers are just wary of stirring up the masses for more uncontrolled outbreaks like the mob assault on the Israeli embassy on Sept. 10.
Israeli sources have also tried to find a ray of light in the ban the Supreme Council imposed this week on the radical Gama'a al-Islamiya running for election in the first post-Mubarak parliamentary votes in November.
However, debkafile's sources stress that this ban has nothing to do with easing relations with Israel. The generals are simply scared of the Islamist fundamentalists gathering momentum for armed resistance to their own rule.
As one informed Western observer put it: The military rulers used the Israeli embassy break-in as the pretext for restoring Hosni Mubarak's emergency regulations while at the same time downgrading Egyptian-Israeli ties in controlled stages so as to avoid drawing Western attention.
The flow of Egyptian gas through Sinai was made possible only after Israel permitted Egypt to post troops in demilitarized Sinai to safeguard the pipeline against more sabotage. The irony of the situation is that the gas is being pumped through to Jordan while Israel is deprived.
The Egyptian junta is equally cynical and nonchalant about security in Sinai, especially along the border with Israel.
Since the terrorist attack from Sinai on the Eilat highway on Aug. 18, which left 8 Israelis dead, beefed up Egyptian forces have not carried out a single operation against the thousands of terrorists loose in the peninsula, including al Qaeda cells, likeminded jihadi networks and Palestinian gunmen. Nothing has changed except for a few scattered roadblocks.
Indeed, the Egyptian junta's claims of operations for purging northern Sinai of armed gangs and destroying weapons smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip were just make-believe. It concealed Cairo's renunciation of responsibility for security in the lawless peninsula and the Israeli border region, transferring it to the indigenous Bedouin tribes, together with a large measure of autonomy, in deals they struck with the local chiefs.
No responsible force is therefore around to chase back to the Gaza Strip a Palestinian Jihad Islami gang of 30 armed terrorists hanging about the Egyptian-Israeli border since Aug. 25 waiting for the right moment to cross over for a multiple attack inside Israel. They have felt free to rotate gang members with fresh gunmen without being harassed.
To avoid putting any strain on the weakening ties with Cairo, Israel's government has not complained about the month-long terror alert which has suspended highway traffic and public transport between northern and southern Israel; nor about the need to redeploy the Golan Brigade from the Syrian border to the South for an indefinite assignment against the next cross-border terrorist attack from Egypt.
A senior army officer told debkafile that never before has Israel massed thousands of soldiers in one place for so long against a threat posed by a score and a half of terrorists.

Al-Rahi, Ignatius IV: Only a Just State Can Protect Everyone
Naharnet/Only a state built upon justice and equality is capable of protecting all of its citizens, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and Ignatius IV Hazim, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, said Tuesday. In a joint statement issued after a closed-door meeting and a dinner banquet at the HQ of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Balamand, the two Christian leaders also “stressed their rejection of the notion of ‘protection’ for any group, from whichever side it may come.”
Al-Rahi and Ignatius IV also stressed “the need for serious efforts aimed at achieving fruitful brotherly cooperation” between the two churches, underlining “the importance of Christian-Muslim solidarity concerning the national and humanitarian affairs.”According to the statement, the two patriarchs “discussed the general situations in the countries of the Arab Orient and noted that Christians consider the state – the state of citizenship and equal rights and duties – as the real guarantee for a prosperous and promising future, where everyone would live in freedom and dignity, away from any religious or sectarian discrimination.” Al-Rahi and Ignatius IV agreed on “the importance of raising the Christian voice at international forums in support of the just and rightful national and Arab causes, especially the Palestinian cause.” The two also stressed “the significance of dialogue at the national level in order to realize social justice and decent living for the citizens of our Levantine countries and dispel the ghost of sedition and civil and sectarian strife.”
