“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
According to Stratfor, both Saudi Arabia and Qatar are urging their nationals to leave Lebanon due to threats of kidnappings of Suni Muslims presumably by Syrian regime loyalists. I’m not 100% clear on the rationale yet but it is interesting that both nations have issued this warning to all their citizens within hours of each other.
The Cabinet met on Monday and approved a plan to boost the presence of the Lebanese Army along the northern border with Syria and recommended expanding an investigation into the May killing by the army of Sheikh Ahmad Abdel-Wahed a prominent anti-Assad cleric and his bodyguard Mohammad Hussein al-Mereb.
The decision comes after reports of repeated Syrian incursions into Lebanese territories . Last week Syrian shelling killed two Lebanese in the Wadi Khaled border region .
Information Minister Walid Daouk told reporters at the end of the session that the Cabinet decided to “task the justice minister with asking the general prosecutor to directly supervise the investigations
A delegation of Akkar MPs met on Monday with President Michel Suleiman at the Baabda palace and asked him to refer the case of the killing of the Sunni cleric and his bodyguard to the Judicial Council . They had threatened civil disobedience, including sit-ins near the Grand Serail and Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s residence, if no action is taken in this regard.
Akkar MP Khaled Daher described the Cabinet’s decisions as positive. “But we prefer that the case be referred to the Justice Council,” Daher told the Future TV.
H/T Taffy in Canada
Beirut, 1 June (AKI) – The head of the United Nations peace keeping troops in Lebanon has warned the Lebanese military intelligence service of a plan to assassinate speaker of the parliament Nabih Berri, according to a news reports.
General Paolo Serra tipped off the Lebanese on information he received from Italian intelligence, according to the al-Hayat pan-Arab daily.
Five Al-Qaeda-linked militants residing in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon planned the attack that would have killed Berri while he travels from his home to parliament in central Beirut, reports said.
In an interview on al-Manar television, Berri said that he had summoned top Palestinian leader Azzam al-Ahmed, member of Fatah’s Central Committee, to brief him on the available information, which were reported by “three sources.”
Berri confirmed during a parliamentary meeting on 16 May the existence of a list of politicians and other figures targeted for assassination by extremist groups.
“Nobody accepts the presence of these groups in (Palestinian refugee) camps,” warning that “this issue might push the country into the unknown.” Berri said during the al-Manar interview.
Five employees slightly injured, one still in hospital; several bomb attacks on Tyre shops selling alcohol
Five people were injured and a building was damaged when a bomb exploded in a restaurant in the south Lebanon coastal town of Tyre early on Monday, a Lebanese security source said.
There has been a spate of bombings in majority-Muslim Tyre in the last few months of clubs, shops and restaurants that sell alcohol, whose consumption is forbidden by Islam, and several restaurants have stopped serving alcohol as a result.
An investigation has been launched in Lebanon after an Ethiopian housemaid committed suicide a week after video was aired of her being dragged through the street and abducted.
Ethiopia’s consul general said Alem Dechasa killed herself on Wednesday, a week after the LBCI television channel played amateur footage of her being lifted off the ground by her hair and forced head-first into a car.
The horrifying footage sparked national outrage in Lebanon.
The consul general, who saw Ms Dechasa on Tuesday, said she had been taken to hospital
Ms Dechasa was dragged by her hair
The Lebanese cabinet condemned the violent incident and ordered an investigation into the matter before Ms Dechasa died.
But the campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling for a wider investigation into the ill treatment of domestic workers.
It also wants to know why there appeared to be no follow up into Ms Dechasa’s case after she received hospital treatment.
HRW director for Beirut Nadim Houri said: “Obviously her death is a tragedy. What makes it a bigger tragedy is that we think it could have been prevented.
“Her case is not unique, unfortunately, in Lebanon. In the study released a year-and-a-half ago, we saw an average of one death per week of migrant domestic worker in the country, often they commit suicide, so it’s a broader systemic issue.
H/T: The Patriarch of Beirut
It would have been very interesting to hear her complaints and why she was at the embassy of her country of origin.
This might also be a good time to mention that the reason that European nations actually went out and colonized parts of Africa and the middle east, was actually to end slavery, an economic activity carried on mostly by Arab Muslims, then as it is today.
From Tarek Fatah’s Facebook page:
Here is Arab Spring in its full bloom! An Ethiopian domestic worker in Lebanon who was filmed (in this video) being physically abused in public has committed suicide. The video, first aired by Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) last week, caused outrage by showing a man abusing Alem Dechasa as she cried on a street outside the Ethiopian embassy in Beirut. The man was shown grabbing Dechasa and telling her, “get into the car” while she screamed out, “no, no, no”. Another man then assisted in dragging Dechasa into the back of a car as she struggled to resist.
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It’s the deepening of the islamization of Lebanon, the former Paris of the Middle East. In Turkey, Christian slaughter houses for pork were slowly phased out, just waiting for the sale of alcohol to be attacked there as well.
KGS
H/T: Missing Peace
Excerpt: “Lebanon’s tourism minister, Fadi Abboud, voiced concern about the explosions and said they were linked to the “spread of fundamentalism in the Middle East.”
The first explosion at 4:55 a.m. ripped through a restaurant at Queen Elissa Hotel, damaging several cars, including one belonging to a U.N. officer who works for the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).A similar explosion tore through a liquor store near the port of Tyre five minutes later, inflicting material damage.
According to explosive expert adjutant Talal Ajram the hotel bomb weighed three kilograms of TNT.
