Obama told me so: 12/16/14

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

Gunmen kidnap two students in east Lebanon

Gunmen kidnap two students in Baalbek

Gunmen Wednesday kidnapped two students in separate incidents in east Lebanon, security sources told The Daily Star.

Senate OKs Judicial Nominees, Tax Extensions Before Republican Takeover

Senator Harry Reid of Nev. on Tuesday, walks to one of his final meetings as the Senate Majority Leader. In January, Republicans take over the majority. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

itoggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Senator Harry Reid of Nev. on Tuesday, walks to one of his final meetings as the Senate Majority Leader. In January, Republicans take over the majority.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In what the AP called a Tuesday night, lawmakers were able to push through a bill that extended a package of tax breaks, which had expired at the end of 2013, and confirmed 12 more judicial nominees. NPR's Ailsa Chang reported the confirmations also marked a big accomplishment for the Obama administration.

"That means President Obama got 88 judges confirmed this year, which is about DOUBLE the number he got confirmed last year. Probably the biggest factor driving the increase was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision last November to get rid of the filibuster for most judicial nominations."

The extension of tax breaks, however, will last little more than two weeks, expiring at the end of 2014. Forbes quoted Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) saying the bill was "quite literally the best we could do." Politico called it a bill pointing to an earlier effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who worked with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to build legislation that would have lasted two years. But the White House intervened.

Obama issued a pre-emptive veto threat before the pact was done, complaining that Democrats got a raw deal because it failed to make permanent an expansion of its favored tax credits for working families. That move effectively killed any remaining attempts to pass a two-year extension that had been approved by the Senate Finance Committee.

The Senate will need to work on a new plan for the tax breaks at the start of the new year.

Further disappointing Senate Democrats was a failure to pass a bill authorizing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA). Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) blocked a vote on the bill, which The Hill reported essentially killed the legislation.

Coburn, who had threatened to take the action, refused to agree to a unanimous consent request that would have set up a final vote on the measure that would have required a 60-vote majority for passage.

Still, it was a productive day in Washington as President Obama, according to a White House statement, signed the government funding bill that will last through September of next year. The only exception is the Department of Homeland Security, which is funded through February.

The Senate confirmed several other of the President's nominations, including Anthony Blinken as Deputy Secretary of State.

Yesterday, NPR reported the Senate also confirmed Vivek Murthy as the country's new surgeon general, a position that has been vacant for 17 months.

France, Kahwagi sign off on Saudi grant for Army

BEIRUT: Army commander Jean Kahwaji and a French defense official signed Monday the final part of the French-Saudi deal to support the Lebanese military, according to France’s Foreign Ministry Tuesday.

The agreement, funded by a $3 billion Saudi grant, will go toward buying French weapons, equipment and vehicles and will also cover the cost of military training. The final requirement before it can be implemented is Saudia Arabia’s signature.

Admiral Edouard Guillaud, the head and representative of the French ODAS defense sales company, signed on behalf of France.

“While Lebanon faces a deteriorating security situation, the Army, which is suffering heavy losses as a result of the terrorism threat, should remain a guarantee of the country’s unity and stability,” a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement distributed in Beirut.

For over a year-and-a-half, the Army has been dealing with suicide bombings, terror plots, abductions and border incursions by radical groups including ISIS and the Nusra Front despite being woefully underequipped to do so.

“The signing of the Saudi-French deal is late, and we want the weapons delivery to start quickly, especially the helicopters and missiles,” premier Tammam Salam told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly last week. “There are attacks on the eastern borders and there are kidnapped soldiers [near Arsal]. We need weapons and military aid to confront those extremists.”

Both the U.K. and the U.S. have stepped up their assistance to the military and Iran has made an offer of aid, although it has not yet been accepted by the Lebanese government.

Envoys urge swift election as Hariri, Geagea meet

BEIRUT: Top international envoys called Tuesday for the swift election of a new president, urging the Lebanese to choose a head of state without foreign interference, as former prime minister Saad Hariri and March 14 candidate Samir Geagea urged for a quick resolution to the presidency crisis.

The renewed calls came as Speaker Nabih Berri told visitors that he hoped to hold a first dialogue session between Hariri’s Future Movement and Hezbollah before the end of the year.

“There should be no question that the Lebanese can and should elect a president, away from foreign agendas or interference,” U.S. Ambassador David Hale said after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam. “The choice of a president should be for the Lebanese alone, but should be made urgently. I believe that once such a choice is made, the international community will support the outcome.”

