LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 10/12

Bible Quotation for today/Ask, Seek, Knock
Matthew 07/07-12: " Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to those who knock. Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone when he asks for bread? Or would you give him a snake when he asks for a fish? As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Do for others what you want them to do for you: this is the meaning of the Law of Moses and of the teachings of the prophets.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
A red line Iran would take seriously/By Michael Singh/The Washington Post/ October 09/12
What's happening in Qardaha/By: Tony Badran/Now Lebanon/October 09/12

US sources: US, Israel plan October Surprise. Others: Israel can do it alone
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis October 9, 2012/Four facts deserve attention with regard to a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The first is that the Iranian-Israeli war is already at hand. Iran launched it by sending an unmanned drone into Israeli air space Saturday, Oct. 6, breaking new ground in belligerence with a cyber attack.
Israel countered by stationing Patriot missile interceptor batteries in Haifa and other parts of its northern region.
That Tehran initiated hostilities with a cyber attack on Israel cannot be wiped from the record any more than its score: two points, Iran; zero, Israel, whose air defenses proved no match against a large, slow-moving and cumbersome aerial vehicle loaded with electronic equipment.
As many experts have pointed out, Patriots are not designed for intercepting aircraft, only missiles. Their deployment therefore aims at defending the country from potential Iranian or Hizballah missile strikes from Lebanon or Syria - depending partly on the state of the Syrian war.
And indeed, Hamas and Jihad Islami spokesmen, when they assumed shared responsibility for the 55 Palestinian missiles and mortars fired against Israel Monday morning, Oct. 8, said quite openly that the rules of Gaza warfare had changed: IDF attacks on terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip, however limited in scope, would draw forth reprisals not only from that Palestinian-ruled territory but from Lebanon, they said. debkafile: As of mid-September, under newly-signed military pacts, the strings of the two leading Palestinian terrorist militias in the Gaza Strip are being manipulated from Beirut by Iran and Hizballah. It is they who now set the rules and dictate the scope of Palestinian anti-Israel operations from Gaza.
The drone’s incursion was a separate Iranian initiative.
The other three points pertinent to the Iranian-Israel confrontation are:-
1. US intelligence recently warned President Barack Obama that Iran’s nuclear breakthrough point is much closer than formerly estimated, i.e. approximately 7 weeks off. In late November, therefore, Iran will enough 20 percent plus enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb. American and Israeli intelligence see eye to eye on this estimate.
It flies, however, in the face of the assessments circulated in Israel by anti-attack factions who are now claiming that Iran has slowed the progress of its military nuclear program in order to divert much of its enriched uranium to civilian projects. This claim is not only incorrect, but it is a valuable contribution to Tehran’s propaganda effort to prove that its program is entirely innocent and peaceful.
2. A US Congressional Research paper published internally on Sept. 28 asserts that Israel is capable of going it alone without the United States against Iran’s nuclear sites, including the Fordo underground enrichment facility.
This fact has been suppressed by the anti-attack camp, whose spokesmen have insisted that Israel lacks this capacity.
The experts commissioned by congress to determine the truth of the matter concluded: “… an attack on Esfahan, Natanz, and Arak might require deploying only 20% of Israel’s top-line fighters purchased from the United States. “…this yields an Israeli strike involving at least 100 aircraft. Most sources indicate that Israel has a total of “around 350 fighter jets.”
The US congressional research team adds that, although Israel received enough 7 KC-130 refueling planes from the US to cover the round trip to Iran and back, the Israeli Air Force has also secretly developed two more refueling options about which the US knows very little.
“Over the past two years, Israel Aerospace Industries-IAI bought up all the Boeing 707s coming on the international market and had them converted in IAI factories into KC-135 refueling planes,” says the report. After the Congressional Research Center published these findings, David Rothkopf, who is close to US Democratic Party leaders, tested the ground with a report Monday, Oct. 8, in Foreign Policy, which said that the United States and Israel are considering the possibility of a joint "surgical strike" against Iran's nuclear facilities as an “October surprise.”
He quoted a source said to be close to the discussions, which claimed that “a small-scale attack is currently viewed as the most likely military option by air, using bombers and supported by drones,” which Israel would not be able to carry out on its own. What Rothkopf was saying is that President Obama has no more than 20 days to decide if and when to conduct this US-Israel attack on Iran. His clock, say our sources, is ticking at the same speed as that of former Mossad chief Efraim Halevi who on August 1 predicted an attack on Iran within twelve weeks; and Tzahi Hanegbi, the former Knesset defense and foreign affairs committee chair and close confidant of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who said in mid-September that the next 50 days would be critical for Israel’s destiny.

Ahmadinejad admits: Chance of attack on Iran exists
Dudi Cohen Published: 10.09.12/Ynetnews/For first time, Iranian president diverts from official position of shrugging off West's threats; warns targeting nuclear facilities would be 'suicide mission for Israel' Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted in an interview Tuesday that there was "a chance" of a strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities. "We cannot ignore the possibility that there is a chance of a strike against Iran," he said in an interview given to an international television station, which broadcasts in Farsi for audiences in the Americas. This was the first statement by the Iranian president that indicated any change in Tehran's position towards the West's threat of a military campaign against its nuclear program. Iran has been adamant that both Israel and the US were essentially "bluffing" and threatened to obliterate Israel, strike US carriers in the Persian Gulf and close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a strike. "We have never started a war, but we will retaliate if we are attacked and our response will be crushing," Ahmadinejad said. "All the rational people in the world know that it would be a suicide for Israel to attack Iran," he concluded.

