Half of Lebanon's Christians support extension: Fatfat

BEIRUT: The proposal to extend the Parliament’s term enjoys the backing of half of Lebanon’s Christians, Future Movement MP Ahmad Fatfat said Thursday.

“What does ‘the Christian cover’ mean if half the supporters of the extension are Christians?,” Fatfat asked in an interview with radio station Voice of Liban 93.3 FM.

His comments came in response to a question about the lack of Christian support for Parliament's extension.

The Future Movement has been advocating for the extension of Parliament's mandate for months, but the party’s Christian allies, Kataeb and Lebanese Forces, have been more reluctant to voice support for the measure.

The Free Patriotic Movement, the largest Christian-dominated party in rival camp, has explicitly rejected the extension.

“The available options today are either conducting parliamentary elections, which is impossible in terms of security and politics, or total void,” Fatfat said.

He reiterated the Future Movement’s argument that holding the elections will force the Cabinet to resign, and due to the absence of a president, it would not be possible to form a new cabinet.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has said both that he opposes an extension, but also opposes holding parliamentary elections in the absence of a president.

Lawmakers are expected to renew their mandate for another two years and seven months, after they extended it for 17 months in May 2013.

If the new extension draft law passes, the next parliamentary elections will take place in 2017, meaning the current lawmakers will have stayed in office for eight years, double their original four-year terms.

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Nasrallah offers support to Lebanon Army chief: report

BEIRUT: Hezbollah is ready to coordinate with the Army to protect Lebanon's borders, party chief Hasan Nasrallah had told Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi, according to a report published Thursday.

Al-Akhbar newspaper reported that Nasrallah extended the offer of support to Kahwagi during a meeting between the two several weeks ago.

Hezbollah is willing to defend the Lebanese border in the south, the north, and the east, alongside the Lebanese Army, Nasrallah was cited as telling the Army commander.

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Lebanon received jihadists' demands for hostage release: Abu Faour

BEIRUT: The government has received some demands of jihadists holding 27 Lebanese servicemen hostage near the northeast border town of Arsal, Health Minister Wael Abu Faour said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters before entering a Cabinet meeting in downtown Beirut, he said negotiations to secure the hostages' release were on the right track.

"We have received some of the demands of the kidnappers ... and thing are going well," he said, adding that the process will take some time.

He did not specify what the demands were, in line with the government's policy of discretion over the matter.

But it has been widely reported that the jihadists from the Nusra Front and ISIS are calling for the release of Islamist prisoners in exchange for the hostages, taken during a five-day battle with the Army in August.

The families of the hostages briefly blocked the northern entrance of Beirut Wednesday over the government's failure to show progress in the case.

Abu Faour, who has been tasked with keeping dialogue with the families, convinced them to reopen the road after assuring them that negotiations were progessing.

Families of the hostages Wednesday had also blocked the Qalamoun highway linking Beirut and Tripoli for nearly a day before repoening it Thursday morning.

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Lebanon’s Arabic Press Digest - Oct. 23, 2014

A selection of stories from Lebanese newspapers that may be of interest for Daily Star readers.

As-Safir

FM: Europe seeking to turn Lebanon into a “refugees’ state”

Lebanon, which is hosting over 1.3 million Syrian refugees, is being pressured by European countries to sign the 1951 Geneva convention on the status of refugees, a trap aimed at settling the refugees permanently, daily As-Safir said.

Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil raised the issue ahead of a meeting that he and Prime Minister Tammam Salam would attend in Berlin next week to discuss the plight of Syrian refugees.

Bassil warned that European countries were trying to “dictate” on Lebanon to sign the convention in an attempt to make it a “country for refugees” and force it to keep the refugees for many years and provide them with certain privileges, which is beyond its capacity and would have a detrimental effect on its economy and demography, the newspaper said.

Lebanon, which is already under the weight of some 350,000 Palestinian refugees, is not a signatory to the convention which defines refugee status, their rights and the legal obligations of the hosting state.

Al-Akhbar

Jumblatt: “I fear for the fate of Greater Lebanon”

Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblatt said in an interview with Al-Akhbar newspaper that the fate of Lebanon as we know it today is at stake, after the country has become directly involved in the raging Syrian conflict.

“One party blaming the other that terrorism would not have reached Lebanon if it wasn’t for [Hezbollah's] involvement in Syria is not useful. What all parties need to do is to safeguard Greater Lebanon,” Jumblatt said.

The PSP leader said he conditioned his bloc’s approval to extend the Parliament’s mandate on an agreement to elect a president as soon as possible, after which general elections would be held.

He stressed, however, that he did not preview an imminent presidential poll. “No regional changes favorable to Lebanon would take place in the current phase and that is why we are heading towards the crisis to extend Parliament's term and prolonging the (presidential) vacuum,” he said.

