Bible Quotation for today/Warning against Boasting
James 04/13-17: "Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.”  You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.  What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong. So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for April 13/13

President Michel Suleiman Signs Draft Law Suspending Nominations Deadline until May 19
Naharnet/President Michel Suleiman signed Friday a draft law suspending the deadline for submitting nominations for the parliamentary elections until May 19.
The draft law was referred to the president on Wednesday after it was approved by parliament. The session, headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, was attended by all political blocs, except the National Struggle Front of MP Walid Jumblat. Independent MPs Butros Harb and Nicolas Fattoush voiced their objection to the parliament's decision. The draft law calls for setting the deadline for submitting nominations to three weeks before the elections date, reported MTV. It also allows candidates who seek to withdraw their nominations to do so two weeks before the polls, said LBCI television. Suleiman announced on Twitter that he will sign the law to "allow the approval of a modern electoral law based on proportional representation." "Returning the law to parliament will lead to the uncontested win of the candidates (who have already submitted their requests) given the fact that the deadline is approaching and we might not be able to approve a new law," Suleiman explained. “Signing the law and issuing it do not prevent examining whether it is compatible with the democratic principles and the articles of the Lebanese constitution,” the president added. Prior to the session, Berri held a series of phone calls and meetings at his office to set the stage for consensus on the required amendments of articles in the 1960 electoral law.
Jumblat had informed Berri in a meeting of his rejection to suspend the deadlines set by the 1960 law. An initial agreement to suspend the deadlines to May 19 was reached on Tuesday at a meeting held by parliament's bureau and attended by caretaker Premier Najib Miqati, lawmakers from the Lebanese Forces and the Phalange, and Marada movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh.

Lebanon/March 8 Dismayed by Leak of Alleged Technocrat Cabinet Lineup
NaharnetظThe March 8 forces on Friday voiced dismay after media reports said Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam intends to form a small, technocrat cabinet and after the names of its alleged members were leaked.
“Salam has not communicated with the March 8 forces since the end of consultations at al-Nejmeh Square,” NBN television reported. Meanwhile, al-Manar television quoted Free Patriotic Movement sources as saying that “given the leaked information and the non-neutral candidates, this cabinet can be described as a 'cabinet of ghosts.'"And as al-Manar said "Salam did suggest a 14-minister cabinet" during talks with President Michel Suleiman, it quoted Baabda sources as saying that "it's too early to approve a de facto cabinet line-up and the call for (national) dialogue will happen after forming a new cabinet.""Discussions with Suleiman only tackled the cabinet's shape, which has not yet been decided, and we categorically deny the alleged leaks," Salam's sources told al-Manar.Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, ex-Minister Jean Obeid, former Minister Ziad Baroud, Raed Sharafeddine, former MP Nasser Nasrallah, Bahij Abou Hamze, Nicolas Nahhas and Mohammed al-Mashnouq are among the names that are being considered for the new government, according to several local newspapers.
Change and Reform bloc MP Nabil Nicola criticized the leaked lineup during an interview on OTV.“If technocrat means that the minister should be totally neutral, I think the political affiliation of some of the published names is very well-known,” Nicola said, in an indirect reference to Abou Hamze, who is close to Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat. A war of words had erupted between Jumblat and the FPM after the Druze leader said he rejects reallocating the telecom and energy portfolios to FPM ministers in the new cabinet. Salam was over the weekend tasked by Suleiman with forming the cabinet after he received the support of 124 out of 128 MPs in two days of binding consultations that the president held at Baabda palace. The March 8 forces have called for forming a political, national unity cabinet while the March 14 forces have called for forming a neutral, technocrat cabinet. And while Salam has said that he is seeking a cabinet to oversee the parliamentary polls that does not contain MP hopefuls, Jumblat has reassured March 8 that he will not vote for a one-sided government.

14 Charged with Shooting at Army, Smuggling Arms in Ain Zhalta
Naharnet/State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged on Friday a number of Lebanese for their involvement in the recent attempt to smuggle arms in the Shouf area of Ain Zhalta. He charged 14 Lebanese with shooting at the army and smuggling arms in the region. Six of the suspects are in custody, while the remaining eight are accused of firing at the army and they are still at large.
On Sunday, the army issued a communique revealing that it thwarted an attempt to deliver arms to “extremists” in Ain Zhalta. A gunman was killed and eight others were arrested, while a soldier and a member of the armed group were wounded, said the statement. According to the Army Command the armed men were arrested overnight Saturday. The seized cache of arms contained "heavy-, medium- and light-caliber weapons and a large quantity of ammunition of various types," it added.

