Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 04/12
Pope to meet Lebanese political and religious leaders
Report: NY-Based Activists Seek to Label Beirut as 'Money-Laundering Concern
No proof Lebanese banks linked to terrorist financing: Sader
Maronite Bishops Urge Adherence to Constitutional Practices at Parliament
Suleiman: Free Syrian Army Has Not Set up Camps in the North
Accusatory Committee Overrules Court Decision to Release Alaeddine
Miqati Appeases Saudi Fears after Travel Warning
March 14 Urges Govt. to File Complaint to U.N. over Syrian Violations
Berri: We Are Keen on Maintaining Friendship with Aoun
Employees hold counter protest against Assir’s Saida sit-in  
Bassil: Situation will spin off without ruling government
Bassil says Lebanese Parliament violated protocol
Lebanese wins Miss World Australia pageant
Mikati travels to Germany to meet Merkel
Hezbollah denies links to escaped gunman, accomplices
Saudis are buying nuclear-capable missiles from China
Canada's Statement on U.S. Independence Day
4 People, Including Child, Killed in Separate Accidents in the North Lebanon
Lebanese Teen Injured from Syrian Stray Bullet in North
Divided Syrian opposition ends chaotic Cairo talks
China wants “spirit” of Syria deal followed
Russia Not Discussing Assad's Future with U.S
Syrian rebels, troops clash near Damascus
15th Syrian General Defects to Turkey
Turkey Recovers Bodies of Downed Jet's Pilots
London, Paris Urge Moscow to Stop Backing Assad
French Army Hands over Key Afghan Province to Local Forces

Canada's Statement on U.S. Independence Day
July 4, 2012 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird issued the following statement on U.S. Independence Day: “On behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the people of Canada, it gives me great pleasure to extend to the people of the United States our warmest wishes on the occasion of your Independence Day. “Canada recognizes the significance of this year as the 200th anniversary of the start of the War of 1812. The end of that war marked the evolution of our relationship from one of rivalry to one of close international partnership. “As family, neighbours and friends, we share a commitment to advancing democracy, human rights, the rule of law and prosperity around the world. “May Americans and Canadians continue to take every opportunity to continue our cooperation toward making our region more prosperous and the world more secure.“I wish you the very best on this day of celebration.”

Report: NY-Based Activists Seek to Label Beirut as 'Money-Laundering Concern'
Naharnet /04 July 2012/ Major Wall Street and European financial firms are coming under pressure to dump their holdings in Lebanese debt and securities from activists who charge that Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are using Beirut's banking system to launder money and evade international sanctions, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The campaign -- which is being led by New York-based United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) -- could threaten the Lebanese financial sector, traditionally among the Middle East's most important and vibrant, the U.S. daily said. Lebanon's banking sector historically accounts for around 35% of the country's total economic output. The U.S. Treasury also has intensified its scrutiny of Lebanon's banks in recent months, concerned that Hizbullah is using them to move alleged illicit funds derived from narcotics trafficking. UANI has sent letters to private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP, mutual-fund firm Fidelity Investments, international bank HSBC Holdings, and Germany's DekaBank Group in recent months to lobby them to unload their Lebanese holdings, the Journal said.
"UANI calls on you…to divest all such securities…to ensure that you don't unwittingly support Lebanon's role as a sovereign money launderer," UANI's Chief Executive Mark Wallace wrote.
Three financial firms, Ameriprise Financial Inc., Finland's Aktia Bank, and Vienna-based Erste-Sparinvest KAG, confirmed that they have divested themselves of their holdings in Lebanese securities in recent months, though they didn't cite the amounts of their investments, according to the U.S. report.
Ameriprise said its decision was made before receiving correspondence from UANI.
Sparinvest, however, wrote to Wallace on June 27 to confirm it was pulling its investments because of the concerns raised by the group. "We came to the conclusion to divest our holdings in Lebanese bonds, and, therefore, we will follow your recommendation," Sparinvest Chief Executive Heinz Bednar wrote.
HSBC and DekaBank both contacted UANI and said they also were investigating the charges raised against Lebanon. According to The Wall Street Journal, Fidelity said it would comply with all U.S. regulations concerning investments in Lebanon. Blackstone said it is reviewing the matter and will respond later.
The effort to target Lebanon's banking system is just the latest effort in a broader campaign against Iran and its allies by UANI, a group formed in 2008 by former U.S. and international security and foreign-policy officials. In recent months, the organization also has successfully lobbied South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co., Italy's Fiat SpA, and the U.K.'s Standard Chartered to end their Iran businesses.
In another initiative, UANI teamed this year with U.S. lawmakers to pressure Belgium's Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which facilitates financial transfers world-wide, to expel Iran from its network. The Wall Street Journal said UANI is also pushing for the Treasury to designate Lebanon's financial system as a "money-laundering concern" under a statute of the Patriot Act. Such an action could eventually bar Lebanese financial institutions from participating in the U.S. financial system.
Last week, U.S. Treasury officials sanctioned five men for allegedly laundering drug money into Beirut on behalf of an international narcotics network run by a Lebanese national named Ayman Joumaa. The Treasury alleged that some of the funds were sent directly to Hizbullah, via a joint Lebanese-Colombian national, Ali Mohammed Saleh.
"The Joumaa network is a sophisticated multinational money laundering ring, which launders the proceeds of drug trafficking for the benefit of criminals and the terrorist group Hizbullah," said David Cohen, the Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has denied any role in narcotics smuggling. The Treasury last year blacklisted Lebanon's then-eighth-largest bank, the Lebanese Canadian Bank, over charges that it was facilitating the movement of Joumaa drug money and holding accounts for Hizbullah.

