LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
DECEMBER 27/2006Bible Reading of the day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10,17-22. But beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
Free Opinions
Iran and Us! Jameel Theyabi Al-Hayat - 27/12/06
Latest news from Miscellaneous Scources for December 27/06
Cluster Bombs Injure 5 in Lebanon-Washington Post
Little Festive Cheer In Beirut As Business Suffers-Playfuls.com
Arrested Iranians Linked to Group which Trains Hizbullah; Report-Naharnet
Mufti Juzo: Hezbollah using Mafia tactics in Lebanon-Ya Libnan
Christians Celebrate Christmas with Hopes for an End to Ordeal-Naharnet
Syria plans regional conference on Iraq -US senator-Reuters
Syria Sentences Seven Activities To Up To 8 Years In Prison-Playfuls.com
Israeli spies divided over Syria's peace overtures-Scotsman
UN New Secretary General Considers Lebanon and Darfur Top ...Sudanese Media Center
Olmert Says He Wants to Renew Peace Talks with Syria-Voice of America
Fouad Saad: We have reached a dead end in Lebanon-Ya Libnan
Court says Saddam to hang within 30 days - AP
Ethiopia claims 1,000 Islamists killed - APLebanese Sunni Mufti Al-Jouzo: Hezbollah Resorts to Mafia Tactics to Impose its Will
December 25, 2006 – Agencies.-(Translated from Arabic)
The Sunni Mufti of Mount Lebanon Province, Sheikh Mohammad Ali Al-Jouzo, issued the following statement:
Save Lebanon from the Mafia. Save Lebanon from those who are acting to hijack Lebanon and place it under the control and influence of Iran and Syria. Save Lebanon from those who are serving Israel and America by spreading constructive chaos on the soil of Lebanon. Since kidnapping the two Israeli soldiers, Lebanon has become hijacked to the benefit of the Iranian-Syrian forces that have sowed destruction, economic collapse and social, political and moral perdition in the land of Lebanon.
The Syrian influence is represented by the Head of State who continues to obstruct the State’s institutions, including Parliament, and who is acting to obstruct the government to the point of complete paralysis. Isn’t that the method of the Mafia? Under the slogan of national unity, they strike at that unity by exploiting it for sectarian purposes, as they dealt a blow to Islamic unity by using it as a slogan for their sectarian practices. Under the slogan of a national unity government, they attacked national unity and divided and tore apart the Lebanese people. They incited for sectarian and religious strife, and they want to deal a fatal blow to the International Court by voiding it of its legal and judicial substance in order to save the Syrian and Lebanese big wigs who carried out the assassination of Premier Hariri.
Save Lebanon from the Mafia. Hezbollah is resorting to Mafia-style methods to impose its will on the Lebanese people. For one and a half year, Hezbollah was an essential partner in the government that resulted from a national consensus and national unity. Hezbollah has today turned against the government and created a huge problem for the country under the pretense of a new national unity government.
Today they issue threats of closing the road to the airport, the road to the harbor, and civil disobedience, and here the issue tramples the laws that allow demonstrations to strike at Lebanon and carry out a coup against the State. Therefore, the State must act as the State in the fullest sense of the word, and the Army must play its role to prevent the coup that the Mafia is scheming in Lebanon.Christians Celebrate Christmas with Hopes for an End to Ordeal
Lebanon's Christians celebrated Christmas Day with wishes from Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir that efforts by the international community would help find a fair settlement to the ongoing political crisis and urged rival leaders to salvage Lebanon from its "ordeal."
In his Christmas Day address, Sfeir hoped that the international community would help find "swift, balanced and peaceful settlements for Lebanon and the Middle East." "I pray to God to inspire the (Lebanese) leaders to pass through the right track (in order) to get our country out of its ordeal," Sfeir added at the mass in the Saydit church in Bkirki. Under the title "Don't be Frightened," Sfeir also urged pro- and anti-government leaders to direct their attention to the "welfare of this country." Sfeir chaired the central mass in Bkirki which was attended by several cabinet ministers and parliament members in the absence of President Emile Lahoud. Sfeir wondered why "matters don't get straight here! Isn't it because the greedy want to share power and (benefit) from what that power hauls behind from wealth and influence to prestige?"
The Majority March 14 coalition that supports the government of Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has accused the Hizbullah-led Opposition of seeking to block an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and related crimes.
The March 14 camp blames the crimes on Syria.
The opposition demands a new unity government with greater representation, ensuring veto power, to organize parliamentary elections on the basis of a new electoral law to be followed by presidential elections. The anti-Syrian camp, however, wants the ouster of pro-Damascus President Emile Lahoud whose term was extended for three years in September 2004 under pressure from Syria. The Saniora cabinet has resisted the round-the-clock pressure of street protests organized by Hizbullah outside the Grand Serail in downtown Beirut. Beirut, 26 Dec 06, 08:55
Arrested Iranians Linked to Group which Trains Hizbullah; Report
The New York Times, citing White House officials, has said four Iranians arrested by U.S. forces in Iraq include two "senior military officials" with links to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit that trains Hizbullah. The White House on Monday said it will wait for results of a probe into the two Iranians before judging whether they confirm Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs. If U.S. authorities produce evidence against the detainees it could be the first proof of their longstanding charge that Iranian agents are stirring violence in Iraq by arming and training illegal militias. U.S. forces in Iraq arrested the pair after releasing two other Iranians who had diplomatic immunity. The White House declined to reveal the nature of charges against the detainees, but cited Iranian "meddling" in Iraqi affairs. "We suspect this event validates our claims about Iranian meddling, but we want to finish our investigation of the detained Iranians before characterizing their activities," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Monday.