Syria Islamist Rebels Reject Qaida Allegiance Vow
Naharnet /A major coalition of Islamist rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad has denounced al-Nusra Front's pledge of allegiance to al-Qaida, urging insurgents to unite behind moderate Islam.
"When we in Syria launched our jihad (holy war) against the sectarian regime, we did not do so for the sake of allegiance to a man here or another there," said the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) in a statement late on Thursday.It also rejected "imposing anything on (Syria's) fighters and the people that they were not willing" to accept, said the statement posted on Facebook.The SILF comprises some 20 rebel groups, and is represented in the mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army's command council.It includes Liwa al-Tawhid, Suqour al-Sham, Liwa al-Islam and the Farouk brigade, which are among the opposition's most prominent insurgent forces.
The statement followed a raging debate among rebels and activists over a surprise announcement by al-Nusra leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani of allegiance to al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"We have no need for imported ideologies or a new understanding of Islam," said the SILF, in an unequivocal attack on al-Qaida extremism."We should not be chasing power or positions," it added, criticizing al-Nusra for "putting the cart before the horse" by prematurely adopting a call for an Islamic state in Syria.It also lashed out against a reported merger of al-Nusra with al-Qaida's Islamic State in Iraq, announced by the latter's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.The group was "surprised and dismayed" at Baghdadi's statement, said the SILF, saying it learned of it "through the media"."It does no service to our people or to our (Islamic) nation to pledge allegiance to those who know nothing about our reality, while most of our cities are occupied (by Assad's forces) and criminality continues to rage," it said.
The SILF also said the recent announcements only serve to "sow conflict and dissension among fighters' ranks at a difficult time", and that insurgents should "unite... under the flag of moderate Islam."
Agence France Presse

Salam's Small, Homogeneous Cabinet to Put him on Collision Course with March 8
Naharnet/Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is seeking the quick formation of a small cabinet of around 16 members taking the Baabda Declaration as the policy statement, which will certainly put him at loggerheads with the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance.Informed sources told several local newspapers that Salam is determined to form the small government whose members are not candidates in the parliamentary elections.
The sources said Salam rejects giving portfolios to ministers with bad reputation or people with no experience in the public sector.He agreed with President Michel Suleiman during a meeting they held at Baabda palace on Thursday that the presence of women in the new cabinet was necessary, they said. Both Salam and Suleiman had a united stance in forming a small cabinet whose members should not be parliamentary candidates given that its main mission will be to supervise the elections, the sources added. Among the names that are being considered for the new government are caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, ex-Minister Jean Obeid, former Minister Ziad Baroud, Raed Sharafeddine, former MP Nasser Nasrallah, Bahij Abou Hamze, Nicolas Nahhas and Mohammed al-Mashnouq.Salam, who has rejected granting any party a blocking third or veto power and wants a homogeneous government which can be productive, will put him in a collision course with March 8, whose main members – Hizbullah, Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement – have called for a national unity cabinet.
The alliance has also stressed the importance of commitment to “the People, Army, Resistance” Equation in the government's policy statement.Salam was over the weekend tasked by Suleiman with forming the cabinet after he received the support of 124 out of 128 MPs in two days of binding consultations that the president held at Baabda palace.

Man Killed as Gunmen Attack Cafe in Tripoli's Abi Samra
Naharnet /A man was killed on Friday when unknown attackers opened fire at a cafe in the Tripoli neighborhood of Abi Samra, state-run National News Agency reported. “Two young men on a motorcycle opened fire at a cafe in Abi Samra, which left Yehia Hassoun wounded,” NNA said. Hassoun was rushed to al-Mazloum Hospital where he soon died of his wounds, it added. Security forces arrived on the scene and launched an investigation into the incident, the agency reported.Meanwhile, al-Jadeed television said the shooting broke out near Friends Cafe, which triggered a fire that gutted the coffee shop and left two people wounded, one of whom died later of his wounds.Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said “Hassoun died of wounds incurred in an armed ambush after an attempt to kidnap him, which prompted gunmen to deploy in Abi Samra and the army to close all roads leading to the area."

Qabbani: Higher Islamic Council Elections to be Held Despite Withdrawal of Candidacies
Naharnet /Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani stressed on Friday that a new Higher Islamic Council will be elected on Sunday, denying reports on any postponement, As Safir daily quoted him as saying.
“There will be no backing down on calls to elect a new Higher Islamic Council according to the norms and applicable laws,” stressed the Mufti in an interview with the daily. The HIC elects the mufti and organizes the affairs of Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon’s top Sunni religious authority.On reports that some candidates have withdrawn their candidacies, Qabbani considered it as a “democratic practice,” but did not rule out that the withdrawals could be intentional to obstruct the elections.“There is a political machine to disrupt the electoral process and retain the current council,” he said.“A political party is standing behind this game, and pressuring people to withdraw their candidacies,” he pointed.The Mufti slammed critics that he doesn't have the right to call for the elections of the Islamic Council and said: “The call for elections is the jurisdiction of the Mufti in accordance with the provisions of Decree 18/1955.”Moreover he criticized claims that he intends to extend his term, saying: “I did not seek that from the beginning. I will not stay one more minute after my term is over. This hypothesis is used by some to mislead people.”He assured that he will always work for Lebanon's interest.Divisions within Dar al-Fatwa began to surface last year when the 32-member council extended its own term until the end of 2013, a move Qabbani argues as illegal. The mufti refuses to hold or join any meetings at Dar al-Fatwa and called last month for elections of council members to be held on April 14.Last year, the Shura Council suspended a call for the elections after 21 HIC members, who are close to ex-Premier Saad Hariri's al-Mustaqbal movement, filed a challenge against Qabbani's invitation to hold the polls.