No proof Lebanese banks linked to terrorist financing: Sader
July 04, 2012/By Osama Habib/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The U.S. Treasury and American financial authorities did not produce any evidence that the Lebanese banking sector is involved with money laundering activity or terrorist funding, the secretary-general of the Association of Banks in Lebanon said Tuesday. “There are a number of articles published in prestigious U.S. newspapers that claim that some of our banks are hoarding illegal cash or getting involved in terrorist funding. All these allegations were not substantiated by their authors,” Makram Sader told The Daily Star.
“Furthermore, all of the U.S. officials and ambassador who met with Lebanese bankers commended the cooperation of banks in the fight against money laundering.”
Lebanese banks recently came under the spotlight once again after reports in U.S. media said that four Lebanese individuals may have been involved in funding Hezbollah through illegal drug businesses.
This is not the first time that U.S. newspapers and magazines have tied the Lebanese banking sector to alleged involvement in money laundering and terrorist funding activities.
Several leading bankers have expressed their indignation over what they say is a campaign waged by some U.S. newspapers to discredit the reputation of Lebanese lenders.
In some cases, Lebanese bankers have told U.S. officials that a few media outlets are fabricating stories about the banking system in Lebanon without producing any shred of evidence.
Sader stressed that some official U.S. financial institutions mentioned cases involving individuals who may have played a role in money laundering.
“The Special Investigation Commission, which is tasked to follow up suspected money laundering cases, issues an annual report about the cases it receives from Lebanon and abroad,” Sader explained.
“The SIC has on many occasions referred all suspected cases to the Prosecution Office, which has lifted the banking secrecy on some of the accounts. It is in our interest to examine the file of every client to safeguard the reputation of the banks.”
François Bassil, the chairman of Byblos Bank and former president of ABL, told an Arabic-language newspaper a week ago that U.S. authorities are applying pressure on Lebanese banks in order to crack down on all illegal activities. Bassil also brushed aside allegations that some Lebanese banks were suspected of hoarding illegal cash or accepting deposits from Syrian and Iranian officials.
One banker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, hinted that Lebanese banks may consider filing lawsuits against any newspaper that publishes unfounded reports about local banks.
The banker insisted that the allegations made in some Western media are politically motivated.
“Some of these articles read like a police or a fiction story. The authors like to label countries but fail to show a single shred of evidence against Lebanese banks,” the banker said.
Sader said that U.S. authorities show no mercy against any American bank which may have broken the law or is involved in insider trading, as in the case of JPMorgan.
“If the U.S. authorities had any kind of evidence against any Lebanese bank it would not have hesitated to place the name of this bank on the black list,” Sader said.
He added that any extra cash that comes to Lebanon should be registered in the balance sheets of commercial banks.
“So far, we are recording a growth of 8 percent this year and this average is very normal under the current circumstances. If we had an inflow of capital then the balance of payments would have registered a surplus and this is not the case,” Sader said. Bankers have said that the case of the Lebanese-Canadian Bank will not be repeated as the Central Bank has insisted that all lenders tighten supervision to avoid similar scenarios. They also emphasized that banks refuse to deal with any Iranian or Syrian bank in compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Saudis are buying nuclear-capable missiles from China
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 4, 2012/
debkafile’s military sources report that Saudi Arabia has set its feet on the path to a nuclear weapon capability and is negotiating in Beijng the purchase of Chinese nuclear-capable Dong-Fen 21 ((NATO-codenamed CSS-5) ballistic missile. China, which has agreed to the transaction in principle, would also build a base of operations near Riyadh for the new Saudi purchases.
As we reported last year, Saudi Arabia has struck a deal with Pakistan for the availability on demand of a nuclear warhead from Islamabad’s arsenal for fitting onto a ballistic missile.
Riyadh owns a direct interest in the two most active Middle East issues: Iran and Syria.
Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been advancing for two decades regardless of countless attempts at restraint by every diplomatic tool under the sun and a rising scale of sanctions – to no avail.
Tehran marches on regardless of impediments. In Istanbul, Tuesday, July 3, the six powers and Iran failed the fourth attempt to reach an accommodation on Iran’s nuclear program.
The Syrian ruler Bashar Assad remains equally undeterred by international condemnation. Saturday, June 30, the US and Russia again failed to agree on a joint plan of action in Syria.
Saudi forces have been poised for action in Syria on the Jordanian and Iraqi borders since US Secretary of State Leon Panetta visited Riyadh in late June.
On July 1, they redoubled their military preparedness when the European Union clamped down an oil embargo on Iran. The Saudis, the US Fifth Fleet and the entire Gulf region are since braced for Iranian reprisals which could come in the form of closure by Tehran of the vital Straits of Hormuz to shipping or strikes against the Gulf emirates’ oil exporting facilities.
Tension shot up again when Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched a three-day missile drill against simulated enemy bases in the region – expanding its threats to include US forces and bases in the region

