Thursday, 15 January 2015

Hezbollah, Future to discuss end to sectarian rhetoric


Nasrallah praises Hariri for pushing talks


Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hailed Future Movement leader Saad Hariri for pushing for...



These 3 Women Talked with the President Today About Paid Leave:


President Obama has lunch with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Amanda Rothschild, Mary Stein, and Morvika "Vika" Jordan

President Barack Obama places an order with the waitress during a lunch with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Amanda Rothschild, Mary Stein and Morvika "Vika" Jordan to discuss balancing family and jobs, at Charmington’s Café in North Baltimore, Md., Jan. 15, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)




Earlier today, President Obama took a quick trip to Charmington's Café in North Baltimore, Maryland to talk with three women -- Amanda, Vika, and Mary -- before he announced new steps his Administration is taking to help working families across the country.


As the President noted at the café today, 43 million Americans still don't get paid sick leave. "That means that no matter how sick they are, or how sick a family member is, they may find themselves having to choose to be able to buy groceries or pay the rent, or look after themselves or their children," he explained.


read more


New Texas Governor Adds To Tension Between State, City Governments


There's growing tension between the state government and big cities in Texas. Republicans in the statehouse are chaffing at moves by municipal governments in large cities and are crying foul.




Copyright © 2015 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.


Copyright © 2015 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.



U.S. threat spurred Syria bid to control Lebanon, STL told


BEIRUT: A close ally of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said Thursday that Syria tried to impose political control over Lebanon, including dictating its choice of new president, in an attempt to secure the “home front” out of alarm at the American invasion of Iraq.


The episode, in which Syrian President Bashar Assad forced Hariri to back the renewal of the mandate of the unpopular pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud in 2004, is believed by prosecutors at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to be a key event after which the conspiracy to assassinate the former premier was launched.


Former MP Ghattas Khoury, an ally of Hariri and his envoy to the anti-Syrian opposition in late 2004, said the Syrians felt the American presence in Iraq was a major threat and they wanted to “secure the home front” by dominating Lebanon.


“[Hariri said] that they feel they are threatened,” Khoury said in his first day of testimony at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. “He was talking about the Syrian regime, [saying] they want to form a new government that can deal with the new situation arising from the Iraq invasion.”


Hariri resigned from government shortly after Lahoud’s re-election, a mark of the deterioration of his relationship with the Assad regime in the runup to his assassination.


Khoury’s testimony is part of the “political evidence” being presented before the STL, the U.N.-backed tribunal tasked with prosecuting those responsible for the devastating 2005 bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others, and led to street protests that ended Syria’s tutelage over Lebanon, a relic of the latter’s Civil War.


The evidence details the breakdown of relations between Hariri and Syria in the runup to the assassination, in an attempt to understand the political motive that lay behind the killing. Khoury’s statements laid bare once again Syria’s profound contempt toward Lebanon’s politicians and legal norms.


One example given by the former MP was a phone call he received from Syria’s director of military intelligence, Rustom Ghazaleh, after he criticized on television a Cabinet dictated to Hariri by the Syrians before the Lahoud extension.


“He told me, ‘Who do you think you are going on TV? We made you and we can make you leave,’” Khoury said, adding that Ghazaleh directed profanities and insults toward him, Hariri and his political bloc. According to Khoury, when he reported the conversation to Hariri, the former premier said “they are all crazy.”


Khoury described how Syria forced Hariri to accept Lahoud’s extension, using a “heavy hand” to force his compliance.


He described the aftermath of a notorious meeting between Hariri and Assad in August 2004 in which the former was forced to agree to the measure, saying Hariri was “heartbroken” three days after the conference when he met with Khoury.


“He told me, ‘I am not the one threatened, it is the whole country that is threatened,’” Khoury said, adding that Hariri repeated to him that Assad threatened to “break Lebanon” over the former premier’s head and the head of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a Hariri ally.


“I asked, ‘What will he do?’ He told me, ‘He would blow up the country, and blow up Solidere,’” Khoury added. “He took these threats seriously and he believed the country could be blown up.”


Khoury said he received threats to his life after he voted against the Syrian-ordered Lahoud extension, through phone calls to his wife.


He said the security institutions dominated by Syrian intelligence and its Lebanese allies failed to investigate the threats.



Army thwarts more suicide bomb plots


BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army foiled more terror plots Thursday, announcing the arrest of a cell planning a series of suicide attacks in the country and dismantling a car packed with explosives in northeastern Lebanon. Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, for his part, warned that terrorism from Syria and Iraq has actually reached Lebanon, while guaranteeing that Lebanese security services were fully capable of thwarting terrorist schemes.


The military said in a statement that it dismantled a Mercedes rigged with 120 kilograms of explosives after an Army Intelligence patrol spotted it in the area of Ain al-Shaab, on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal.


An earlier Army statement announced that the military thwarted a series of suicide attacks which were planned to take place after a twin suicide bombing which hit Tripoli Saturday.


The Army said it arrested Bassam Houssam al-Naboush, Elie Tony al-Warraq and Mohannad Ali Abdel-Kader who were plotting a series of terrorist attacks against “Army locations and residential areas.”


An Army source said that although his name indicated he was a Christian, Elie Tony al-Warraq was actually a Sunni from Tripoli.


The three suspects, who had been using fake Syrian and Palestinian IDs, were linked to Shadi Mawlawi and Osama Mansour, two of the most-wanted Islamist fugitives in Lebanon.


The men had pledged allegiance to “terrorist organizations and participated in the fighting in Syria as well as in attacks on the Army,” the statement said. The source identified the terrorist organizations as the Nusra Front and ISIS.


The statement added that Naboush, Warraq and Abdel-Kader had also participated in the series of deadly clashes over the last four years between the Tripoli neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen, which is sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Bab al-Tabbaneh, which supports the uprising in Syria.