Charbel Says up to Suleiman and Salam to Bring him Back to Cabinet
Naharnet/Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Friday that he would remain neutral in the political divisions in Lebanon and that it was up to President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam to bring him back to the new government.In remarks to Free Lebanon radio, Charbel said: “I haven't talked with PM-designate Tammam Salam about politics.”“I am neutral and I will stay that way whether I was in the government or not,” he said. Charbel stressed that the choice of giving him back the portfolio of the interior ministry was the job of Suleiman and Salam. His comment came after An Nahar daily published the names of possible candidates. Charbel's name was on the list. Asked about nine Lebanese pilgrims who have been held hostage by rebels in Syria since May 2012, Charbel said he would have brought them back to Lebanon a year ago had he been able to use force to free them.The caretaker minister said Turkey, which is mediating along with Qatar for the release of the pilgrims, “believes there is enough time to bring the file to closure.” “But for us there isn't enough time,” he said.Eleven Lebanese pilgrims were abducted on their way back home by land from Iran. Two of them were released last year but the rest remain held in the Syrian town of Aazaz in the northern province of Aleppo that lies near the Turkish border. Their families have been lately stopping Syrian workers in Beirut from going to work in a bid to put pressure on those holding their relatives.The kidnapping was claimed by a man who identified himself as Abu Ibrahim and says he is a member of the rebel Free Syrian Army, but the opposition group denies any involvement in the abductions.

Fresh targeting of Syrians as hostages' fates remain unclear Pilgrims’ relatives step up the pressure
Now Lebanon/Relatives of the Lebanese hostages in Azaz have taken escalating steps to pressure the Syrian kidnappers to set their relatives free. These steps began with efforts to disrupt Syrians working in Lebanon by closing down their shops over the weekend, and are expected to continue by targeting Turkish interests in Lebanon in the upcoming days. Ever since the kidnapping of a busload of Lebanese pilgrims in Syria in May of last year, Syrian workers in Lebanon have been subjected to continuous threats and intimidation in retribution for the pilgrims’ disappearance.Over the weekend, relatives of the hostages in Azaz closed down shops belonging to Syrians in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hassan, a Syrian living in Hay el-Sellom and who runs a retail shop there, tells NOW that the families closed down over 30 retail shops Friday, leaving messages on the store fronts with their signatures on it.Some of the messages, he says, read “not until my father returns, or else go back to your own country” another said “it is forbidden for these shops to open until the return of pilgrims from the holy land,” and other shops featured huge scrawled “X” marks on it. “We shut our shops all day Friday up until Sunday,” he said “and in support of their case we also held gathered and held banners Sunday afternoon saying that we, the Syrian people and the Lebanese are one, and that we also hope for the Lebanese pilgrims safe return.” He stressed “it is neither our fault nor theirs; neither of us should be paying the price of what is happening inside Syria.”Hassan also mentioned that as the Syrians responded to the families' warnings and requests there was no presence for any security forces at the scene to either protect them or to stop the families.
An ISF source who spoke to NOW on condition of anonymity said that the internal security forces have not been asked to treat these threats and intimidations because the issue is being treated “politically.” The source explained that Lebanon’s Interior Minister is following up on these cases with the delegated ministerial committee and that the security developments that have resulted have been achieved through political connections.
Eleven Lebanese Shiites were kidnapped in the Azaz region of Aleppo, northern Syria, as they returned home from pilgrimage in Iran last year. Two have been released since; the fate of the remaining nine is yet unknown. A Syrian rebel leader, identified as Abu Ibrahim, who is allegedly the head of the Azaz Northern Storm Brigade, has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Last month, during the Arab League summit in Doha, President Michel Suleiman held talks with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani over the case of the pilgrims. He also met with the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, on the sideline and urged Ankara to exert “every effort within its means” to secure their release.
Hajeh Hayat, the mother of one of the kidnapped pilgrims, tells NOW that the Lebanese authorities have been giving them empty promises and that they have not been able to proceed with the case.
“We have no information about the development in the case,” he says “and it is only when we escalate that we feel we urge them to make a move.”
She also blamed Turkey for the abduction and said it has an important role to play in securing the release of the pilgrims. For that the relatives also plan to target Turkish interests so as to put pressure on Turkish authorities.
“We plan to target Turkish interests in the country,” she says. “We will hold a gathering in Martyrs Square soon because of its symbolic [value]…. This will be followed by more steps that would unfold in the next two days mainly involving boycotting Turkish products.”As for the events in Hay el-Sellom she explains that the families are closing shops of Syrians because they are being provoked by their very presence among them.
“They are continuing on with their lives and it is provoking us that they continue to buy and sell their products unaffected,” she said, “But they are not our main problem. Once the pilgrims are released they can open their shops again. It is just a spontaneous reaction