“To wait is to invite instability and the further erosion of the institution of the presidency,” Hale said, adding that there was no cause for delay. “To proceed with electing a president will serve the interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese people. “

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson also urged Lebanese leaders to come together and find a “consensus candidate” for the presidency, after meeting Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai.

“I hope that it will possible to find a formula to find a head of state that represents Lebanon,” he said. “This is of course a Lebanese matter. It is not for us or the outside to find a formula. It is up to the Lebanese to find a solution.”

“But I think that it will be very helpful not only for the Lebanese society but also for Lebanon’s position in the world if this matter is resolved,” Eliasson added.

Meanwhile, Lebanese Forces leader Geagea and Hariri met at the latter’s residence in Saudi Arabia, where they agreed on the necessity of continuing on with dialogue in an effort to end the ongoing political crisis in the country and to expedite the presidential election.

According to a statement released by Hariri’s news office, the two leaders stressed the need to ease political tensions and preserve stability and security in the country.

Geagea also met Saudi intelligence chief Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud.

Earlier in the day, Geagea called on the Lebanese to maintain hope in their country. “So many of the Lebanese people are desperate and think that there is no escape from the ongoing crisis,” Geagea told Lebanese expatriates in Saudi Arabia, as he stressed that “no one has the right to lose hope in our country.”

Alluding to Free Patriotic Movement head Michel Aoun, Geagea said that “no one can claim they are Christian and work in the interests of Christians when at the same time they are disrupting the presidency.”

With Geagea representing the March 14 alliance and Aoun the March 8 coalition, the election has been at a standstill since the term of President Michel Sleiman ended nearly seven months ago.

With neither candidate thought to be able to garner a majority in a vote, Aoun and his allies in Hezbollah have boycotted Parliament’s electoral sessions, calling them pointless in the absence of a consensus candidate.

Geagea slammed Lebanon for making way for regional powers to interfere in its presidential election.

According to the LF chief, the only way to curb regional influence would be through achieving an agreement between Christian parties first, and then the Lebanese in general, on a consensus presidential candidate.

Berri’s visitors quoted him as saying that he hoped to hold the first dialogue session between the Future Movement and Hezbollah between Christmas and New Year’s, but did not reveal the agenda of the meeting.

Berri told his visitors that his agenda for the meeting includes the presidential and parliamentary elections, and that this was similar to the agendas of the two parties.

Aoun’s bloc blamed the political class, however, for the deadlock.

“Those who undermine the Taif [Accord] and proper representation are the same ones who have been undermining for 24 years the election of a strong president of the republic,” said MP Ibrahim Kanaan at a news conference after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc.

Meanwhile, the Future bloc called for the deployment of the Lebanese Army and an international peacekeeping force along the porous border with Syria to protect the country from militant attacks.

“The deployment of the Lebanese Army on the eastern and northern borders, with the help of an international emergency force has become necessary,” the bloc said in a statement released after their weekly meeting, blaming Hezbollah for the militant threat fraying Lebanon’s borders.

5 Things You Need to Know About Alaska's Bristol Bay

President Obama just took action to protect one of Alaska's most powerful economic engines and one of America’s greatest national treasures: Bristol Bay.

Today, he signed a Presidential Memorandum that withdraws these beautiful and pristine waters from all future oil and gas drilling. "These waters are too special and too valuable to auction off to the highest bidder," the President said.

International community wants stable Lebanon: U.N.

BEIRUT: The international community is keen to bolster Lebanon’s stability at this precarious moment, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said.

As the effects of the Syrian civil war continue to reverberate across the region, international actors are “doing everything [they] can to help Lebanon stay out of this crisis,” Eliasson said on the final evening of a four-day trip to Lebanon.

“Lebanon is now an area where these tensions from Syria are most critically seen.”

As part of the new strategic plan for Lebanon announced earlier this week, the government and the U.N. announced they are seeking $2.1 billion for 2015.

Recognizing Lebanon’s “tremendous sacrifice” in hosting more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees, Eliasson said the funds would be used for humanitarian aid and development projects in underserved Lebanese municipalities.

He admitted, however, that donor countries were struggling to fund concurrent humanitarian crises around the world.

There are “enormous needs in humanitarian areas and crises that erupt almost every week,” he said.

While much of the word is sympathetic to the suffering of Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities, “budgetary realities” have prevented a further outpouring of financial support.

While the call for 2015 stands at $2.1 billion, Eliasson said that such projects typically receive “between 40 and 60” of the solicited sum.

Last year, the U.N. appealed for $1.8 billion to care for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, but as of mid-December has received less than half that amount.

He sighed when asked what became of funding from the much-trumpeted International Support Group for Lebanon, which he himself helped to create.