The statement said the detainees were being interrogated by the judiciary and that the remaining members of the terrorist group were being pursued.


The arrests came a few days after twin suicide bombings – the first in the past six months – rocked the majority Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, killing nine people and wounding more than 30.


Meanwhile, Machnouk assured the Lebanese that security services were able to counter terrorist threats which he said the country was being exposed to.


“Terrorism from Syria and Iraq has now reached Lebanese territories – what happened in Arsal and lately in Jabal Mohsen stand as proof,” Machnouk said during an interview with LBCI television.


“Every area in Lebanon is targeted. But there is a high level of alertness, seriousness and a high capability to prevent the success of any [terrorist] operation on all Lebanese territories,” he added.


Militants from ISIS and the Nusra Front briefly took over Arsal last August and kidnapped over 30 Army soldiers and policemen. They are still holding at least 25 in the outskirts of Arsal.


Machnouk explained that Roumieh Prison’s Block B, which was cleared of its Islamist inmates Monday, was actually “an operations room contacting terrorists in Raqqa, Mosul, Arsal and Ain al-Hilweh.”


The Internal Security Forces moved inmates of Block B to Block D after intercepting calls between the Islamists and members of the cell behind Jabal Mohsen’s attacks.


Machnouk said the government would not accept any messing with the stability of the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, located on the outskirts of the city of Sidon.


He said authorities would discuss the issue with Palestinian officials, but highlighted that no military operations would target the camp.


Machnouk said that a security plan in the northern Bekaa Valley would be launched soon.


“We will continue the security plan in the Bekaa Valley soon in coordination with the Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces,” he said, adding that the security plan enjoyed a full political cover.



Siniora: Only moderates can defeat extremists


BEIRUT: The head of the Future parliamentary bloc and former Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora took part in the sixth Gulf Intelligence UAE Energy Forum Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.


“Here is one important lesson that I have learned, and a principle that I have always applied: at times of high volatility, go back to the basics,” Siniora said.


“In order to unlock the potential of the Arab world,” he added, it is imperative “to find a just and lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict through the establishment of a viable, unified and sovereign Palestinian state along [the lines of] the Arab peace initiative.”


During the event, he delivered a keynote speech themed “Outlook for the Middle East four years on from the Arab Spring.”


Held at the Rosewood Hotel in Abu Dhabi under the patronage of UAE Energy Minister Suhail Mohammad al-Mazrouei, the forum brought together national and international energy officials and world leaders to debate issues impacting the global energy industry.


“Only moderate Arabs and Muslims can ultimately defeat the forces of extremism in the region,” he said. “And only the democratic civil state can be the real guarantor of minorities’ existence and rights.”


“As much as ISIS falsely claims to be championing Sunnis, it does not in any way represent Islam, and Muslims are the biggest losers of its atrocities,” he said.


The only way to guarantee Arab security at all levels in the long run, according to Siniora, is to develop a “vision of Arab economic integration that is based on shared interests and objectives, and not on empty slogans.”


“We should not shy away from planning and achieving our long-term interests as Arabs,” he said, “and we should never lose faith that better days are yet to come.”



Nasrallah praises Hariri for pushing talks


BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hailed Future Movement leader Saad Hariri for pushing for dialogue Thursday, confirming that one of the party’s officials detained five months ago was working with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.


“There is no doubt that the man is the one who makes decisions in the end, and he was the one who pushed in this direction [dialogue],” Nasrallah told Al-Mayadeen TV director Ghassan Bin Jeddo in a three-hour interview when asked whether it was due to Hariri that talks were taking place, despite opposition from within the Future Movement.


Nasrallah said Future officials who opposed dialogue were “well known to the Lebanese,” and added that a personal meeting with Hariri was “possible.”


He also hailed Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt for working to make the dialogue possible.


He said he was very optimist about talks with the Future Movement, but stressed that the bar could not be set very high and an agreement in Lebanon was not contingent on resolving the dispute in Syria.


“Our experience with the Progressive Socialist Party is not bad and it succeeds; we cooperate in Lebanon but disagree on Syria,” he said, hinting the same could be done with the Future Movement.


The dialogue between the rival parties holds promise to ease sectarian tensions in the country, the outcome of which is already apparent, Nasrallah said.


“Imagine if the two aggressive suicide bombings against our people in Jabal Mohsen happened during a different climate,” he said.


“Tripoli and the region would have been set ablaze.”


Nasrallah reiterated support for the much anticipated talks between the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, saying internal Christian dialogue would help end the 7-month-old presidential vacuum.


Separately, he confirmed that one of the party’s officials busted five months ago was found to be working with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.


“He was responsible for one department inside one of the security units of Hezbollah,” he said, explaining that the unit was responsible for work of a “sensitive nature.”


However, Nasrallah said the official’s importance and status had been exaggerated by the media, adding that he did not hold a very high rank.


“He confessed to everything and to what extent he collaborated with Israel,” Nasrallah said. The collaborator’s family was responsible for informing the party about their son’s actions, he revealed.


“After 32 years of resistance ... and with the expansion of Hezbollah’s structure horizontally and vertically, this is normal,” he said.


“We should not treat it as normal, but it is.”


He also stressed that his party’s military wing was as ready as ever to fight Israel, saying it was stronger now than ever despite “being busy in Syria and probably elsewhere.”


Nasrallah said the resistance’s military capabilities grow by the year, adding that Hezbollah possesses “everything the enemy expects and doesn’t expect,” including “weapons of all types.”


“We are busy in Lebanon, in Syria and probably in other places, but our utmost priority remains to stay ready to confront Israel,” he said.


“If the Israelis believe that the resistance is exhausted or that its determination and military power have been weakened, they will learn that they are delusional.”


