Weekly Wrap Up: Building Trust Between Communities and Law Enforcement

It's been a busy week here at the White House. In case you've missed some of our top stories this week, here's a recap.

Tweet of the Week:

"It's time to go fly." @NASA's #OrionLaunch marks our first step on the #JourneyToMars: http://bit.ly/1w6ym7c http://bit.ly/1w6ym7g

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 5, 2014

A Plan to Build Trust Between Communities and Local Police

Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and around the country have highlighted the importance of strong, collaborative relationships between local police and the communities that they protect.

That’s why on Monday, President Obama announced new steps that we’re taking to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities that they are obligated to protect and serve. Take a look at some of the steps we’re taking below:

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with elected officials, community and faith leaders, and law enforcement officials to discuss how communities and law enforcement can work together to build trust to strengthen neighborhoods across the country. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

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Nusra raises stakes with murder of hostage Ali Bazzal

BEIRUT: The Nusra Front said Friday evening it had killed Lebanese policeman Ali Bazzal, sparking shock among the families of the 26 detained servicemen and raising fears of reprisals in the northeastern Bekaa Valley, Bazzal’s home province. In a statement issued on its Twitter account, the Nusra Front vowed to kill more servicemen if Lebanese authorities fail to release women and kids it had arrested on suspicion of maintaining links with jihadi groups.

Saja al-Dulaimi, the ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and their daughter and two boys, are being detained by Lebanese authorities. Also in custody are Ola Mithqal al-Oqaily, the wife of ISIS commander Anas Sharkas, and her two children, a 4-year-old and a 6-month-old.

“Executing one of the prisoners of war in our custody – Ali Bazzal – is the [minimal] response to filthy Lebanese Army actions, which are emulating Hezbollah’s and Alawites’ practices of detaining women and children ” the statement read. “If our sisters, who were unjustly and wrongfully arrested, are not released we will execute another soldier in our custody in the very near future.”

The Nusra Front statement included an abstract image of Bazzal being shot at in the head.

The Lebanese Army carried out a widespread deployment in the Bekaa Valley Friday, in anticipation of potential security incidents less than an hour after the announcement. As soon as the news of the killing emerged, the Bazzal family blocked several roads in northeast Lebanon.

The arrest of the two women seemed to be a bid by the government to obtain leverage in the ongoing negotiations over the release of 26 soldiers and policemen held hostage by ISIS and the Nusra Front militants.

Sharkas had threatened Friday to kidnap Lebanese women and children and end negotiations over the captive servicemen unless his wife and children, detained by authorities last week, were released soon.

Hours before the killing, Prime Minister Tammam Salam chaired a high-level security meeting at the Grand Serail Friday to discuss the hostage crisis, the new ISIS threats and the security situation in the country. The meeting was attended by the defense, interior, finance, health and justice ministers, as well as Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi and chiefs of police and security agencies.In a video posted on YouTube, Sharkas, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Ali al-Shishani, addressed Sunnis in the northern city of Tripoli and in Lebanon, urging them to retaliate for the detention of his family.

“My wife, Ola Mithqal al-Oqaily, Umm Ali, was taken two days ago from Tripoli, the city that is called the city of Islam and Muslims,” Shishani said, sitting in front of an ISIS flag with two masked gunmen at his sides.

Oqaily is being held in a prison cell at the Lebanese Defense Ministry next to Baghdadi’s ex-wife, Dulaimi, who is now in her third week of detention, under strict control measures by female soldiers.

While Shishani expressed disappointment over the inaction of Tripoli residents, he said he held Sheikh Salem Rafei, a prominent Tripoli-based sheikh, responsible for the detention of his wife. “I hold Salem Rafei, the head of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, fully responsible for the return of my wife. ... All Sunnis in Lebanon are responsible for our wives who are being taken to prisons. On what charge? I do not know.”

“I call on you, Sunnis, to rise up in unity. Our wives and men are in prisons. They took my wife and children and had no right to do so,” he said.

He denied what he said were claims that Oqaily was ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s wife, saying that she was his wife and the mother of his two children. “She was merely a refugee in a school just like any other woman ... Why did they take her because of her husband? Damn you! ... We will not rest until all our women are out of prison. Damn you and your Army,” he added.

He issued a stern warning to the Lebanese Army and Lebanese citizens, saying he would kidnap women and children of Lebanese Army personnel and those from the Shiite sect unless his wife was released. “If my wife is not released soon, do not dare to dream about the release of the soldiers without negotiations ... even if you hold all Muslims captive.”

“Women and children of the pigs and the slaves of Khomeini and all who follow them: All your wives, children and men are legitimate targets now,” he said, raising his voice as he wagged his finger. “I will start taking action very soon to take women and children captive.”

Shishani warned that he would end talks over the hostages unless a Qatar-appointed Syrian mediator resolved the case of his wife once and for all.

Meanwhile, the government faced the threat of collapse over handling the hostage crisis, ministerial sources said. “Unless there is serious and unified work to resolve the issue of the kidnapped soldiers, the government of national interest is today facing the threat of collapse or at least a complete paralysis,” a ministerial source told The Daily Star.

ISIS and Nusra the Front are still holding 25 captives after seven were released and four executed.

A member of a ministerial crisis cell tasked with following up on the hostage crisis told The Daily Star: “We have made mistakes from the beginning when we gave the families of the kidnapped soldiers big hopes to secure the release of their sons.”

In addition to different viewpoints among ministers over handling the hostage crisis, the absence of coordination among security agencies also caused confusion in dealing with the issue and in cracking down on terror networks.