Maronite Bishops Urge Adherence to Constitutional Practices at Parliament
Naharnet/04 July 2012/The Maronite Bishops council noted on Wednesday that the recent dispute at parliament has created division in Lebanon “that is unwanted by all sides.”
It urged in a statement after its monthly meeting “the adherence to constitutional practices” at parliament, calling on all sides against violating the “treaty of coexistence.”
In addition, it said that they must also respect the principles of fair participation in governing. Commenting on the parliament session, the bishops said: “The legislative session on the case of Electricite du Liban contract employees negatively affected cabinet, which failed to convene.”“We acknowledge that everyone must be granted their rights, but we also stress the need to support auditing institutions in order for them to play their normal role of selecting employees based on competency,” they explained after the meeting which was chaired by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi. In addition, the bishops questioned “the current state of paralysis in Lebanon and the dangerous decline in trust between the Lebanese and their mounting doubts over the state’s ability to protect them.”
They highlighted the need for all sides to return to the values instated by the 1943 national pact that the Lebanese had all agreed upon. “It should serve as the basis of maintaining national unity and Lebanon’s ties with other countries,” it stressed.“The charter emphasized coexistence and rejected foreign meddling and alliances with various axes,” noted the Maronite bishops.
“The Lebanese, who pledged before God and history to maintain Lebanon’s unity, positive neutrality, and the best of ties with various countries, are now urged to commit to this pact,” they declared.
On this note, they stressed the importance of national dialogue “as a pressing need at this point in time.” “Dialogue will help assert trust among the various parties and reach an honest and real agreement over contentious issues,” they stated. On Monday, a draft law on EDL contract workers’ full-employment was approved by parliament in a step that incurred the disapproval of Christian blocs, who consequently boycotted a parliament session on Tuesday.The move also prompted the Change and Reform bloc to boycott cabinet sessions that were set for Tuesday and Wednesday.
“The boycott is based on political reasons and not sectarian ones,” Speaker Nabih Berri said.

Accusatory Committee Overrules Court Decision to Release Alaeddine
Naharnet/04 July 2012/The accusatory committee of Beirut overruled on Wednesday a recent court order to release one of the attackers against al-Jadeed television, instead deciding to keep him in custody.
Judge Nada Dakroub overruled Beirut Examining Magistrate Judge Ghassan Owaidat’s decision, which called for keeping Wissam Alaeddine under judicial supervision. He had also ordered that his passport be confiscated. Alaeddine is charged with attempted murder and the possession of weapons. Last week, unknown gunmen attacked al-Jadeed television's headquarters in the Beirut neighborhood of Wata el-Msaytbeh, opening fire on the building, hurling Molotov bombs and setting fire to tires.Alaeddine was detained at the scene after his clothes caught fire.