Nasrallah revealed that an attack on the Galilee in northern Israel was possible in the event of a new war.


“The resistance is ready to enter Galilee and move the battle into the land of the enemy if there is ever an attack against Lebanon,” he said.


Nasrallah said his party’s military wing had learned much from fighting in Syria about how to enter villages, liberate them and establish control, warning that such action could also be applied in Galilee and extend to other Israeli towns.


Nasrallah confirmed Iranian reports that said some Arab intelligence agencies had informed Israel about Hezbollah during the summer 2006 War.


The resistance leader said he did not expect 2015 to be much different from last year in terms of military standoffs with Israel.


Nasrallah also touched on relations with Hamas, saying the Palestinian party had demonstrated a will to strengthen its bonds with Iran and Hezbollah, after the relations had deteriorated over the past four years due to the events in Syria.


He acknowledged problems remained with Hamas’ stance toward the Syrian regime.


“Even if Hamas chooses to mend its relationship with the Syrian regime, Syria might have some difficulty accepting this due to past events and developments,” he said.


Nasrallah highlighted that his party seeks to build a strategic alliance with Hamas and other resistance groups in Palestine.


During the interview, which dedicated much time to the situation in Syria, Nasrallah made a definite statement about the destiny of President Bashar Assad’s regime.


“The notion of overthrowing the regime or controlling Syria is gone, I am talking field-wise, it’s over,” he said. “We should [only] speak of a political solution to end the violence.”


Nasrallah said the Free Syrian Army and other moderate Syrian rebels had lost much of their territory in Syria, either to the regime or to ISIS and the Nusra Front.


He predicted that the future would bring a tripartite partition of Syria, between the regime and the two fundamentalist groups.


Saudi Arabia’s role in Syria has dwarfed with the rise of ISIS and the Nusra Front, Nasrallah added, saying that the two factions became too strong to handle and now threaten the kingdom.


However, Nasrallah acknowledged that Saudi Arabia would be greatly influential in any potential negotiations to reach a political solution in Syria, but the strongest cards remain in Turkey’s hands.


He said Turkey had strong military bonds with ISIS, and if it decides to take the political solution route, the conflict would be easier to resolve.


“Any solution at the expense of President [Bashar] Assad is not a solution,” Nasrallah said.



Mankoubeen deals with shock of bombings


TRIPOLI, Lebanon: The impoverished Tripoli area of Mankoubeen was still recovering from shock Thursday, after the Nusra Front announced that the suicide attack over the weekend had been authored by two of its residents.


Residents of Mankoubeen still question why Taha Khayal, 21, and Bilal Mohammad al-Maryan, 28, decided to blow themselves up in the Nusra orchestrated attack Saturday outside a popular café in the Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen, which killed nine. Jabal Mohsen lies a mere 100 meters from the mostly-Sunni Mankoubeen.


In the wake of the attack, a security plan was launched in the neighborhood and its residents are being monitored. Soldiers ask all residents for their IDs before entering the area’s premises. The security measures have exacerbated tensions and checkpoints only allow for one road in and out of the area.


Bassam Houssam Naboosh, 19, who hails from Mankoubeen, was arrested Tuesday in Beddawi over suspicions that he was preparing to launch a terrorist attack.


Despite the poverty and the radical inclinations of some of its youth, the majority of Mankoubeen’s citizens retain their sense of patriotism and belonging as Lebanese citizens.


“We disown them [Khayal and Mariyan] and the wounds of Jabal Mohsen are our wounds and we would like to offer our condolences. We believe that our sons fell victim to the black thoughts of takfirism,” a relative of Khayal said.


Security reports suggest that, despite the Saturday bombing, few of Mankoubeen’s youth are joining foreign extremist groups; rather young men are affiliating themselves with the Mohajeroon organization believed to have been established by Walid Boustani, an extremist who fled to Syria after serving his sentence in Roumieh Prison.


Originally from Bab al-Tabbaneh, Boustani was convicted of belonging to Fatah al-Islam.


Upon arriving in Syria, Boustani founded an extremist group based in Qaalat al-Hosn, which executed several Free Syria Army officers. His successor, Abu Sleiman Mahmoud, from Mashta Hasan in Wadi Khaled, was killed after the Syrian regime reclaimed Qaalat al-Hosn.


Mankoubeen residents say the area gained a reputation as an extremist hub after its youth willingly crossed the border to Syria to fight the regime alongside the FSA.


“Since the start we have expressed our support for the Syrian revolution and the fall of the criminal [Syrian President] Bashar Assad’s regime,” said a member of Mankoubeen’s community.


“But the atmosphere became different when the fires of the Syrian civil war arrived to Lebanon, and from then on we changed our perspective. We said we wouldn’t accept our coexistence and national unity being compromised,” the citizen added, explaining the difference between the readiness of Lebanese jihadis to fight in Syria and those who return to stage attacks.


The citizen, who wished to remain anonymous, stressed that although there are some extremists in the community, the majority “don’t accept suicide bombings targeting our Alawite or Christian neighbors. And despite the terrible poverty we live in, we stick to our Lebanese identity.”


Khayal’s home lies among a collection of humble houses made of tin. Many such structures in the area are illegal. Mankoubeen – which literally means “disaster-stricken” in Arabic – was developed by the Lebanese government to shelter residents affected by the flooding of the Abu Ali River in 1950, the land itself belonged to the Iraq Petrol Company. Over the years housing would expand in the area to host more than 10,000 people, most of them below the poverty line.


In the aftermath of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Mankoubeen became a strong supporter of March 14. Similar to the Sunni neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh, most families in the area escaped the rough streets of Tripoli and either work as street vendors or in construction. Most do not have steady jobs.


