Soldier shot dead, another wounded in n.Lebanon
Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Thursday a Lebanese Army soldier and seriously wounded another in the...
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Soldier shot dead, another wounded in n.Lebanon
Soldier shot dead, another wounded in n.Lebanon
Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Thursday a Lebanese Army soldier and seriously wounded another in the...
France says $3B Lebanon weapons deal to go ahead
PARIS: France will soon provide weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese Army as part of a $3 billion Saudi grant to help it fight jihadists encroaching into Lebanon from Syria, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday.
One of the few institutions not overtaken by the sectarian divisions plaguing Lebanon, the Army has few resources to deal with the instability on its border and has been seeking to modernize its military hardware.
“All the work is done and the President [Francois Hollande] indicated yesterday to Mr. [Saad] Hariri that the conditions to fulfill the contract had been met,” Le Drian told France’s parliament.
“This is a necessity. The Lebanese Army is the last barrier that exists against the security threats this country faces.”
Former Prime Minister Hariri, who has close links to the Saudi royal family, was in Paris Tuesday to meet Hollande.
He said that another Saudi grant of $1 billion for the Lebanese Army had also been finalized.
Jihadists attacked and briefly seized the Lebanese border town of Arsal in August and since then the Army has stepped up its efforts to prevent fighters, most notably from Al-Qaeda’s Syrian wing Nusra Front, from crossing into Lebanon.
Beirut has officially tried to distance itself from Syria’s conflict, but Hezbollah has sent fighters to aid President Bashar Assad. Assad, like Hezbollah, is backed by Iran.
Lebanon, which is still rebuilding after its own 15-year Civil War, has also seen clashes, particularly in Tripoli, between gunmen loyal to opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, as well as militant strikes on the Army and crossborder attacks by Syrian rebels.
The Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has taken part in airstrikes in neighboring Syria, may be seeking to bolster the Army as a counterbalance to Hezbollah.
Le Drian said France would provide land, air and naval equipment.
“This project will be concluded and we have already started by renovating the Lebanese Army’s helicopter fleet,” he said.
The contract, which was initially agreed in December, has been under intense scrutiny for several months as negotiations between Paris and Riyadh over the deal have proved more complicated than first imagined.
Empowering Our Young People, and Stemming the Collateral Damage of Incarceration
Today, officials from the White House, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) welcomed a diverse group of federal officials, non-profit workers, faith leaders, school administrators, researchers, and child welfare advocates to the White House, to announce a series of steps aimed at providing stronger support to help children with incarcerated parents succeed, and overcome the unique obstacles they often face.
President Obama has been committed since day one of his presidency to the idea that every child should have an equal opportunity to learn, grow, dream, and thrive. Yet for children of incarcerated parents, this can seem like a far-off reality.
Nationally, more than 2.6 million children have a parent in prison, and approximately half of these children are under the age of 10 years old. Losing a parent to incarceration can result in devastating consequences for children, including poverty and housing instability. Nearly 20% of all children entering the child welfare system have an incarcerated parent, and a recent study suggests that children with parents in prison are at an increased risk for asthma, obesity, ADD/ADHD, depression, and anxiety.
Five U.S. Airports Are Enacting New Screening Measures to Protect Against Ebola
Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that the following five U.S. airports will soon begin enhanced Ebola screening for all travelers coming from Ebola-affected countries:
- John F. Kennedy International Airport - New York, NY
- Washington Dulles International Airport - Washington, D.C.
- Newark Liberty International Airport - Newark, NJ
- Chicago O'Hare International Airport - Chicago, IL
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport - Atlanta, GA
These five airports receive more than 94% of travelers coming to the United States from the Ebola-affected nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Obama Proposal Could Extend Overtime Benefits To More Workers
Two-thirds of salaried workers used to get overtime automatically when they worked more than 40 hours a week, but thanks to a George W. Bush-era decision, only about 1 in 10 qualify today.
Hezbollah bomb boldest Blue Line action since 2006
LONDON: The Hezbollah roadside bomb ambush against an Israeli patrol that wounded two soldiers Tuesday was significant less in the rarity of such operations since 2006 and more in the timing.
The attack has been linked to the death of Ali Haidar, a Hezbollah explosives expert who was killed two months ago while dismantling a booby-trapped Israeli monitoring device that was hooked into a Hezbollah communications cable near Adloun.
The unit that claimed the roadside bomb ambush near the Israeli army’s Rowaisat al-Alam outpost in the Shebaa Farms was named after Haidar, suggesting that the operation was a retaliation.
Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, also hinted that the bomb attack was tit-for-tat when he told OTV television Tuesday night that Hezbollah “will not allow any violation without retaliating properly.” Nevertheless, if the bomb attack was a retaliation for Haidar’s death, it remains unclear why it took two months for Hezbollah to launch the operation.
Between October 2000 and the outbreak of war in July 2006, Hezbollah turned the United Nations-delineated Blue Line into a locus of retaliation for acts of aggression by Israel, whether assassinations of Hezbollah cadres, persistent overflights in Lebanese airspace or other territorial breaches. Usually, Hezbollah’s response to an Israeli transgression would come swiftly, sometimes within hours.