Salam seeks small “elections cabinet”
Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon
Prime minister-designate’s vision of cabinet closer to March 14’s than March 8’s
Having concluded two days of high-level consultations with each of Lebanon’s major political parties Wednesday evening, prime minister-designate Tammam Salam now faces the crucial task of appointing the members of his cabinet. As was already apparent before Salam was formally designated PM Saturday, this process is fraught with difficulty owing to the vastly divergent demands of the country’s opposing March 14 and March 8 coalitions, who continue to disagree even on the basic nature of the cabinet-to-be. Nevertheless, Salam has been forthright about his own vision for the government – which is noticeably, and somewhat controversially, closer to March 14’s than March 8’s – and appears determined to realize it, even threatening to resign if any parties prevent him from doing so.
In brief, March 14 has called for a neutral, non-partisan cabinet, while March 8 demands a partisan “national unity” cabinet representing all parties in proportion to their share of parliament. March 8’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) is also specifically seeking to retain control over the energy and telecom ministries; a prospect rejected by March 14’s Future Movement, which advocates a reshuffling of all portfolios.
Salam’s own preferences are markedly closer to March 14’s than March 8’s, whose “national unity” proposal he dismissed on the grounds that such cabinets have failed in the past. Like March 14, Salam advocates a strictly non-partisan and “non-provocative” cabinet whose “central task” would be to oversee the parliamentary elections scheduled for June this year. Accordingly, he also reportedly foresees a smaller cabinet – that is, one with fewer than thirty ministers. “I’m 100% sure it’s going to be an elections cabinet,” said Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement secretary-general Antoine Haddad. “And I’m also 100% sure that ministers will not be candidates for the elections,” he told NOW. As such, Haddad added the cabinet would be as small as is practicable. “My understanding is that it will be of 24 members.”
This was corroborated by a cabinet insider speaking to NOW on condition of anonymity, who added that “Salam expects the cabinet will only last about 6 months.”
Even so, a fierce battle is still expected over the appointments, especially to financially lucrative ministries. As NOW reported Thursday, the energy ministry in particular represents a significant financial opportunity given its control over untapped oil and gas reserves, and it is perhaps no coincidence that the ministry has already become a principal bone of contention between March 14 and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt on the one hand, and the FPM on the other.“My sense is that the energy and telecom ministries are the most strategically important,” Haddad told NOW. The finance ministry has also been singled out, with Future laying claim to it, prompting accusations from the FPM of corrupt intentions.NOW’s cabinet insider source said such wrangling over portfolios is ultimately driven by financial motives, “especially in an election season, when ministry funds can be diverted for patronage and campaigning purposes.”Haddad agreed, telling NOW that while it’s also a question of “prerogatives and authority…. the practice under the last government shows that it’s not so innocent. It’s also about financial interest, and using these resources to indirectly finance electoral campaigns, because you can provide services through these things. And this is one more reason why these ministries should be in the hands of those not running for elections.”Nor is this the only way in which electoral considerations are likely to shape the cabinet – indeed, they appear to permeate the debate at almost all levels, with Salam himself saying the only “obstacles” in his way are “related to the elections themselves.” One hypothesis making the rounds suggests March 8 may have granted concessions to March 14 on the cabinet’s make-up in order to secure concessions from them in turn regarding the longstanding dispute over electoral law – an assessment that Haddad described as “fair.”If so, the implication is that a cabinet will not be formed until an electoral law is agreed on. How long this will take remains unclear, though Haddad does not expect too lengthy a wait.“Salam has alluded in several different ways that he doesn’t want to lose momentum on this. I think he won’t take long.”

Prosecutor to investigate publishing of STL witnesses names
Now Lebanon/Lebanon’s Public Prosecutor Hatem Madi said he will do what it takes to reveal the identity of the people who published the list of alleged Special Tribunal for Lebanon witnesses on the internet in recent days.
“We will take all the [necessary] steps in order to know who published the names,” the National News Agency quoted Madi as saying on Friday. He also addressed the people whose names were mentioned on the list, by telling them they could file charges against the publishers.The names shown on the controversial list are purported witnesses in the case of the assassination of former Prime Minister and founder of the Future Movement Rafiq Hariri, whose killing on February 14, 2005 prompted the establishment of the STL. Earlier this week, a group calling itself “Journalists for the Truth” hacked the website of Future newspaper and briefly published the names of the alleged witness.On its website, Journalists for the Truth describes itself as “a group of journalists seeking to unveil corruption in the STL.” The group aims to “disclose information proving the role of STL senior officials in corruption and bribe cases, which eventually led to leaking of confidential material.” The group did not respond to an interview request NOW sent to the email address listed on its site.
Formally established on March 1, 2009, the STL has repeatedly been the subject of news reports based on alleged leaks concerning the investigation of Hariri’s murder, evidence in the prosecutor’s possession and witnesses who will supposedly be called to testify when the trial starts.

