US Treasury is INDEED cracking down on Lebanon

FLC

US Treasury is INDEED cracking down on Lebanon

Our friend Nic Noe sends this: "After seven years, I am told our company in Beirut just got this message from the Treasury department via a major US subscriber:

"Hi ----- ,

Your wire transfer in the amount of $----- to Mideast Wire.com CO SARL will not be able to be paid.  Our bank said that Beirut Lebanon has been put on a OFAC Country list.  This means that any wires going to that country will need a US pay through bank to send the funds through.  Please contact your beneficiary and ask if they can give you the name and ABA number for a US Bank that we can use as a pay through bank to send these funds to them in Beirut, Lebanon.

Thanks 

Bettina Stemley, Treasury Operations"

Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 5:01 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

"... Undermining stability in Lebanon is an easy matter ..."

FLC

(AFP)- "Unrest in Syria could spread to neighbouring Lebanon at any moment in light of charges by Damascus that Beirut's Hariri camp is backing anti-regime protesters

"Merely stating that Lebanese parties are interfering in Syrian affairs is equivalent to threatening to destabilise Lebanon, irrespective of whether charges of funding and arming the protesters are accurate," said Ghassan el-Ezzi, professor of political science at the state-run Lebanese University. "This could well be an attempt to transfer the crisis from one country to another," Ezzi told AFP...

"Undermining stability in Lebanon is an easy matter: any dispute here will turn into sectarian strife in which Arab states, Iran, Turkey and Western countries, such as France and the United States, get involved," Ezzi said...

Hezbollah's Al-Manar television also reported that Syrian authorities confiscated drugs, money and arms on seven boats that had been heading from northern Lebanon to the Syrian port city of Latakia. Syria "suspected the boats were tied to the Future Movement," Al-Manar said.

Some analysts say there is no smoke without fire.

"While there is no concrete evidence, I do not think it is a totally far-fetched notion that there is arms and cash smuggling from Lebanon to Syria with the help of Saudi Arabia," said Karim Makdisi, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut..."

Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 7:20 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

On Syria, Europeans push & other members push back on UNSC condemnation

FLC

(AP)- UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security has failed to agree on a statement condemning Syrian violence against peaceful protesters. France Britain, Germany and Portugal circulated a draft media statement on Monday calling for the 15-member council to condemn the violence. But during consultations Wednesday afternoon, several members including Lebanon indicated they were opposed, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed..."

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Syria Paying Price of Firm, Solid Pro-Resistance Stances

Local Editor

Because the stability of the Syrian regime is necessary for the Middle East and Lebanon, attempting to create strife in Syria will set the whole region on fire…

This is in brief the message which was carried out by Lebanon’s Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday, during a ceremony commemorating poet Najib Jamaledddine.

The Speaker’s message enjoys an exceptional importance, given the challenges facing the region in light of the latest developments in the Middle East, particularly the conspiracy targeting Syria.

STRIFE IN SYRIA… HORRIBLE!

According to Lebanese former Defense Minister Albert Mansour, Berri’s message was clear. “The Speaker wanted to say that attempting to create strife in Syria means creating strife in the whole region,” Mansour told Al-Manar website. He highlighted that the repercussions of such strife would not be limited to Syria, but would include Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the whole region. “This is very dangerous. It would set the whole region on fire.”

Mansour hinted that Syria was paying the price of its solid stances alongside the Resistance. He said that Berri was right when he said that the battle against Syria is one of the most dangerous battles ever. “If the American-Israeli scheme continues, the whole region would be forced to face a horrible sedition,” he warned.

What about the possibility of opening the Golan Heights front? “Anyway, I believe that if the Syrian regime feels seriously threatened, it would use all possible tools to defend itself,” Mansour said, pointing to the legal self-defense principle. “These tools would include setting all fronts on fire and activating all conspirators, including Israel,” he explored.

PRESSURING SYRIA FAILS AGAIN

Mansour noted that the West has pressured Syria in an attempt to separate it from the Resistance. “They sought to pressure the Syrian regime to push it to suspend backing the Resistance,” he said. However, and because of the solid Syrian stances, the West was obliged to resort to other pressure tools, such as threats of sedition, he pointed out.