A red line Iran would take seriously
By Michael Singh, The Washington Post
Recently, red lines both figurative and — since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prop-assisted speech to the United Nations two weeks ago — literal have come to dominate the Iran policy discussion. While Netanyahu was as explicit as possible in his delineation of Israel’s red line regarding Iran’s nuclear status, President Obama has been reluctant to draw one. Instead, he has offered different, even contradictory, messages to two audiences: To Israel, he has pleaded for patience; to Iran and reluctant U.S. allies, he has warned that “time is not unlimited.”
Problem is, neither audience seems to believe him. To address this, he should communicate clearer limits on American forbearance by setting his own red lines for Iran.
Iran’s quest to possess nuclear technology: Iran said it has made advances in nuclear technology, citing new uranium enrichment centrifuges and domestically made reactor fuel.
.While red lines have been mischaracterized as automatic triggers or even deadlines for war, their purpose is to facilitate diplomacy. Generally speaking, such lines set bounds for action by indicating what Washington will and won’t tolerate. Red lines set by the United States are crucial for determining the “rules of the game” in geopolitics — not the formal rules set by multilateral bodies such as the United Nations, but the informal rules that just as clearly guide action by states. Red lines create predictability and can also foster stability by heading off avoidable conflicts and forming the context for diplomacy.
To work, red lines must possess two characteristics: enforceability and credibility. Enforceability means the line must correspond to an action that can be detected and then countered or prevented; credibility means that others believe we will enforce the line once it is trespassed.
The U.S. red line on Iran — that Iran simply cannot have a nuclear weapon — falls short on both counts. It is not enforceable because once Tehran gets sufficiently close to possessing a nuclear weapon, such as by producing a stockpile of weapons-grade enriched uranium, the final steps required to make a nuclear weapon can probably be done relatively quickly and in secret — and thus are not detectable.
The U.S. red line also, regrettably, lacks credibility. Washington did not move to halt the North Korean or Syrian nuclear programs; we did so in Iraq but at so high a price that “avoiding another Iraq” has practically become a mantra of U.S. foreign policy. Other states are understandably skeptical that we would move to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons if and when the moment finally comes.
For its part, Iran is following a canny strategy that serves to further undermine U.S. red lines. On the one hand, Tehran is moving incrementally toward nuclear capability, avoiding dramatic steps that could provoke an international outcry and lead the United States to believe that our red line had been crossed. Instead, Tehran is careful to acclimate us to a new “nuclear normal” at each step of its progress, moving forward only when its accomplishments have been accepted as a fait accompli.
Furthermore, Iran warns unstintingly of the negative consequences of a military conflict, warnings that are accepted and repeated by credulous Western analysts and officials. This makes it seem a remote possibility that those officials would ever order a strike on Iran.
In his U.N. speech, Netanyahu articulated a clear red line: Iran accumulating one bomb’s worth of “medium-enriched” uranium. Whether that is the right line depends on two things. First, does it satisfy the criteria required of any red line — credibility and enforceability? There can be little doubt of Israel’s credibility, given its history of preemptive strikes on adversaries’ nuclear programs. But enforceability is another matter; while the line is detectable, many — including Iran — doubt Israel’s capacity to counter it alone.
Because multiple red lines meet these criteria, a second question must be asked: Does Netanyahu’s red line best satisfy our twofold policy objective of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon while delaying a military conflict as long as possible?
Given that Obama administration officials have publicly expressed doubts about Israel’s capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and have argued that the United States would have sufficient time to act militarily even after Iran has progressed beyond the point Netanyahu identified, it is unlikely that they find his red line satisfactory.
After Netanyahu’s clear statement, however, it is up to the Obama administration to suggest a red line that better meets U.S. objectives as well as the criteria of enforceability and credibility. And when it comes to credibility, the United States has undermined itself on multiple fronts — by rewarding Iranian defiance with better offers at the negotiating table, by enforcing sanctions reluctantly and by allowing senior officials to speak out publicly against the military option that the president insists remains “on the table.” Obama is right to want to avoid conflict with Iran. But lest his patience be mistaken for apprehension, and allies and adversaries alike tune out U.S. warnings, he would be wise to overcome his aversion to red lines.
**Michael Singh is managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2005 to 2008, he worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council.

MP Butros Harb: Lawsuit Has Been Filed against Syrian Officers Linked to Tueni's Assassination
Naharnet/09 October 2012/Opposition MP Butros Harb revealed on Tuesday that the case of the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni may be referred to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon should the Lebanese judiciary fail to address the matter. He added: “A lawsuit has been filed against Syrian officers linked to the lawmaker's assassination.”He made the announcement during a press conference in light of a recent Al-Arabiya television report that aired documents demonstrating the alleged involvement of Syrian officers and Hizbullah intelligence in the December 12, 2005, assassination of journalist, MP, and chairman of the board of directors of An Nahar newspaper Gebran Tueni. As the attorney tackling the case, Harb said during the press conference: “We want to continue the investigation in the matter and stress that the case of Tueni and the rest of the martyrs will remain alive.”“We want to send a clear message to the criminals that we reject political assassinations and anyone who tries to assassinate Lebanon will be confronted,” declared the MP.“Despite the political pressure being exerted, we are determined to place our faith in the Lebanese judiciary to tackle Tueni's murder,” he added.
“We will turn to the STL and request that this case be added to the others it is looking into,” revealed Harb.“Should the international tribunal agree to our request, then we will ask the Lebanese judiciary to cease its investigations in the case and turn it over to the STL,” he said. “The STL's jurisdiction and means go beyond the agreements signed between Lebanon and Syria, and at that point, Syria cannot refuse a request to interrogate one of its officers,” he stated. Furthermore, he stressed: “We did not turn to the Lebanese government to address this case because we are aware of its poor history in dealing with such matters.”
The opposition MP said that the government's past practices in similar situations have portrayed it as a partner in obstructing justice.
Addressing Hizbullah and its alleged involvement in Tueni's assassination, Harb said: “We hope the party would act in a manner that would erase all suspicions against it.” “We hope our suspicions over this document do not become realized and so far no suspect in Tueni's assassination has faced the judiciary,” he remarked.
“We will strive to uncover all the crimes against the Lebanese people through the judiciary. Should we fail then we will leave justice to God,” he stressed.
On Saturday, Al-Arabiya obtained an alleged Syrian document saying: “With the help of members of the intelligence department of Lebanon's Hizbullah, Mission 213, which was assigned to them on December 10, has been successfully accomplished with excellent results.”The document, dated December 12, 2005, was sent by head of the operations department in the Syrian intelligence, Hasan Abdul Rahman, to then chief of national security department Assef Shawkat, according to Al-Arabiya.
“In concurrence with Assef Shawkat's letter on accomplishing the mission and on the same day the letter was sent to the Syrian presidential palace, a booby-trapped car was awaiting Lebanese lawmaker Gebran Tueni to end his life while on his way to work, in an assassination operation described as mysterious back then,” Al-Arabiya added.
Hizbullah on Monday denied links to Tueni's assassination, with Minister Mohammed Fneish saying: “Al-Arabiya's document on Hizbullah is fake and not everything published is a real document and you can tell that from the content.”
The party later issued a statement denying the report and accusing the March 14 camp of taking advantage of the “baseless accusations fabricated by the Saudi network Al-Arabiya and attributed to Syrian opposition activists, including those related to the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni.”