Salam has acknowledged the split inside the government over dealing with the hostage crisis, saying there was one group, representing MP Walid Jumblatt’s ministers, that supported unconditional negotiations with the kidnappers, and a Hezbollah-led group that did not oppose negotiations and the release of some prisoners but within legal constraints that would not allow the release of detainees accused of involvement in car bombings that killed Lebanese citizens in areas where Hezbollah enjoys wide support.

Political sources said the hostage crisis could threaten the government’s unity if the militants killed one of the captive soldiers. Some hold the view that the security situation in the country could spiral out of control if one of the captive soldiers was killed.

Forgotten, but not gone: Fatah al-Islam still a factor in Lebanon

BEIRUT: For two years, Fatah al-Islam sent shockwaves throughout Lebanon with a spate of terrorist attacks, culminating in the battle of Nahr al-Bared. More than 400 people died during the clashes in the Palestinian refugee camp situated in north Lebanon, but Fatah al-Islam carried on operations for another year before largely disappearing from the public eye.

The battle of Nahr al-Bared in 2007 led to the death or arrest of many Fatah al-Islam militants. Those who evaded capture or later escaped from Roumieh Prison are believed by analysts to have merged with Islamist groups operating in Syria, on the Lebanese border, or inside Lebanon itself.

Fatah al-Islam was formed in 2006 by Shaker Al-Abssi, a Palestinian born in Ariha (Jericho) in 1955. After being released from a Syrian prison, Abssi traveled to Iraq to fight the U.S. invasion in 2003. There, he made connections with senior figures in Al-Qaeda, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In fact, Fatah al-Islam shares and supports the Al-Qaeda ideology – the only difference being the group’s view on takfiris and Shiites, whom Fatah al-Islam does not consider to be apostates.

Abssi carried this ideology with him to a village in the West Bekaa, where in 2005 he set up at a base for the Palestinian faction Fatah al-Intifada. Accompanying him were a number of men who had fought with him in Iraq. Attention from Syrian intelligence agencies, however, soon forced him to flee to refugee camps in north Lebanon.

Abssi based his unit in the Beddawi refugee camp near Tripoli, but split from Fatah al-Intifada when a Palestinian security committee from the camp turned over two of his men to Lebanese security forces. He took his loyalists and formed a new unit, Fatah al-Islam, operating out of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, also near Tripoli.

Fatah al-Islam quickly became the most prominent jihadi group in the country, building a reputation for itself by plotting ambitious terror attacks both in Lebanon and abroad, including a failed train bombing in Germany.

On May 19, 2007, Fatah al-Islam militants seized Lebanese Army vehicles stationed outside the Nahr al-Bared camp and a battle ensued that lasted nearly four months. It wasn’t until early September that the Lebanese Army retook control of the camp.

More than 400 people were killed. There were casualties from the army, militants and civilians.

The group was also loosely linked to the December 2007 assassination of prominent Lebanese Army figure Francois al-Hajj and a 2008 bombing in Damascus.

The last attack the group claimed was an explosion near Abdeh in north Lebanon that took place in late May in 2008.

Since then, Fatah al-Islam has largely faded from the public eye. But that doesn’t mean the members have stopped operating. In 2008, the group moved its base to the Sidon-based Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh.

Lebanese intelligence agencies continue to monitor members, making it difficult for them to operate in Lebanon. But many militants that were not killed or arrested and sent to Roumieh following Nahr al-Bared have dispersed and joined various jihadi groups, both in Lebanon and Syria, analysts told The Daily Star.

“Lebanese military successes in capturing group members have weakened the organization and have marginalized Al-Qaeda’s effort to use Fatah al-Islam as a conduit in Lebanon and Syria,” read a report released by California’s Stanford University and updated in 2014.

Abssi has been reported assassinated on multiple occasions, but analysts believe he may still be alive in either Lebanon or Syria.

When the uprising in Syria began in 2011, many of the remaining Fatah al-Islam members crossed the border and joined groups in the Free Syrian Army. As more extreme groups began to form, the Islamist-leaning among them broke away and joined those groups instead, said Dr. Haytham Mouzahem, director of the Beirut Center for Middle East Studies.

“Many left to Syria and joined Nusra or ISIS,” confirmed Dr. Ahmad Moussalli, a professor of political studies at the American University of Beirut and an expert on Islamist movements.

On multiple occasions, connections between Fatah al-Islam and jihadi groups in Syria have become apparent. In 2012, two Fatah al-Islam militants that had fought in Nahr al-Bared were killed while fighting in Syria. One of them had recently escaped from Roumieh.

On Dec. 18, 2013, the U.S. State Department designated one Usamah Amin al-Shihabi a terrorist, calling him “an associate of Fatah al-Islam” who “at times has played a key leadership role” in the group, but the brief also stated that Shihabi had “recently been appointed the head of Syria-based al-Nusra Front’s Palestinian wing in Lebanon.”

The latest connection emerged earlier this year when a local from Ras Baalbek was kidnapped by an ISIS cell operating on the Lebanese-Syrian border. According to locals from Ras Baalbek, the cell’s leader, Abu Hassan al-Filistini, was a former member of Fatah al-Islam who fought in Nahr al-Bared.

“A lot [of Fatah al-Islam members] are back in different areas in the north, Arsal, and other places,” said Moussalli, who speculated that the recent ambush outside Ras Baalbek could be connected to such people.

“They have a lot of problems with the Army and now they might be taking revenge as part of a larger organization,” he said.

Other analysts say that Fatah al-Islam members have taken part in other battles inside Lebanon in recent years.

“You may find them fighting in [the 2013 battle of] Abra with Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir or in Tripoli with Shadi Mawlawi and Osama Mansour,” said Mario Abou Zeid, a research analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center.