He speculated that “limited funds” were a contributing factor to the International Support Group’s disappointingly low pledges.

Eliasson stressed the need for all Lebanese parties to abide by the Baabda declaration, which enshrines Lebanon’s official policy of disassociation from the Syrian conflict.

“There should be no interference,” he said, adding, that it “goes for all groups.”

“One of the most futile attempts of this period, this horror, of the past three-and-a-half years is the belief that there can be a military victory,” he said.

Lebanon’s security is at least in part contingent upon a political solution to the Syrian crisis, Eliasson added.

But while he said that it was necessary for international mediators to cooperate with the Assad government to reach a political solution, he did not have an opinion on whether or not Lebanon should engage with the Syrian regime.

“I don’t need to advise this government on their diplomatic contacts,” he said. “It’s up to them as a sovereign nation.”

During his trip, Eliasson met with Lebanese politicians and figureheads including Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Speaker Nabih Berri, MP Walid Jumblatt and Maronite patriarch Beshara Rai to discuss national and regional crises.

He visited Tuesday a public school in Burj Hammoud that is accommodating Syrian refugees in addition to Lebanese students to better understand the “deep strain” that host communities throughout the country are experiencing.

Echoing calls made recently by other foreign dignitaries, Eliasson also appealed for Lebanon to elect a president.

Filling the presidential void is both necessary for the functioning of the state and the country’s standing, he said.

In a country beleaguered by security and political crises, Eliasson noted that the “situation for UNIFIL was good news.”

“Of course the situation can change very quickly, but compared to the situation on the border with Syria, [the Lebanon-Israel border] is relatively calm.”

Despite thin resources, Eliasson said that the U.N. was “impressed” by the Lebanese Armed Forces.

He also lauded the forthcoming dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement, saying that the dialogue would be “a very constructive step.”

Electoral law knot far from being unraveled

BEIRUT: The Parliament’s subcommittee failed Tuesday to agree on a draft proposal for an electoral law as the Lebanese Forces suspended its participation in the committee and disputes emerged on various issues.

The Lebanese Forces’ decision came as it was pushing for a date to be set for a legislative session in order to decide on an electoral law as the subcommittee, chaired by MP Robert Ghanem, adjourned this week for the seventh time.

“Some wanted the committee to be just a tool in order to pass time in the issue of presidency, which unfortunately it seems will not happen soon,” LF MP George Adwan said.

Meanwhile, Ghanem said he would discuss with Speaker Nabih Berri Adwan’s decision as the panel is set to meet again Thursday.

“I will meet with Berri and consult with him regarding this topic,” Ghanem said after the subcommittee concluded the meeting.

The speaker reminded his visitors Monday evening that the new electoral law should win the approval of the new president, adding that the agreement should not be breached. Berri said the LF stance would not impede the work of the parliamentarycommittee.

In the previous session held last week, Adwan said that the proposals for a new electoral law should be taken to the Parliament to prevent the subcommittee from dragging out the discussions.

Adwan expressed his refusal for linking the electoral law issue to the presidency and government.

Hence, the LF wants to cut to the chase and is asking for a timeframe to be set.

“There’s also a proposal on the need to see what the president [when elected] thinks [of the electoral law] and another suggestion to put new draft laws,” Adwan said. “We felt that there are attempts to sabotage the issue to take this matter to the general assembly.”

The subcommittee includes lawmakers from both March 8 and March 14 and it has been tasked to look into draft proposals of new electoral law submitted by various blocs.

Among the draft laws being studied is one presented by MP Ali Bazzi from Berri’s parliamentary bloc. Based on the draft, half of the 128-member Parliament will be elected based on proportional representation and the remaining half will be chosen based on a winner-takes-all-system.

The Future Movement, Progressive Socialist Party and LF have proposed another voting system.

According to the latter, 60 lawmakers would be elected under a winner-takes-all system and the remaining 68 based on proportional representation.

“We are keen on having a new law that will act as a point of intersection between Lebanese where they feel that it will take into account fair representation and will be accepted by all components,” Adwan added.

Last month, Ghanem, who also heads Parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee, said that Berri would call on Parliament to convene in an attempt to look into the presented proposals and whether or not the subcommittee is able to agree on one.

It seems that might have triggered LF’s decision to urge the general assembly to meet.

The committee was given until the end of December to agree on a law to replace the 1960 law, which was adopted in the last parliamentary elections in 2009 and is relatively unpopular among a number of Christian parties who believe that it didn’t safeguard a safe representative for their community. Yet, what the LF seems to have missed is that Parliament can’t meet to pass an electoral law without a president.