Lebanon’s Arabic press digest - Oct. 9, 2012
October 09, 2012/The Daily Star
Lebanon's Arabic press digest.
Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Monday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.
Al-Joumhouria
Judicial and union appointments tomorrow
Sleiman rejects provocative arms
Eyes turned to the borders of both Turkey and Syria, where tensions reigned, after the arm wrestling between Ankara and Damascus brought on by the Turkish suggestion of forming a transitional Cabinet under Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa which has gained the approval of the opposition but was criticized by the regime.
However, such developments haven’t attenuated attention from the bloody events in Syria and their repercussions on Lebanon, which has been repeatedly violated by its neighbor, particularly given the growing conviction of Hezbollah’s involvement there.
Hezbollah Minister Mohammad Fneish slammed the March 14 coalition and denied leaked reports by Al-Arabiya that his group was involved in the assassination of journalist Gibran Tueni. The minister said such accusations were part of a smear campaign aimed at distorting the resistance’s image.
On another note, upon President Michel Sleiman’s return from his Latin American tour Baabda sources said that the president was ready to discuss different opinions about the stances he declared while he was abroad. The sources said that Sleiman’s comments on separating between the resistance’s arms and the domestic weapons were not new and that the president had previously declared such statement in the past.
The sources stressed that all weapons barring those used by the resistance [to fight Israel] would be subject to discussion at the National Dialogue table, adding that when the president suggested suspending all arms use in Lebanon, it was a prelude to gathering weapons and preventing their use so as not to have weapons of provocation in the country.
Al-Mustaqbal
Assad regime implements its threats against Lebanon and sets Al-Aboudieh in the north on fire
Hezbollah escalates its ‘Jihad duty’... in Syria
Only a few hours passed since Bashar Assad’s followers carried out their threats to blow up the Lebanese situation, even if partially, through direct attacks that have set on fire the Al-Aboudieh region in the north in an unprecedented manner.
While Hezbollah escalated the level of engagement in fighting alongside the Syrian regime, the party continued holding funerals for its members, who fell in battle, and buried the latest among them in Baalbek Monday and declared that one of its leaders was “martyred while defending the dignity of Islam and Muslims.”
Al-Mustaqbal has learned that the Syrian attack against Aboudieh came as a result of a split in the ranks of the Syrian army in Tallat Al-Joumrok.
As-Safir
Who gave instructions to publish the “documents” accusing Hezbollah of assassinating Gebran Tueni?
Back to the plan of setting Lebanon on fire through war in Syria
As it is becoming clearer that the Syrian crisis will prolong, fear and concern among the Lebanese has begun to increase about that which threatens their present and future.
What worries the Lebanese is the series of events that have occurred recently in the country that have placed Lebanon at risk of being dragged into a sectarian conflict.
Also causing concern is that some people believe the “scenarios” that have been suggested while answers are lacking to pressing questions such as: who instructed Al-Arabiya to publish “documents” accusing Hezbollah of assassinating Gebran Tueni, regardless of their accuracy or inaccuracy? Was this “bomb” thrown without taking into consideration the effects it would have on Lebanon or was it intended to be a media “scoop”?
An-Nahar
Tensions broaden in the north and strikers call for speeding up financing [of salary scale]
Hezbollah denies any involvement in Gebran Tueni’s assassination
Although Union strikes have returned to the forefront of the local scene, yesterday’s tension at the northern border region of Aboudieh renewed fears of the Syrian crisis spilling over into Lebanon.
Meanwhile, prominent ministerial sources said that extremely important consultations are being held behind-the-scenes with regard to the electoral law in order to form a sub-committee during the next session of the joint parliamentary committee this Thursday.
The committee is to be composed of representatives from the main March 14 and March 8 blocs.
Consultations are reportedly being held at two main levels. First, Speaker Nabih Berri is broadening the circle of contacts and meetings with various political, parliamentary and even some religious forces.
The second level involves discussions between the factions of the March 14 coalition.
Following visits by former PM Fouad Siniora and Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra to Jeddah to meet with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea is also expected to hold several meetings with Hariri in order to address the general situation and the electoral law.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea's Jeddah trip sparks polls buzz
October 09, 2012/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT/BAALBEK: Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea headed for Jeddah Monday amid speculation that the trip is aimed at meeting former Prime Minister Saad Hariri to discuss next year’s parliamentary elections. While LF sources refused to comment on the purpose of the visit, they said the party was expected to issue a statement on Geagea’s visit in the coming hours.
LF MP Antoine Zahra had met Hariri in Saudi Arabia last week for talks on the parliamentary elections. Lebanese groups are mulling an electoral law ahead of the 2013 polls.
Meanwhile, over 2,000 Hezbollah supporters gathered in the Bekaa Valley to bury one of their fighters, whom a security source said was killed in the border area with Syria, as the party denied Monday any involvement in the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni.
Hezbollah put to rest Hussein Abdel Ghani al-Nimr, 35, who “died while he was performing his jihadist duty,” according to a Hezbollah spokesman from Baalbek.
A security source told AFP that the Hezbollah member had been “killed in the Lebanon-Syria border region and his body was taken back Sunday.”
The funeral comes less than a week after a senior Hezbollah commander, who Syrian rebels said had been killed in Syria, was buried in the Bekaa.
“He was a good man and a good fighter, and he died as a martyr serving his country and fellow Muslims,” Hezbollah’s Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek, who heads the party’s religious council, told the crowd.
Hezbollah has announced several similar burials in the past months, without elaborating on the circumstances of its members’ deaths.
Activists in the Syrian province of Homs told AFP that Hezbollah fighters have been taking part alongsidegovernment troops in fighting against rebels in the besieged town of Qusayr near the border with Lebanon. Tripoli MP Mohammad Kabbara lashed out at Hezbollah for its alleged involvement in the fighting in Syria. “Hezbollah is admitting that it is performing jihadist duties alongside the Assad regime, thus violating the dissociation policy claimed by the government,” he said. “It is our duty as lawmakers to question the government over the issue. Does it approve Hezbollah’s jihad against the Syrian people?”Earlier, Hezbollah denied any involvement in the assassination of journalist and lawmaker Tueni, days after an Arab television station presented documents allegedly showing that the resistance group had a role in killing the lawmaker.“Hezbollah denies any involvement in the assassination of late MP Gebran Tueni and affirms its condemnation of political assassination,” the group said.
“It awaits the judiciary for its word on the matter after it was proven that those who claim to preserve peace in the country and its people do not demonstrate a minimal degree of responsibility,” it added, in an apparent swipe at March 14 MPs.
Last week, Al-Arabiya television released what it claimed were leaked communiqués between Syrian intelligence and the state’s leadership. In the documents, references were made to Hezbollah and its alleged activities with the Syrian security apparatus.
One of the communiqués – sent from the head of the operations department in Syrian Intelligence Hasan Abdel-Rahman to the head of State Intelligence Assef Shawkat – said an operation, referred to as “mission 213,” had been successfully completed with the help of Hezbollah members.
The Saudi-based channel said this communiqué had been sent on the same day MP and journalist Gebran Tueni was killed in a car bomb on Dec. 12, 2005.
In its statement, Hezbollah slammed members of the March 14 coalition who quickly denounced the resistance party’s alleged role in fighting in Syria and Tueni’s assassination. “March 14’s stance about several issues based on fabricated documents and facts which are not accurate proves day after day that whoever is used to cheating can only excel in fabrications,” Hezbollah added.
“The latest wave of [fabrications] by March 14 is what Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya prepared and claimed were documents it obtained from members of the Syrian opposition, inventing events and fabricating accusations that have nothing to do with reality, including the assassination of late MP Gebran Tueni,” it added.
Another communiqué by Al-Arabiya reported the arrival of 250 Hezbollah fighters in Syria in May 2011. The document – which the station said had been sent to President Bashar Assad from an intelligence officer – said members of the resistance had arrived in May in the Syrian city of Aleppo, had taken rooms at the Ramses Hotel and were awaiting orders from the Syrian leadership.
Earlier Monday, Hezbollah Minister Mohammad Fneish said the Al-Arabiya documents were lies. “The Al-Arabiya documents are lies and not everything that is published is an actual document,” Fneish told reporters before attending a Cabinet session at the Grand Serail.
His comments were echoed by Hezbollah MP Kamel Rifai, who said his party was innocent of the claims or inferences arrived at through the aired documents.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denied being involved in the crisis and has urged that Lebanon maintain its dissociation policy toward events in its neighbor.
The Cabinet, which met at the Grand Serail Monday, passed a number of decrees, focused on administrative reforms, said a statement from premier Mikati’s office.
Information Minister Walid Daouk told reporters after the meeting that Cabinet had not discussed items pertaining to the salary scale despite a labor strike over the issue planned for Wednesday.
Earlier Monday, U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly stressed the need for Lebanon to hold the 2013 polls on time and urged political leaders to commit to distancing the country from events escalating in neighboring Syria.
“In my view, it is very important that the elections take place on time. Lebanon is a country with a long democratic history and the present period is one of a spread of democracy across the Arab world. I am confident elections here will take place on time,” Plumbly said after meeting Mikati at the Grand Serail. – with AFP