U.N. official announces plan to ‘keep the lid on Lebanon’

BAALBEK, Lebanon: Ross Mountain, the United Nations’ resident coordinator for Lebanon, prefers metaphors to discuss the critical circumstances Lebanon faces. “The idea is to keep Lebanon’s head above water,” he told The Daily Star on a recent trip to the Bekaa Valley.“We’ve got to keep the lid on,” he added later. Perhaps most ominously, Mountain quoted a reflection which he attributed to Marie Antoinette. “It’s enough to keep your head when everyone around is losing theirs,” he said, glancing at the Anti-Lebanon mountain range separating the country from Syria and the civil war raging there.

Mountain has been assisting the Lebanese government to formulate a new strategic plan which aims to strengthen the county’s ability to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis that is threatening to guillotine Lebanon’s fragile cohesion.

The Lebanon Crisis Response Plan, set to be officially announced later this month, will be coordinated by the Social Affairs Ministry in conjunction with a number of NGOs and U.N. agencies. While the Lebanese government has been wary of programs that it believes encourage the permanent settlement of Syrian refugees, Mountain said the government was eager to take a more active leadership role in managing the crisis and its effects on the country.

No longer just a humanitarian emergency, the Syrian refugee crisis now poses a clear threat to Lebanese stability, Mountain said.

Distributing aid to refugees while ignoring the communities and municipalities that are hosting them could have disastrous consequences.

Developing local infrastructure, particularly in areas of Lebanon already suffering from endemic poverty, is necessary if Lebanon is to be expected to continue hosting more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees.

“It is improper and unfair to think that Lebanon should sustain this crisis on its own,” he said.

In a new approach to the crisis, aid will be distributed to both the Lebanese poor and Syrian refugees. Municipalities will also receive assistance to boost local infrastructure.

“We’re taking Lebanon as the focus, not refugees as the focus,” Mountain said.

While foreign governments have been offering humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees, Mountain hopes donors will tap into development funds as well. Lebanon, considered a middle income country, has long been overlooked for development assistance. As aging infrastructures falter under the burden of the refugee crisis, however, there is an acute need for this kind of aid.

On his trip to Baalbek this week, Mountain heard firsthand the hardships faced by Lebanese host communities. “We have not witnessed enough help for the municipalities hosting refugees,” Hussein Awada, the president of the Baalbek Municipalities Union, told Mountain.

Moreover, over the past three years NGOs have operated with relative autonomy in the area, implementing projects without consulting the municipal authorities, complained Awada. Well-intentioned, if short-sighted, tented settlements were erected with flimsy latrines that are now leaking waste into the ground water, Awada said, citing an example.

In villages with significant numbers of refugees, rubbish is piling up as local governments lack the infrastructure and resources to remove the added waste.

With scarce resources, towns are not able to meet “even the minimum humanitarian needs” for many displaced Syrians, acknowledged the Governor of Baalbek and Hermel Bashir Khodr.

The situation has been compounded by the announcement last week that the World Food Program had run out of funds and would be unable to load the cash allowance onto debit cards used by hundreds of thousands of refugees.

“Is it acceptable for Syrians to say ‘They took our [debit] cards away, and now it’s only our Lebanese neighbors who are helping us?’” Awada asked indignantly.

Mountain acknowledged that news of WFP’s dry funds had come as “a very unpleasant surprise.”

But he assured that action was being taken to remedy the situation and avert a humanitarian crisis. “We’re not sitting back and crossing our arms and saying ‘What a pity.’”

If refugees’ desperation increases Lebanon’s stability will be threatened, Mountain warned.

But both Mountain and Khodr said refugees who feel abandoned or marginalized could turn toward deep-pocketed terror groups like the Nusra Front or ISIS.

“Imagine I’m a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old refugee. I have no horizons, don’t go to school, don’t have anything. One day someone comes up and says ‘I’ll take you to heaven,’” he said, referring to terrorists who lure recruits with talk of martyrdom. “When these people have no hope, they will end up as terrorists.”

“The concern of youth being disaffected and radicalized is a real one, it’s a humanitarian issue, but it’s also a stability issue,” Mountain agreed.

Still, on his trip to Baalbek, Mountain repeated several times that Lebanese, particularly in the Bekaa, had shown “extraordinary maturity” by welcoming so many refugees.

“But one cannot and should not assume that this generosity is limitless,” he said.

U.N. official announces plan to ‘keep the lid on Lebanon’

BAALBEK, Lebanon: Ross Mountain, the United Nations’ resident coordinator for Lebanon, prefers metaphors to discuss the critical circumstances Lebanon faces. “The idea is to keep Lebanon’s head above water,” he told The Daily Star on a recent trip to the Bekaa Valley.“We’ve got to keep the lid on,” he added later. Perhaps most ominously, Mountain quoted a reflection which he attributed to Marie Antoinette. “It’s enough to keep your head when everyone around is losing theirs,” he said, glancing at the Anti-Lebanon mountain range separating the country from Syria and the civil war raging there.

Mountain has been assisting the Lebanese government to formulate a new strategic plan which aims to strengthen the county’s ability to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis that is threatening to guillotine Lebanon’s fragile cohesion.

The Lebanon Crisis Response Plan, set to be officially announced later this month, will be coordinated by the Social Affairs Ministry in conjunction with a number of NGOs and U.N. agencies. While the Lebanese government has been wary of programs that it believes encourage the permanent settlement of Syrian refugees, Mountain said the government was eager to take a more active leadership role in managing the crisis and its effects on the country.

No longer just a humanitarian emergency, the Syrian refugee crisis now poses a clear threat to Lebanese stability, Mountain said.

Distributing aid to refugees while ignoring the communities and municipalities that are hosting them could have disastrous consequences.

Developing local infrastructure, particularly in areas of Lebanon already suffering from endemic poverty, is necessary if Lebanon is to be expected to continue hosting more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees.