PSP official: Extending election deadlines ‘constitutional mistake’
Now Lebanon/General Secretary of the Progressive Socialist Party Zafer Nasser described to NOW the approval of the extension for election deadlines as a “grave error.”“This is a political mistake and might [also] be a constitutional mistake,” Nasser told NOW on Friday. He further elaborated his stance by explaining that if an electoral law is currently in effect, it can only be annulled by the adoption of another law.
“This move could lead to cancelling the elections if consensus is not reached on another electoral law,” the PSP official noted. On Wednesday, Lebanon’s parliament voted to extend election deadlines until May 19 as the scheduled June 9 parliamentary elections loom closer. The parliament session was headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, but was marked by the boycotting of PSP lawmakers who have expressed their rejection to an extension of the electoral deadlines. However, Nasser said that the relationship the PSP has with Berri will not be affected by the speaker’s decision to convene the parliament without the presence of the Druze party’s parliamentarians.
“Our relationship with Berri is strong and ongoing.”The PSP’s General Secretary also noted that his party is still in contact with the Future Movement, who voted in favor of extending the electoral deadlines.
Nevertheless, Nasser stressed that both the speaker and the Future Movement’s approval of the extension “went against the semi-agreement we had.”Lebanon’s politicians have been working to hammer out a deal that would tackle the issue of the fast-approaching technical deadlines on candidacy registration and other technical procedures.March 14 and PSP figures have expressed fears that a suspension of deadlines would cancel the 1960 law without an alternative in place. The electoral law deadlock was one of the catalysts that prompted Berri to call for a parliamentary session Wednesday in order to amend the upcoming parliamentary elections’ deadlines, including candidacy applications, withdrawal of candidacies and the election date. The only major political force in the country to register candidates for the elections so far has been the PSP. Elsewhere, Nasser reiterated that his party has “no pre-conditions whatsoever” for the new government that Premier-designate Tammam Salam is set to form. “We will facilitate the prime minister-designate’s task.”On Tuesday, the leader of the PSP Walid Jumblatt announced that he told Salam that the Druze party has no pre-conditions for a new government. The Sunni politician was nominated as PM-designate on April 6 with a nearly unanimous count of 124 votes after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati announced his resignation last month citing differences within his cabinet over electoral and security issues. This article is a translation of the original Arabic

Kerry Hits back as N. Korea Threatens Japan
Naharnet /U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Friday demanded North Korea abandon an expected missile launch as the communist state threatened a nuclear strike on Japan amid a chilling new evaluation of its offensive capability.Kerry, visiting Seoul to give fulsome U.S. backing to military ally South Korea, joined President Barack Obama in decrying North Korea's incendiary rhetoric -- and urged China to step in.
The air of crisis that has engulfed the region for weeks, since North Korea staged a rocket launch and atomic test, was given even greater menace from a U.S. intelligence report that said it may now have a nuclear warhead in its arsenal.U.S. and South Korean military officials downplayed the assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), but Pyongyang warned of the direst results if Japan executes its threat to shoot down any North Korean missile.The North's Korean Central News Agency said that such a "provocative" intervention would see Tokyo -- an enormous conurbation of 30 million people -- "consumed in nuclear flames"."Japan is always in the cross-hairs of our revolutionary army and if Japan makes a slightest move, the spark of war will touch Japan first," KCNA said in a commentary.
Unbowed, an official at Japan's Defense Ministry told AFP that the country "will take every possible measure to respond to any scenario", while Kerry warned that a North Korean missile launch would be a "huge mistake".
"The rhetoric that we are hearing from North Korea is simply unacceptable by any standards," he told a news conference in Seoul alongside South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se.
"The United States, South Korea and the entire international community... are all united in the fact that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power," Kerry added.
"If (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Un decides to launch a missile, whether it's across the Sea of Japan or any other direction, he will be choosing willfully to ignore the entire international community.
"It will be a huge mistake for him to do that because it will further isolate his country," Kerry said, adding that North Koreans want food, not a leader "who wants to flex his muscles". Kerry also that it was high time for China -- whose trade and aid have propped up North Korea since the end of the Cold War -- to intervene with its wayward ally if it truly wants to safeguard regional stability.
"China has an enormous capability to make a difference here," he said. Intelligence officials in Seoul say the North, as a show of force, has two mid-range missiles ready for imminent launch from its east coast, and South Korea and Japan remained on heightened alert for any test.Pyongyang has not officially announced plans for a launch, but a state body in charge of inter-Korean exchanges stressed Thursday that "powerful strike means" were in place. Observers believe a launch is most likely in the build-up to Monday's anniversary of the birth of late founder Kim Il-Sung, for which celebrations are already well under way in Pyongyang. The mid-range missiles mobilized by the North are reported to be untested Musudan models with an estimated range of up to 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers).That would cover any target in South Korea and Japan, and possibly even U.S. military bases on the Pacific island of Guam.Agence France Presse