After the 2006 war, Hezbollah dropped its eye-for-an-eye policy along the Blue Line to prevent a miscalculation that could provoke another unwanted conflict with Israel. That forbearance ended last February when Israel bombed a building near Janta in the eastern Bekaa that was used for the transfer of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah’s arms storehouses. The airstrike was part of a pattern of attacks conducted by the Israeli air force since January 2012 targeting consignments of advanced weapons – such as long-range guided rockets, air defense systems and anti-ship missiles – that could have been destined for Hezbollah. The February attack differed because it was the first to strike Lebanese territory – all the previous attacks were inside Syria.
Hezbollah acknowledged that one of its facilities was hit and vowed retaliation. It came in the course of the following two weeks with three attempted or actual roadside bomb attacks against Israeli troops and the launching of rockets at an Israeli outpost on Mount Hermon. All but one of the attacks was carried out in the Golan Heights which afforded Hezbollah some degree of deniability. The exception was a roadside bomb ambush in the Shebaa Farms near Bastara at the southern end of the hillside. The attack, which was subsequently acknowledged by Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as a Hezbollah operation, was the first in the Farms since the 2006 war.
That raises the question that if Tuesday’s roadside bomb attack was retaliation for the death of Ali Haidar, why did Hezbollah wait two months before carrying it out? There may be more to the operation than is currently being revealed.
The bomb ambush was also significant in the location chosen by Hezbollah for the attack. The bomb was planted on a track roughly 400 meters east of the Rowaisat al-Alam outpost, which lies opposite Kfar Shuba at the northern end of the Shebaa Farms.
The Hezbollah team that carried out the operation demonstrated great skill in infiltrating this area of the Shebaa Farms. The vegetation at the northern end of the Farms is sparse, providing little ground cover for infiltrating fighters. The Israeli outpost is also equipped with numerous monitoring devices and cameras designed to detect breaches of the Blue Line.
All past roadside bomb attacks by Hezbollah in the Shebaa Farms, mainly those conducted in the 2000-2006 period, occurred in the more densely wooded southern slopes of the Shebaa Farms. The one glaring exception was a carefully planned operation in May 2004 when Hezbollah was able to plant bombs within meters of the entrance of the Rowaisat al-Alam outpost and then detonate them against a returning Israeli patrol.
This latest operation rekindles some of the bravado of that earlier attack a decade ago.
Nevertheless, although it appears that the bomb was planted successfully, the Israelis appear to have detected members of the Hezbollah team as they departed the area Sunday which led to shots being fired and a Lebanese soldier wounded.
It would be instructive to learn how Tuesday’s bomb was detonated. If the bomb was detonated by command control the Hezbollah team must have had a view of the ambush site to await the arrival of the target. The eastern side of the Rowaisat al-Alam outpost is visible from the Lebanese side of the Blue Line only from a hill overlooking the Shebaa pond gate, a distance of over 2 kilometers.
It is possible that a Hezbollah team monitored the bombsite from such a position. But another alternative is that some of the Hezbollah team that planted the bomb remained behind hidden inside the Shebaa Farms, monitoring the site until the Israeli patrol arrived.
The latter option would have carried significant risks to the perpetrators, who would have had to slip out of the Farms during a period of heightened activity by Israeli troops on full alert.
Either way, Tuesday’s ambush was the boldest action undertaken by Hezbollah along the Blue Line since the end of the 2006 war. Whether it presages further attacks in the Shebaa Farms or whether it remains a curious anomaly remains to be seen.
Arqoub residents wary over Shebaa operation
SHEBAA, Lebanon: Residents of Arqoub, which includes the southern districts of Kfar Shuba, Shebaa and Hasbaya, expressed mixed reactions to Hezbollah’s operation earlier in the week which wounded two Israeli soldiers, leading Israeli forces to fire a barrage of shells into the area.
Despite the Israeli attack, the sound of schoolchildren at play echoed through the streets of Kfar Shuba Wednesday.
“We don’t talk politics like most” in Lebanon, Mayor Qasim Qadri said. “We support the liberation of all occupied territories in our great south, including the Shebaa Farms and the hills of Kfar Shuba. I am not a military analyst, but there must be total coordination between the resistance and the Army.”
But not all residents seemed to agree with the mayor.
Abu Mohammad, a farmer, was returning from his fields on the back of his donkey when he stopped to share his thoughts.
He said that the operation was not carried out “at the right time,” adding: “I don’t think these operations work, so let us leave the work to the diplomats. We’re tired.”
On Tuesday, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for planting a bomb that wounded two Israeli soldiers in the occupied Shebaa on the southern border, two days after Israeli fire wounded a Lebanese soldier. Israel responded by firing at least 15 artillery rounds into an area not far from civilian residences, causing no casualties. The operation was the first to take place in the area in years.
Abu Afif, a passerby, echoed Abu Mohammad’s sentiments.
“I support the liberation of the Kfar Shuba hills, the Shebaa Farms, the Golan Heights and every grain of soil, but not from here,” he said.
Arqoub is predominantly Sunni, and historically has been steadfast in its support for any armed resistance against Israel, whether led by Palestinians, Lebanese nationalists Islamist groups or Hezbollah.
Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the signing of the Egyptian-brokered Cairo Agreement three years later, the area became known as “Fatah Land,” after Lebanon granted Palestine Liberation Organization factions, led by the Fatah Movement, the right to launch military operations against Israel from Arqoub. The area was considered especially strategic for its proximity to the Golan Heights and the West Bank.
Due to its links to the resistance, the area came under devastating attack by the Israelis throughout the early 1970s.
In recent decades, the affiliation of the area changed, and now most support the Future Movement and Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, while some residents still back Leftist parties.
But despite this trend, those living on the border have continued to support the resistance and a number of locals gave their lives fighting against Israel alongside Hezbollah in the July 2006 war.
A testament to its unique political makeup, pictures of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and his son Saad Hariri hang at the entrance to Kfar Shuba alongside those of Hezbollah fighters from the village who died in the 2006 war.
Nearby Shebaa, home to 6,000 displaced Syrians, was targeted by dozens of Israeli shells in response to Hezbollah’s attack Tuesday.
Abu Hussein Nabaa, a laborer, said that Hezbollah’s operations “bring us the woe and destruction of Israel’s response, and do not forget that there are thousands of Syrians. Where can either of us go?”
But Mahmoud Zahra, a shepherd, saluted the resistance and its recent operation.
“I support the return of [military] operations and the resistance, which preserves our dignity and honor,” he said. “ Israel did not dare cross the Blue Line, which was drawn by the United Nations. But with the cessation of [Hezbollah] operations, Israel arrests us and shoots us every day. I am with the deterrence of the Lebanese Army and the resistance.”
A displaced Syrian who called himself Abu Abdo said: “As Arabs, we are all with the resistance, so let Hezbollah pull out of Syria and we will all support it.”
Mohammad Jirar, the public relations officer of Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya in Shebaa, emphasized his support for armed resistance and the return of occupied lands, but voiced suspicion over the timing of the operation, noting that Hezbollah had not carried out military operations in the region for the past eight years.
“We support the return of operations to the Shebaa Farms to legitimize military action in the face of the Israeli enemy, as this land is occupied,” he said, but added: “Why now?
“We have been resisting since before [Hezbollah’s] resistance ... we are at the forefront of resistance,” he said.
Shebaa’s mukhtar, Abdo Hashem, also qualified his support for the resistance.
“We are with the resistance, but we have a delicate situation and more important matters ... we fear for the displaced [Syrians],” he said.
March 14 to seek names from Rai for president
As Parliament meets for a 13th time to attempt to elect a new president, March 14 parliamentary sources said intensive contacts will begin next Monday between their coalition’s leadership and Patriarch Bechara Rai.
The talks will aim to achieve a breakthrough in the presidential file and feel out the other factions, especially Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun and the March 8 forces, in the hopes of persuading them to back a new consensus candidate.
Separately, Lebanese diplomatic sources at the Vatican said the Holy See encourages and supports any effort to end the presidential crisis.
The same sources added that Rai’s presence in Rome, and the upcoming meeting between him and Prime Minister Saad Hariri next Monday to discuss the crisis, may facilitate a breakthrough because the patriarch may consult Vatican diplomats about any proposals.
In this context, parliamentary sources in March 8 said they had heard that March 14 would ask the patriarch to name a specific person for the presidency so that this name could be marketed to Arab and Western capitals concerned directly or indirectly with the Lebanese file.
The sources added that it has become clear that none of the current candidates, including Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and March 8’s own choice, Aoun, who has never officially announced his candidacy, could garner the support needed from all Lebanese factions.
Political sources said that this proposal could only come from the head of the church, because if it came from any other party, particularly a Muslim one, it would be deemed unacceptable to Christians, pointing out the LF’s reaction to the nomination of Henry Helou by Walid Jumblatt.
The same political sources ruled out the possibility of former President Amine Gemayel being re-elected, citing several reasons, first and foremost that he is a March 14 partisan and would therefore not receive unanimous support.
The March 14 parliamentary sources said that if the patriarch could be convinced to put forward a name or names, as Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir did before him when he gave the French foreign minister five names, the matter would remain under wraps until they could gauge the reaction of local Lebanese factions as well as the opinions of Arab and Western allies.
However, parliamentary sources in the FPM felt that such a move might embarrass Aoun if the patriarch proposes a name that would be difficult to reject or ignore.
But they emphasized that until now there is no indication that Aoun, who continues to be supported by Hezbollah, will back down from his “right” to represent the Christians of Lebanon as their president.
Joint committees to review salary scale bill Monday
BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri called Wednesday on joint parliamentary committees to meet next Monday to review the public sector’s controversial salary scale bill as the Union Coordination Committee threatened to stage an open-ended strike if the bill was not passed soon.
Meanwhile, a Parliament session which Berri called for Thursday to elect a new president appears to be doomed to fail like previous ones over a lack of quorum, raising fears of a prolonged vacuum in the country’s top Christian post.
Thursday’s would be the 13th session to be foiled by a lack of quorum in the past five months to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year tenure ended on May 25.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam again called for a quick election of a president. “Without a president, the Lebanese entity will be exposed to several crises. We cannot be protected from these crises except with the election of a president, especially since he is the only Christian Arab president in the Levant,” Salam said during a meeting with a delegation from “The Committee to Defend the Rights of Beirut.”