“It is improper and unfair to think that Lebanon should sustain this crisis on its own,” he said.

In a new approach to the crisis, aid will be distributed to both the Lebanese poor and Syrian refugees. Municipalities will also receive assistance to boost local infrastructure.

“We’re taking Lebanon as the focus, not refugees as the focus,” Mountain said.

While foreign governments have been offering humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees, Mountain hopes donors will tap into development funds as well. Lebanon, considered a middle income country, has long been overlooked for development assistance. As aging infrastructures falter under the burden of the refugee crisis, however, there is an acute need for this kind of aid.

On his trip to Baalbek this week, Mountain heard firsthand the hardships faced by Lebanese host communities. “We have not witnessed enough help for the municipalities hosting refugees,” Hussein Awada, the president of the Baalbek Municipalities Union, told Mountain.

Moreover, over the past three years NGOs have operated with relative autonomy in the area, implementing projects without consulting the municipal authorities, complained Awada. Well-intentioned, if short-sighted, tented settlements were erected with flimsy latrines that are now leaking waste into the ground water, Awada said, citing an example.

In villages with significant numbers of refugees, rubbish is piling up as local governments lack the infrastructure and resources to remove the added waste.

With scarce resources, towns are not able to meet “even the minimum humanitarian needs” for many displaced Syrians, acknowledged the Governor of Baalbek and Hermel Bashir Khodr.

The situation has been compounded by the announcement last week that the World Food Program had run out of funds and would be unable to load the cash allowance onto debit cards used by hundreds of thousands of refugees.

“Is it acceptable for Syrians to say ‘They took our [debit] cards away, and now it’s only our Lebanese neighbors who are helping us?’” Awada asked indignantly.

Mountain acknowledged that news of WFP’s dry funds had come as “a very unpleasant surprise.”

But he assured that action was being taken to remedy the situation and avert a humanitarian crisis. “We’re not sitting back and crossing our arms and saying ‘What a pity.’”

If refugees’ desperation increases Lebanon’s stability will be threatened, Mountain warned.

But both Mountain and Khodr said refugees who feel abandoned or marginalized could turn toward deep-pocketed terror groups like the Nusra Front or ISIS.

“Imagine I’m a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old refugee. I have no horizons, don’t go to school, don’t have anything. One day someone comes up and says ‘I’ll take you to heaven,’” he said, referring to terrorists who lure recruits with talk of martyrdom. “When these people have no hope, they will end up as terrorists.”

“The concern of youth being disaffected and radicalized is a real one, it’s a humanitarian issue, but it’s also a stability issue,” Mountain agreed.

Still, on his trip to Baalbek, Mountain repeated several times that Lebanese, particularly in the Bekaa, had shown “extraordinary maturity” by welcoming so many refugees.

“But one cannot and should not assume that this generosity is limitless,” he said.

The secret deal that finally ended the EDL strike

BEIRUT: With shouts of congratulations filling the air, politicians, officials and contract workers celebrated the end of the four-month strike at Electricite du Liban’s headquarters – but the actual content of the long-awaited deal remained obscured.

At a news conference at his office, Energy Minister Arthur Nazarian with Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb announced Friday morning that the monthslong crisis was finally over thanks to a deal brokered by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt.

It took Nazarian and Chehayeb one minute to deliver the good news. They added a few comments but refused to give any details.

“We will read one text that we have prepared with the contract workers in order to avoid any mistakes,” Chehayeb said before leaving the room to head to EDL’s headquarters in Mar Mikhael. “This is an agreement and we want to be speaking on behalf of both sides.”

Their words signaled the end of four months of strikes, protests and unrest due to heavy disagreements over how many of some 1,700 eligible longtime contract staff should be given full-time employment with the state electricity company, allowing them to access basic benefits that they have so far been deprived of.

In response to Parliament law 287/2014, which stipulated that EDL had to come up with a firm figure of exactly how many employees it needed, the company said it would only give 897 contract workers full-time jobs, leaving around 800 others out in the cold.

Previously day laborers for EDL, the workers in question were given temporary contracts in 2012 when former Energy Minister Gebran Bassil hired three private companies to manage the struggling electricity sector. Prior to this at EDL, the workers received barely any employment benefits, and were deprived of social security perks, paid leave or a fixed salary, a situation they refused to return to when their private service contracts end in 2016.

But there was no official word on what exactly has changed with the Jumblatt-negotiated agreement between Speaker Nabih Berri, who backed the workers, and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, who supported the state electricity company’s administration.

And what initially appeared to simply be a preoccupation with the formalities of the event soon transpired to be an agreement between all actors to keep the silence. None of EDL’s executives, the ministers or the workers revealed full details about what had been agreed upon, apparently with the aim of allowing all parties to save face.

“There was a decision not to make anyone look victorious or defeated,” a union leader told his colleagues in a closed meeting after the big press talk.

But behind closed doors, it seems that the state company will use a wave of upcoming retirements to employ the 800 workers previously excluded from the deal.

All the contract workers will sit the compulsory Civil Service Council exam, with 897 successful candidates chosen for full-time employment at EDL before June 2015. A further 120 will be chosen to replace current EDL staff who will have reached the retirement age by then.

“The test will be only pro forma,” then union leader told his fellow workers, implying that everyone who sat the exam would pass regardless of their score, adding that while those with degrees would be given priority, all workers would eventually be employed.

“The political parties signed a deal stating that two years from now, all those eligible among us would be working inside EDL,” he said in the closed meeting.

“There will be a mechanism to employ the other workers gradually, as many other EDL employees are expected to retire,” another representative for the workers told The Daily Star.

At EDL’s headquarters, tents that have been there for months were cleared away and the contract workers held a news conference of their own to announce the end of their protest movement.