The Obama delusion, Obama's silence on Syria will be a stain on his legacy
Michael Young/Daily Star
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/the-obama-delusion
One still marvels at the self-delusion of the Norwegian Nobel Committee when it decided in 2009 to bestow the peace prize on President Barack Obama.
The decision was a backhanded swipe at George W. Bush more than an acknowledgment of Obama’s qualities. At the time the new president was only nine months into his first term and had done relatively little of consequence. But for the Nobel Committee, it was necessary to show that the world expected Obama to be very different than his predecessor (and the committee’s implicit identification of itself with “the world” surely displayed Nobel-standard hubris).
Now, with Obama in the early months of his second term, we can see how wrong the committee was. Yes, Obama is hardly a warmonger, and has definitely broken with the Bush style. But in praising the president’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the committee was thinking of a dynamic internationalism built on laws and activist institutions, where resolutions of global problems demanded commitment from a United States working with myriad partners.
But as Obama showed, being different than Bush hardly means meeting the expectations of a panel of idealistic Scandinavians. Instead, the president has, at best, proven himself to be an amoral minimalist, seemingly unresponsive to human rights abuses and international law, for whom internationalism means that the world should do more so that the United States can do less, as it rebuilds its economy and focuses on gay marriage and gun-control legislation.
Obama has substantial backing at home for this approach. Americans, after a decade of military involvement overseas, have had enough. They prefer to look inwards and wrestle with domestic priorities. Recall that this same insular impulse undermined George H. W. Bush’s re-election bid in 1992, as voters turned against a president more taken by foreign affairs than by American pocketbooks.
Bush could have defended himself by saying that wrapping up the Cold War and removing the Iraqi army from Kuwait necessitated a rather longer attention span than most Americans were willing to concede to overseas matters. When Bill Clinton insisted that “it’s the economy, stupid!” Americans liked what they heard. And when Clinton’s eight years ended, they thought they had found in George W. Bush someone similarly preoccupied with internal issues.
Bush, of course, proved otherwise. But even those who consider him a yahoo don’t realize that the president functioned mainly through international institutions and multilateral contact groups for much of his tenure, particularly in the Middle East. Other than Iraq, indeed because of Iraq, the president usually sought consensus in addressing regional problems. Whether it was the Iranian nuclear file, Palestinian-Israeli talks, the situation in Lebanon after Rafiq Hariri’s assassination, or Afghanistan, Bush was no unilateralist.
And to his credit, when the situation in Iraq began seriously deteriorating in 2006, Bush did not abandon the Iraqi population to a sorry fate. Yet this is precisely what Obama may soon do in Afghanistan, the “right war,” as he draws down American forces there. For all the high regard that people have for Obama, the president has seemed largely unperturbed by threats to peace in the world and the obstacles to collective international action.
Nowhere has this been more evident in Syria, which will one day be seen as a stain on Obama’s legacy. From the start of the conflict, the president has refused to take a lead in fashioning an international response to the conflict. The United Nations has been deadlocked, and Obama has done nothing to break this deadlock. Well over 70,000 people have been killed by a barbaric regime, most of them civilians, yet Obama has not even managed a stirring speech on their tragedy. The president once said that Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons were a red line for the United States, and yet he has been largely silent on the Syrian government’s refusal to allow a UN team into the country to ascertain if such weapons were used.
Obama is not truly interested in what is going in the world, and the impact on America’s credibility. He is a detached leader on matters that do not involve Americans. Remember how the president was once viewed as having a global cultural sensibility, with his African father and his time spent in Indonesia as a boy? The reality is quite different. Obama is the man we feared George W. Bush would be: stubbornly unwilling to involve himself in the tribulations of other nations, even if this means abandoning American values.
Underpinning all this is Obama’s failure to formulate a cohesive foreign policy strategy. The president has been good at making loud pronouncements that lead to inaction. There is no sense that he has an integrated, overriding philosophy for dealing with the world. A realist, he has nonetheless skirted issues harming American interests. His secretaries of state have been competent managers, but not people of imagination and vision, who take the long view of foreign policy and tie this into America’s identity as a global actor. What are the sources of American conduct? The Norwegian Nobel Committee didn’t ask the question, perhaps because they too readily assumed that the answer reflected their own preferences. But the fact is that Obama himself has never answered what America must stand for, so reluctant has he been to be tied down with absolutes.
What crises that appear, the president prefers to sidestep, his high rhetoric concealing the fact that he’s escaping through the back door. Some call this prudence. Others regret a United States for whom evasion has been elevated to the level of a virtue. All pay a price for the instability left by an unwilling America.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon. He tweets @BeirutCalling