Syria conflict causing tension between Sleiman, Hezbollah
October 09, 2012/By Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The 19-month-old bloody conflict in Syria is putting strain on President Michel Sleiman’s ties with Hezbollah as the two sides have conflicting political calculations, analysts said Monday.
However, the analysts predicted that tension that burst out into the open last week following Sleiman’s unexpected tough stance on Hezbollah’s arms would eventually be overcome and not lead to a break in relations. “Of course, there is tension between President Sleiman and Hezbollah. The president is escalating his position on Hezbollah’s arms,” Hilal Khashan, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, told The Daily Star.
“The developments in the region, particularly in Syria have encouraged the president to go on escalation against Hezbollah’s arms,” he added. Khashan said Sleiman was dissociating between Hezbollah’s arms and its role in resistance, meaning he was seeking “a compromise agreement” with regard to the party’s military wing.
“The president was saying: No to Hezbollah’s military wing in domestic Lebanese politics, yes to Hezbollah’s military wing to help defend Lebanon against a possible Israeli attack,” Khashan added.
Political analyst Carol Maalouf concurred that Sleiman has been taking “a strong national position on different issues, including the divisive issue of Hezbollah’s arms.” She said that Sleiman’s stance was directly linked to domestic politics and developments in Syria.
“The president is taking a critical position on Hezbollah mainly because of the party’s involvement in the internal Syrian conflict,” Maalouf said.
“The president is taking advantage of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria to voice his political opinion freely, including outlining the role of the party’s weapons in defending the country,” said Maalouf, a lecturer in political science and political history of Lebanon at Notre Dame University.
She added that Sleiman’s changed position on the role of Hezbollah’s arms was tied to the party’s involvement in the developments in Syria. First signs of the crisis between Sleiman and Hezbollah emerged on Sept. 20, when the president put forward during a National Dialogue session he chaired at Baabda Palace a blueprint for a national defense strategy that would allow Hezbollah to keep its arms but place them under the command of the Lebanese Army, which would have exclusive authority to use force.
Under the proposal, Hezbollah would not hand its arms over to the Army, as demanded by the opposition March 14 coalition, nor would there be coordination between the resistance and the Army, the defense strategy that Hezbollah has backed.
Sleiman’s defense blueprint, which is to be debated by March 8 and March 14 leaders at the next National Dialogue session on Nov. 12, was viewed by pro-Hezbollah politicians as a departure from the tripartite equation endorsed in the government’s policy statement: “The Army, the people and the resistance,” which is upheld by Hezbollah as the best means to defend Lebanon against a possible Israeli attack. The March 14 coalition has long demanded that Hezbollah surrender its weapons to the Lebanese Army. The resistance party has strongly rejected local and international calls to disarm, arguing that its arsenal was needed to face any possible Israeli attack.
The simmering tension broke out into the open last week when Hezbollah rejected Sleiman’s recent remarks in which he distinguished between Hezbollah as a political party and a resistance group.
Speaking to reporters in Argentina during his Latin American tour last week, Sleiman said: “Arms that are being used domestically [in internal conflicts] are forbidden. Be they with Hezbollah or the Salafists or others, they [weapons] must be stripped.”
Sleiman’s statement drew an unprecedented quick response from Hezbollah’s No. 2 man. “We don’t have arms for the resistance and arms used for other purposes. We don’t have arms to face Israel and arms for domestic bickering,” Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said during a graduation ceremony at UNESCO Palace in Beirut Saturday. “In Lebanon, there is one party called Hezbollah. We don’t have a military wing and a political wing. Hezbollah is a political party and a resistance party.”
Analyst Qassem Kassir said the rhetoric between Sleiman and Hezbollah reflected “different viewpoints” over the role of Hezbollah’s arms. “The president has his own [political] calculations and so does Hezbollah,” Kassir, an expert on Islamic fundamentalist movement, told The Daily Star.
“As a result of the changes in the region, Sleiman’s stance on Hezbollah’s arms is aimed at boosting his popularity and political ambitions,” he said. Kassir added that Sleiman’s tough stance was designed to set the stage for launching his future political project, including the possibility of renewing his term in office, which expires in 2014.
Shafik Masri, professor of international law at the state-run Lebanese University, defended Sleiman’s stance.
“The president has settled the matter with regard to the role of the Lebanese Army in defending the country and its border in line with his oath to preserve the Constitution,” Masri said.
He pointed out that Sleiman’s position came a few months after he sent direct and indirect messages to the Syrian side, condemning Syrian attacks on the Lebanese border.
“During the National Dialogue session, the president was firm that the Lebanese Army is the one that defends the country ... He made it clear that it was not a matter of disarming Hezbollah but coordination with the Army which is alone responsible for the country’s national defense,” Masri added.
Khashan said Hezbollah is reconsidering its domestic role as a result of the developments in Syria.
“I won’t attach much significance to the president’s statements in Latin America even though they caused tension in Lebanon,” he said. “But in Lebanon tension is a way of life and can easily be overcome by the repercussions of strong statements.”“Tension will be contained because the president’s statements do not speak for an official policy in the making. Lebanese politics is a conflict management,” Khashan added. Maalouf, the NDU lecturer concurred. “The tension is going to be contained. A Hezbollah delegation will visit the president in Baabda to sort out the problem,” she predicted.