Socioeconomic conditions in Tripoli have been dire since the Lebanese Civil War ended, and took a turn for the worst after the Syrian uprising in 2011. Tensions have soared between neighborhoods supporting Assad, namely Jabal Mohsen, and those supporting the rebels, which led to recurrent clashes between Bab al-Tabbaneh and the Alawite hub.


“We were all surprised with the news of the Jabal Mohsen bombing,” said Mohammad Sadeyah, a resident in the area. “It was also a surprise that some of ours would commit such a crime.”


Samir Khayal, Taha’s father, has close ties with members of the security forces.


When he found out his son was one of Saturday’s suicide bombers he turned himself in willingly.


“His [Samir’s] first reaction was to disown his son and he asked all his family members to not accept condolences for Taha’s death, no matter what,” Sadeyah explained.


“We are contacting Jabal Mohsen’s local community daily to ease tensions.”


Sadeyah explained that the arrest of Naboosh shocked the community because he was known to have had a close relationship with Taha Khayal. “He [Naboosh] had a full security file as he was right next to the fighters of Bab al-Tabbaneh and went to fight in Syria with the Nusra Front,” he said.


Sadeyah added that there was information that when Naboosh returned, he had played an important role in the operation Khayal and Mariyan had carried out. “He might have prepared himself to become a suicide bomber against Lebanese Army targets,” he said.


But although Sadeyah neither denied the fact that Naboosh might have had intentions of carrying out an attack nor the presence of terror cells in Mankoubeen, he ruled out the possibility that Naboosh was on a mission the night he was caught.


“Naboosh was on a regular visit to Beddawi when the Army Intelligence caught him, and he wasn’t carrying an explosives belt,” Sadeyah said, criticizing the media for distorting the facts.


He also said radicalization was not exclusive to Mankoubeen.


“Around six men from Mankoubeen have been arrested and investigations into their case are ongoing. At least two were fighting next to [fugitives] Shadi Mawlawi and Osama Mansour in Bab al-Tabbaneh,” Sadeyah said. “We have articulated a clear position that those who kill innocents are not one of us. We are patriotic and will adhere to the Army till the end.”


Samir Khayal is now back home after four days of being in police custody. Khayal’s father was in no condition to speak, when The Daily Star requested an interview.


“He [Taha Khayal] was an extremely shy kid,” his uncle, Kanaan, said. “Months ago he started going to the Al-Noor Mosque in Beddawi, and the signs of religious extremism began to show.”


The family, explained the uncle, tried to pressure Khayal, but they couldn’t. “There’s someone playing with the heads of those youth, and they brought us this great tragedy,” the uncle said, stressing that there was a need to reveal who influenced them.


Khayal apparently left the city in October 2014 following clashes between the Army and Islamists led by Mawlawi and Mansour.


Saturday’s explosion was the first serious breach of a security plan implemented in April 2014 which ended years of clashes in Tripoli between residents of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh.


Sources in Mankoubeen say there are 15-25 Nusra Front members in Syria who hail from the community. But details of their whereabouts are unknown.


Security reports state that many are still in Syria, stoking fears that they might return home to stage attacks in Lebanon.


A security source said that a strict security plan was being implemented to ensure precautionary steps were taken to contain similar operations to the one in Jabal Mohsen this week. The raid of Roumieh Prison Monday was part of that security plan.



Cold claims new victim as icy weather returns


BEIRUT: Snowfall returned to Lebanon’s higher areas Thursday, reblocking many roads and claiming another victim since the beginning of the storm “Zina.”


Syrian refugee Rama Tahrani passed away overnight Thursday after freezing to death in her unheated tent in the Bekaa Valley. Tahrani, 48, was living in a poorly equipped camp in Baalbek when the temperatures dropped to minus 2 degrees Celsius overnight.


Tahrani’s two young daughters, who survived the cold, were taken in by a Lebanese family, security sources told The Daily Star.


The low temperatures are a result of cold winds coming from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean and will continue until Saturday, according to the Meteorological Department at the Rafik Hariri International Airport’s daily weather forecast.


The resumption of snow and rain across Lebanon came after two relatively sunny days allowed most impassable roads to reopen and the country to get back onto its feet after being battered by a weeklong storm. Zina saw snow falling at areas as low as 500 meters above sea level and temperatures dropping below zero in much of the country.


Tahrani is just the latest victim of cold weather in Lebanon; three Syrians died last week on the outskirts of the Shebaa Farms as they were caught in the storm while trying to cross into Lebanon.


A rise in temperatures is expected Friday, with some clouds and sporadic showers accompanied by occasional thunder and lightning, the department said. “The altitude at which snow will fall will increase with the increase in temperatures,” read the bulletin.


Friday’s temperatures will range between 5 and 19 degrees Celsius along the coast, 1 and 10 degrees in the mountains, minus 1 and 11 in the Bekaa Valley and minus 5 and 5 in the Cedars.


The weather for Saturday is set to be “partially cloudy as temperatures remain stable,” according to the forecast. “Morning rain will fall and there is a danger of layers of ice forming in the mountains and the Bekaa Valley. The weather will improve gradually during the day.”


Temperatures for Saturday will be similar to Friday.


The Internal Security Forces released a statement Thursday night reminding citizens of the need to drive extra carefully and warning them of the dangers of black ice on the roads.


A number of roads were blocked in the mountains and in the eastern Bekaa Valley early Thursday.


The main Beirut-Damascus highway via Dahr al-Baidar that connects the Bekaa Valley with the capital and Mount Lebanon was accessible only to four-wheel-drives and vehicles with snow chains, the ISF said in a statement.


In southeast Lebanon, roads leading to the villages of Shebaa and Rashaya, which were completely cut off during last week’s snowstorm, were also accessible only to four-wheel-drives.


The ISF released a list of the blocked and partially accessible roads as of Thursday night on their official Twitter account.