Suleiman: Free Syrian Army Has Not Set up Camps in the North
Naharnet/04 July 2012/ President Michel Suleiman denied on Wednesday claims that the Free Syrian army has set up camps in northern Lebanon. He said: “I have not received any information on such a development, but that does not mean that the security situation in Lebanon is well.” He made his remarks after meeting with a delegation from the editors syndicate.
The president made his statements in response to claims by Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh, who has stated that the rebel Free Syrian Army had set up five camps in the North. “The armed Syrian opposition has entered Lebanon,” declared the MP, hoping that an investigation will be launched in the matter. Suleiman continued: “The Syrian opposition members present in Lebanon have not had the opportunity to form a military entity in the country.” “The army is monitoring the situation,” he stressed. Commenting on the spread of the Syrian crisis to Lebanon, the president noted that the country has “for the most part” maintained a neutral position from the unrest. He stressed the importance of implementing the decisions of the Baabda declaration that was issued during the June 11 national dialogue session. The declaration demanded that Lebanon maintain a neutral position on the Syrian crisis, warning against using Lebanon as a base for arming rebels against the Syrian regime. “An agreement was reached on this issue and it is important that it be implemented,” added Suleiman.Addressing the Sidon sit-in led by the Imam of the Bilal bin Rabah mosque Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, the president said: “The state will perform its duties in a manner it sees fit to reassure the people.”“Who said that the state is not performing its obligations?” he asked. Salafist cleric Asir launched his open-ended sit-in last week to protest non-state arms, including Hizbullah's arsenal.He has threatened an escalation if the arms issue is not tackled by Lebanese authorities


March 14 Urges Govt. to File Complaint to U.N. over Syrian Violations
Naharnet/04 July 2012/The March 14 General Secretariat condemned on Wednesday Syria’s ongoing violations against Lebanon, saying that the latest one was the most dangerous due to the Syrian forces’ temporary abduction of members of the Lebanon’s General Security.
It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “The government must file a complaint to the United Nations Security Council to condemn this violation.”
“The General Secretariat holds the forces allied with the Syrian regime, starting with Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement, responsible for covering up the incident as indicated by their complete silence over the violation,” it continued.
Furthermore, the March 14 forces renewed their condemnation of the Foreign Ministry’s lax approach in summoning the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon to inform him of the Lebanese government’s objection to the repeated violations.
They slammed the fact that the “Foreign Ministry has become a stage for the Syrian ambassador to demonstrate the illusion of a hegemony that has been defeated.”
Moreover, they demanded that the Army Command inform the public of every Syrian violation against Lebanon similar to its keenness to inform the public of every Israeli violation in the South.
Syrian security forces infiltrated on Monday the northern region of Wadi Khaled and detained two general security members for an hour, several media outlets reported.
Commenting of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command head Ahmed Jibril’s recent statements, the general secretariat urged the public “to take his remarks seriously.”
“His statements confirm that the Palestinian factions and Hizbullah are completely prepared to fight alongside Syria in case it is attacked,” it said. “Linking Lebanon to regional disputes contradicts with international resolutions, the Taef Accord, and national dialogue, and justifies some countries’ issuing of warnings against Lebanon,” it noted.
Jibril had stated on Tuesday that Hizbullah and Iran will fight alongside the Syrian regime if it is attacked by foreign forces.
In the event of "a foreign attack, we discussed with our brothers (in the Syrian regime), with Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and our brothers in Iran, we will be part of this battle,” he revealed.
Addressing Imam of the Bilal bin Rabah mosque Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir’s sit-in in the southern city of Sidon, the March 14 forces urged the cleric to change his manner of protest, adding that his objection to illegitimate arms coincides’ with theirs.
The case of non-state arms is a national issue that must be confronted in a manner that is agreed upon by all sides, it explained.
Salafist cleric Asir launched his open-ended sit-in last week to protest non-state arms, including Hizbullah's arsenal.
He has threatened an escalation if the arms issue is not tackled by Lebanese authorities

Berri: We Are Keen on Maintaining Friendship with Aoun
Naharnet/ 04 July 2012/Speaker Nabih Berri voiced on Wednesday his “constant” keenness on bolstering national unity. His visitors quoted him as saying: “We are keen on maintaining our friendship with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun.” The speaker made his remarks after his weekly meeting with lawmakers. Berri added: “We have faith in Aoun’s wisdom and political positions.”
Commenting on the recent developments at parliament, he said: “There is no doubt that some constitutional measures can be taken to resolve this issue.”
The visitors added: “Berri has played a major role in saving Lebanon throughout the various difficulties it endured.” “Today’s meeting was aimed at easing the crisis in order to reach the most appropriate means to end it,” they stated. Aoun had slammed on Tuesday parliament’s approval of Electricite du Liban contract workers’ full-employment as “disrespectful to parliamentary conduct,” describing the decision as an “arbitrary plan.” “We won't accept that wrong decisions be imposed on us,” he stressed. “Every state has specific structures which we cannot surpass,” he warned.
“We're not attacking anyone and we're being very tolerant and our tolerance is increasing their greed,” Aoun said. Earlier on Tuesday, Berri had suspended the parliamentary session for lack of quorum after Christian blocs boycotted it over the approval of EDL contract workers’ full-employment. “The boycott is based on political reasons and not sectarian ones,” Berri said.
Change and Reform bloc, Phalange party and Lebanese Forces lawmakers took the decision to boycott the morning session to protest the draft law.