Hundreds of workers gathered at EDL to celebrate the news, exchanging hugs and greetings each other with tears of joy.

The building’s yellow gate was freed of its chains, and workers opened it minutes before the arrival of the ministers and officials. Inside, the building’s main door was decorated with balloons, and shouts of congratulations filled the air.

EDL’s employees were clearly happy to be getting back into their offices after such a long break, with some of them making jokes about a box of grapes in an office that had shriveled to raisins. During the strike, the company’s main operations room was temporarily transferred to the Zouk Mikael power plant and employees were scattered in other locations.

The committee responsible for drafting the agreement, according to Chehayeb, included him, Berri’s adviser Ali Hamdan and Aoun’s adviser Cesar Abu Khalil.

“Electricity does not have any sectarian or partisan color,” Chehayeb said at both news conferences at the Energy Ministry and EDL, thanking Berri for his “blessing” and Aoun for his “support.”

After the ministers, workers and journalists left, EDL’s board of directors held a meeting and released a statement calling on all their employees to resume work at the headquarters as of Saturday.

The statement said EDL would comb all the facility’s offices to check if any equipment showed any signs of damage or if anything was missing, particularly documents.

The company assured the public that customers would not have to pay all the bills accumulated during the four months in one go. Instead, Hayek explained, they would be requested to pay the bills for the first two missing months during December, and the other two in January.

Russia backs Future-Hezbollah talks

BEIRUT: A high-ranking Russian official Friday voiced his country’s support for the planned dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah, as well as for the Lebanese Army in its battle against terrorism.

The remarks by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov following talks with top Lebanese leaders came as preparations have been intensified to launch a dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement deemed crucial for defusing Sunni-Shiite tensions and facilitating the election of a consensus president.

They also came as the Army was locked in an open-ended battle against militant groups, who executed another Lebanese soldier Friday, in the latest fallout of the Syrian conflict into Lebanese territory.

Bogdanov arrived in Beirut late Thursday on a two-day visit to attend a ceremony marking 70 years since Lebanese-Russian diplomatic relations were established. He met Friday separately with Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, former President Michel Sleiman, Hezbollah lawmakers, Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi and MP Talal Arslan to discuss bilateral relations and developments in the region.

Speaking at a ceremony at the UNESCO Palace marking the 70th anniversary of Lebanese-Russian relations attended by Bassil, Bogdanov said Russia was committed to supporting Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and the unity of its people, and opposed any external intervention in its internal affairs.

He voiced Moscow’s support for an inter-Lebanese dialogue to resolve long-standing political problems. “Russia believes that all national issues should be settled in a legal framework as part of a dialogue among various political forces,” Bogdanov said. He added that Russia also supported the Lebanese Army and security forces in their battle against terrorism which, he said, threatened peoples in the region.

The Russian official said his country was trying to arrange a meeting between the Syrian government and opposition groups without preconditions.

Asked about a reported Russian initiative to form a salvation government in Syria with the participation of the opposition, Bogdanov told reporters after meeting Berri at Ain al-Tineh: “This information is not accurate. We are in contact with the Syrian government and the opposition inside and outside [Syria]. Our mission is to arrange preliminary consultations for serious negotiations without preconditions so that the Syrians can meet together and begin talking on all issues under discussion.”

He added that eventually it is the Syrian people, represented in both the government and the opposition, who have the final say in deciding the fate and future of Syria.

Russia has been the key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the conflict, which is in its fourth year and where the situation on the ground has deteriorated as ISIS has seized large swaths of land.

The last round of talks between Syria and the opposition collapsed in February due to rifts over Assad’s role in any transition out of the conflict. The main Syrian opposition in exile and its Western and Arab backers want Assad to step down.

Asked whether his visit to Lebanon was linked to the 6-month-old presidential deadlock, Bogdanov said after meeting Bassil: “That’s a secret.”

But speaking to reporters after meeting Sleiman, the Kremlin official said: “Russia shows interest in stability in Lebanon, it encourages the completion of the presidential election and appreciates the role of the Lebanese Army and security forces in fighting terrorism.”

Lebanon has been without a president since Sleiman’s six-year term ended on May 25, with Parliament being unable to meet to choose a successor over a lack of quorum as the factions remain divided over a consensus candidate.

Meanwhile, Nader Hariri, chief of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s staff, left for Paris Friday after holding talks with Future Movement officials and Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil about the agenda for the dialogue with Hezbollah.

Khalil is a political aide to Speaker Nabih Berri, who is sponsoring the dialogue between the two rival groups. Berri said Thursday the Future-Hezbollah talks could begin next week.

Health Minister Wael Abu Faour, who met Berri at Ain al-Tineh, sounded hopeful about the outcome of the planned Future-Hezbollah dialogue.

“I can say the country is in general heading toward dialogue,” Abu Faour said after the talks. “Although the discussion is still in a preliminary phase, it is a promising one. I think all political parties are convinced of the need for dialogue and the adoption of the dialogue logic.”

He said Saad Hariri’s recent positive approach and readiness for dialogue with Hezbollah was met halfway by the party and other political groups.

Abu Faour hoped that the Future-Hezbollah dialogue would lead to a comprehensive national compromise over all pending issues: the presidential election, a new electoral law and reducing tensions.

Ahmad Hariri, secretary-general of the Future Movement, said that what his party wanted from the proposed dialogue with Hezbollah was “to close the gates of evil opened by Hezbollah” with its military intervention in Syria.

“We want to discuss [in this dialogue] how to open the gates of good for the Lebanese and revive the genuine national partnership through which we can confront all dangers, on top of which is the danger of terrorism and extremism,” he said, while representing Saad Hariri at a memorial ceremony in the Western Bekaa marking the passing of 40 days since former MP Ahmad Ftouh’s death.