Roads or towns that are only reachable by four-wheel-drives and cars equipped with snow chains include: Faraya-Wardet Kafardebian Square, Aqoura, Btagreen, Ehmej-Laqlouq-Anaya-Mechmouch, Ehden, Dahr al-Baidar and Mechmech-Fneydeq-Qamouaa.


Blocked roads include: Kfarselwan-Tarshish-Zahle, Ayoun al-Siman-Hadath Baalbek, Al-Mnaitra-Hadath Baalbek, Hadath Baalbek-Afqa, Sannine-Zahle, Maaser Chouf-Kefraya, Zahle-Dhour Chouir, Aynata-Arz, Tannourine-Laqlouq, Tannourine-Hadath Jebah, Hermel-Sir al-Dinnieh, and Hermel-Qoubeiat.


Separately, citizens in the northern district of Akkar denounced the delay in fixing the electricity problem following “Zina,” the National News Agency reported. Last week’s storm caused power outages in many areas of Lebanon.


The citizens called on Energy Minister Arthur Nazarian to quickly fix the damage, saying there was an urgent need for electricity in such bad weather, especially given that many villages don’t have generators.



Conservative Koch Brothers' Group Puts Congressional GOP On Notice



Congressional Republicans have "been given a second chance by the American people," AFP President Tim Phillips said. "And we're going to hold them accountable. We're determined about that."i i



Congressional Republicans have "been given a second chance by the American people," AFP President Tim Phillips said. "And we're going to hold them accountable. We're determined about that." Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP hide caption



itoggle caption Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

Congressional Republicans have "been given a second chance by the American people," AFP President Tim Phillips said. "And we're going to hold them accountable. We're determined about that."



Congressional Republicans have "been given a second chance by the American people," AFP President Tim Phillips said. "And we're going to hold them accountable. We're determined about that."


Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP


Americans For Prosperity, the most prominent arm of the Koch brothers' organization, put Republican lawmakers on notice Thursday, setting out a conservative agenda for Congress. AFP leaders say it will be pushed by the group's grassroots supporters in 34 states.


Tim Phillips, president of AFP, said at a Washington press conference that congressional Republicans "failed miserably" a decade ago, especially on cutting the federal budget. But "they've been given a second chance by the American people," he said. "And we're going to hold them accountable. We're determined about that."


The agenda covers three areas: taxes, including repeal of the estate or death tax; energy, headlined by a call to build the Keystone XL pipeline; and health care, which includes repealing the Affordable Care Act. Phillips noted that Washington has debated all of the issues for years.


AFP is best known for its TV advertising, and its financing by billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch and other, undisclosed, wealthy donors. AFP is a 501c4 social welfare organization, not a political committee, and thus isn't required to disclosure its contributors.


AFP spent more than $17 million on television in the 2014 midterm elections, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising. Much of the money went into ads framed around accountability, urging voters to look critically at Democratic incumbents' votes on controversial issues.


In 2012, Wesleyan reported that AFP spent about $36 million in the presidential race, and spent about $9 million in Senate contests.


Until now, AFP has almost completely avoided the Republican Party's internal battles — a stance that seems ready to change with the emphasis on "accountability." Phillips said AFP will use grassroots and a variety of other avenues to pressure Republicans on Capitol Hill.


"Hopefully it will be encouraging," he said. "But in cases where we need to hold them accountable, we'll look at everything. But for today, let's just say we're going to hold them accountable."



White House Starts Chipping Away At U.S. Embargo On Cuba



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





The Obama administration is following through on its pledge to ease travel and trade restrictions on Cuba. The Treasury and Commerce Departments say the new rules they have just issued go into effect on Friday. Critics of the administration, though, are questioning the legality of the moves.




Copyright © 2015 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.


Copyright © 2015 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.



Senate Republicans Move To Block Further Transfers From Gitmo



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





As part of a renewed push by the Obama administration to empty the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the transfer of five more detainees to other countries was announced on Wednesday night. All five are citizens of Yemen, where the local branch of al-Qaida is claiming responsibility for last week's attacks in Paris. Senior Republican senators introduced legislation this week blocking such transfers. They say releasing the prisoners lets them return to the battlefield.




Copyright © 2015 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.


Copyright © 2015 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.



Obama Shifts Federal Sick-Leave Rules, Urges Congress To Follow



President Obama discussed the need for paid sick leave with women at Charmington's Cafe in Baltimore Thursday. From left are Vika Jordan, Amanda Rothschild, and Mary Stein.i i



President Obama discussed the need for paid sick leave with women at Charmington's Cafe in Baltimore Thursday. From left are Vika Jordan, Amanda Rothschild, and Mary Stein. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption



itoggle caption Evan Vucci/AP

President Obama discussed the need for paid sick leave with women at Charmington's Cafe in Baltimore Thursday. From left are Vika Jordan, Amanda Rothschild, and Mary Stein.



President Obama discussed the need for paid sick leave with women at Charmington's Cafe in Baltimore Thursday. From left are Vika Jordan, Amanda Rothschild, and Mary Stein.


Evan Vucci/AP


Federal workers with a pressing need can take an advance of up to six weeks of sick leave under a new policy unveiled by President Obama on Thursday. The White House is urging Congress to make paid sick leave mandatory in the U.S.


The president signed a memorandum today instructing federal agencies to advance up to six weeks of paid sick leave to workers who need the time to care for a new child, a family member or for similar uses.


As for the private sector, the White House says, 43 million workers do not have paid sick leave. And the new push to help them has been building for months now.


"U.S. labor laws date to the 1930s, a time when most families had a stay-at-home mother," NPR's Jennifer Ludden reported a year ago, when she interviewed state legislators about paid sick leave. "The only federally mandated leave covers just half of the workforce, and many people tell pollsters they can't afford to use it because it's unpaid."