Thief who stole $10 mln in valuables arrested in Beirut
October 09, 2012/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Police have arrested a thief who stole $10 million in valuables from safes across Lebanon.
A statement released Tuesday by the Internal Security Forces said judicial police in Beirut’s southern suburb managed to apprehend a 48-year-old Syrian national who was identified by his initials M.D.
It said a quantity of looted items – jewelry, precious stones, precious watches, antiques, cell phones, pistols and cash – were confiscated from the burglar. They were estimated at $10 million.
“Under interrogation, he confessed that he heads a gang of robbers that has stolen 24 safes from homes and commercial enterprises,” the police statement added.
It said police were in pursuit of the other gang members. M.D. was referred to relevant judicial authorities and the stolen items were returned to their owners, ISF said.

Syrian rebels take key town in blow to regime
October 09, 2012/Daily Star
DAMASCUS: Rebels seized a town on the highway to Aleppo on Tuesday in what monitors said was a blow to regime plans to reinforce troops in the northern city, the main battleground of Syria's nearly 19-month conflict. The rebel advance on the town of Maaret al-Numan, in the northwestern province of Idlib, came after twin suicide bombings hit an air force compound near Damascus, killing dozens of people, said the monitoring group.
Turkey, meanwhile, again warned Syria it would not hesitate to retaliate for any strike on its soil as the country's top military commander visited troops stationed along the reinforced border. And with fighting spilling into both Turkey and Lebanon, UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad's regime to declare a unilateral truce while NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged restraint.
On the increasingly bloody battlefield, rebels overran Maaret al-Numan on the highway linking Damascus with Aleppo after a fierce 48-hour gunbattle and heavy shelling, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Regular forces pulled back from all of their checkpoints around Maaret al-Numan, except for one at the entrance of the town," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
"This is a strategic location on the route from Damascus to Aleppo. All the regime reinforcements headed to Aleppo must pass through Maaret al-Numan."
The rebels' seizure of the town came as soldiers moved into Homs, farther south on the same highway, in a bid to finish off insurgents in the central city and free up forces for northern battle zones like Aleppo.
"This is your tank, O Bashar!" a group of about 20 rebels shouted in a video posted by activists online as they fired off celebratory gunfire at a captured army checkpoint.
State television, meanwhile, said troops entered the rebel district of Khaldiyeh in the besieged city of Homs.
An activist confirmed the army had "stormed part of Khaldiyeh," but the Observatory said the neighbourhood remained in rebel hands, although fighting was intense.
"The catastrophe is that there are 800 families trapped in Homs. It will be an unprecedented massacre if they take over the district," said the activist, who identified himself as Abu Bilal. The army onslaught around Homs sparked a new exodus of refugees into neighbouring Lebanon, with up to 400 people fleeing from the nearby area of Qusayr within 24 hours, a Lebanese security official said.
'All hell has broken loose'
Many of the villagers crossed the heavily mined border on foot, while others came by motorbike or donkey, an AFP correspondent in the Lebanese frontier town of Arsal reported. "All hell has broken loose on our village. Many people have died, and many others have fled," said one refugee who identified himself only as Masri. "Our village is now practically empty."
Pro-government media remained silent on Monday night's twin suicide bomb attacks in Harasta, a town northeast of Damascus.
A security official said, however, that the assault had been largely foiled, although some people were hurt when one vehicle blew up.
The blasts were claimed by the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, which said one attacker drove a booby-trapped car and a second an explosives-packed ambulance.
The Observatory's Abdel Rahman said "dozens of people" died in the bombings, and that the fate of "hundreds of prisoners" held in the building's basement was unknown.
AFP was unable to verify either account.
The Observatory said the attacks sparked intense fighting in Harasta.
UN chief Ban urged a unilateral truce by Assad's regime.
"I have conveyed to the Syrian government (a) strong message that they should immediately declare a unilateral ceasefire," he said.
Ban urged "the opposition forces to agree to this unilateral ceasefire when and if the Syrian government declares it," and appealed for countries to stop arming both sides.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of retaliation against Syria's "aggressive position."
"It has become inevitable for our armed forces to retaliate in kind... as the Syrian administration maintains its aggressive position," he told lawmakers.
Erdogan spoke as his armed forces chief inspected troops on a tour of the heavily fortified border after a number of shells landed on Turkish soil, including one strike that killed five civilians last week.
The Observatory said violence across Syria killed at least 100 people on Tuesday. It said more than 32,000 people have died since the revolt against Assad erupted in March 2011.

FSA threatens to take fight to Hezbollah bastion
October 09, 2012 /The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Syrian rebels said they have detained 13 Hezbollah members and threatened to take the fight to the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs unless the party ended its support for Bashar Assad’s regime, an FSA spokesman said.
“We [vow] to take the battle in Syria to the heart of the [Beirut] southern suburbs if [Hezbollah] does not stop supporting the killer Syrian regime,” Fahd al-Masri told pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat in an interview published Tuesday.
He said the FSA is holding 13 Hezbollah members in a village near Homs for involvement in the Syria conflict.
“They [Hezbollah detainees] have confessed to killing and slaughtering [people] in Syria,” Masri said, pointing out that most of the captives hail from Baalbek and Hermel in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Masri stressed that Hezbollah is “deeply involved” in the Syria fighting, warning that the fate of the 13 detained men was “in the hands of [FSA] field commanders.”
Hezbollah “is involved in the killing of the Syrian people and in suppressing the revolution, particularly in Damascus and Homs,” Masri said.
“Hezbollah focuses [its operations] on Damascus’ Zabadani area given that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has a military base there,” he said. “They also have a huge presence in Qusair and Talbisa.”
Responding to Masri's comments, Hezbollah bloc MP Kamel Rifai denied that members of the resistance group were being sent to fight alongside the Syrian army.
“The party has a basic rule that forbids fighting anyone other than Israel and thus it bans its elements from fighting in Syria,” Rifai told The Daily Star Tuesday.
"There are Shiites living in Syria, but that does not make them Hezbollah [fighters]," he added.
In apparent response to Rifai, Masri told the Lebanese MTV channel later Tuesday that the 13 Hezbollah men were arrested in their military uniforms.
“They were armed and in military uniform when they were captured in Homs’ countryside,” Masri said. “They were not pilgrims and not on a political tour.”
He held Hezbollah fully responsible and said the Shiite group “must” not drag Lebanon into lost battles.”
Recent reports claim that Hezbollah fighters are involved in the 18-month-old Syria crisis and that a number of them have been killed in fighting there.
“Funerals were held for four Hezbollah members who died at a military training camp as well as three others who passed away in the Nabi Sheet explosion. None of them were involved in the Syrian fighting as has been rumored,” Rifai said.
Last week, Hezbollah said three of its fighters were killed in an explosion at a munitions depot in Nabi Sheet, east Lebanon.
On Monday, Hezbollah buried one its fighters who a security source said was killed in the border area with Syria.
Hussein Abdel Ghani al-Nimr, 35, "died while he was performing his jihadist duty," a Hezbollah spokesman said.
Nimr’s death comes less than a week after a senior Hezbollah commander, who Syrian rebels said was killed in Syria, was buried in the Bekaa.
Hezbollah has announced several similar burials in past months, without revealing details about the deaths.