Syria’s jihadist front
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon
Al-Qaeda’s messages raise more doubts in the West
“Let your fight be in the name of Allah and with the aim of establishing Allah's sharia [law] as the ruling system. Do all that you can so that your holy war yields a jihadist Islamic state.” These words, spoken by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, were meant for jihadists fighting the Assad regime across Syria. The video message posted online last Sunday had immediate echoes in Iraq and Syria.
The leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also announced that jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been fighting alongside the Syrian armed opposition against Assad regime loyalist forces, is part of his network. The head of Jabhat al-Nusra pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in an audio message released yesterday, but distanced his group from claims it was part of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The messages were only stating the obvious, according to analysts, but they caused quite a stir among Syrian opposition factions and raised new concerns from Western governments that had been considering arming the Syrian rebels. Jabhat al-Nusra was formed by Syrian nationals who were once part of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi’s circle of jihadists that followed him in exile to Herat, Afghanistan, and back to Iraq after the invasion in 2001. The group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, presented himself as a veteran of al-Qaeda in Iraq and made no secret that he fought for the Islamic State of Iraq. His name hints that his origins are in the occupied Golan Heights.
The group has never hidden its al-Qaeda links, but have also never been this vocal about it. According to Dr. Alan Mendoza, Executive Director of the international affairs think tank The Henry Jackson Society, said that the statements made by the three al-Qaeda leaders are meant “to make [the West] very suspicious about the Syrian opposition.” He further explained that “the question that comes to one’s mind is ‘who are we actually supporting.’” For Mendoza, the series of messages and videos are a public relations stunt meant to discourage Western countries like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which have shown interest in arming the Syrian rebels.
“I think they want to influence this debate about interventionism. They are not supporting Western intervention, we’ve always known that. The liberal and democratic forces in the opposition are likely to be the beneficiaries of any Western foreign intervention. They probably want to cause as much confusion as they can in the Western minds. The West has been battling al-Qaeda for the past 12 years and the message is that ‘we intend to battle you for another 6 or 8 years in Syria,’” Mendoza said.
The statements coming from al-Qaeda leaders caused a stir in the Syrian National Coalition. "The Local Coordination Committees in Syria completely reject the statement by [Ayman al-]Zawahiri in which he called for the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria," said the LCC, a network of activists on the ground. The LCC made no mention of Jabhat al-Nusra's statement, while debate rages among activists over whether the powerful jihadists should be recognized as a legitimate part of Syrian revolutionary forces.
According to Ghassan Yassin, a member of the Syrian National Coalition based in Aleppo, the statements made by both Jabhat al-Nusra leadership and the Iraqi al-Qaeda are worrisome for the rest of the Syrian opposition. “The timing of this statement was very bad,” he told NOW. “Al-Qaeda never fought against regimes, it always had its own agenda. Al-Qaeda represents neither the revolution, nor the Syrian people. The Syrian people do not sympathize with Jubhat al-Nusra. We are religious, not fanatic. This is not part of our culture,” he pointed out.
Yassin also said that there is no official cooperation between the Syrian National Coalition and the Jabhat al-Nusra on the military level. “But we cannot deny that JN had many victories against the regime. [Their number] accounts for 10 percent of the Free Syrian Army, and they do not cooperate. We have been asking them for help at the humanitarian level [in Aleppo] and they also did not cooperate. They seem to work independently,” Yassin explained. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s Bassil Haffar, also a member of the Syrian National Coalition, also said the exchange of statement between Jawlani and al-Baghdadi “do not benefit the Syrian revolution at all.” However, he said he doesn’t believe that Jawlani is in any way related to Jabhat al-Nusra. “He is just the representative of one of the many jihadist movements in Syria. The National Coalition and Jawlani did not cooperate in the past,” Haffar stressed. Yassin doesn’t believe that there would be a military clash between the Free Syrian Army and the al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists, but he expects a political clash. “The international community needs to support the FSA more now, because we have two fights: one against the regime and one against the fundamentalism,” Yassin said.
Yara Chehayed contributed reporting and translating.Ana Maria Luca is on Twitter @aml1609.

North Korea reportedly warns Tokyo would be first target of nuclear attack
DEBKAfile Special Report April 12, 2013
US and Japanese sources reported Friday, April 12, that North Korea has warned Japan that Tokyo would be the first target if Pyongyang decided to launch a nuclear attack. This was in response to Japan’s orders to its armed forces to shoot down any North Korean missile that heads toward its territory. Taking the threat seriously, Japan has deployed Patriot interceptors around its capital.
Japanese defense officials refused to confirm reports about their naval alert saying they do not want to “show their cards” to North Korea.
On arrival in Seoul Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said: “We will stand with South Korea and Japan against these threats. And we will defend ourselves," he said. He rejected the Pentagon's assessment that Pyongyang had probably developed nuclear weapons which could be mounted on ballistic missiles, saying that North Korea had still not developed or fully tested the nuclear capabilities needed for this step.
The White House again insisted Friday that North Korea had not demonstrated a capability to deploy a nuclear-armed missile, evidently intent on having the last word in the debate with the Pentagon on this matter.
debkafile reported earlier Friday:
Friday, April 12, the US raised its nuclear alert status to DEFCON 3, Condition Yellow (out of 5 levels), stating “There are currently no imminent nuclear threats against the United States at this time, however the situation is considered fluid and can change rapidly.” Many believe that North Korea will launch their test missile on or about April 15. Japan has instructed its armed forces to shoot down any North Korean missile that heads toward its territory.
Contrary to comments from the White House Thursday, the Pentagon reported that “North Korea probably has nuclear weapons that can be mounted on ballistic missiles.” This is a very significant admission by the United States and a dangerous change to the Korean situation.
China has mobilized its military and is massing near the border with North Korea. This step was taken after North Korea placed a mid-range Musudan missile ready to launch on its east coast and its “dedication of more facilities at the Yongbon complex to nuclear weapons work.”
According to some sources in Washington, the Chinese military mobilization is not directed at deterring Pyongyang but as support for North Korea’s steps.
Late Thursday, Representative Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican, made a disquieting disclosure. He quoted an excerpt from a Defense Intelligence Agency report expressing “moderate confidence” in the finding that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles whose “reliability will be low.”
This disclosure raised a furor in the United States, bringing forth a White House response. The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, released a statement saying that the assessment did not represent a consensus of the nation’s intelligence community [16 agencies in all] and that “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.”
Pentagon press secretary George Little backed him up by saying: “It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Seoul Friday. After meeting South Korean leaders, he travels next to Beijing and Tokyo.
In his first comment on the Korean crisis, President Barack Obama said Thursday that now is the time for North Korea to end its belligerence. He said the United States will take ‘‘all necessary steps’’ to protect its people. But Obama also says that no one wants to see a conflict on the Korean Peninsula and would explore all diplomatic options for resolving the crisis.
Obama spoke alongside UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after the two met in the Oval Office.