The Obama administration says the lack of paid sick time creates situations in which employees can't take time to recover from illness, or their children are sent to school with a fever because their parents can't take time off from work to stay home with them.


NPR's Scott Horsley reports:




"President Obama is calling on Congress to pass a bill that would give all workers the opportunity to earn up to seven paid sick days per year. He's also encouraging state and local governments to pass their own paid leave requirements, even if Congress fails to act.


"The White House says more generous leave policies would boost productivity, reduce employee turnover, and encourage more moms to stay in the workforce."




The push for wider access to paid sick leave comes after a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers, which cited "research that shows that paid and unpaid leave can help workers balance obligations at home and in the workplace — and help parents and those with medical needs remain in the workforce."


"The United States is currently the only developed country that does not offer government-sponsored paid maternity leave," the report stated. "Many of these countries also provide paid paternity leave, elder care benefits, and generous paid sick leave."


Today, the administration also promoted the Healthy Families Act, which would let millions of U.S. workers earn up to seven days of paid sick time each year. The legislation would apply to employers with at least 15 workers.


President Obama's budget will propose more than $2 billion in funding and grants to help states install their own sick leave systems.


The plan met with some criticism, including Forbes contributor Tim Worstall, who predicted that the changes would result in lower pay and are unnecessary.


"Those who value the ability to take paid sick leave presumably have self-sorted themselves into jobs where they get it and those that don't haven't," Worstall wrote.


Only a few U.S. states and the District of Columbia have approved laws making paid family and medical leave mandatory. Washington state also has a parental leave law on its books, but the state has postponed its implementation due to problems funding it.


Some U.S. cities have passed similar laws — but in recent years, several states have taken preemptive steps barring others from doing so.


About 60 percent of American workers are eligible for sick leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the White House says. But the administration adds that despite providing up to 12 weeks off work, the FMLA doesn't do enough by itself, as it doesn't require the workers to be paid during the time off.


"For too many Americans, unpaid leave is unaffordable," the White House says. "Moreover, evidence shows that mothers, who do typically take some time off in order to give birth, are more likely to return to their jobs and to stay in the workforce if they are able to take paid maternity leave."



Valerie Jarrett: "Why We Think Paid Leave Is a Worker's Right, Not a Privilege"

Ed. note: Yesterday, Valerie Jarrett wrote the following post on LinkedIn, breaking the news on the actions the President took today to help working parents. See the original post here.


Anyone who has ever faced the challenge of raising or supporting a family, while holding down a job, has faced tough choices along the way, and likely felt stretched between the financial and personal needs of their family.


How many working parents know that sinking feeling from sending their child off to school with a fever? How many Americans have to show up to work when battling an illness even when they know they won’t be at their best, it will lengthen their recovery time, and they may likely spread their sickness to others? And how many moms and dads have been denied the ability to bond with their newborn, or to care for an aging parent, all because they could not afford to miss work? These are real, significant moments in life that nearly everyone faces at some point. The last thing we should do is add guilt, fear, and financial hardship on working parents as they try to do what’s right – while keeping their job.


Tomorrow, President Obama will announce several initiatives that will spur action and move us toward our goal of fully supporting and empowering working parents in both their roles as workers and parents.


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How Orwell's 'Animal Farm' Led A Radical Muslim to Moderation



At age 16, Maajid Nawaz joined the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir. But after four years in prison, he decided to leave the group. He co-founded the think tank Quilliam, which is dedicated to countering extremist beliefs, and he's now running for Parliament in England.i i



At age 16, Maajid Nawaz joined the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir. But after four years in prison, he decided to leave the group. He co-founded the think tank Quilliam, which is dedicated to countering extremist beliefs, and he's now running for Parliament in England. Courtesy of the Quilliam Foundation hide caption



itoggle caption Courtesy of the Quilliam Foundation

At age 16, Maajid Nawaz joined the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir. But after four years in prison, he decided to leave the group. He co-founded the think tank Quilliam, which is dedicated to countering extremist beliefs, and he's now running for Parliament in England.



At age 16, Maajid Nawaz joined the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir. But after four years in prison, he decided to leave the group. He co-founded the think tank Quilliam, which is dedicated to countering extremist beliefs, and he's now running for Parliament in England.


Courtesy of the Quilliam Foundation


When Maajid Nawaz was growing in Essex, England, in the 1990s, the son of Pakistani parents, he first found his voice of rebellion through American hip-hop.


"It gave me a feeling that my identity could matter — and did matter — growing up as a British Pakistani who was facing racism from whiter society," Nawaz tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "but also confusion about where my family was from and not really fitting into either culture."


At age 16, Nawaz was transformed from a disaffected British teenager to an Islamist recruiter when he joined the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Nawaz continued his college studies and spent a year abroad in Egypt, where he continued his recruiting. As a result, he was imprisoned for four years, starting in 2002.


It was while in prison, surrounded by several prominent jihadist leaders, that Nawaz realized he wanted to take a different path. He was reading George Orwell's Animal Farm and came to a new understanding of "what happens when somebody tries to create a utopia."


"I began to join the dots and think, 'My god, if these guys that I'm here with ever came to power, they would be the Islamist equivalent of Animal Farm," Nawaz says.


He says he began to see that it's "impossible to create a utopia."




Everything falls apart. I lost all my friends. ... My marriage fell apart. I suffered my second identity crisis. I'm very, very lucky to have been able to get through it.





"I'm living up close and seeing [the radicals'] everyday habits and lifestyle, I thought, 'My god, I wouldn't trust these guys in power,' because when I called it, back then, and said, 'If this caliphate, this theocratic caliphate, was ever established, it would be a nightmare on earth,'" Nawaz says.


A year after his release, at the age of 24, Nawaz left the Islamist group and its ideology. He later co-founded the think tank Quilliam, which is dedicated to countering extremist beliefs.


