LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 06/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 14,25-33. Great crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and addressed them, If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, 'This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.' Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897), Carmelite, Doctor of the Church
Letter 197 of 17/09/1896 (©ICS publications)
"Everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple"

Dear Sister, how can you ask me if it is possible for you to love God as I love Him? ... My desires of martyrdom are nothing; they are not what give me the unlimited confidence that I feel in my heart. They are, to tell the truth, the spiritual riches that render one unjust, when one rests in them with complacence and when one believes they are something great... Ah! I really feel that... what pleases Him is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy .... That is my only treasure... Oh, dear Sister, I beg you... understand that to love Jesus... the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love. The desire alone to be a victim suffices, but we must consent to remain always poor and without strength, and this is the difficulty, for: "The truly poor in spirit, where do we find him? You must look for him from afar," said the psalmist. He does not say that you must look for him among great souls, but "from afar," that is to say in lowliness, in nothingness. Ah! let us remain then very far from all that sparkles, let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to look for us, and however far we may be, He will transform us in flames of love. Oh! How I would like to be able to make you understand what I feel! It is confidence, and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love. Does not fear lead to Justice? (To the severe justice that people show to sinners but not the justice Jesus will have for those who love him.) Since we see the way, let us run together. Yes, I feel it, Jesus wills to give us the same graces; he wills to give us his Heaven gratuitously.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
Lebanon's deal with Turkey sets a useful example for the Arab League-Daily Star 05/11/08
Technology could change Lebanese politics, too.By Marc J. Sirois 05/11/08

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 05/08
After historic win, Obama looks to future.Reuters
McCain Concedes-By: Frontpagemag.com
History in the Making .By: Jacob Laksin
Mideast welcomes Obama, but serious challenges remain-CNN
Belgium cuts down its UNIFIL troops in South Lebanon-Xinhua
Even UN admits Blue Line is not a border - Hizbullah-Daily Star
'We don't have to accept the Blue Line'-Jerusalem Post
Swedish judge bails Arab singer-BBC News
Swedish court releases Wassouf - for now-(AFP)
Ban hopes for 'quick progress' on controlling border with Syria-Daily Star
Vicious subtext to Syria raid-GulfNews
Bahrain may reopen Israel Boycott Office-Jersusalem Post
Police to probe Balad official for lauding Hezbollah's swap 'victory'-Ha'aretz
National dialogue set to begin with debate over who gets to have a say-Daily Star
Fatfat vows to take on issue of Islamist detainees-Daily Star
Sfeir says current situation 'not so good'-Daily Star
Both Obama, McCain will harm Lebanon - Nader-Daily Star
Tripoli terror cell linked to murder of Gemayel in 2007-Daily Star
Expectations low as national dialogue sessions set to resume at Baabda-(AFP)
Ban hopes for 'quick progress' on controlling border with Syria  after Beirut.-Daily Star
Salameh offers help for small, medium enterprises-Daily Star
Lebanese laws for juveniles 'good' on paper but 'poor' in practice-Daily Star
Beirut resident keeps pair of young crocodiles at his home-Daily Star
Into the olive groves and off the beaten tourism path-Daily Star

