Another year of music around town
Summer solstice falls on June 21 and, once again, it will be accompanied by the strains of music, resonating through...
Friday, 30 January 2015
Syria dissociation no longer realistic: Jumblatt
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s dissociation policy towards the Syria crisis was no longer applicable, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said Friday.
“Let's be realistic. As Lebanese, there are [certain] issues that we can resolve and others that we cannot,” Jumblatt told local daily An-Nahar.
“If some people come out to say we should implement the Baabda Declaration, this is something that is impossible today,” he argued.
The Baabda Declaration, agreed by rival March 8 and March 14 leaders during a National Dialogue session at Baabda Palace in June 2012, calls for distancing Lebanon from regional and international conflicts, particularly the civil war in Syria.
The March 14 coalition has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of violating the Baabda Declaration by sending its members to fight alongside the Syrian army against rebels.
Hezbollah has responded by saying it was a “latecomer” to the Syrian war and the last party to have intervened in the conflict next door, accusing March 14 of sending gunmen to Syria to support the opposition.
March 14 has denied Hezbollah’s allegations, saying its support for Syrian rebels was political and humanitarian.
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Lebanon to lodge complaint over Israel's deadly border shelling
BEIRUT: Lebanon will file a complaint with the U.N. against Israel over its recent border shelling in which a Spanish peacekeeper was killed, a ministerial source told The Daily Star Friday.
The source said Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has contacted Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.N. Nawaf Salam, requesting him to lodge a complaint against the Israeli shelling of south Lebanon sparked by a Hezbollah border ambush Wednesday.
Hezbollah killed at least two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others when it fired a salvo of anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon.
The attack came in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike 10 days earlier on a Hezbollah convoy in Syria's Golan Heights which killed six of the group's fighters and an Iranian commander.
Spain on Thursday blamed Israel for firing the shells that killed its UNIFIL peacekeeper in southern Lebanon.
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Thursday, 29 January 2015
ISIS kidnaps Arsal man
BAALBEK, Lebanon: ISIS militants deployed on the Syria border snatched Friday a Lebanese man on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal, a security source said.
The source said Rawad Izzeddine, in his 20s, was kidnapped at dawn.
Izzeddine’s father, who runs a small business in Arsal, said the kidnappers contacted him hours after the abduction.
“Perhaps ISIS kidnapped my son to teach him to have faith in God,” he said without elaboration.
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Shebaa ambush won’t halt Hezbollah-Future talks:report
Hezbollah acts don’t represent Lebanon: minister
Hezbollah’s individual acts do not represent Lebanon, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said Friday, days after...
Hezbollah acts don’t represent Lebanon: minister
BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s individual acts do not represent Lebanon, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said Friday, days after tit-for-tat border violence between Hezbollah and Israel along the border.
“What Hezbollah declares and acts only represents itself as a political party that has a special status, but it does not represent the Lebanese government, which uses consensus as a decision-making method,” Joreige told Saudi newspaper Okaz.
He said only the head of the government has the right to speak for the government, stressing that Prime Minister Tammam Salam has expressed the government's official position, which represents the Lebanese state.
His remarks came in the wake of the latest wave of border violence following a Jan. 18 Israeli airstrike that killed six Hezbollah members and an Iranian general in Qunaitra in Syria’s Golan Heights.
Hezbollah launched a revenge attack Wednesday, killing at least two Israeli soldiers and wounding seven others in the occupied Shebaa Farms. The attack sparked Israeli artillery response on southern Lebanon.
“What happened in Shebaa Farms ... makes me worried, but not scared,” Joreige said, pointing to the “international umbrella that protects Lebanon from the repercussions of any war.”
He said the government was seeking to regain its decision-making power over war and peace.
In the aftermath of the attack, Salam stressed his government was committed to U.N. Resolution 1701, which put an end to the 2006 war with Israel.
"A True American Patriot" -- President Obama Pays Tribute to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff participate in an Armed Forces farewell in honor of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, left, at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Fort Myer, Va., Jan. 28, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The President traveled to Fort Myer, Virginia yesterday for the Armed Forces farewell ceremony in honor of our 24th Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel.
In his remarks, the President acknowledged Secretary Hagel's courageous work during his lifelong service as a decorated veteran and Secretary:
[T]oday is a celebration of a quintessentially American life -- a man from the heartland who devoted his life to America. Just imagine, in your mind’s eye, the defining moments of his life. The kid from Nebraska who, as Marty said, volunteered to go to Vietnam. The soldier outside Saigon, rushing to pull his own brother from a burning APC. The deputy at the VA who stood up for his fellow Vietnam vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. The senator who helped lead the fight for the Post 9/11 GI Bill, to give this generation of heroes the same opportunities that he had.
I asked Chuck to lead this department at a moment of profound transition. And today we express our gratitude for the progress under his watch.
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