"Now, when we see what ISIL [the self-proclaimed Islamic State] is doing in the name of this theocratic caliphate, I believe I have been vindicated that these guys, any of them, if they ever got to power, they would be committing mass atrocities," Nawaz says.


Nawaz is the author of the memoir Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism. He's now running for Parliament in England as a Liberal Democrat party candidate.


Interview Highlights


On what led to his initial interest in radical Islam


In my case, it began with a perceived sense of grievance, in particular, around the racism I was facing domestically, in my home county of Essex in England, and abroad with the genocide that was unfolding in Bosnia, which, if you can imagine a genocide unfolding on the continent in which you live, it has a very, very lasting impact on one's psyche.



So, in Bosnia, the case was there were white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims who were being slaughtered and identified as Muslims. That really touched me.


But I really didn't grow up religious and I didn't grow up acknowledging my Muslim identity. For me, I was a British Pakistani. So Bosnia and the domestic racism wasn't sufficient for me to turn to Islamism.


But, at the same time, I got into American hip-hop and listening to American hip-hop, in fact a bit like the Kouachi brothers [the brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris], listening to heavily politicized American rap in what's known as its "golden era" in the '90s.


I got into groups such as Public Enemy and Chuck D ... and I got into N.W.A. I got into all sorts of hip-hop that was heavy on social commentary, whether [it was] N.W.A. and commentary heavy on some of the crime, the gangs and the racism that they faced on the streets of Compton, or Public Enemy, which was very heavy politically. And hip-hop in the '90s began moving towards the nation of Islam and the 5 percenters, black nationalist movements, very much so these movements embraced a form of Islam, Malcom X's form of Islam prior to his change.



What this music did for me is it gave me a sense of empowerment. It gave me a voice.


On the four years he spent in prison in Egypt


I was in prison with pretty much the who's who of the jihadist and Islamist scene of Egypt at the time, and Egypt was the cradle of Islamism for the world — it's where it began and where jihadism began as well.


I was in prison with the assassins of the former president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, who was killed in 1981. Those who weren't executed in that case were given life sentences and two of those were with me in prison.


I was in prison with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood ... the general guide, his name is Dr. Mohamed Badie, and he currently resides back in prison.


I was in prison with the leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, my own group. I was also in prison with some other jihadists who were professional bomb-makers and others some affiliated to al-Qaida and some affiliated to jihad and other such Egyptian groups, but I also interestingly had liberal political prisoners with me in Egypt and beyond that.


There was a group known as the Queen Boat Case who were gay Egyptians who have been imprisoned for being gay and then there were Christians who had converted to Islam and there were Muslims who had converted to Christianity. So we had a running joke in prison under [former Egyptian president] Hosni Mubarak and that was: In Egypt, if you change your mind from anything to anything you get put in prison. ...


You can imagine the sorts of conversations that the gay guys would be having with the assassins of Sadat. So, in a sense, it was a very, very thorough education — political education — for me over the course of those four years.


On how difficult it was to leave Hizb ut-Tahrir and start over


Everything falls apart. I lost all my friends. There are members — very, very close and dear members — of my family. I'm talking immediate family who simply don't speak to me anymore and haven't done so for years. My marriage fell apart. I suffered my second identity crisis, and I was very very lucky to have been able to get through it.


There were people who had sampled my voice from speeches when I was an Islamist and made them the chorus of pro-Islamist rap songs who then began talking about me as an apostate. Everything turned on its head and I had to rebuild my life, I had to finish my degree, because, of course, I still had one year left in my university. And I had to find a job and the challenge, of course, was also that people didn't want to employ someone who had been a political prisoner in the war on terror.



Future condemns Hezbollah 'interference' in Bahraini affairs


BEIRUT: The Future Bloc condemned Thursday critical remarks made by Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah against the Bahraini government, accusing him of an intervening in the country’s affairs.


“The bloc has seen the Gulf Cooperation Council’s statement that responded to the attacks by Hezbollah’s secretary general against the Bahraini Kingdom, and this new unacceptable interference of its internal affairs,” the bloc said in a statement following its weekly meeting.


The bloc said it sided with the GCC in its denunciation and condemnation of Nasrallah's comments and called on the Lebanese Foreign Ministry to articulate a "clear" stance agains the "violation."


“The Lebanese have not only received help and solidarity...from the GCC countries,” the statement said, “[These countries] have always backed Lebanese’ unity and stability, and this should not be rewarded an attempt to incite turmoil inside their nations.”


Nasrallah had denounced in a speech Friday Bahrain’s recent arrest of Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of the country’s main opposition group, calling the move “very dangerous.”


Bahrain has been in turmoil since 2011 when a popular pro-democracy movement was violently crushed.


Nasrallah voiced his strong support of the revolt, accusing the Bahraini government of being "tyrannical and oppressive."


He also compared the Bahraini government's intention to the Zionist project, accusing it of naturalizing Sunnis from across the region to change the country’s majority-Shiite demographic, who form the bulk of the opposition.


Future's statement accused Hezbollah of intervening in the affairs of other countries, either through armed fighting or speeches and statements.


The statement also touched on Saturday’s bombings in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood of Tripoli, condemning the attacks and offering condolences to the families of victims.


The MPs also praised Monday’s operation by the Internal Security Forces in Roumieh prison's notorious Block B to move defiant Islamist prisoners to a different section of the prison.


They hailed Interior Minsiter Nouhad Machnouk’s efforts, who led the successful operation.


Future also condemned both the the attack on the Parisian satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and the newspaper’s issue that depicted the Muslim Prophet Mohammad Wednesday.



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Broadband: The Electricity of the 21st Century


Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, American business owners, scientists, and entrepreneurs have driven our economy forward and kept the United States leading the way in innovation and global competition. A thread woven through the fabric of our national identity has been having the most productive and highly skilled workforce in the world.