The secret deal that finally ended the EDL strike

BEIRUT: With shouts of congratulations filling the air, politicians, officials and contract workers celebrated the end of the four-month strike at Electricite du Liban’s headquarters – but the actual content of the long-awaited deal remained obscured.

At a news conference at his office, Energy Minister Arthur Nazarian with Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb announced Friday morning that the monthslong crisis was finally over thanks to a deal brokered by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt.

It took Nazarian and Chehayeb one minute to deliver the good news. They added a few comments but refused to give any details.

“We will read one text that we have prepared with the contract workers in order to avoid any mistakes,” Chehayeb said before leaving the room to head to EDL’s headquarters in Mar Mikhael. “This is an agreement and we want to be speaking on behalf of both sides.”

Their words signaled the end of four months of strikes, protests and unrest due to heavy disagreements over how many of some 1,700 eligible longtime contract staff should be given full-time employment with the state electricity company, allowing them to access basic benefits that they have so far been deprived of.

In response to Parliament law 287/2014, which stipulated that EDL had to come up with a firm figure of exactly how many employees it needed, the company said it would only give 897 contract workers full-time jobs, leaving around 800 others out in the cold.

Previously day laborers for EDL, the workers in question were given temporary contracts in 2012 when former Energy Minister Gebran Bassil hired three private companies to manage the struggling electricity sector. Prior to this at EDL, the workers received barely any employment benefits, and were deprived of social security perks, paid leave or a fixed salary, a situation they refused to return to when their private service contracts end in 2016.

But there was no official word on what exactly has changed with the Jumblatt-negotiated agreement between Speaker Nabih Berri, who backed the workers, and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, who supported the state electricity company’s administration.

And what initially appeared to simply be a preoccupation with the formalities of the event soon transpired to be an agreement between all actors to keep the silence. None of EDL’s executives, the ministers or the workers revealed full details about what had been agreed upon, apparently with the aim of allowing all parties to save face.

“There was a decision not to make anyone look victorious or defeated,” a union leader told his colleagues in a closed meeting after the big press talk.

But behind closed doors, it seems that the state company will use a wave of upcoming retirements to employ the 800 workers previously excluded from the deal.

All the contract workers will sit the compulsory Civil Service Council exam, with 897 successful candidates chosen for full-time employment at EDL before June 2015. A further 120 will be chosen to replace current EDL staff who will have reached the retirement age by then.

“The test will be only pro forma,” then union leader told his fellow workers, implying that everyone who sat the exam would pass regardless of their score, adding that while those with degrees would be given priority, all workers would eventually be employed.

“The political parties signed a deal stating that two years from now, all those eligible among us would be working inside EDL,” he said in the closed meeting.

“There will be a mechanism to employ the other workers gradually, as many other EDL employees are expected to retire,” another representative for the workers told The Daily Star.

At EDL’s headquarters, tents that have been there for months were cleared away and the contract workers held a news conference of their own to announce the end of their protest movement.

Hundreds of workers gathered at EDL to celebrate the news, exchanging hugs and greetings each other with tears of joy.

The building’s yellow gate was freed of its chains, and workers opened it minutes before the arrival of the ministers and officials. Inside, the building’s main door was decorated with balloons, and shouts of congratulations filled the air.

EDL’s employees were clearly happy to be getting back into their offices after such a long break, with some of them making jokes about a box of grapes in an office that had shriveled to raisins. During the strike, the company’s main operations room was temporarily transferred to the Zouk Mikael power plant and employees were scattered in other locations.

The committee responsible for drafting the agreement, according to Chehayeb, included him, Berri’s adviser Ali Hamdan and Aoun’s adviser Cesar Abu Khalil.

“Electricity does not have any sectarian or partisan color,” Chehayeb said at both news conferences at the Energy Ministry and EDL, thanking Berri for his “blessing” and Aoun for his “support.”

After the ministers, workers and journalists left, EDL’s board of directors held a meeting and released a statement calling on all their employees to resume work at the headquarters as of Saturday.

The statement said EDL would comb all the facility’s offices to check if any equipment showed any signs of damage or if anything was missing, particularly documents.

The company assured the public that customers would not have to pay all the bills accumulated during the four months in one go. Instead, Hayek explained, they would be requested to pay the bills for the first two missing months during December, and the other two in January.

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Ashton Carter Nominated For Secretary Of Defense

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

Unlike outgoing Secretary Hagel, Carter is no former soldier — he's a theoretical physicist but knows the inner workings of the Pentagon well. Leading Senate Republicans say he'll be easily confirmed.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Immigration Awkwardness Could Cloud Obama's Meeting With Governors

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

President Obama is expected to talk about the economy with several governors-elect at the White House, even as one of them spearheads a legal challenge against his executive actions on immigration.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

2014: The Year When The Job Market Finally Turned The Corner

As 2014 winds down, you might want to save that calendar hanging next to the fridge.

Maybe even frame it.

After so many years of misery for the middle class, 2014 is now looking like the one that finally brought relief. The November jobs report, released Friday by the Labor Department, had blowout numbers showing a surge in job creation, an upturn in work hours and a meaningful boost in wages.

The job gains were spread across industries, with big improvements for blue-collar workers. Manufacturing jobs jumped by 28,000, and construction jobs rose by 20,000.

In all, employers added 321,000 workers. Wages rose by 0.4 percent, or 9 cents an hour to $24.66. That wage bump was twice as high as most economists had been predicting.

And the paycheck gains came during a month marked by a dramatic decline in gasoline prices. In other words, last month, workers were getting longer hours and higher pay just as their commuting expenses were declining. Happy holidays!

"The American economy is making real progress," President Obama said at a White House event announcing his choice of Ashton Carter as defense secretary.