"We will be better able to explain what this means about the larger picture after we finish our investigation," Conant said. The spokesman said two of the detainees had been handed over to Iraqi authorities. "Two had diplomatic immunity and were released to the GOI (Government of Iraq) which released them to their government. We continue to work with the GOI on the status of the remaining detainees. That investigation is going well," Conant said.
The arrests come amid mounting diplomatic tension between Iran, the United States and the international community, after the U.N. Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Iran's nuclear program. The United States accuses Tehran of feeding the violence in Iraq, saying it sees Iranian fingerprints on Shiite militias and the makeshift roadside bombs that have killed many American soldiers. Iraq's government, meanwhile, protested the arrests, saying that two of the detainees were invitees of President Jalal Talabani. "Two people who were invited by the president to Iraq have now been apprehended by the Americans, and the president is unhappy with the arrests," Hiwa Osman, Talabani's media adviser, told AFP.
"The invitation was within the framework of an agreement between Iran and Iraq to improve the security situation," he added.
U.S. commanders in Iraq regularly accuse Iran of fomenting unrest in its troubled neighbor, but the Shiite-led Baghdad government has pursued closer security ties with Tehran. Leading Iraqi lawmaker and imam, Sheikh Jalaleddin al-Saghir of the Baratha mosque, told Agence France-Presse that two Iranian diplomats were released after being seized by U.S. forces in Baghdad Thursday. He said the diplomats "from the Iranian embassy came to see me at the mosque to offer condolences on the death of my mother." Iran also expressed displeasure over the detentions."A few days ago we became aware that U.S. forces, contrary to international laws, had arrested Iranian diplomats who were invited by the Iraqi government," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Husseini said. "This action is not compatible with international law and it will have unpleasant consequences," he said, as quoted by the Mehr news agency.(AFP)(AFP filephoto shows Talabani speaking during a press conference in Baghdad.)
Beirut, 26 Dec 06, 11:56Iran and Us!
Jameel Theyabi Al-Hayat - 25/12/06//
Here is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad going across lands, seas and rivers from the Ocean to the Gulf, in order to spread jurisprudent-like principles, and to carry out Khomeini's precepts following which he was brought up.
Apparently, the Iranian Government, with its hard-line President, will not give the Arabs the chance to read carefully its strategies, sectarian speeches and regional interests. I have warned about such aspects in previous articles, where I called for the necessity to re-read and re-examine Iranian declared and secret positions, and to stand up to the facts, the objectives and the risks (tragedies, controversies and unrest) that the Ahmadinejad administration will bring about in the entire region by following a policy damaging himself, his foes and his friends.
Iran will not give us the chance to re-read the political reality and the region scenarios, and to perceive its agenda in this part of the world. We did not exaggerate when we described this agenda as more dangerous than the Israeli one, and we did not exaggerate, either, when we mentioned that the US one - in spite of its contradictions - is less dangerous than Iranian endeavors. Such efforts are aiming to change the demographic composition of the region, to turn the sense of belonging to a State into a sense of belonging to a sectarian group and party, and to create religious loyalties that Iran could move whenever it wanted. And all this would be in favor of this regime, against Arab governments, and at the expense of the security, stability and integrity of the region, and an example of this is what Iran is doing at the moment in Southern Iraq and Lebanon.
On its front page, 'Al-Hayat' recently reported Sudanese Islamic groups warning against a great scheme orchestrated by Iran; a scheme which is part of the Iranian expansion. This was particularly evident after the Sudanese observed that entire villages had converted to the Shiite, and that Shiite mosques had started to spread in Khartoum, thanks to Iranian cultural efforts. Tehran's intentions were revealed by Mohammed Ali al-Jozo, the mufti of Mount Lebanon, in an interview with the Egyptian 'Rose al-Yousef' magazine, last Friday. During this meeting, serious information emerged about the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran, the wages paid to Lebanese Sunnite sheikhs by Iran in return for their support to Hezbollah, and the magnitude of Iran's influence in Lebanon. He also pointed out that 'decisions taken by Hezbollah have a sectarian dimension stretching as far as Tehran'. During this interview, Al-Jozo said about some Sunnite sheikhs supporting Hezbollah: 'Iran is paying their wages in order to bring them to side with Hezbollah'. He also indicated that Iran is paying generously abroad, while its people are suffering from poverty. This is the so-called 'Halal money' (immaculate) to guarantee care for them! These statements are a clear answer to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's saying that Iranian money is 'clean and pure'.
Iran is taking advantage of the divergence among stances in the Arab street and among points of view at a grass-root level in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine. By doing so, it is aiming to spread its culture and agenda according to its will, in order to be able to lead the region into battles that would benefit Iran itself and achieve this regime's goals. These battles would leave nothing and no-one unscathed, in the shadow of unreliable international endeavors and weak efforts made by the Arabs to achieve security and stability in the region.
I have no doubt that such Iranian policy is a source of danger for all the States of a region where all religious sects co-exist in security and stability. And the reason is that such policy is still dominated by the 'conspiratorial idea'. Iran is doing as fundamentalist 'radical' groups do, as it is stirring up a religious and sectarian storm inside Arab countries. Furthermore, it is trying to use these storms to create a state of sectarian expansion, with which she could lay siege to the region, and make it eventually descend into conditions favorable for the outbreak of internal fierce wars.
Iran is seeking to destabilize the Arab World from within by materially controlling Arab citizens. Additionally, it is trying to spread what is in line with its agenda and interests, but which does not match with what is required to achieve security and stability in the region.