Free Syrian Army Says Arrested 13 Hizbullah Fighters: Nasrallah Not Safe from Our Strikes
Naharnet / 09 October 2012/The rebel Free Syrian Army on Tuesday claimed arresting 13 Hizbullah fighters in the countryside of the Syrian province of Homs, warning that it is capable of teaching Hizbullah a lesson in the heart of Dahiyeh, the party's main stronghold in Lebanon.
“Hizbullah is involved in the current clashes in Syria and its fighters are taking part in the ongoing battles,” Fahd al-Masri, head of the FSA Central Media Department, told MTV.
Masri's warning comes less than a week after a senior Hizbullah commander, who Syrian rebels said was killed in Syria, was buried in the Bekaa. Hizbullah has announced several similar burials in past months, without elaborating on the circumstances of its members' deaths.
The opposition March 14 camp and Syrian rebels have repeatedly accused Hizbullah of aiding the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad militarily.
“We hold Hizbullah fully responsible before its supporters and it must not implicate Lebanon and the Lebanese people in lost battles,” Masri added.
He reiterated the FSA's warning to “a specific religious community of the Lebanese people,” advising them not to let their sons “become the fuel of a war you are not part of.”
Masri announced that Syrian rebels managed to capture “13 Hizbullah fighters, in full combat gear, who were manning security and military checkpoints in Homs' countryside.”
“Therefore they were not on a religious or touristic or family visit to the region,” Masri noted.
“I believe their fate depends on Hizbullah's leadership, should it withdraw its fighters from Syrian territory and stop violating Syria's sovereignty, killing the Syrians and repressing the glorious Syrian revolution,” the spokesman added.
The FSA official accused Hizbullah of being “steeped up to its ears in crime” and of “executing the instructions of its masters in Tehran.”
Masri warned that “the Syrian people will not forget those who are harming them, and there will be a severe punishment against anyone harming the Syrian people.”
“We warn Hizbullah that if it does not stop, we are capable of teaching it a lesson it will not forget in the heart of Dahiyeh, and we tell (Hizbullah chief Sayyed) Hassan Nasrallah: we know how to find you and you are not safe from our strikes, you and all the leaders of your gang,” Masri added.
A Hizbullah commander and several fighters have been killed inside Syria, a Lebanese security official told the Associated Press last week, a development that could stoke already soaring tensions over an alleged role for the Lebanese group in the civil war next door.
Hizbullah has stood by Syrian President Bashar Assad since the uprising began 18 months ago, even after the group supported revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain. The group says it is backing the Syrian regime because of its support for the anti-Israel resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine and because it is willing to implement political reforms.
It was not immediately clear how the alleged Hizbullah militants were killed or whether they had been fighting alongside the Syrian army. But Hizbullah's newspaper al-Intiqad said Hizbullah commander Ali Hussein Nassif, who is also known as Abu Abbas, was killed "while performing his jihadi duties." It did not say when or where he was killed.
A Lebanese security official told AP Nassif was killed in Syria and his body was returned to Lebanon through the Masnaa border crossing on Sunday. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, the official said the bodies of several other Hizbullah fighters have been brought back to Lebanon in recent days.
Hizbullah spokesman Ibrahim al-Moussawi last Tuesday confirmed the deaths of the Hizbullah members but said he had no further information on where or how Nassif was killed. He declined further comment. Nassif's funeral, which was held in the eastern town of Budai, near Baalbek, was attended by top Hizbullah officials including the head of the Sharia council and the political bureau, an indication of Nassif's high prestige, according to AP. Last Tuesday, Hizbullah's al-Manar TV showed the funerals of at least two other Hizbullah members it said were killed while performing their "jihadi duty." Both funerals were attended by Hizbullah officials and commanders. Samer al-Homsi, an activist in Syria's central Homs province, which borders Lebanon, said Nassif was killed Saturday when a roadside bomb went off as the car he was in passed just outside the town of Qusayr. He said Nassif and several other people were killed in the blast.
"His job was to coordinate with Syrian security agencies," al-Homsi told AP via Skype.
He added that the rebels detonated the bomb "without knowing" that the target was a Hizbullah official. "We knew he was a Hizbullah official after it was announced by the group in Lebanon," he said. Al-Homsi's account could not be independently verified.