Question: "How can we prevent our young people from losing faith?"

GotQuestions.org
Answer: This question highlights an unfortunate trend. As numerous recent books and studies have revealed, a large number of today’s youth are becoming disenchanted with the church. As a result, they are either leaving the church altogether or exploring other avenues to satisfy their spiritual appetites. And, contrary to what some may believe, more young people leave the church during their middle and high school years than will leave during their college years. Over 60 percent of young adults who attended church in their teens will ultimately become spiritually disengaged at some point during their twenties (The Barna Group).
Although the reasons behind this youthful exodus are many and varied, the answer to this epidemic is really quite simple. Our children need to fully understand that Scripture alone can give life and bring sanctification to a sinful soul, and only Scripture can equip us to discern truth from error. Yet, as the Apostle Paul aptly pointed out, how can they believe when they’ve not heard? (Romans 10:14). In a world in which there is a growing tide of hostility towards Christianity, we need to teach our children the Word of God and how to defend it (1 Peter 3:15). There are three places our children ultimately learn and develop their worldview and belief system: school, church, and home.
Beginning around age five, kids will spend the better part of two decades becoming educated. And public school systems, along with the colleges and universities they attend, continue to indoctrinate kids with the religious beliefs of humanists. Half a century ago, the United States Supreme Court recognized humanism as a religion. So, when the Bible and prayer were tossed out of public schools, they did not throw out religion. They simply replaced the Christian worldview with an atheistic one. As a result, practically everything a child learns in school about science and history has nothing to do with God. Everything is explained without any reference to our Creator. On the other hand, while kids are in school they are taught and expected to tolerate all beliefs, points of view, and different behavioral preferences. A sign at one college epitomizes this expected tolerance: “It is OK for you to think you are right. It is NOT OK for you to think someone else is wrong.” It should come as no surprise, then, that over 70 percent of young adults under the age 25 think all beliefs are equally valid.
Let’s look at the church, as this is certainly a place where the truth of God’s Word should be vigorously defended. Unfortunately, however, more and more churches are deviating from scriptural truth. The Apostle Paul warned us this would happen (2 Timothy 4:3). Discussing the church’s diminishing adherence to the hard truths of God’s Word, Charles Spurgeon had this to say: “There will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today…how is the world to be saved if the church is false to her Lord?” One theologian aptly commented in response: “We who love the Lord and His church must not sit by while the church gains momentum on the down-grade of worldliness and compromise. Men and women before us have paid with their blood to deliver the faith intact to us. Now, it is our turn to guard the truth. It is a task that calls for courage, not compromise. And it is a responsibility that demands unwavering devotion to a very narrow purpose.”
The development of a Christian foundation, then, must begin at home with the parents. Yet the truth is that, by the time the average child leaves for college at age 18, he or she will have never read the entire Bible (which can be read cover to cover in about 80 hours), and many will never have opened a Bible. Yet they will have watched roughly 21,000 – 30,000 hours of television, which will most definitely have played a significant role in developing their worldview.
The Bible tells us that children are a gift from God (Psalm 127:3). Even though we are their stewards for a relatively short time, our parental influence in their lives is significant, to say the least, and it is our responsibility to pass along our faith and values to them. In the Old Testament, Moses stressed to his people the importance of teaching children about the LORD and His commands, decrees, and laws: “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 11:19-20). And in the New Testament, parents are taught to raise their children in the “training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), as all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, training, and correcting (2 Timothy 3:16). Parents need to instill in their children a thoroughly Christian worldview so they understand that the only way to God is through Jesus Christ (John 14:6). This requires studying the Bible and a lot of hard work. For our children to be able to defend the Word of God (1 Peter 3:15), they need to know it well. The importance of teaching our children the truth of Scripture at an early age is put into perspective by this sobering statistic from Barna: only about 6 percent of people who are not Christians by age 18 will become Christians later in life. That frightening thought should reverberate deeply in the hearts of parents who aspire to have their children attain the eternal life that Jesus Christ died to give us. Jesus Christ said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall as it had its foundation on the rock” (Matthew 7:24-25). It is clear that the forces of our increasingly secular world will bring torrents of “rain” and “wind” into our children’s lives so as to turn their ears away from the truth. Christians are not surprised by this, as the Bible tells us this is going to happen to a greater degree as we draw closer to Christ’s return. The wise Solomon taught us to train our children in the way they should go and when they are old they will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6). Quite simply, it is imperative that we construct a Christian paradigm in our children’s hearts at a tender age.
Recommended Resource: You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church... and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman.
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