Commenting on the early-morning explosions, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel urged that the issue not be regarded as targeting the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), saying the incidents centered on the fact that the establishments served alcohol.
“What happened today in Tyre is not security-related but linked to the sale of alcohol,” Charbel told Voice of Lebanon (93.3 FM).
Lebanese security forces cordoned off the area around Queen Elissa Hotel, preventing reporters and photographers from getting close to the site.
Something is up. A pro-Syrian group erected some rocket lunchers in a Lebanese town just now as well.
By Natasha Mozgovaya Tags: Israel news Hezbollah Lebanon
Israeli military officials have provided a map detailing nearly 1,000 sites and facilities monitored by the Hezbollah militant group in southern Lebanon, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Click here to view the map in detail
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Map detailing Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, provided by the Washington Post on March 30, 2011 |
Israeli intelligence officials believe that the 550 underground bunkers identified have been stocked with weapons transferred from Syria since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, according to the report. The map obtained by the Washington Post also details 300 surveillance sites and 100 other facilities Israel believes belong to Hezbollah militants.
The map indicates Israel’s deep concern regarding relations between Syria and Hezbollah, according to the Washington Post, which cites Israeli officials as having said in interviews that most of Hezbollah’s weapons are secretly transferred from arms depots near Damascus to facilities in southern Lebanon. Continue Reading →
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BEIRUT: A bomb exploded Sunday at a church in the eastern town of Zahle, causing severe damage but injuring no one, in an act denounced by politicians and religious leaders as an attack on Lebanon’s stability.
A security source told The Daily Star that a device containing 2 kilograms of TNT exploded inside Saidat al-Najat church at 4.15 a.m. Sunday morning, in a detonation performed via cellphone.
“This is the first time this kind of bomb has been used [in Lebanon], whereby the individual can detonate the bomb from anywhere,” the source said.
The blast wrought extensive damage to the church, smashing windows and benches as well as blowing out a side door. The explosion was powerful enough to damage seven cars parked nearby. Sources said security forces were examining camera footage of the surrounding area and making attempts to obtain phone records in a bid to trace the culprits.
Military prosecutor Sami Sader visited the blast site and was briefed by security officials, who checked the church’s interior for fingerprints. A meeting was set up in the wake of the blast with religious figures and Zahle MPs, as well as caretaker Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud, who called on security services to be allowed to carry out thorough investigations.
Caretaker Culture Minister Selim Wardy, who hails from Zahle, visited the blast site Sunday to participate in Mass with a defiant congregation.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=126488#ixzz1HuDhpZMv
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
The rest of the article at the link above:
ANTANANARIVO (AFP) – Madagascar’s government early Thursday flew home 86 women domestic workers from Lebanon who had been subjected to abuse, amid concerns over the deaths of 17 Madagascan maids in the past year.
Most of the women “had run away from their employers,” said Population Minister Nadine Ramaroson as she welcomed them at Antananarivo airport.
“Their return home was negotiated by the Madagascan consul in Lebanon after either the women themselves or their families asked for them to be repatriated,” Ramaroson said.
The government decided to charter a plane after numerous cases of abuse were reported. The Population Ministry received more than 600 repatriation requests from maids or their families.
The Union of Qualified Domestic Workers (SPDTS), an non-governmental organisation that helps the victims and their families, says that in the past year alone 17 Madagascan maids in Lebanon died from abuse suffered at the hands of their employers.
“There have been a lot of deaths,” Prime Minister Camille Vital said. “That’s why the government has decided to repatriate those who wanted to come home. The government is paying for this rapatriation.”
On their arrival at the airport the young women were met by social workers from SPDTS and by staff from different ministries tasked with providing medical care and counselling.
“My boss used to hit me and didn’t give me my salary. I’m very, very happy to be back home,” said 25-year-old Leonie.
Another woman who gave her name as Augustine said: “The friend with whom I ran away from my boss wasn’t able to get on the plane at the last minute. I’m really worried about her. She’s not in good shape.”
More than 7,000 Madagascans work in Lebanon, according to SPDTS. In 2010 around 500 of them came home before the end of their contract.
I have to say, I was surprised by this forwarded email from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. They are the last place I would have expected to have noticed the virulent and systemic antisemitism, no thats too soft a word, Jew hate in the Muslim world. Typically they don’t seem to do much other than raise the Nazi spectre as far as I know. I could be wrong, and perhaps they have done splendid work that I am unaware of, and I am ready to be corrected, but it seems to me that these guys walk one way and look behind them the whole time.
Then I saw the video of the conference and realized that they still do not get it. Cherry picking abrogated Koranic verses out of the Koran to try and extricate Islam for any connection or guilt for the crescendo of bitter bile from those colostomy bags in the middle east as if it was just some kind of awful coincidence that so many say the same thing at the same time for no apparent reason.
All I can say to Jewish people is, if you have your hopes pinned on these guys to inform you about the facts of the state of Jews in the world today, you better settle your affairs soon. Make sure your tombstone doesn’t have your actual name on it either.
Eeyore
Los Angeles — Muslim pro-democracy advocates joined with officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to denounce last week’s riot in front of Tunis’ main synagogue. Rabbi Hier called on Egyptian leaders and other pro-democracy leaders in the region to repudiate anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence that has accompanied some of the demonstrations calling for greater freedom in the Arab world.
Egypt:
…”Oh Allah, … kill them, down to the very last one.” Continue Reading →