The joint committees’ meeting will study the inclusion of military personnel and private school teachers into the wage hike bill, Berri was quoted by lawmakers as saying during the speaker’s weekly meeting with MPs at his Ain al-Tineh residence.
Parliament is also set to elect new members for the joint committees, and will designate a new secretary on Oct. 21 – the constitutional deadline for the vote, lawmakers quoted Berri as saying.
Berri also met with Deputy Speaker Farid Makari to discuss the joint committees’ meeting on the salary scale bill.
“I discussed today with the speaker the salary and ranks issue after it had been referred to the joint parliamentary committees,” Makari told reporters after the meeting. “With regard to the salary scale issue, there are two key issues to be discussed after most points have been agreed on. The first issue is related to the [private] teachers and the other concerns the military.
“All issues will be discussed [by the committees] in a bid to reach positive results as soon as possible,” he added.
In response to a question, Makari said the extension of Parliament’s mandate, which expires on Nov. 20, has become inevitable.
Berri, according to lawmakers, also said he stood side-by-side with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri against holding parliamentary elections before the election of a president. “I refuse to hold parliamentary elections if a major component in Lebanon rejects it,” Berri said.
MP Ibrahim Kanaan, head of the parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee, welcomed Berri’s call for a meeting of the joint committees to review the salary scale bill.
“This proves that the salary and ranks scale is still a priority,” Kanaan told Elnashra website. He said his committee was fully ready to cooperate with Makari to bring the salary scale bill out of the paralysis from which it has suffered for months.
Last week, Parliament postponed action on the wage hike bill over protests, including the exclusion of private school teachers from the bill.
Meanwhile, the UCC, which represents civil servants and public and private school teachers, threatened to stage an open-ended strike and sit-in in two weeks if the lawmakers fail to pass the salary scale.
“We informed the MPs that we will hold a strike and sit-ins if the salary scale is not endorsed by the lawmakers next week. We don’t want to go back to the streets, but we may be compelled to do so if we noticed the lawmakers are dragging their feet,” Nehme Mahfoud, head of the Association of Private School Teachers, told The Daily Star Wednesday.
According to Mahfoud, all of the parliamentary blocs have promised to include the private school teachers in the salary scale bill.
“We have received assurances from the blocs. The government will not pay a penny if the private school teachers were not included in the bill,” he said.
Mahfoud believes that some parliamentary blocs used the issue of military personnel high wage demands to scuttle the salary scale. He also insisted that the private school teachers would not dare raise tuitions if Parliament votes in favor of granting higher wages to the teachers.
For his part, MP Yassin Jaber from Berri’s bloc was not too confident the parliamentary committees would be able to reach a common understanding on the salary scale. He feared that if the cost of the salary scale hovers above the ceiling agreed among the MPs, then the chances of passing this bill soon would be very dim.
Jaber admitted that the lawmakers have not yet reached a final agreement on the cost of the salary scale, adding that if the retired government employees and military personnel were included in the salary scale, then the cost would surely rise. – Additional reporting by Osama Habib
U.S. Ambassador To Liberia: Many Challenges Remain In Ebola Response
Melissa Block speaks with U.S. ambassador to Liberia Deborah Malac about the U.S. effort to combat Ebola in West Africa. Work has been slowed by difficult conditions and a shortage of trained workers.
The Language That Divides America: From Red And Blue To Percents
Workers walk on a giant presidential election map of the U.S. made of ice in the skating rink at Rockefeller Center in 2004. The media still use "red" and "blue when talking about the electoral map, but not for a deep cultural divide. Kathy Willens/AP hide caption
itoggle caption Kathy Willens/AP
Workers walk on a giant presidential election map of the U.S. made of ice in the skating rink at Rockefeller Center in 2004. The media still use "red" and "blue when talking about the electoral map, but not for a deep cultural divide.
Kathy Willens/AP
The thing I found interesting about the "latte salute" foofaraw was that people were calling it that. Why did they feel the need to suggest that it was a latte that the president was holding when he made that perfunctory salute to the Marines as he left his helicopter last month? How can a latte still be a sign of effete self-indulgence when you can get one at any McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts these days? Isn't that whole red-blue business a little vieux chapeau?
Back in 2005, I actually made a bet about those color names with the lexicographer Grant Barrett, who compiled a dictionary of political slang. The American Dialect Society had just chosen "red states" and "blue states" as its words of the year for 2004. Barrett said those terms would join "right" and "left" as a permanent fixture of the political lexicon. I said they'd be passé in 10 years' time. As the clock ticks down, it looks like it's going to be a split decision. The media still use "red" and "blue when they're talking about the electoral map, but not for a deep cultural divide. People don't talk much about "red-and-blue America" anymore.
That red-blue distinction came about as pure serendipity. During the marathon battles over the recount in the 2000 election, those just happened to be the colors the media were using for the broad swaths of states that went for Bush or Gore. But the colors instantly became a proxy for all the differences in values and lifestyle that seemed to be cleaving the country into warring tribes.
“ That red-blue distinction came about as pure serendipity. ... But the colors instantly became a proxy for all the differences in values and lifestyle that seemed to be cleaving the country into warring tribes.