“The real goal of the conspirators is to oblige Syria to abandon the Resistance,” the former minister told Al-Manar website. “They are telling the Syrian leadership: either you abandon the resistance, or we will topple your regime,” he explained.

However, Mansour ruled out such outcome. “The Syrian regime is strong to the degree that it would be very difficult to topple it or even to just change it,” he expressed belief. “Such plot would require the division of Syria.”

SYRIA TARGETED BY… CONSPIRACY

For his part, Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) official and former minister Ali Qanso told Al-Manar website that the latest developments in Syria cannot be related to reform demands. “We’re convinced that Syria is targeted by a huge conspiracy,” he said. “This conspiracy enjoys an American cover, given the nationalist role played by Syria in the region, and given that Syria has become the main obstacle in the face of the American schemes in the region,” he added.

Qanso, who blamed the American administration for its role in the ongoing incitements against Syria, said that the Americans are not concerned with the identity of the regime which would take power in case the current regime was toppled. “All what they care of is that the new regime be a tool in their hands,” he said.

Asked about some suspicious roles played by Arab regimes in the latest wave of Syria developments, Qanso said that the so-called Arab moderates cannot be blamed since they are absolutely following the American administration. “Throughout the last 20 years, they proved that they are not their own decision makers and that they have to commit to the US administration’s recommendations,” he said. “Today, the American order has come to continue the battle of pressuring Syrian until the end.”

In conclusion, Qanso expressed belief that the Syrian leadership would be able to overcome this difficult stage, “even if the whole world took part in the battle against the resistant and nationalist Syria.”

That’s it. Syria is targeted by a huge conspiracy which is becoming tougher day after another. Yet, its leadership is headed towards facing it with all possible tools…

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The Royal-wedding in London , the Arab-Leaders , the Lebanese-President and my wife

FAD

 

President Michel Sleiman
The only-democratically-elected Arab-Leader
and the only one with an opposition, still  alive.

The Royal Wedding in London
shall have some empty seats at the ceremony
because some Arab Leaders are no more available
and the others are afraid to loose their seats,
if they would come to London.

As a matter of fact , only the Lebanese President
can come and then go back safely and undisturbed.

What makes the Lebanese President so special ??
would be,  the right question to ask , now.

He is the only President (Leader or monarch)
who has functioning opposition in his country !!!


Therefore , we can conclude that :
 the secret of Happy Marriages
(or for that matter , secret of good-governances)
is to allow any oppositions , at home.......


Tell this..........to my wife !!


Sherlock Hommos
looking for my Tahrir-Square...... at home


NB:
President Obama has no opposition ,at home,
still it is called " democracy "
but he is not invited, anyhow.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Ban: ‘Hizbullah needs to be disarmed’

Posted on April 22, 2011 by rehmat1

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon submitted the 13th Biannual Report on Resolution 1559. The report was prepared by Ki-Moon’s special envoy Terje Rod Larsen. In the report he tells Lebanese how to run their national affairs in order to be accepted by the US-Israel-UN occupied ‘civilized world’.

Terje Rod Larsen PhD (born 1947), is a Norwegian diplomat and politician. Since 2004, Larsen has been the president of the International Peace Institute, a neocon think tank. He is one the most fanatic Zionist among the UN staff.

The report insists on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was adopted in 2004, that the presence of armed Resistance groups in Lebanon continues to threaten security in the country as well as the region, urging a formal border delineation with Syria. However, the report doesn’t mention the fact that it is the Zionist terrorist state which has been a threat to the security of Lebanon and its other Arab neighboring countries – by military invasions and occupation of parts of those countries.

Interestingly, the report calls Beirut for the “formal border delineation with Syria” but doesn’t mention Israel, which is only country in the world with no internationally recognized borders with all its neighboring countries.

Ki-Moon also insisted the importance of the implementation of the judgement (not known to anyone except the US and Israel) of the UN Special Tribunal on Lebanon (STL). Hizbullah and some Christian leaders have called STL an Israeli Project.

Ban issued an appeal to the Hizbullah leadership to “disarm and transform into an exclusively political party.” Ban also called on regional states to “support and assist” Hizbullah in its disarmament, “in the best interest of regional peace and stability.”