Turkey Recovers Bodies of Downed Jet's Pilots
Naharnet/04 July 2012/ The bodies of the two pilots of a Turkish jet that was downed by Syria on June 22 have been recovered at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean sea, the Turkish army said Wednesday. "The bodies (of the two pilots) have been recovered in seabed and work is underway to bring them to surface," the army command said on a statement posted on its website.
The statement maintained that the two-seater F-4 Phantom was shot in international airspace by Syrian fire, but that the wreckage of the downed fighter has not yet been spotted.
Syria's President Bashar Assad said Tuesday he regretted that his country's defense forces shot down the jet, but insisted the plane was in Syrian airspace at the time of the shooting.
The incident has triggered a show of force between the neighbors, which have reportedly massed troops near their common border. Ankara has also deployed anti-aircrafts and missile batteries to the border, after vowing a harsher response for future border violations by Syrian army. Agence France Press

Russia Not Discussing Assad's Future with U.S.
Naharnet/04 July 2012/Russia is not discussing Bashar Assad with the United States, a deputy foreign minister said Wednesday after a report said the West was pushing Moscow to offer the Syrian president exile."The situation with the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad is not being discussed with the United States," Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.
Moscow's Kommersant daily had earlier quoted a Russian diplomatic source as saying that Western nations led by the United States were making "active attempts" to persuade Moscow to offer a home to Assad. But the report added that Moscow objected to the idea and Ryabkov stressed that Russia rejected a foreign solution to the 16-month-long conflict that monitors say have claimed more than 16,500 lives. "We have outlined our position many times: who holds power in Syria is an issue that must be settled by the Syrian people," said Ryabkov."Schemes offered -- or worse yet, imposed -- from the outside can only hurt."Agence France Presse.

French Army Hands over Key Afghan Province to Local Forces
Naharnet/04 July 2012,/The French military officially handed over control of the key Afghan province of Kapisa to local forces on Wednesday.
The transfer is an important stage in France's withdrawal from the war-torn country, which new President Francois Hollande has accelerated by ordering the return of troops by the end of 2012, a year earlier than previously planned. France is the fifth largest contributor to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is due to pull out the vast majority of its 130,000 forces by the end of 2014.
Kapisa, an extremely unstable province where French troops have suffered numerous deadly attacks from the Taliban, lies to the northeast of Kabul close to the border with Pakistan's lawless and insurgent-infested tribal areas. In 2011, 24 French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, all in Kapisa. A ceremony in the provincial capital Mahmood-e-Raqi in the presence of French and Afghan military and officials, marked the handover of the province, which was announced by President Hamid Karzai in May.
Before his election in May, Hollande promised to speed up France's withdrawal from Afghanistan so it would be completed by the end of 2012 -- a year earlier than Paris initially planned and two years before the NATO deadline. Wednesday's ceremony "lets everyone see that Afghans are taking over their security. But it is above all a symbol and does not change the transition process", a French security source told Agence France Presse. France plans to withdraw 2,000 troops fighting with ISAF against the decade-long Taliban insurgency this year, leaving behind around 1,500 soldiers to train local forces and help organize the return of military equipment. On Tuesday Pakistan agreed to reopen overland supply routes to Afghanistan from its Arabian Sea port of Karachi, seven months after closing them in protest at a U.S. air raid that killed 24 of its soldiers. The end of the blockade, which came after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said sorry for the deaths, will greatly ease the process of withdrawing 10 years' worth of military equipment from Afghanistan.Agence France Presse.

Lebanese Teen Injured from Syrian Stray Bullet in North
Naharnet /04 July 2012/A Lebanese teenager was wounded when a stray bullet from inside Syrian territories landed on his home’s rooftop in the northern border town of al-Arida, the National News Agency reported on Wednesday. NNA said Samer Khaled, 17, was sleeping on the roof when the bullet struck his neck. The stray bullet came from the ongoing clashes between Syrian government troops and rebels along the Kabir River at around 3:00 am.Khaled was taken to a hospital in Halba.