That picture really had its roots in the '70s, when we all took to using marketing jargon like "upscale," "yuppie" and "lifestyle" itself to map out our cultural geography, and we suddenly discovered a nation called Middle America sitting in our midst. For the right, it was an occasion to brand liberals with the consumer choices that revealed them for the poseurs they were. Liberals drove a safe but ugly car built by the socialist Swedes. They consumed Chardonnay and Brie, and they followed sports that didn't require helmets or gasoline.
In 1997, David Brooks coined the phrase "latte liberal" in a piece about the bourgeois bohemians in his Washington, D.C., neighborhood — people who signaled their status discreetly by spending excessive amounts of money on staples like bottled water and organic lettuce, not to mention $3 lattes. It seemed the perfect symbol for liberal ideals, pallid, frothy and foreign.
Those stereotypes all came together in a brilliant TV ad sponsored by the conservative Club for Growth that ran during the 2004 Iowa Democratic primary. An announcer asks a middle-aged couple what they think of Howard Dean's tax plan. The man starts: "I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading ... " and his wife continues, " ... body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs."
I thought that line was pure genius, and appropriated it for the subtitle of a book I was writing on political language. Those piled-on participials enabled you to ridicule liberal affections while conspicuously dropping your g's. The line wasn't supposed to make a lot of demographic sense — you had an image of Marilyn Manson poring over Paul Krugman's latest column while he nibbles at his California roll. But the writer of the ad nailed the snooty liberal as a comic type, like the pretentious foils in a Woody Allen movie. The left couldn't really respond in kind. When liberals denounce red-state conservatives as knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping, gun-fondling bubbas, they just confirm that they're condescending elitists. In fact, when you encounter a phrase like "beer-guzzling redneck" on the Web, it's most often coming from a conservative who's reminding the people of the heartland just what the liberals think of them.
It took the appearance of the red-blue color code in 2000 to put those lifestyle differences literally on the map. For a while, those divisions were all that people could talk about — they signaled a "values chasm," a "clash of cultures." The conservative columnist John Podhoretz said the country was "devolving into two nations," divided not by race or income but by pure affect — the reds incapable of irony, the blues capable of nothing but.
The media made a parlor game of assigning everything to a place on the national color wheel: red and blue hairstyles, rock groups, fertilizer brands, salads. Then after 2008, the whole narrative abruptly dropped out of sight. The references to latte liberals, to red and blue America, even to family values, are all off anywhere from 70 to 90 percent in the media since then. There's no shortage of explanations — the economy, Obama's election, the Republicans' lurch rightwards. Or credit the influence of Starbucks and Will & Grace.
In retrospect, the whole "two Americas" business was mostly the narcissism of small differences, many of which wound up being no differences at all. When we talk about our divisions now, it's with new language that reflects the rediscovery of the old distinctions of race and class — the one percent, the 47 percent, the makers and takers, the fat cats. In retrospect, that yawning chasm between the kale-chewing blues and the iceberg-lettuce crunching reds was never more than a blurry line between market segments of the white middle class. We may be more divided than ever, but not because of our irreconcilable tastes in greens.
Future: Hezbollah giving Israel excuses to attack
BEIRUT: Hezbollah is giving Israel reasons to attack Lebanon, the Future movement said in a statement published after its weekly meeting Wednesday.
Giving Israel “free excuses” to attack Lebanon “raises questions about the consequences this may have on Lebanon” in light of the critical phase the region is facing, the statement said.
Israel forces launched 23 shells at areas near the Shebaa hills at a rate of about three shells per minute Tuesday after a Hezbollah-planted bomb exploded and wounded two Israeli soldiers on the south Lebanon border.
Responding to Israeli violations in south Lebanon, the bloc said that the incursions and attacks "constitute a flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 and ... Lebanese sovereignty."
Separately, the bloc renounced a fierce militant assault on a Hezbollah post in Brital Sunday, calling the attack a “continued attempt to pull Lebanon into the [Syrian] conflict zone” and reiterating its call for a swift withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from Syria.
“The responsibility of defending Lebanon falls exclusively on the Lebanese state, which is represented by the Army and official security forces,” said the movement. It pointed to Article 14 of U.N. Resolution 1701 as the only exception that allows the Lebanese government to resort to U.N. troops to man the southern border.
Commenting on the hostage crisis, the movement said the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from Syria in return for all at least 21 kidnapped military and security personnel would constitute the “most important trade-off."
Bloc members also expressed their optimism over the processing of Saudi Arabia’s two grants to Lebanon, $1 billion for general security purposes and $3 billion for French-made arms. “The French part of the donation will be implemented very soon in cooperation with the Lebanese Army and security forces” added the statement.
Lebanon police arrest suspected murder
BEIRUT: Security forces arrested a Syrian national suspected of kidnapping and killing a Syrian teenager over political differences, a police statement said Wednesday.
It said the victim’s father alerted police on October 2 about the kidnapping of his 17-year-old son by unknown assailants who asked for a $3,000 ransom to release him.
Police succeeded in apprehending the culprit who confessed that to luring the victim to an isolated area near a spring in Jouret Ballout, in the Metn district, and killed him because of political differences.
After committing his crime, the suspect tried to blackmail his victim’s father for money, the statement said, adding that the victim’s body and identity papers were found near the crime scene.