In response to Ki-Moon’s rant, Hezbollah said, “it is not new to UN Secretary General to take unjust and unfair positions in its point view of the situation in Lebanon, particularly to hold Hezbollah responsible for all the problems facing Lebanon is the nature of the task that the U.S. administration and some Western governments have entrusted and that applies with accuracy.”

Hezbollah described the UN special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed Larsen as “international official servant in the Zionist media system that reflects the full participation of hostility towards the Resistance, Lebanon, Arabs and all just causes in the world.”

Last year, Terje Rod Larsen, in his report to Ki-Moon had asked Lebanese government to disarm Palestinian resistance groups in the Bekaa and stop arms smuggling from Syria to these groups – based on the claim made by a reputed liar, Israeli President Shimon Peres.

So, why the western powers insist on disarming Hizbullah – because it’s the only Arab force which had defeated Jewish Army in Summer 2006.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Pro and Anti-Assad Demos in North Lebanon Banned

Lebanese authorities on Wednesday banned rallies for or against Syria's ruling regime.

"We have decided not to approve any requests for demonstrations as they fail to meet legal conditions," the north Lebanon branch of the national security council, grouping security bodies and local governors, said in a statement.

The council urged all parties to keep Syria-linked rallies off the streets and limited to "unlocked halls or arenas in coordination with security forces and military in order to preserve the civil peace in Tripoli and the north."

Pan-Islamic group Hezb Ut-Tahrir has called for a rally after Friday prayers in Tripoli to protest against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Sixteen members of the party were arrested earlier this week for posting leaflets calling for protests. "The local branch of the security council has informed us that our gathering this Friday should take place inside an assembly hall and not in the street," Hezb Ut-Tahrir's Lebanon spokesman Ahmad Kasas told AFP on Wednesday.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Tripoli on the edge ...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - "... "The salafis who decided to embrace violence as a way to change -- we really don't know much about them," she said, describing such militants as a small, disparate minority. Islamist fighters, including Arab veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have found havens in Lebanon, especially in Palestinian refugee camps off-limits to security forces. Some have links to al Qaeda, as well as to local clerics who spring from homegrown Salafi groups with a longstanding foothold in Tripoli and other Sunni-dominated cities, researchers say.

The Lebanese authorities are rolling up a network of militants allegedly behind two Tripoli bombings that killed 22 people, including 15 army soldiers, in August and September.

Syria, whose troops left Lebanon in 2005 after three decades of control, has blamed Islamists from a "neighboring Arab country" for a bomb blast that killed 17 in Damascus last month.

Security sources say 24 Lebanese and Palestinian militants have been detained in the past week, including seven said to have confessed to taking part in the Tripoli attacks...

Tripoli remains on edge,... The city's mostly Sunni residents, whose votes could sway next year's parliamentary election, are caught up in Lebanon's political conflict -- itself linked to a wider contest pitting Iran and Syria against Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies...

Sheikh Daa'i al-Islam Shahhal, a top Salafi leader, told Kuwait's al-Anbaa newspaper that a Syrian incursion would "open the gates of hell" and create Iraq-style misery in Lebanon...

They suggest Assad is seeking favor with the West by painting Syria as a bulwark against Muslim militancy... Tripoli's Islamists are far from united. Some keep up a dialogue with Hezbollah, admiring its resistance to Israel. Some Salafi groups even signed an understanding with the Shi'ite faction in August -- only to repudiate it the next day.

Sheikh Bilal Shaaban, leader of Tawheed, an Islamist faction that ruled Tripoli for a while until crushed by the Syrians in 1985, described his relations with Hezbollah as excellent. He accused Saudi Arabia of using Sunnis in a proxy war with Syria.

Contradictory rumors and conspiracy theories fly fast in Tripoli, where some Muslim clerics say local politicians and foreign powers exploit Sunni sectarian fears for their own ends..."

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Again: armed and non-violent resistance!!!

Adib S. Kawar  

Through out the history of the Arab Zionism struggle, it was proved that the Zionist movement was and is still adamant to uproot every Palestinian and some other Arabs and replace them with Zionist colonizers in their homes and land. This is the ultimate Zionist goal.