Aoun Slams Christian Foes over Electoral Law Delay, Accuses Them of Harming Christians
Naharnet/ 09 October 2012,
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday complained that “no progress has been made concerning the electoral law” under which the 2013 parliamentary polls will be held, blaming his Christian rivals, the Lebanese Forces and the Phalange Party, for the delay.
“I hold responsible those who are rejecting the laws proposed by the Orthodox Gathering and the government, because they are obstructing justice, especially the LF and the Phalange Party. Their stance is a commodity for sale and they are claiming to be defending the rights of Christians,” said Aoun after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc.
“I don't know what 'consolation prizes' the LF and the Phalange Party will get, but that will definitely harm Christians,” Aoun added.
Recalling the 2008 Doha Conference, where he pushed for implementing the 1960 electoral law in the 2009 elections, Aoun said: “Yes, in Doha we 'liberated' 10 parliamentary seats for Christians in the North and 11 in other regions, but we accepted the 1960 law for one time only because it was so much better than the 2000 law, and we were not ashamed of what we did in Doha.”
Slamming the draft law proposed by the LF and the Phalange Party, Aoun said “dividing Lebanon into 50 electorates is aimed at achieving political ends.”
He vowed that “the 50 electorates law will not be passed in parliament, even if the parliamentary committee approves it.”
“If the LF and the Phalange Party are with the law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering, (under which each sect would elect its own MPs), let them support it,” Aoun added.
“As long as the country is sectarian, I will keep defending the rights of Christians,” he pledged.
Asked about the blast that recently hit a Hizbullah arms cache in the Bekaa town of Nabi Sheet, Aoun said: “Everyone knows that the Resistance has missiles that can reach Haifa and beyond, so storing them in several locations should not surprise anyone. This is normal and I'm speaking technically and not trying to defend Hizbullah. No one should be surprised that they have a huge amount of ammunition.”
“I hope we will reach a stage during which the army will be capable of defending the country and the country would benefit from that,” Aoun added.
Asked about Al-Arabiya television's report that claimed Hizbullah was involved in the 2005 assassination of prominent MP and journalist Gebran Tueni, Aoun said: “When judicial authorities have their say, we will voice our opinion, and if the charges are confirmed, we will voice a very strong condemnation.”
Asked whether he supports referring Tueni's case to the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Aoun said: “Let the judiciary decide.”
Hizbullah on Monday denied involvement in Tueni's assassination, after Al-Arabiya television broadcast Saturday a report claiming that Damascus and Hizbullah's intelligence department were behind the operation. “Al-Arabiya's document on Hizbullah is fake and not everything published is a real document and you can tell that from the content,” Hizbullah's State Minister for Administrative Development Mohammed Fneish told reporters as he entered a cabinet session at the Grand Serail.
Later on Monday, Hizbullah issued an official statement denying “any involvement whatsoever” in Tueni's assassination, saying it is “awaiting the judiciary's ruling in this case.”
“With the help of members of the intelligence department of Lebanon's Hizbullah, Mission 213, which was assigned to them on December 10, has been successfully accomplished with excellent results,” said an allegedly leaked Syrian document obtained by Al-Arabiya.
The document, dated December 12, 2005, was sent by head of the operations department in the Syrian intelligence, Hasan Abdul Rahman, to then chief of national security department Assef Shawkat, according to Al-Arabiya.
“In concurrence with Assef Shawkat's letter on accomplishing the mission and on the same day the letter was sent to the Syrian presidential palace, a booby-trapped car was awaiting Lebanese lawmaker Gebran Tueni to end his life while on his way to work, in an assassination operation described as mysterious back then,” Al-Arabiya added.
A leaked U.S. Embassy cable dated December 19, 2005 said Syria was likely behind Tueni's assassination in 2005, which was aimed at silencing his caustic remarks against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The WikiLeaks cable, which was published exclusively in al-Jumhouriya newspaper, added that the assassination was also a message to the Lebanese opposition that “no one can protect them.”

What's happening in Qardaha?
Tony Badran, October 9, 2012/Now Lebanon
A defaced mural showing members of the Assad clan in Syria. The Assads have managed to keep their hold on Syria largely because of communal solidarity with other Alawites, though that bond is weakening. (AFP photo)
Last week, Mohammed Assad, a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad, was shot and critically wounded in Qardaha, hometown of the Assads in the coastal mountains of Syria. For a member of the Assad family to have been attacked in his native village is news enough, but the most intriguing aspect of the event is the identity of the gunman. At the time of the shooting Assad was arguing with representatives of other eminent Alawite families, who are led by the Khayyir clan. Tempers flared, and Mohammad drew his gun—but not quickly enough.
The incident is significant, because it would appear to be the first sign of an open rift among the Alawite elite. Communal solidarity is a major reason why the regime has failed to crack apart, and why Bashar al-Assad has managed to keep his generals in line.
The news of possible anti-Assad stirrings in his ancestral village naturally attracted the interest of the opposition, which fervently hopes that the shooting represented the first stirrings of politically significant Alawite defections from Assad. Syrian opposition sites and social media feeds went abuzz with several accounts of what happened.
Events like these are murky by definition. Reports are hard to source with accuracy, and they vary in details. But all agree that Mohammad Assad, known as the “sheikh of the mountain," is a prominent leader of the shabiha gangs, the notorious Alawite mafia that smuggles and extorts for profit, while also acting as a paramilitary arm of the regime. Assad and his confederates had a brawl with members of the other big clans, which left a number of them dead or wounded.
Credible sources report that the Khayyirs led the other big families in street protests, forcing the hand of the security forces, who cordoned off the village. On Monday, the “coalition of Alawite youth against the Assad regime” reported on a street protest, also led by the Khayyirs, which resulted in another exchange of gunfire and yet more casualties. Tensions continued to rise throughout the week, and the situation does not appear to have been resolved.
While these events seem clear enough, it’s much harder to know how to interpret them. Some Syrian oppositionists viewed the fight, especially at first, as a typical dispute between mafia families – turf and spoils, not high politics. However, other sources, including Alawite activists, are telling a different story. They insist that at the heart of the incident is discontent with Bashar al-Assad’s leadership. The other big clans, they say, denigrated the president’s leadership of the war, and it was this affront that goaded Mohammad al-Assad into pulling his gun.
These sources emphasize that a pall of anxiety has descended on the entire Alawite community. The regime, many feel, has implicated all Alawites in its atrocities. When Assad falls, the community will pay for his crimes with its blood. This anxiety has reached a new level in recent weeks, because the Free Syrian Army has succeeded in making incursions into the coastal mountains, once thought to be an impregnable Alawite stronghold. On Saturday, the rebels announced they were in control of territories just north of Qardaha itself. This advance led the families of the town to fear reprisals for the atrocities committed by Assad’s shabiha.
Fear of Sunni revenge is mixed with resentment against the Assads and their shabiha gangs, who have long tormented the coastal region, Alawites included. As the big families watch their sons in the military return home in coffins, these old intra-communal resentments are taking on new meaning. “Get off our backs already,” Mohammad al-Assad and his thugs were told, according to one account.
The Khayyirs' bitter history with the Assads runs particularly deep. To them, the Assads are peasant upstarts. The Khayyirs are a notable family that boasts of having produced important cultural and religious figures. Following the shooting of Mohammed al-Assad, the story of the late poet, Hassan Khayyir, was circulated. The poet was executed at the hands of Hafez al-Assad in 1979 for criticizing the regime in one of his poems. They say his tongue was cut out – a particularly vengeful torture to a poet.
Mohammad al-Assad may have styled himself as the “sheikh of the mountain,” but the Khayyirs always viewed the Assads as a lowly family that climbed to prominence by sheer force. These resentments were renewed two weeks ago, when the security services abducted veteran dissident Dr. Abdel Aziz Khayyir after he returned from a trip abroad. He remains detained.
One is tempted, therefore, to analyze the events in Qardaha as a direct challenge by the Khayyirs to Assad's leadership. That view is corroborated by an intriguing report, which claims that loyalists of Bashar's notorious uncle Rifaat joined the Khayyirs in protest. Rifaat, who is in exile in Europe, still dreams of a political role in Syria and has even floated himself as an alternative to his nephew. He also took a Khayyir as his fourth wife. But one must be careful before jumping to conclusions. Not only are the facts murky, but, also, the lines between the clans are opaque – precisely because of intermarriage, which all the Assads, not just Rifaat, have used to cement their primacy.
Although last Monday’s street mobilization did not call for Assad’s downfall, the embattled president was not about to tolerate open opposition from big Alawite families. That is why, according to Alawite activists, the regime is intent on setting an example. The shops of the Khayyirs and their confederates have reportedly been burned. And young girls from the Khayyir family are said to have been abducted to “teach the families a lesson.”
Up until now, Assad has been able to rely on the Alawites’ cohesiveness and support. The community has been a bastion of support. But Alawite discontent could well be surfacing under the stress of war and the fear of retribution.
Time will tell whether Assad will be able to maintain communal solidarity.
**Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.