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10 iOS Features You Should Probably Turn Off
Apple's new predictive keyboard, which learns from how you type and tries to suggest words you might want to write next, can be great for typing a long text message. But this week we heard that the feature's memory might be a little too good; type your passwords too often and the predictive keyboard might suggest the rest of them, kind of defeating the whole secrecy thing.
To turn off the keyboard's predictive features, go into your phone's Settings menu and then General > Keyboard. Scroll down to the Predictive setting and slide it to Off. From this menu, you can also disable other keyboard features that may annoy you, such as auto-capitalization, autocorrect, and spell check.
If you need to share a photo or file with a friend who is also using iPhone, then Airdrop can be a killer feature. Most of us will use it rarely if at all, though. Conserve battery power by turning Airdrop off; you can power it back on if and when you do want to share that selfie with your bestie.
To turn it off, simply swipe up to display your Control Center (that menu at the bottom of the screen where you can put the phone in airplane mode or access the calculator) and then tap on Airdrop. Tap Off to disable the feature.
Having the latest version of Tinder is a good thing (I think), but you don't need to download the newest version of an app the second it becomes available. However, your phone is set by default to automatically download new updates. Save yourself precious battery life and data by turning off this feature. Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store. Scroll to the portion of the screen that says Automatic Downloads and toggle Updates to Off. Now you can manually download all the new versions of your apps in the evening, when you don't have to worry about battery life and can use your home Wi-Fi.
In iOS 8, Apple added the ability to send voice messages to friends using iMessage. Those messages self-destruct, in part so you don't end up wasting storage space on messages you probably don't need anymore. But if you'd rather keep all the messages you receive, go into the Settings > Messages. Scroll down to Audio Messages and tap into the Expire menu. Then change their expiration from 2 Minutes to Never.
The parallax feature actually debuted in iOS 7. It's that thing that makes your home screen look like it's 3D when you move your phone from side to side. It turns out the feature makes some people a bit nauseous, and it burns up a little more battery power than your standard non-moving screen. You can turn it off by going into Settings > General > Accessibility. Scroll down to Reduce Motion and then toggle the switch to On.
If you just downloaded a slew on apps onto your new iPhone 6, then you probably noticed a surprising number of them ask to access your location. In addition to giving companies access to personal data you might rather they didn't have, location services also drains your battery (notice how precipitously battery life declines when the phones has to track you constantly for turn-by-turn directions, for instance.)
Find out which apps are asking for your location by going into Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Toggle the switches to Off for apps that don't really need to know where you are.
Here's another battery-saver: Set your apps to update only when you want them to by going into Settings > General > Background App Refresh. From that page, you can opt to turn off all background app refreshes, or give just a few of your most important apps the ability to update on their own.
New for iOS 8, Handoff will let you start a task on one iOS device and pick it up on another Apple device. For the fully integrated Apple fanboy, Handoff can be a powerful feature that allows for easy transitioning between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. But if the iPhone is the only Apple device you own, or you rarely switch between devices, then you don't need it. Turn Handoff off by going to Settings > General > Handoff & Suggested Apps. Toggle the switch next to Handoff & Suggested Apps into the off position to disable the feature.
With iOS 8, Spotlight can bring up more elaborate search results than ever before... but it might not be the kind of content you're looking for. Limit the type of content that can show up in a Spotlight search by going to Settings > Spotlight Search and removing the check mark beside any type of content, such as voice memos or audiobooks, you'd rather not be included in your search results.
Like location services, push notifications can be customized for every app. So if you're getting too many annoying notes from that game that keeps asking you to come back and play, prevent it from sending push notifications by going into Settings > Notifications, where you can control notification settings for all your apps. From there, customize how many notifications (if any) will show up in the Notifications Center on your phone, as well as whether you'll hear sounds or see a notification on the lock screen.
Originally published by Popular Mechanics
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Lebanon ready for captive soldiers swap deal: Minister
BEIRUT: The government is not responsible for the delay in negotiations aimed at securing the release of captive Lebanese security personnel held by Syria’s jihadi militants, but is ready to discuss a straightforward swap deal to end their ordeal, Health Minister Wael Abou Faour said Wednesday.
Speaking after a meeting with the families of the captives at their protest campsite in Dahr al-Baidar, Abou Faour assured that the government is eyeing productive talks to clarify conditions and counter-conditions leading to the release of the hostages.
“The Lebanese government asserts that it is serious to the utmost about the negotiations in order to bring back the soldiers. We call for a clear and frank swap (deal) immediately,” Abou Faour said, refuting blame for the stumbling of talks.
“The procrastination in negotiations which occurred int he past few days is not caused by the government and it does not mean in anyway a change or relapse in the government’s position and determination to free the captives,” Abou Faour said.
The families meanwhile vowed to open the Dahr al-Baidar road after speaking with the minister, but denied that the minister influences their decision.
The minister pointed out that he had briefed the captives’ relatives about progress in the file, stressing that the Qatari mediation is still ongoing.
The relatives of the over 21 army troops and policemen who are held hostage by militants from Syria’s Nusra Front and Islamic State (ISIS) near the border town of Arsal, have been blocking the main artery of Dahr al-Baidar linking Beirut with the eastern Bekaa valley for almost two weeks to press the government into negotiating the captives’ release with the militants.