An Nahar

Parliament mandate’s extension on hot burner

The Parliament’s mandate would be extended for two years and seven months under the title of “imperative prolongation” at a plenary session to be held by Nov. 10 at the latest, An Nahar newspaper said, citing parliamentary sources.

The draft bill would include a justification for the prolongation and a clause stating clearly that once a president is elected and agreement reached over a new electoral law, the general poll would be held immediately, the sources said.

Army wounds n.Lebanon man accused of killing captive

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army clashed with gunmen during an early morning raid Thursday on an apartment in north Lebanon, killing one and wounding another who is suspected of executing a soldier held captive by Islamist militants.

A security source identified the wounded man as Ahmad Salim Mikati, accused by authorities of beheading Lebanese soldier Ali Sayyed while being held by the extremist group ISIS.

The identity of the dead gunman was not immediately revealed.

The source said the apartment in the Dinnieh town of Asoun, north Lebanon, was inhabited by Lebanese and Syrian gunmen wanted by authorities.

Sayyed was the first of three Lebanese soldiers to be executed by Islamist militants holding at least 27 servicemen hostage since the jihadists briefly took over the northeastern border town of Arsal in August, engaging the military in five days of fierce battles.

As the militants withdrew they took at least three dozen Lebanese soldiers and policemen hostage in an attempt to swap them with Islamist inmates held at Roumieh Prison.

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Another Man Jumps White House Fence, But Is Stopped On The Lawn

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Secret Service respond on the North Lawn of the White House after a man jumped the White House fence Wednesday night. The Secret Service apprehended the man who jumped over the White House fence. This latest incident comes about a month after a previous White House fence jumper sprinted across the lawn, past armed uniformed agents, and entered the mansion. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Secret Service respond on the North Lawn of the White House after a man jumped the White House fence Wednesday night. The Secret Service apprehended the man who jumped over the White House fence. This latest incident comes about a month after a previous White House fence jumper sprinted across the lawn, past armed uniformed agents, and entered the mansion.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

A month after a man armed with a knife leapt the White House fence and got deep into the first floor of the building, another man made a run across the north lawn Wednesday night.

His unannounced visit ended much sooner. NPR's Tamara Keith reports via secret service spokesman Ed Donovan that security dogs — which weren't deployed Sept. 19 when Omar Gonzalez trespassed — brought him down while he was still on the lawn. The apprehended man is being transported to a hospital for evaluation, Donovan said in a release.

U.S.

How Can The Secret Service Recover Its Reputation?

The earlier intrusion resulted in the Oct. 1 resignation of Secret Service director Julia Pierson, who herself had only been on the job since 2013, when she replaced the retiring director following a scandal involving agents and prostitutes in Colombia.

Justice Ginsburg Revises Texas Voter ID Dissent, Then Announces It

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In her revised dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg clarified that photo ID cards issued by the Veterans' Affairs are "an acceptable form of photo identification for voting in Texas." Cliff Owen/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Cliff Owen/AP

In her revised dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg clarified that photo ID cards issued by the Veterans' Affairs are "an acceptable form of photo identification for voting in Texas."

Cliff Owen/AP

Once again the U.S. Supreme Court is correcting its own record, but Wednesday marks the first time that the court has called attention to its own mistake with a public announcement. And it was the erring justice herself, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked the court's public information office to announce the error.

Last Friday Ginsburg pulled an all-nighter to write a dissent from the court's decision to allow the Texas voter ID law to go into effect while the case is on appeal. The dissent, released Saturday at 5 a.m., and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, listed a variety of photo ID forms not accepted for purposes of voting under the Texas law. Among those listed in the Ginsburg dissent as unacceptable was a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs photo ID.

Three days after the opinion was released, professor Richard Hasen of the University of California, Irvine said on his election law blog that the state does in fact accept the Veterans Affairs IDs. Upon confirmation of that fact by the Texas secretary of state's office, Ginsburg amended her opinion.

Not surprising. What was surprising is that, according to Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, Justice Ginsburg instructed the press office to announce that the opinion had "contained an error" and that it was being corrected.

On Wednesday, the court announced the mistake and the correction.

Texas Can Enforce Voter ID Law For November Election Oct. 18, 2014

The Two-Way

Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce Voter ID Law For Nov. Election

Errors of this sort are not exactly rare. In this case, it appears that Ginsburg may have gotten the Wisconsin and Texas voter ID provisions, both before the court, mixed up.

Until the era of the blogosphere, however, this sort of mistake was the stuff of academic gossip. Now it is the stuff of academic blogs, which sometimes get picked up in the popular press. A more embarrassing mistake by Justice Antonin Scalia was caught by Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus last spring; the error was quickly fixed, but it was not announced. Nor was another error made and corrected by Justice Kagan.

Ginsburg is the first justice to call the public's attention to her own mistake.