World’s biggest shipping company halts Iran operations
October 9, 2012/Maersk Line, the world's biggest shipping company that is part of group A.P. Moeller-Maersk, said on Tuesday that it has stopped operations into and out of Iran.
"Due to a combination of EU sanctions as well as strengthened US sanctions, it is no longer possible for Maersk Line to conduct business in the country and has ceased operations into and out of Iran for the foreseeable future," said John Churchill, a spokesperson for the company. The decision comes as the Iranian economy seems to be under increasing pressure from international sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program. The Iranian rial has lost about two thirds of its value in the past 15 months, and Iran's foreign reserves are believed to have dropped by tens of billions of dollars this year.
Maersk Tankers, another unit within the Danish conglomerate, said in February that it had ceased doing business in Iran.-AFP

Future bloc calls for investigating alleged Hezbollah involvement in Syria
Now Lebanon/October 9, 2012 /The Future bloc on Tuesday discussed the alleged involvement of Hezbollah fighters in Syrian events and called on judicial authorities to investigate the charges.
“Funerals of Hezbollah fighters in the past few weeks raised a lot of questions on how and where these fighters were killed and [the Shiite party] has provided [weak] excuses,” the bloc said following its weekly meeting. “[Their excuses] varied between [the fighters dying while] defending Lebanon [or] in training camp [accidents]. One of Hezbollah’s [officials] announced these [fighters] were killed in Syrian lands defending Lebanese residents there,” it added. The bloc called on the relevant security and judicial authorities “to address the case along with all of its details” and also condemned Syrian opposition figures’ statements “threatening” Lebanese areas in the southern suburb of Beirut. Last week, a Hezbollah senior commander was buried in the eastern Lebanon Beqaa valley, as Syrian rebels claimed he was killed in Syria. The participants also discussed last week’s Baalbek explosion, which killed at least nine people and wounded seven others, and called on Hezbollah to place its ammunition depots under the management of the Lebanese army. According to residents, the blasts hit an arms stockpile in a building under construction in an uninhabited area between the villages of Nabi Sheet and Khodr.
On the alleged Al-Arabiya “leaks” regarding Syria, the Future bloc said the Lebanese cabinet as well as judicial authorities must address the documents on the possible involvement of Hezbollah in the assassination of Lebanese MP Gebran Tueni and announce the result of the investigation to the public.
In the past two weeks, Saudi-based Al-Arabiya published what it alleged were “leaked and highly-classified Syrian security documents.” The station speculated that one of the documents about a successfully completed mission “is linked to the assassination of Tueni.”
On the case of ex-Information Minister Michel Samaha and the alleged involvement of Syrian President’s advisor Bouthaina Shaaban in the case, the bloc said: “We call for speeding up the investigation into the issue [in order] to issue indictments in this [dangerous] crime.” On Saturday, Government Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr referred to First Military Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghida a report on the analysis of phone calls between the detained minister and the Shaaban. The move came after media reports that the Syrian aide was involved in the case.
The bloc also addressed President Michel Suleiman’s statements on non-state arms and said his positions “responsibly expressed the convictions of the Lebanese people.”
The president last week said that work was underway to eventually make the army “the sole possessor of weapons to defend Lebanon against any threat.”
Before making this statement, he had said that the arms of Hezbollah should not be confused with the arms of Resistance, and that the latter fall within a national defense strategy, while arms used domestically by any party must be confiscated.-NOW Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls early elections
Now Lebanon/October 9, 2012
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called an early general election, saying it should be held "as quickly as possible" in a bid to avoid damaging the Jewish state's flagging economy.
"My duty as prime minister is to put the national interest before everything, and so I've decided that for the good of Israel we must go to an election now as fast as possible," he told a press conference, broadcast live on Israel's main television and radio stations.
"For the state of Israel, it is preferable to have a short election period of three months than a long election campaign which would last a whole year, and hurt Israel's economy," Netanyahu said.
Elections for Israel's 19th parliament had been due to take place in October 2013 but the Israeli leader moved to bring forward the date after failing to garner the support of coalition partners for an unpopular austerity budget which must be passed by the end of this year.
Although he did not set a date for the election, Israeli press reports suggested it would be in late January or mid-February.
"I finished my talks with party leaders in the coalition and I reached the conclusion that at this time, it is not possible to pass a responsible budget," he said.
"We are facing an election year and unfortunately, in an election year, it is difficult for parties to put the national interest over party interests," he said.
Israel's Knesset, which reconvenes for its winter session on October 15, is likely to be dissolved at some point next week.
Netanyahu's announcement ends weeks of speculation about whether he would bring forward the election in a bid to bolster his position and capitalize on his popularity.
Recent polls indicate Netanyahu, who heads the rightwing Likud party, is well placed to stay in power, although his ratings hit a low point earlier this year after he pushed through an initial series of austerity measures in order to plug a shortfall in the budget.
His coalition of rightwing, nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties currently holds 66 of the 120 seats in parliament.
There was a brief flurry of election fever earlier this year after Netanyahu said in May that he would seek an early vote in September.
But as parliament was voting on whether to dissolve itself, he backtracked and made an 11th-hour deal to bring the opposition Kadima party into his ruling coalition, giving him a cast-iron majority of 94 seats. That political marriage collapsed just 70 days later, with Kadima head Shaul Mofaz pulling out over what he said were irreconcilable differences over plans to change the law on universal conscription.
-AFP