The joint statement comes after remarks by Ignatius IV that embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “an honest person who is working for reform” and a series of controversial statements by al-Rahi in France, where he called for giving Assad a chance to implement reforms. Al-Rahi has said that his statements in France on the Syrian crisis and Hizbullah’s arms -- which stirred a storm of controversy in Lebanon – were not interpreted in a proper manner. And he told Al-Arabiya television that sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites may emerge if the Syrian government is overthrown. “If the regime changes in Syria, and the Sunnis take over, they will form an alliance with the Sunnis in Lebanon, which will worsen the situation between the Shiites and the Sunnis,” al-Rahi said. He warned that the Christians will pay the price if the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded Assad.
Asked about Hizbullah’s arms, he responded: “The international community must pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territories … and fulfill the Palestinians’ right of return, and consequently Hizbullah will have to lay down its arms.”

A Syria with no Syrians
By: Husam Itani/Al Hayat
The reform projects announced by the Syrian authorities are supported by Russia, China, Iran, the Lebanese government, and Hezbollah.
For some reason, the Syrians are disregarding lifting the emergency status, revoking the Supreme State Security Court, and issuing the media and parties laws. In other words, they are disregarding all the things that might constitute a legal basis for a pluralistic system with a minimal level of independence and balance between the authorities, especially as President Bashar al-Assad had asserted that the Constitution will be subjected to many amendments.
Russia, Iran, and the rest of the allies are relying on the success of the reforms. Indeed, they are using them as pretexts in order to abstain from imposing additional international sanctions on the Syrian regime, which is proceeding to kill the civilian protestors. These countries are also calling for granting Al-Assad enough time and the opportunity to implement his promises of reform. The requested opportunity definitely requires that the protests be halted and that the regime be allowed to carry on with its cleansing of the country from the armed gangs. The wisdom behind that is that reform cannot possibly be launched at a time where groups affiliated with the outside are carrying out terrorist acts.
The relevance of this pretext is pushing in the direction of overlooking the needs for reform. Indeed, how can the state launch a dialogue and a reform movement when there are terrorist actions, killings, and dismemberments being carried by armed men flooding Syria from the outside, or armed men being bought by the enemies among the Syrian society’s perverts and scum (according to the statements of several commentators who support the regime)? Sound logic implies that vanquishing the armed attacks is more important than the democratization of public life in the country. And the pinnacle of sound logic consists of the statements of the regime’s officials and statistics concerning the number of the dead Syrian victims. During her visit to Moscow, the media consultant of the Syrian presidency indicated that there are equal numbers of dead victims among the troops and the insurgents. Anyone who is not an army victim is an insurgent. This is because the ill bilateral logic is governing the regime’s vision of all the world’s incidents. Indeed, those who are not with us are against us regardless of whether they are babies, women, or young men who were killed under the torture of the hell soldiers.
The Syrians no longer believe the tales produced by this bilateral logic, which is driving the Syrian regime and which aims at igniting the fire of a civil war. Indeed, the tales on the armed gangs lack persuasion and cohesion; and the support of the “world’s free and honest ones” of the Syrian regime is raising questions around the definition of the so-called “free and honest ones.”The main problem currently facing Al-Assad is the unavailability of a public to support the tales invented by the security services. Although the “reforms” carried out by the Syrian president during the past six months exceed all his steps towards modernization and reform during the eleven years that he spent in power, these reforms have suffered from a structural defect since the moment they were announced: the reforms lack credibility.
Indeed, all the legal measures were void of any tangible effect be it on the level of restraining the security services and preventing them from attacking and killing people; or on the level of modifying the pattern of the services’ work from terrorizing citizens and humiliating them in order to preserve the regime and its symbols, to preserving the security of the citizens and to protect them against any violations no matter what their source is. The same applies for the judiciary sector, the parties, the protests, and the media.
The absence of a public that supports reforms is nothing but the result of the long years of estrangement that the authorities practiced against the citizens and the civil society (only ruins of the civil society remain in Syria). The public is responding by abstaining from showing its support whenever the regime needs it. The regime has succeeded in building a Syria that resembles it: a Syria with no Syrians.