The militants have reportedly demanded the release of Islamist inmates in Roumieh prison in return for the soldiers’ freedom. The latter were among over 30 personnel captured during battles in Arsal between the Army and the militants last August. Two soldiers were beheaded by ISIS and one killed and seven released by Nusra Front so far.
The captors are threatening to execute more captives unless the government heeded their demands.
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TRIPOLI, Lebanon: A sixth grade Lebanese boy came in first place in an international junior mental calculation competition in Germany, beating dozens of participants from more than 40 countries.
Eleven-year-old Mohammad al-Mir received a record score of 1400 over 1500 in the two-hour final test, outpacing by 300 points the second place competitor.
“I was able to answer all the questions and resolve all the quizzes. It is such a good feeling to get excellent marks,” Mir told The Daily Star.
Family and friends of the boy celebrated with fireworks and sung chants in his poor neighborhood of Abi Samra in Tripoli, north Lebanon, upon his return Tuesday from the three-day contest in which he earned the title “World (junior) Genius.”
It was not the first time that Mir participated in a brainteaser challenge. His first competition was in 2012 in Lebanon in which he figured among the 20 finalists for first place. He also won a trip to Japan in 2013 to take part in a training camp on mental calculation.
Despite volatile security and recurring violence in Tripoli which often prevents students from attending school, Mir prepared thoroughly for the competition with the support of his parents and tutors.
“I want to thank my parents, my school, the Al-Azm Educational Academy, and my teachers for their support and encouragement which helped me achieve victory,” Mir said.
“I also want to tell the children of Tripoli that they should not think about war, but focus on science and (acquiring) knowledge.”
The boy's proud father, Nazih, said although the competition was tough, “Mohammad succeeded in ranking first within his age category over outstanding strong competitors, especially from India, who have previously scored world records.”
“Nothing is impossible as long as there is a strong will,” the father said, calling on parents to support their children in achieving success.
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BEIRUT: Prime Minister Tammam Salam has advised the families of the kidnapped servicemen to disavow Lebanese politicians who are trying to use them as a political commodity for personal gains.
“It is no secret and I cannot deny the political struggle in Lebanon,” Salam said in remarks published Wednesday in Al-Akhbar. “The hostage crisis comes amid this split and we are watching rival [politicians], each in his own way, trying to exploit the issue through mobilization and incitement for personal gains.”
The hostage crisis, he added, “is not a political commodity and cannot be [exploited] to justify of our differences."
Salam acknowledged that negotiations with the jihadist captors presents a major challenge for the government, with many interfering and overlapping issues, including the split among politicians over the hostage crisis and the fact that the government is dealing with groups and not a state or one team.
“These groups [ISIS and the Nusra Front] do not hesitate to carry out any brutal and inhumane act, [which is] something that doesn’t help negotiations,” Al-Akhbar quoted Salam as saying.
“Nevertheless, we are trying to overcome all the obstacles to achieve progress, either through our internal capabilities or with external help,” he added.
Lebanese officials have been struggling to negotiate through Qatari mediators the release of some 21 soldiers and policemen since their capture during a five-day battle with jihadists in August.
The families of the hostages have been blocking roads across the country since their capture to pressure the government to do more to secure their release.
More than 30 servicemen were originally abducted during the battle in Arsal. Three have since been executed, and seven released.
Hariri: Lebanese Army to get Saudi-financed weapons soon
BEIRUT: Weapons and equipment purchased with the $1 billion Saudi grant to help the Lebanese Army in the battle against terrorism should arrive in Lebanon soon, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Tuesday.
Hariri also urged the U.S.-led international coalition to strike hard at ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
The head of the Future Movement spoke to reporters after holding talks with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris centering on the situation in Lebanon and developments in Syria and the region.
“Of course, France will deliver weapons to Lebanon. I think this will happen and we will see it in the coming days,” Hariri said. “There are no obstacles concerning the $1 billion Saudi grant. It has been finalized and some equipment will arrive in Lebanon as soon as possible.”
Hariri said his talks with Hollande touched on the $1 billion Saudi grant to bolster the capabilities of the Army and security forces following the fierce clashes with ISIS and Nusra Front militants in the Bekaa town of Arsal in August and the previous $3 billion Saudi grant to equip the Army with weapons from France.
Hariri said he discussed with Hollande how Lebanon would use the Saudi grant to bolster the Lebanese Army in its battle against terrorism, a rising concern after militants from ISIS and the Nusra Front briefly seized Arsal in August, taking more than 30 soldiers and policemen captive before withdrawing to the porous border region. The two groups are still holding at least 21 soldiers and policemen hostage after releasing seven and killing three.The $1 billion grant in August came after Saudi Arabia had pledged $3 billion last December to buy weapons from France to help support the Lebanese Army, a deal which has been held up by negotiations between Paris and Riyadh.
Describing the talks with Hollande as “very good,” Hariri said he had discussed with the French leader the presidential vacuum gripping Lebanon after Parliament failed to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year tenure ended on May 25.
“I explained to the French president that the election of a president is a priority for the Future Movement and for the Lebanese,” Hariri said after the 45-minute meeting also attended by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Nader Hariri, chief of the former premier’s office. “We should have a presidential election first, and then come parliamentary elections. Or else [general] elections will be held without the Future Movement.”