MP Qassem Hashem, from Berri’s bloc, explained that a clause linked the passing of an electoral law and a presidential election was part of the law passed to enable the second extension of Parliament last month.

Hashem, who isn’t a member of the subcommittee, added that for any general assembly session to be held, an amendment in this clause was required.

In addition to the LF veto, the subcommittee was also faced with a rejection from the Kataeb Party for a law based on electoral districts.

Another stalemate was caused by the Free Patriotic Movement, which has requested from Berri a clarification of the Constitution’s Article 24, which tackles the issue of equality and parity between Muslims and Christians in the electoral law.

The FPM has called for the general assembly to meet to clarify it.

Servicemen’s file as complicated as ever, no solution in sight

Despite the chaos surrounding the case of the captured servicemen, to date no marked progress has been made on this tough issue. The reasons are various: from the behavior of the government, which does not know how to manage the crisis; to the interference of political parties, each of which has its opinion about how to resolve the problem; to the contradictory positions of the captors themselves, who do not seem to have issued a clear list of their demands.

The file is now frozen, according to a security source, with no initiatives put forward except for the government’s attempts to secure a guarantee that no more captives will be killed. So far four security personnel have been murdered, two by Nusra Front and two by ISIS, with the most recent taking place earlier this month.

They have also sought to keep the negotiations secret, which has proven largely impossible in the face of heavy pressure from the captives’ frustrated families.

However, there has recently been a noticeable difference, which is the decision of the miitants to announce their position on social media, the security source said. This is unusual, he added, because normally such people keep their demands quiet and protect them. This has been buoyed by the desire of the captives themselves to ensure that their file is kept at the forefront of people’s minds.

The Qatari withdrawal from negotiations and the Turkish disdain for the issue does not mean the Lebanese government no longer has any cards to play, the source said. In fact, the arrest of Suja al-Dulaimi – the ex-wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – has turned out to be a huge coup, he added, because it has emerged that she was actively involved in the funding of radical groups in Syria. The country also has other cards to play which cannot currently be revealed, the source said.

The whole issue is complicated by the total lack of cohesion in the government and the ongoing negative repercussions of the Syrian conflict, which is close to entering its fourth year.

There have been a number of rumors about who the Lebanese negotiator is, but one of the members of the Cabinet’s crisis committee, set up to deal with the captives’ case, confirmed that the head of General Security, Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, is still the official negotiator for the country.

He also said that the committee was still following up on the file, and noted that ISIS and the Nusra Front were blackmailing the government by using the families’ anger and threatening to kill the personnel, then backing down again. These ploys are an attempt to weaken the government’s position and put more pressure on it.

It seems that ISIS and the Nusra Front’s demands for a prisoner release are not real, and they are not planning to actually release the 25 soldiers and policemen they are holding hostage. Rather, they are looking to establish control of more territory in Qalamoun, a mountainous region of Syria just on the other side of the Lebanese border near Arsal where rebel groups have been battling the Syrian army and Hezbollah for the last few years.

If they free the hostages, ISIS and the Nusra Front would lose their advantage in this issue.

“The kidnappers have brought up the issue of trading detainees from Syrian prisons and Roumieh [prison] but they have not offered up a clear or precise list of who they want, only how many they want,” the security source said. “This is what confuses us. How can we give the Syrian side numbers without clear names?”

This hints at the fact that there is some sort of discussion with the Syrian government on the issue of a detainee swap, but the crisis committee member denied that such talks were happening, saying that their involvement could make things worse.

“We cannot ask Syria [for a detainee swap] with only numbers for every kidnapped soldier,” said the committee member. “There is a difference between media reports and the real positions revealed at the last minute by the kidnappers.”

“It’s now clear that the Lebanese government is not working with just one lot of kidnappers, but with many different sides, and this is what is causing major problems in the management of this file.”

The same source revealed that ISIS, not the Lebanese government, sabotaged the Muslim Scholars Committee’s initiative due to a lack of trust in Sheikh Salem Rafei, whom they accused of being loyal to Saudi Arabia, whose involvement the group will never accept.

This made things more complicated still.

Differences bedevil redrawn refugee proposal

BEIRUT: In the joint Lebanon Crisis Response Plan, launched by the government and the U.N. this week, displaced persons from Syria are referred to, curiously, as “de facto refugees.”

The compromise reached on how to formally refer to the more than 1.2 million registered refugees who over the course of nearly four years have overwhelmed Lebanese public services is indicative of the plan itself – which combines both the UNHCR’s mission to provide basic services to the displaced and the government’s interest in preserving its sovereignty and security.