15th Syrian General Defects to Turkey
Naharnet/04 July 2012/A Syrian general and a number of soldiers defected and crossed into Turkey on Wednesday, the 15th such high-ranking officer to flee the conflict-wracked nation, a Turkish diplomat said. A total of 66 people fled into Turkey from Syria on Wednesday, including the general and two colonels as well as soldiers and their families, the diplomat told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity. Turkey has become home to dozens of soldiers who have crossed the border. Defectors have formed the Free Syrian Army in opposition to the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Around 35,000 displaced Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey since the start of a bloody uprising in March 2011.Agence France Presse.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap
Now Lebanon/July 2, 2012
Beginning in 2006, the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition staged a nearly 18-month sit-in downtown, choking off life and business in Beirut’s central district. Now Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir is holding an open-ended protest in Saida to demand disarming Hezbollah. (AFP Photo)
Let’s wind the clock back a few years. In late 2006, only months after Lebanon suffered a devastating war with Israel, March 8 members of the government walked out of the cabinet in response to a decision taken on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian bloc declared the government illegal and Hezbollah, Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement took to the streets. And they didn’t just block roads with burning tires for a few hours. No, when March 8 does something, it doesn’t do it in halves, and so for 18 months, a significant tranche of the Beirut Central District was closed off and became home to a tented city.
It didn’t stop there. The Grand Serail, the seat of government, was besieged and was only protected from a baying mob by layers of razor wire and the presence of troops, many with heavy caliber machine guns mounted on armored cars. Not only was what was left of Fuad Siniora’s government effectively trapped, it also had to contend with the omnipresent threat of assassination from a campaign that had already taken the lives of MPs Gebran Tueni and Pierre Gemayel; communist party leader Georges Hawi and the journalist Samir Kassir.
While the BCD was not necessarily the economic heart of the country, it was the centerpiece of post-civil war Lebanon and a major tourist destination. The presence of the tents and the paid “activists” put a serious dent in Lebanon’s image and decimated business in the area. Did March 8 care? Apparently not.
At the time, there was very little point in asking why the protestors were not evicted by the security forces. We all knew of Hezbollah’s ever-present threat to unleash violence. The party, which was still basking in its self-declared “divine victory” against Israel, simply would not respect the state’s attempt to enforce law. In short, despite the slogans claiming the protest was striking a blow against foreign interference and for dignity and transparency, Lebanon was hostage to a March 8 bully.
How the chickens have come home to roost. Today, not only are Hezbollah’s own supporters taking to the streets to complain about a whole host of grievances, most notably the country’s chronic electricity crisis, but Ahmed al-Assir, the rabble rousing Salafist cleric from Saida, has jumped on the latest summer craze and is blocking the city’s main road. This, he says, he will continue to do until the issue of non-state arms, in particular Hezbollah’s mighty arsenal, is resolved.
Another cause, another sit-in. No doubt March 8, whose so-called “government of one color” has done a spectacular job in showing us how not to run a country, will bridle at comparisons with the tactics it used in 2006, but there is very little difference. Should the army move to disperse the protestors, those whose lives were affected by the Beirut sit-in will no doubt ask where the state was when their businesses went up in smoke. On a sectarian level, it will only leave many Sunnis thinking that there is one rule for the Shia and another for them, and this is probably why Assir and his followers have not been moved on.
No one should condone the behavior of Sheikh Assir – daily life must never be disrupted, nor should the offices of the state be undermined. Nor, if we are being honest, should we derive any feeling of schadenfreude from this whole mess. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Najib Mikati told his security chiefs to ensure that the airport road was never again blocked. Mikati was no doubt concerned about the potential damage to Lebanon’s tourist industry (that particular horse may have already bolted, by the way) but it appears that little has been done to protect Lebanon’s other arteries and it is yet another sign that this government and its institutions have lost their grip. We are now living with the politics of the street and, quite simply, this is no way to run a country.