Doug Handler, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, put it more bluntly in his written assessment: "This was a darn good month for the labor market."

GOP House Speaker John Boehner called the November employment report "welcome news" but noted that "millions still remain out of work, and middle-class families across the country, including my home state of Ohio, are struggling to get by on wages that haven't kept pace with rising cost."

Indeed, the Great Recession still casts a long shadow. The number of long-term unemployed, that is, people who have been looking for work for more than 27 weeks, was little changed in November, holding at about 2.8 million.

And while the overall jobless rate remained steady at 5.8 percent last month, the rate for African-Americans was 11.1 percent. Moreover, wages in retail work, where many minority workers are clustered, were just $14.49 an hour.

Dedrick Muhammad, senior director of the NAACP's economic department, spotlighted those figures and said in a statement that "our families need higher wages so that wealth can be built for future generations."

Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who spoke with NPR, said that despite ongoing problems with long-term unemployment and relatively slow wage growth, the November report shows the economy now is "moving in the right direction."

After the battering they have taken over the seven years since the recession began, many workers may remain wary. One of them is Gabriel Laracuente, 24, who lives in East Harlem and works several jobs.

"I still struggle to pay my bills" because wage increases have been scant, he said.

And Laracuente would need more evidence of recovery before he could relax. "I feel like a lot of us are going to get dropped the second that the economy goes down again," he said. "I don't feel that confident."

Perez said he hopes confidence will rise in 2015 as Americans see that employers "will continue to pick up the pace of growth."

Highlights from the November report:

• The Labor Department revised job numbers for both September and October. Taken together, the two months saw about 44,000 more jobs created than previously reported.


• 2014 is on track to be the strongest year for job creation since 1999.


• A year ago, the unemployment rate was 7 percent. The current 5.8 percent is the lowest level since mid-2008.


• Americans are putting in longer work weeks, up to 34.6 hours, from 34.5 in October.


• The labor-force participation rate held at 62.8 percent, essentially unchanged since April.

NPR intern Robert Szypko contributed to this report.

President Obama Nominates Ashton Carter as the Next Secretary of Defense

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This morning, President Obama announced his nomination of former Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to be the next U.S. Secretary of Defense. Carter has been in public service for more than 30 years, and has served in various positions under 11 Secretaries of Defense.

"Ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders," the President said in today's remarks. "As a top member of our Pentagon team for the first five years of my presidency, including his two years as deputy secretary, he was at the table in the Situation Room; he was by my side navigating complex security challenges that we were confronting. I relied on his expertise, and I relied on his judgment."

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"It's Time to Go Fly": Successful Launch of Orion Heralds First Step on Journey to Mars

Ed. note: This post is written by NASA's Steven Siceloff. You can read the original post here.

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, with NASA's Orion spacecraft mounted atop, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 37 at at 7:05 a.m. EST. December 5, 2014. (by Bill Ingalls/NASA)

NASA marked a critical step on the journey to Mars with its Orion spacecraft during a roaring liftoff into the dawn sky over eastern Florida on Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, aboard a Delta IV Heavy rocket.

Once on its way, the Orion spacecraft accomplished a series of milestones as it jettisoned a set of fairing panels around the service module before the launch abort system tower pulled itself away from the spacecraft as planned.

The spacecraft and second stage of the Delta IV rocket settled into an initial orbit about 17 minutes after liftoff. Flight controllers put Orion into a slow roll to keep its temperature controlled while the spacecraft flew through a 97-minute coast phase.

The cone-shaped spacecraft did not carry anyone inside its cabin but is designed to take astronauts farther into space than ever before in the future.

Orion's first flight test is expected to be one for the books: the first mission since Apollo to carry a spacecraft built for humans to deep space, the first time NASA's next-generation spacecraft is tested against the challenges of space, and the first operational test of a heat shield strong enough to protect against 4,000-degree temperatures.

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UN raises one-third of the needed amount to resume food program

BEIRUT: The U.N.'s World Food Program has so far raised one-third of the needed amount to resume its refugee food assistance program after it launched a public appeal earlier this week.

The campaign raised $21.5 million in the first 24 hours from individuals, corporations and governments.

WFP said Monday it needed $64 million to fully reinstate the Syrian refugee food program for 1.7 million people. A lack of funds has forced the United Nations to stop providing food vouchers for refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

More than 1.1 million Syrians are registered as refugees in Lebanon with the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said Thursday that Lebanon would face a "catastrophe" as a result of the WFP decision to end food donations to Syrian refugees.

“People do care. The Syrian refugees are not forgotten,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said, according to a statement on the organization’s website.

“Because the refugee food assistance is provided by e-vouchers, over the coming days we will immediately begin reinstating e-vouchers for some of the poorest and most vulnerable families, particularly women and children.”

WFP said it would continue the campaign for another 48 hours to reach the required $42.5 million.

“Raising one-third in the first 24-hours brings hope,” Muhannad Hadi, WFP Regional Emergency Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said. “We must ensure no child goes hungry this month. WFP should not be forced to choose between one hungry child over another.”

People who want to donate online are asked to follow this link: http://bit.ly/1AuoH8M and visit WFP’s website wfp.org to donate online.

Obama Taps Ashton Carter As Defense Secretary Nominee

i i

Ashton Carter, at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, on March 18, 2013. He was the deputy defense secretary at the time. Lee Jin-man/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Lee Jin-man/AP

Ashton Carter, at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, on March 18, 2013. He was the deputy defense secretary at the time.

Lee Jin-man/AP

President Obama named Ashton Carter, a former No. 2 Pentagon official, as his pick to succeed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Obama described Carter today as one of the "nation's foremost national security leaders."