While the government argues the success of the plan rests solely on the willingness of international donors to fund it, activists deeply involved in mitigating the refugee crisis and local actors contend that, though promising in theory, by itself the plan does not contain durable solutions for Lebanon’s refugee crisis.

In a nutshell, the response plan seeks to forward an integrated response plan to address refugee protection and humanitarian assistance needs, typically delivered under the purview of the UNHCR, while simultaneously reinforcing state institutions.

Unlike last year’s strategy to manage Lebanon’s refugee crisis, the current one underscores stabilization priorities as voiced by the government, which in previous years opted to take the backseat in service delivery, will lead the response this time around through the Social Affairs Ministry and supervised by the Crisis Cell.

Already, according to a government source, the ministry will be working with the UNHCR to supervise the registration process.

In the parlance of the report, stabilization translates to strengthening institutional capacities to address poverty and social tensions aggravated by the deluge of refugees.

The rhetorical shift from a crisis understood in purely humanitarian terms to one concerned with stability could be seen as early as August, according to a concept note circulated by the U.N. predating the drafting of the response plan which was leaked to The Daily Star. It states that the United Nations Country Team “is committed to an integrated and strategic planning that elevates conflict risk and vulnerability in prominence. Entering the fourth year of the emergency, adjustments are required to manage an increasingly complex, expensive and protracted emergency.”

The $2.14 billion plan aims to provide both direct humanitarian assistance to 2.2 million individuals, the majority of them refugees from Syria, and invest in services and institutions, that in total will reach 2.9 million people in Lebanon’s most impoverished localities.

For George Ghali of ALEF, while emphasis on institutional support was encouraging, the question of how the plan’s broad aims would translate into practice loomed.

“Currently we are concerned that this plan is very ambiguous and it is yet unclear how it will take shape,” he told The Daily Star.

“Institutional support is definitely needed. However, the problem is that this support lacks a human rights perspective.”

Lebanon came under fire from international organizations in recent months over incidents of alleged forced deportations, effective border closures and changing entry policies that some organizations argued are discriminatory and arbitrary. In November, for instance, Human Rights Watch accused Lebanon of forcibly deporting Syrian national Mahmoud Abdul Rahman, who it said was at risk of torture and execution.

“What is good about the plan from a human rights perspective is that to a certain extent the state’s institutions are getting more and more responsibility [with respect to managing refugees], for years the state had been outside the scope of implementation,” Ghali said. “This plan can be a catalyst to expose state institutions to their obligations in the crisis and expose the government in general to how to cope with it, within certain limitations.”

But he argued the plan itself required some form of accountability, “especially if you are building the capacity of the General Security, and the next day General Security commits a human rights violation.”

“We need to build the capacity of institutions, but this also requires accountability,” he said.

Last week ALEF released a report detailing potential solutions to the refugee crisis in Lebanon. Of the several recommendations, the NGO called for the government to draft a national policy concerning refugees, including formalizing the concept of temporary protection. “The plan is promising but with the absence of a comprehensive policy, it doesn’t offer solutions,” Ghali said.

A government source well acquainted with the issue disagreed with ALEF’s contention, arguing a three-point paper issued in October outlined its parameters sufficiently.

The document highlighted the government’s main concern with respect to managing the refugee crisis and included reducing the number of individuals registered as refugees from Syria, addressing rising security concerns in the country and expanding the humanitarian response to include an institutional and developmental approach.

Rather, the government source argued the effectiveness of the plan was the responsibility of international donors.

“The most important element of the [response] plan is that it underlines the need for the international community to respond, not only for humanitarian assistance purposes but also for host communities,” the source said.

“It’s about sharing the burden.”

“I think the ball is on the international community’s court, and if it won’t step up support then we will enter a crisis that no one knows how to stop,” the source said.

Perceptions of Cabinet division, he added, were being invoked as an “excuse” by donors to not fund the plan. “There are issues of consensus on some issues, but not others. The major issue of disagreement is [establishing official camps], but not other things.”

For their part local government figures, often at the front lines of the refugee crisis, complained that they were not consulted during the drafting of the response.

“It’s all just talk now,” said Saad Maita, mayor of Barr Elias, which hosts a sizable refugee population of 40,000. “Nothing was discussed with the mayors.”

“Usually, we are notified by different ministries about anything related to any plan, but this time we weren’t consulted by the government.”

Maita said every level of his administration has been affected by the crisis, from food, to water and electricity. A durable plan, he argued, should empower municipalities.

“We want to stand on our feet,” he added.

“And when we do we will be able to help Lebanese citizens feel that refugees are not a danger to them, their rights or their needs.”