'We don't have to accept the Blue Line'
By BRENDA GAZZAR -Jerusalem Post
A Hizbullah official rejected the UN-demarcated Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel this week and laid claim to seven villages in northern Israel and "millions of square meters" that it says belongs to Lebanon.
Slideshow: Pictures of the week Hizbullah's international relations official Nawaf Moussawi said Monday that "we don't have to accept the Blue Line" as the border, claiming that it only symbolized the "line of withdrawal" by the Israeli army from south Lebanon in 2000.
The senior Hizbullah official also warned against considering the Blue Line valid as "Lebanon would lose millions of square meters of her national soil."
The UN published the border demarcation known as the Blue Line in June 2000 to determine whether Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon.
Moussawi made the comments as he was receiving foreign ambassadors in Lebanon, according to the NOW Lebanon news site.
While similar claims have been made by senior Hizbullah officials in the past, experts say it's interesting the statements were made in an international rather than domestic context. In addition, Moussawi also said that "Zionist terrorist organizations moved the border line from the 1920 line to a new line in 1923, and Lebanon lost its seven villages and 20 farms."
Moussawi is referring to seven Shi'ite villages in the area of the Upper Galilee that were included within Mandatory Palestine in a border demarcation treaty signed by France and Britain in 1923. While the first stage of demarcation included the seven villages in Lebanon, the final agreement between the two colonial powers shifted the boundary and excluded these seven Shi'ite villages, as well as about 20 others.
In 1948, the inhabitants of these seven villages were deported and became refugees in Lebanon. In 1994, following pressure from Hizbullah, they received Lebanese citizenship.
The international community recognizes these villages as a part of Israel.
"What is interesting for me, is that it's an international audience and [Mussawi] may have wanted to get some message across to this sort of audience," says Asher Kaufman, an Israeli scholar and a history professor at the University of Notre Dame. "It needs to be seen within the context as the exchange of inflammatory statements between Israel and Hizbullah, which has been going on now for some time."
Hizbullah's comments demonstrate its desire to find new avenues and modes of confrontation to replenish its bargaining power and its political relevance inside Lebanon, other experts say.
"They are playing with petty issues that no one in mainstream Lebanon cares about," said Magnus Ranstorp, a Hizbullah expert at the Swedish National Defense College. "They are creating an issue that is relatively insignificant, even if Israel withdrew from the Shaba Farms area, there would be the seven villages... There is always something else that they would manufacture."

Bahrain may reopen Israel Boycott Office
By MICHAEL FREUND -Jersusalem Post
Bahrain's parliament is pressing the Gulf Arab emirate's government to reopen the country's Israel Boycott Office, which was closed two years ago under pressure from Washington. Prior to its closure, the boycott office had overseen government efforts to bar entry to Israeli-made goods in accordance with the Arab League's economic and trade embargo against the Jewish state. At a meeting held late last week, the legislature's committee on foreign affairs, defense and national security also called for an end to all formal contacts with the Jewish state. "Now that the committee has agreed on reopening the office, we request the Foreign Ministry to support the decisions by the representatives of the people and to put an end to all forms of contact between Bahrain and the Zionist entity," committee chairman Adel al-Mouawda said, according to Gulf News.
"The authorities should also allow the re-opening of the Israel boycott office and ban any form of communication with the Zionist entity," he added, following a meeting with Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmad al-Khalifa.
The US and Bahrain signed a free trade agreement in September 2004. It was ratified by Congress in December 2005 and went into effect the following year once the Bahraini government finalized various changes to its trade legislation.
The US conditioned the deal on Bahrain's removal of restrictions on trade with the Jewish state, and Bahraini officials assured Washington that they would cancel the anti-Israel embargo and close down the Israel Boycott Office. But the move sparked opposition among Bahraini legislators, particularly among the sizable Islamist bloc in parliament, which has been outspoken in its criticism of any moves to normalize relations with Israel.
Speaking with The Jerusalem Post by phone from Manama, Bahraini MP Muhammad Yousef Yacoub al-Moz'il expressed support for the committee's efforts to clamp down on ties with the Jewish state. "The committee's decision is very welcome by us. The Zionist state should not have any access whatsoever to the world of the Arabs and Muslims, because any ties with them are helping them to kill the Palestinians," he said.
"The people of Bahrain do not welcome any ties with the Zionists," Moz'il added, before suddenly growing angry that he was speaking to an Israeli journalist. His voice rising perceptibly, Moz'il said, "I don't want to give any statement to any Israeli newspaper, because if you are from an Israeli newspaper then you share the responsibility for spilling the blood of Palestinians," he said before hanging up. Despite Bahrain's pledge to stop applying the boycott, there are indications that Manama continues to enforce it. According to a recent report issued by the US Congressional Research Service, US companies received 24 boycott-related requests from Bahrain in fiscal year 2007.