A 21st-century America should be no different.


In order to help revitalize a struggling American economy in the post-Depression 1930s, the Rural Electrification Act called for a push to electrify rural areas. Connecting otherwise hard-to-reach communities through electricity and telephone services gave them the ability to more easily compete on both the national and global economic stage. It was an idea as deeply important to the viability of 20th-century rural America as telecommunications and broadband Internet access is today.


For most Americans, the click of a mouse is all it takes to open the door to a world of up-to-the-minute information and global commerce. In remote communities in particular, broadband brings with it new access to health care, education, and economic opportunities that have not been available in the past. But there are still many for whom this is not yet a reality.


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4 Guantanamo Detainees Transferred To Oman, 1 To Estonia



In this June 27, 2006, file photo U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. The U.S. announced the transfer of four detainees from Guantanamo to Oman; one will go to Estonia.i i



In this June 27, 2006, file photo U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. The U.S. announced the transfer of four detainees from Guantanamo to Oman; one will go to Estonia. Brennan Linsley/AP hide caption



itoggle caption Brennan Linsley/AP

In this June 27, 2006, file photo U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. The U.S. announced the transfer of four detainees from Guantanamo to Oman; one will go to Estonia.



In this June 27, 2006, file photo U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. The U.S. announced the transfer of four detainees from Guantanamo to Oman; one will go to Estonia.


Brennan Linsley/AP


The U.S. has transferred five detainees from Guantanamo Bay — four to Oman and one to Estonia, the Defense Department says. The transfers bring to 122 the number of detainees who remain at the military prison.


The detainees sent to Oman are Al Khadr Abdallah Muhammad Al Yafi, Fadel Hussein Saleh Hentif, Abd Al-Rahman Abdullah Au Shabati and Mohammed Ahmed Salam; the lone detainee moved to Estonia is Akhmed Abdul Qadir. All of the men are Yemeni.


The transfers were announced late Wednesday and follow a review of the detainees' cases by the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force.


"As a result of that review, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, [they were] ... approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force," the statements said, adding Congress was informed of the transfers.


The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg, who has been covering the story of the Guantanamo detainees from the beginning, reports:




"All five freed detainees got to Guantánamo in the prison camps' early days. None was ever charged with a crime and all had been cleared for transfer for years. But, as Yemenis, they could not go home because U.S. officials feared they would be lured to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group that Wednesday claimed responsibility for last week's attack on the French satire newspaper Charlie Hebdo."




Indeed, the Paris attacks may have complicated President Obama's desire to close the prison — a desire he expressed while still a presidential candidate. This week, congressional Republicans said the Paris attacks showed that "now is not the time to be emptying Guantanamo."


GOP senators introduced legislation this week that would, according to The Associated Press, "bar transfers to Yemen for two years, suspend the transfer of high- or medium-risk terror suspects for the same period and repeal current law that has allowed the administration to transfer prisoners to foreign countries and reduce the population at Guantanamo. The bill would prohibit transfers of terror suspects to foreign countries if there has been a confirmed case where an individual was transferred from Guantanamo and engaged in any terrorist activity."


The lawmakers say the recidivism rate for freed detainees who have re-entered the battlefield is as high as 30 percent. But a State Department official disputed those figures.


A September 2014 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on recidivism by freed Guantanamo detainees found that before 2009 detainees "confirmed of re-engaging" was 19 percent while detainees "suspected of re-engaging" was 14.3 percent. After 2009, the report found, detainees "confirmed of re-engaging" was 6.8 percent while detainees "suspected of re-engaging" was 1.1 percent.


As we have been reporting, there have been several detainees released from the naval detention center. Prisoners have been transferred to Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Uruguay, Georgia and Slovakia.


The facility, which held 680 prisoners in 2003, holds detainees captured in the war on terrorism that followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.



Former Lebanese militia chief loses bid to sue Israel over torture


OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: A former Lebanese militia chief has lost a 15-year-old attempt to pursue a case via the Israeli courts for compensation over his alleged torture while imprisoned in the Jewish state.


The Supreme Court Thursday, reversing a ruling it handed down in 2011, said Mustafa Dirani, who was released in a prisoner swap and repatriated to Lebanon in 2004, could not proceed with the lawsuit because he had rejoined the ranks of a "terrorist group ... working toward Israel's destruction."


A relative of Dirani said the ruling was politicized. "The judiciary is trying to cover up Israel's crimes," he said, declining to be named. Israeli military forces occupied parts of southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000.


Israeli forces abducted Dirani from his home in southern Lebanon in 1994 in the hope of trading him for information on missing Israeli air force navigator Ron Arad. Dirani's Amal militia captured Arad in 1986.


"Shortly after his return to Lebanon, Dirani announced the merger of his movement with the Hezbollah terror organization," the court decision said. "He offered his services to the group and took up a position in the Hezbollah leadership."


Amal militiamen fought Israeli forces during the occupation. Its armed wing was formally dissolved after Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990 and it remains a close political ally of Hezbollah.


Dirani, now in his early 60s, told interrogators he had handed airman Arad to Iran, but later said his confession was false and forced out of him. Arad's fate has never been clarified. Israel officially considers him missing in action.


In 2000, while still in Israeli detention, Dirani filed a lawsuit demanding six million shekels (now $1.25 million) in compensation, saying he had been sodomized on the order of an Israeli secret service interrogator. Israel denied this.


Soon after Dirani returned to Lebanon, the Israeli government failed to persuade a three-judge Supreme Court panel to quash further proceedings. But two years ago, the court agreed to reconsider the appeal in a wider seven-justice forum.


On Thursday, it ruled 4-3 against Dirani, saying that allowing him recourse to the courts of a country he sought to destroy defied logic.