A Free Syrian Television
Ana Maria Luca, /Now Lebanon/July 4, 2012
A screen shot from 1989’s Romanian revolution shows a group of protesters speaking on Free Romanian Television, hours after taking it over from the regime. (AFP Photo)
Before December 1989, a huge glass fish sat on top of the TV set to keep in place a fancy cloth that my grandmother had knitted especially to cover the useless screen. The TV was almost never on, simply because there was nothing to watch. Our beloved leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, had decided that the people needed no more than three hours of television programs per day. At 7 p.m. every evening, my grandmother would take the veil off the screen to watch the night’s program: half propaganda, half general entertainment with a Communist twist.
It started with the national anthem followed by a newscast telling you how great the economy was and what countries the “father of the nation” had visited. That was followed by a documentary about the Communist revolution that had saved the country from the hands of the capitalist-imperialistic Western powers, or a show about the childhood of the “supreme commander of the Revolution,” which was our beloved president, or the biography of a historical figure distorted to fit the line of the state propaganda machine. The night ended at 10 p.m. Sometimes the state television would broadcast the re-election of Ceausescu as leader of the Communist Party or some of his speeches.
Then, at the end of December 1989, I watched a revolution live on television. Protests broke out in Bucharest on December 21 to ask Ceausescu to step down. People were shot and run over by tanks, while the national television station told us that terrorists were behind the unrest. The next day the protesters realized the television station and the army were the best assets they could have on their side. So they took over the state television headquarters and the employees immediately started to broadcast the messages of the revolutionaries, showing what was really happening in the streets. Meanwhile, members of the army started to defect. The opposition had the Romanian Free Army and the Romanian Free Television on their side.
The similarities between 1989 Romania and 2012 Syria are striking. There was the same type of dictatorship – the country’s wealth concentrated in the hands of one family while the people had to make do with rationed food – the same type of security apparatus based on intelligence services and political police, the same censorship of state television, and the same speeches blaming “terrorists” for the uprising.
But unlike 1989 Romania, the Syrian uprising has no rostrum to speak from, no way to reach the people who still live under the Syrian government’s media blackout. The Syrian opposition posts videos on YouTube, has Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. But that is not enough. Social media might have started the Arab Spring, might have helped the protesters organize, but it lacks the outreach that television has.
Imagine that the gunmen who stormed into Al-Ikhbaryia TV South of Damascus last week had not killed seven employees of the station and had not destroyed the equipment. Imagine that a few brigades of the Free Syrian Army would still be guarding the headquarters, while broadcasting images of the real fighting and the real protests, the real shelling of Syrian towns, the real bodies of civilians that were shot dead. The images would have travelled across Syria to the homes of people who still don’t know about the massacres.
In 1989 Romania, the uprising did not have time to turn into an armed insurgency. It happened this way precisely because all Romanians, even in remote villages, had footage of the shootings ordered by the regime, of defected soldiers fighting to protect the protesters, of intellectuals and generals switching sides. They saw Ceausescu fleeing in his helicopter, they saw him captured, and they saw him shot. Everything was live on television.
The revolutionaries were not united, just as the Syrian opposition isn’t. There were fights among the Romanian revolution’s leaders: some of them were former Communists who were against Ceausescu’s rule, others were intellectuals and artists who had dreams of a Western-style democracy and had spent years in prison for speaking about freedom or criticizing the regime. Yet the Romanians were able to make their choice. The country’s transition to democracy lasted for over a decade. Some still argue that Romania is not yet a democracy, but they have the right to speak their mind.
Attacking and destroying the Al-Ikhbaryia television station was one of the biggest mistakes an armed faction of the Syrian opposition could make. Internet only reaches computer-literate people. Television, however, can reach the hearts and minds of millions of Syrians who don’t have a laptop or a smartphone. Some Syrians are still under the influence of the state propaganda machine, which for years has been drilling into their minds that “there is no Syria without President Bashar al-Assad.” That happens because the regime still controls the state television.
The Free Syrian Army and the opposition need to show they are not terrorists if they want to bring down the regime. What Syria needs is a Free Syrian Television, not a destroyed one.