Carter's name began to surface this week as a possible replacement for Hagel, who announced Nov. 24 that he was stepping down once a successor was confirmed. NPR's Eyder Peralta noted that Carter, though unknown to the public, is "regarded as having a great intellect."

Carter is expected to enjoy bipartisan support during the nominating process.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Olka., said earlier this week that he supports Carter "very strongly."

If confirmed, Carter will be Obama's fourth defense secretary [after Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Hagel].

A Rhodes scholar, Carter has a doctoral degree in theoretical physics from Oxford University. He would inherit the Pentagon as the U.S. faces many global challenges, including the fight against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria, a resurgent Russia and unrest in other parts of the world. He also faces newer challenges such as cyberthreats.

Lebanon grand mufti wraps up 3-day Egypt visit

BEIRUT: Lebanese Grand Mufti Abdel-Latif Derian met Friday with Egyptian religious officials at the end of his 3-day trip to the country, in which he participated in an Islamic conference on fundamentalism and terrorism.

Derian first visited the Egyptian Minister of Endowments Sheikh Mohammad Mukhtar, whom he updated on Dar al-Fatwa’s activities in Lebanon, especially on the level of teaching moderate Islam.

“Dar al-Fatwa takes moderation as its way of serving the Islamic call,” Derian said after the meeting, stressing on the necessity to enhance the values of tolerance and dialogue rather than elimination.

Derian also met the president of the al-Azhar Universirty Abdel-Hay Azab, underlining the importance of scholastic cooperation between the Islamic University of Beirut, which is affiliated with Dar al-Fatwa, and the al-Azhar University in Egypt.

The main purpose of Derian’s trip was to participate in the Islamic Conference on Terrorism, organized by al-Azhar Mosque’s Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb.

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Lebanon frees 3 Abra battle suspects on bail

BEIRUT: The Military Court of Cassation approved Friday the release on bail of three detainees on trial in connection with the Abra battle against the Army in June 2013, judicial sources told The Daily Star.

The sources said the court refused an appeal by the military prosecutor to keep them behind bars, allowing their release in exchange of LL5 million ($3,300) bail for each detainee, the sources said.

The three defendants are among 71 people, including Salafi preacher Ahmad al-Assir, being tried over last year's clashes in Abra.

The next hearing in the trial was fixed for Jan. 13, 2015, the sources said.

The suspects, including Assir and 24 other fugitives, are accused of murdering and attempting to murder soldiers and civilians, of committing terrorist operations, possessing weapons and explosives, instigating sectarian tension and calling for sectarian fighting.

If convicted, many of the detainees could face death penalty.

The anti-Hezbollah preacher, whose gunmen provoked a deadly, two-day battle with the Lebanese Army in June 2013 after attacking one of its checkpoints, is still on the run, while many of his followers were arrested after the clashes.

The attacks resulted in the death of 18 Army soldiers and around 40 of Assir’s followers. The Army arrested dozens of suspects.

Assir was the preacher at the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque in Abra, near the site of the clashes. He claimed that the Lebanese government was controlled by Hezbollah and that state institutions, especially its security forces, were biased against Sunnis.

ISIS, Nusra clash near Lebanon border: source

BAALBEK, Lebanon: Clashes erupted between ISIS fighters and Nusra Front near the border with Lebanon Friday, after gunmen rejected an attempt by the latter to unite the opposition in the Qalamoun under a single leader.

The clashes concentrated on the outskirts of the Syrian village of Ras al-Maara, a source close to the Nusra Front told The Daily Star. Ras al-Maara is a Syrian village located a few kilometers from Lebanon's northeastern town of Arsal.

Nusra, Al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria, has had an on-again, off-again relationship with ISIS since the two had a falling out last year over chain of command when ISIS's current leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi tried to absorb Nusra.

The group under the command of the Nusra Front leader in Qalamoun, Abu Malek al-Talli, engaged in fighting with ISIS gunmen there.

Media reports identified the ISIS branch as the Abi Abdel-Salam group.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Nusra Front, under Talli, sought to unite opposition groups in the Qalamoun region under a single umbrella to better confront Syrian army troops and its allies, including Hezbollah.

There are around 18 separate groups based in Qalamoun and fight on separate fronts.

ISIS groups based near the border with Lebanon have rejected such a proposal, saying that wanted to preserve the few smuggling routes left in some areas to themselves, the source said.

New Jersey Legislature Clears Gov. Chris Christie In Bridge Scheme

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

An investigation by the New Jersey Legislature has cleared Gov. Chris Christie in an apparently politically motivated scheme that closed some lanes of the George Washington Bridge last year, leading to major traffic jams and a political firestorm.

The investigation could find no evidence that Christie was involved in the scheme.

The Associated Press reports:

"Investigators found no conclusive evidence whether Christie was aware or not of the closures last year, but they say that two former Christie aides acted with 'perceived impunity' and with little regard for public safety when they ordered the lanes closed, according to a 136-page interim report by a joint legislative panel that was obtained by news organizations Thursday night.

"A report commissioned by Christie previously cleared him of any wrongdoing and a lawyer for the governor said in a statement Thursday that the report corroborates that investigation.

" 'The Committee has finally acknowledged what we reported nine months ago — namely, that there is not a shred of evidence Governor Christie knew anything about the GWB lane realignment beforehand or that any current member of his staff was involved in that decision,' Christie attorney Randy Mastro said in a statement."

If you remember, the scandal threatened Christie's presidential ambitions and culminated with Christie apologizing during a long news conference in January.

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Obama Expected To Select Ashton Carter As Defense Secretary

Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approximately 9:00 a.m. ET.

On Friday, President Obama is expected to announce his pick to replace Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Signs suggest that it will be Ashton Carter, who has served in many senior jobs at the Pentagon.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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