After historic win, Obama looks to future
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama pivoted on Wednesday from the glow of a historic White House victory to the daunting challenge of leading a country mired in a deep economic crisis and two lingering wars.
The day after a sweeping election triumph that will make him the first black president in U.S. history, Obama faced the task of quickly building a new administration and defining his priorities for the formal takeover on January 20.
"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there," Obama told more than 200,000 jubilant supporters in Chicago's Grant Park late on Tuesday.
Obama led Democrats to a decisive victory that expanded their majorities in both houses of Congress, as Americans emphatically rejected Republican President George W. Bush's eight years of leadership. Raucous street celebrations erupted across the country, but Obama has little time to enjoy the triumph. Once in office, he will face immediate pressure to deliver on his campaign promises and resolve a long list of lingering problems. Obama has vowed to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in the first 16 months of his term and to bolster U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, but his first task will be tackling the U.S. financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression. World leaders will gather in Washington on November 15 for a summit on the global financial meltdown. The White House has said it does not expect the president-elect to attend, but Obama has not yet stated his plans.
Reports released on Wednesday showed the U.S. private sector jobs market deteriorated rapidly in October and the service sector contracted sharply, highlighting the economic challenges for Obama. Appearing in the White House Rose Garden, Bush said he had spoken with Obama and congratulated him on an "impressive victory" that represented a "dream fulfilled" for civil rights. He pledged his cooperation in the transition."During this time of transition, I will keep the president-elect fully informed on important decisions," Bush said. Obama's planning for the takeover has been under way for weeks and he is expected to move quickly to fill positions such as Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State. Obama has reportedly asked Rahm Emanuel, a Democratic congressman from Illinois who served in former President Bill Clinton's administration, to lead his White House as chief of staff.
A QUIET MORNING
Obama's first morning as president-elect was spent in more prosaic duties. He had breakfast at home in Chicago with his two daughters, then headed to the gym for a workout. He planned a stop at campaign headquarters later to thank his staff. The son of a black father from Kenya and white mother from Kansas, Obama's triumph over Republican rival John McCain on Tuesday was a milestone that could help the United States move beyond its long struggle with racism.
Many world leaders welcomed his victory. Some hailed it as an opportunity to restore a tarnished U.S. image; others urged him to help forge a new economic order. "Your election has raised enormous hope in France, in Europe and beyond," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
Initial market reaction was muted. Analysts said Obama's victory had been largely priced in and concerns about the global economy were paramount. The dollar moved higher, recovering some of the previous session's heavy losses. Obama won at least 349 Electoral College votes, based on state voting, far more than the 270 he needed. With 96 percent of the popular vote counted, he led McCain by 52 percent to 46 percent.
Democrats gained at least five Senate seats and about 25 in the House of Representatives, giving them a commanding majority in Congress and strengthening Obama's hand. Four Senate seats remained undecided.
Americans celebrated in front of the White House to mark Obama's win and Bush's imminent departure. Cars jammed downtown Washington streets, with drivers honking their horns and leaning out their windows to cheer. Thousands more joined street celebrations in New York's Times Square and in cities and towns across the country. "This is a great night. This is an unbelievable night," U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who was brutally beaten by police in Alabama during a civil rights march in the 1960s, said at an Atlanta celebration. Allied governments said they hoped for closer cooperation with Washington, while critics of the United States called for changes. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spoke of hopes for stronger U.S.-Russian relations, but at the same time vowed retaliation for a U.S. missile-defense plan.
(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen and Ross Colvin)
(Editing by Kristin Roberts and Alan Elsner)