Is the US restraining Turkey from military action in Syria?
By Michael Weiss World Last updated: July 3rd, 2012
What’s going on between Turkey and the United States with respect to Syria? In the last fortnight:
• An unarmed Vietnam-era Turkish reconnaissance plane performing a military exercise was shot out of the sky by Syrian air defences. Turkey insisted that the plane, after having briefly and accidentally dipped into Syrian airspace, was downed in international skies, about 13 nautical miles off the Syrian coast, by an anti-aircraft missile. Damascus said the plane was in Syrian airspace and gunned down by machine-gun fire which can only reach a shore-hugging 1.5 miles. The rescue plane sent to look for the two missing F-4 pilots was also allegedly fired upon.
• Turkey invoked Article IV of the Nato charter and turned up at the resulting meeting a few days later asking the alliance to draw up no-fly zone contingency plans, a request which surprised other Nato members. Nato condemned Syria but took no further action and, for the umpteenth time in the last year and a half, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen disavowed any desire for military intervention in Syria, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey praised Turkey’s “measured” response to the incident.
• The Turkish prime minister’s chief foreign policy advisor announced that Ankara’s rules of engagement had been altered and “expanded” in the wake of the downed aircraft incident. The government wasted no time in demonstrating how this was so.
• Turkey deployed two armored brigades and anti-aircraft batteries to several positions along its 565-mile border with Syria, with three stations established in Hatay, the province where most of the 34,000 Syrian refugees are now being housed, including the military defectors known as the Free Syrian Army.
• On Sunday, Turkish F-16s were scrambled three times to chase away MI-8 and MI-17 Russian-made assault transport helicopters which had approached within about 4 miles of the Syrian-Turkish border, thus creating a de facto no-fly zone within Syrian territory. F-16s have since been scrambled twice more.
• The Wall Street Journal published a piece on Saturday quoting unnamed US intelligence officials who confirmed Damascus’s side in the downed plane incident, saying that the F4 was shot down in Syrian air space. “We see no indication that it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile,” one anonymous source told WSJ. A former US official with ties to Ankara said, “You think that the airplane was there by mistake?", suggesting Turkey dispatched it to test Syria’s air defence systems.
• The Turkish media went bonkers over the WSJ story. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan fulminated during a public event, “Who are these sources? [WSJ] have published lies before.” He blamed the paper's anti-Obama “bias” for running the story and accused Turkish journalists of recycling it of being "merciless and reckless". State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland today "condemn[ed]" the leak, saying the US firmly backs its ally.
• The Sunday Times ran an exclusive this weekend, this one quoting unnamed Turkish diplomats who said that Russia had a hand in downing the F-4 and that Russian technicians may have even assisted the Syrian Air Force. One diplomat suggested that it was a warning to NATO: “Syria is not Libya, and any attempt to impose a ‘no-fly zone’ over Syria will face one of the most formidable air defences on Earth, and will cost any attacker dearly.” In a rather unusual point of agreement, an Israeli Air Force source backed up the Turkish diplomat’s allegation. Also, The Sunday Times largely reaffirmed the “official” Turkish account of the incident.
It would appear that Ankara is seeking to justify some form of military response or engagement with Damascus, and is being restrained from doing so by the United States. This conforms to the conventional wisdom that President Obama will not stop outwardly seeking a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis until after the election in November.
Let’s assume Erdogan is telling the truth and the F-4 was in international airspace when it was shot down. Turkey would be within its rights to respond, and it would therefore be likely that someone in the Obama administration would leak a story to a mainstream broadsheet not typically friendly to either the American or Turkish administrations in order to rob the latter of a casus belli.
If Erdogan is lying, and the US intelligence sources are correct, then Turkey was foolishly tempting this sort of confrontation in the first place, not to mention putting two of its own pilots at lethal risk. Ankara’s furious response might have been planned all along, despite then falling foul of the White House's own sensitive timetable.
You can see why Turkey might want to hurry things along like that. The latest proposal to emerge from yet another Kofi Annan-administered boondoggle in Geneva calls for a transitional government to be appointed in Syria consisting of regime members and opposition figures who are not dedicating to undermining reconciliation. Washington, London and Paris have interpreted this to mean that Bashar al-Assad must not be a part of said transition. Moscow, which came away from Switzerland "delighted" with the language of the deal, insists it means no such thing. The Assad regime and Syrian political and military oppositions, meanwhile, rejected the deal outright. So while the same old story gets dressed up by a credulous news cycle as an advancement in international "consensus", Turkey grows restless.
And why not? It's not motivated not by humanitarian imperative but by national security. It fears further cross-border raids into its territory by regime forces. It sees itself as already intervening by hosting and arming Syrian rebels. And it is absolutely terrified that Assad’s sleeper proxy in Syria, the PKK, will begin a new terrorist assault even as Turkey continues to try and destroy the group's strongholds in southern Turkey and northern Iraq. We have now reached a stage in the Syria crisis where another NATO ally seeks to lead from behind and is told by the United States that the timing is all wrong.

Iran threatens swift retaliation on U.S. and Israel
Iranian general claims 'measures have been taken' to ensure a swift counterattack should U.S. or Israel strike.
By The Associated Press | Jul.04, 2012/Haaretz /Iran's semi-official news agency Fars is reporting the country can destroy nearby United States military bases and strike Israel within minutes of an attack on the Islamic Republic. The Wednesday report quotes Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh of the powerful Revolutionary Guards as saying U.S. bases, and Israel — which he referred to as "occupied territories" — are in range of Iran's missiles and could be struck as a retaliatory measure. "Measures have been taken so that we could destroy all these bases in the early minutes of an attack," said Hajizadeh, chief of the Guards' airspace division. The General's comments follow a three day military exercise carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in which missiles with various capabilities and ranges were test fired throughout the country.  Hajizadeh also said the Guards successfully test fired an anti-ship missile that could sink U.S. warships in the Gulf. Gen. Hajizadeh told state TV that
the shore-to-sea ballistic missile, called "Persian Gulf," has a range of 300 kilometers (180 miles).  State TV showed video of the launching of a white missile that hit a huge
target in Gulf waters.  The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain, an island in the Gulf about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Iran, well within range of Iranian missiles
The military exercise coinicided with the renewal of nuclear talks between Iran and the six world powers, the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K. and Germany, which took place in Istanbul.
Iran and the West are at odds over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and neither Israel nor the U.S. have ruled out a military strike on the country if diplomacy fails to stop its nuclear program.