Hariri called on the U.S.-led international coalition to launch painful strikes at ISIS in Syria and Iraq, saying strategic strikes were not enough.“They need to do a lot more. I think ISIS is advancing. The Western coalition must be more focused to destroy all ISIS,” he said.
“We don’t need strategic strikes but painful strikes against ISIS ... Those terrorists don’t know God and have nothing to do with Islam,” Hariri added.
Meanwhile, Speaker Nabih Berri Tuesday called on Parliament to meet Thursday to elect a new president amid signs that the session is doomed to fail like its predecessors over a lack of quorum. Thursday’s would be the 13th session to be thwarted by a lack of quorum in the past five months to elect a president.
Asked if there is anything new in the 5-month-old presidential deadlock, Berri was quoted by visitors as saying: “Everyone is calling for holding the presidential election but no one is saying how.”
Asked to comment on Hariri’s statement in which the former premier said that he would not participate in parliamentary elections in the absence of a president, Berri said: “This matter has not been brought up yet for a serious discussion. But my position is clear: I won’t support holding [parliamentary] elections in the absence of a major Lebanese component.”
He stressed the need to elect a president and approve a new electoral law based on large districts and proportional representation.
“The 1960 [electoral] law has brought us to this situation, where there is no agreement among us to confront Daesh [ISIS] as there had been no agreement among us to confront Israel,” Berri was quoted as saying. “Therefore, when a new president is elected and a new electoral law is approved, then even if Parliament’s mandate is extended, Parliament can dissolve itself and we can go to parliamentary elections on the basis of a new law.”
The Cabinet is scheduled to meet Thursday amid signs of a split among ministers over the issue of Syrian refugees.
Two hot issues from outside the agenda will dominate the Cabinet’s discussions: the ordeal of Lebanese soldiers and policemen held hostage by ISIS and the Nusra Front, and the building of a camp for Syrian refugees outside Arsal, ministerial sources said.
While some ministers support a proposal by Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk to relocate the Syrian refugees in Arsal to a camp outside the town, other ministers reject it, arguing that this matter posed a danger to the Lebanese sectarian setup.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said during last week’s Cabinet session that the establishment of camps for Syrian refugees inside Lebanese territory “is not going to happen, neither today nor in 100 years.”
Millennial Voters Are Paying Attention — So Why Don't More Vote?
Rapper Lil Jon appears in a new ad for Rock the Vote's 2014 campaign. The organization was founded to get Generation X engaged in politics, and is adapting its tactics to reach millennials. Courtesy of Rock the Vote hide caption
itoggle caption Courtesy of Rock the Vote
Rapper Lil Jon appears in a new ad for Rock the Vote's 2014 campaign. The organization was founded to get Generation X engaged in politics, and is adapting its tactics to reach millennials.
Courtesy of Rock the Vote
Millennials are not getting much love from politicians this year.
The big reason for that is low expectations for turnout among young voters.
Back in 2010, the last midterm election, fewer than a quarter of voters aged 18-29 showed up at the polls. This year, it's looking even worse: 23 percent of voters under 30 are expected to vote. That's according to Eva Guidarini of the Harvard Institute of Politics, which studies young voters.
For many years, young voters were not expected to really care about politics, much less get involved.
YouTube
Rock the Vote gained visibility in its early years with music stars like Madonna appearing in spots that aired on MTV.
That's why the group Rock the Vote was started in 1989, relying on music stars like Madonna to engage their young fans. And they're still at it, with an updated set list.
And for a while, it didn't look like millennials would need much convincing. As more members of this generation reached voting age, participation among young voters rose. The peak year was 2008 (52 percent). In 2012, the turnout among voters 18-29 dropped to 45 percent.
On top of that, the rate of voters under 30 who could say with certainty that they were registered to vote fell steadily after 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2012, it hit 50 percent — the lowest number Pew has recorded going back as far as 1996.
Why the big drop? It's not like millennials aren't paying attention. Some say they're easily better informed than past generations.
YouTube
Rock the Vote's latest video message, starring rapper Lil Jon.
Jacob Bell, a 20-year-old student at the University of Maryland put it this way: "I can pull up Facebook in front of me and see five different articles about the next Senate race, and that's something that I know my mom's generation never had."
Ashley Spillane, the president of Rock the Vote, says it's no mystery why millennials, or any voters, would be turned off from the process: "Politics right now is really disheartening. I think it's why you see in the polls that young people are not affiliating with political parties."
(The number of millennials who consider themselves independents has shot up to 50 percent, according to Pew.)
But Spillane doesn't think that means they are apathetic. "They do care very passionately about issues that matter to them," she says. "They are getting involved at a local level. They are creating startups. They are volunteering with local organizations. They are looking to take problems on in real time and fix them," she says.
For Rock the Vote, the challenge is reaching a generation that's paying attention to politics — but is simultaneously repelled by what they see.
While Guidarini is concerned about a generation of voters turned off by politics as they are forming their political identities, she doesn't think all hope is lost: "I think that if politics starts to change in a direction that i think all of America wants to see it change — not just young people — then you'll see young people get back in the game."
The question is whether politics will improve unless a new generation gets more involved pushes for that change.
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