History in the Making

By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, November 05, 2008
THE MEDIA HOSANNAS went up long before Barack Obama, a.k.a. “the chosen one,” went through the formality of being chosen as the country’s 44th president. For months prior to Obama’s victory last night, Americans were told that this was a “historic election.” Swooning headlines celebrated Obama’s “flawless campaign” and his “epic march to the White House,” as if that destination had already been made official.
Those who thought election night might restore some semblance of sobriety to the national media would have been in for a disappointment. In preparation for the big night, MSNBC, increasingly a caricature of pro-Obama excess, unveiled a new motto – “Watch MSNBC, and experience the power of change” – eerily reminiscent of the Obama campaign’s stump slogans. All that was missing, Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters observed, was a voiceover from the nominee confirming, “I’m Barack Obama, and I approve this message.”
Something similar might have been said of the election-night coverage, whose tenor was unmistakably triumphalist. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, unafraid of hyperbole, likened Obama’s election to Nelson Mandela’s 1994 victory in post-apartheid South Africa, the first democratic elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even Iran’s election in 1997. (Which country the United States was supposed to represent Amanpour never made quite clear.) On Fox News, a tearful and overcome Juan Williams declared that this was not only a victory for Obama and the nation but also for “our children.” That the election of a new president might demand something more reflective than cheerleading and melodrama was a view with no sizable constituency among commentators.
To be fair, only the most hardened cynic would have been completely immune to the significance of the moment. The election of America’s first black president is indeed a “historic” occasion and a proper source of national pride. That fact is all the more impressive given that, 20 years after Jesse Jackson’s failed bid for the presidency, Obama ran a campaign largely free of racial demagoguery. And whatever one’s personal views of Obama, one couldn’t help but marvel at the prodigious political skills of a candidate who began as a newcomer and ended up as a symbol of inevitability itself – all within the span of a year.
It takes nothing away from Obama’s dizzying ascent to note that he benefited from a confluence of luck and good fortune unprecedented in recent political history. Defeats served him well. It was fortunate, in retrospect, that Obama lost a 2000 congressional primary race to Black Panther Bobby Rush. That setback allowed him to seek a Senate seat and thereby to rise to national fame as a speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It was fortunate, too, that so much of his bitterly contested primary battle with Hillary Clinton turned on Obama’s friendship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, among other unsavory associations. By the time the McCain campaign belatedly decided to make them an issue in the election’s closing weeks, much of their impact had been blunted by Democrats.
National disasters were anything but for the Obama campaign. Amid the meltdown of the markets this fall, Obama was only too happy to stand back and let an unnervingly erratic John McCain shake the public’s confidence in his capacity to lead. All this, moreover, occurred against the background of a political climate deeply unfavorable for Republican political prospects. Even the sole piece of truly bad luck for Obama – the tragic passing of his 86-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, on the eve of the election – somehow seemed to conform to the transcendent, quasi-mythical narrative that the Obama campaign had become. For all the idol-worship of his infatuated fan base, there truly were moments in the campaign when it seemed that the Illinois senator could do no wrong.
Now reality must intervene. With the longest campaign in memory finally over, it is only fair to ask: Who have Americans elected? Is it the candidate who vowed to meet “without preconditions” with the world’s dictators, suggesting that it was “ridiculous” to oppose such presidential-level diplomacy, or is it the cool exponent of realpolitik who insisted that all talks with America’s enemies must be carefully orchestrated by advisors? Is it the candidate who declared himself a supporter of “clean coal” technology, or the candidate who pledged to “bankrupt” coal companies with carbon taxes?
And how will a President Obama govern? Will he be the candidate who refuses to admit his error on the surge of troops in Iraq, and who promises to “end the war” on a political timeline, or will he become a foreign policy pragmatist who will heed the advice of commanders on the ground? Will he act like the candidate who calls the national debt a “domestic enemy” and promises tax relief for the middle class, or the candidate who would swell the debt by $3.5 trillion and redistribute wealth to the 40 percent of households that pay no income taxes at all? Will he live up to his billing as the “post-racial” candidate, or is the country in store for a painful four years in which to disagree with the new president is to be suspected of the oldest hatred? Nothing in Obama’s record suggests an obvious answer.
This is not entirely the president elect’s fault. No small measure of the blame must go to a media that too often acted as a de facto amplifier for the Obama campaign, raking John McCain over the coals for every perceived slight to its preferred candidate and abandoning any pretence to objectivity. If, on the morning after, voters know little about Obama other than the “historic” nature of his triumph, the media’s embarrassingly slanted coverage surely is one reason why. Barack Obama has made history. But the most pressing question remains: Where will he go from here?
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Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine. His e-mail is jlaksin [@] gmail.com.