The moment the Zionist entity occupied in 1967 the mere 22%, which was left of Palestine (The West Bank and the Gaza Strip) after the so-called war of independence of 1948, it started colonizing the left over of Palestine.

We all know that non-violent resistance started only during the what is known as the first INTIFADAH, while armed resistance, which some people call violent resistance (Zionists and Americans and some others call it terrorism) and we are sure that Dr. Hannan Ashrawi, who calls for non-violent resistance, is fortunate enough to be still living even in occupied Palestine; so we don't have to teach the teacher of what is going on there.

The Apartheid wall, which is called by the Zionist entity leaders, the separation wall, is only temporary in the sense that those Palestinians who are not yet in the diaspora will be walled in ghettos to make life impossible for them to finally decide to quit their land and homes, or what Zionists call "voluntary transfer". Then and only then the apartheid wall will be dismantled. If we want to give up Palestine on a gold platter to Zionist occupation, those Arabs who are still in Palestine should be ordered to "behave well", and be satisfied with resisting Zionist occupation with their greatest and most sophisticated weapon proposed by pacifists, stone throwing, then they will be thrown out of their homes again sooner then expected!!! 

Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by Zionist extremists, even though he ordered his soldiers to break the limbs of teen age stone throwers, if they escape being killed by fire arms, just because those extremists thought he was willing to compromise with Arabs and let some of them stay in their homes.

In 1982 the Zionist entity occupied about half of Lebanon, massacring in the process more that twenty thousand Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians, and committed the Sabra and Shatila massacre plus others, but when few of their soldiers and officers were hunted by the Lebanese resistance fire, they went around in the streets of Beirut with their loud speakers  pleading to the resistance not to target Zionist occupation men, promising to withdraw from Beirut within two days, which they did.

Twenty two years later the Zionist occupation army was forced by the relentless Lebanese resistance to withdraw from South Lebanon, or what they called "The Security Belt". For sure the occupation army with its puppet "South Lebanon Army" was at least one hundred times stronger in numbers and armament than the Lebanese resistance, but they had to evacuate without use of negotiations with their tails between the hind legs, why? Because they could not bear with the casualties they suffered. The Zionist occupation forces withdrew without notifying their SLA collaborators whom they left behind to face their fate.

During WWII the French resistance, which was equally weaker in armament, like the Lebanese resistance, inflicted heavy losses on the notorious German Nazi occupation army with it French collaborators, and its assistance was of great value for the allied forces that liberated France and then the rest of Europe.

The Vietnamese and Algerian resistance, the first was able to defeat the French occupation army, and later the mightiest army in the history of the world, the American army, which had to withdraw after very heavy casualties (also not as a result of negotiations!!!). As for Algerian resistance, which even though lost about a million martyrs, but due to inflicting heavy losses on the strong French army and the equally brutal settlers (colonialist) like Zionist colonialists, the Algerians were able to liberate what French colonialists considered as an integral part of Main land France.

Again the American coalition armies in Iraq were not received with rice and flowers, which they expected the Iraqis would shower them with, instead they were showered with all sort of armament, although not as sophisticated as what the occupiers possess. The occupation army had already declared the "liberation" of Falloujah and other Iraqi cities several times, but what!... The Americans invaded Iraq claiming that they came to liberate it but what... At what price is this liberation costing both the occupier and the occupied... up till now more than a hundred thousand Iraqi martyrs fell in about a year and a half after the invasion, this in addition to the casualties they left behind after their 1991 invasion, and the hundreds of thousands of deformed newly born babies as the result of the uranium depleted ammunitions the Americans bombarded the Iraqis with, plus the half million indirect infant casualties due to malnutrition, which was a result of economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. Iraqi armed resistance against the mightiest army in the world is paying off, and Americans are already biting their nails.

Just for a reminder, Zionist leaders are not trying to hide their role in driving the United States of America to invade Iraq, because they thought it was the biggest threat to their security. Then what type of resistance Iraqis should face the occupation armies with, civil resistance or armed resistance? If they chose the second alternative they will be permanently occupied by "their liberators"!!!

Lets return to Palestine, and the Gaza strip, and remember what Sharon said about the Zionist colonies he planted in it, which he considered to be as dear to him as Tel Aviv itself, Sharon who drove his colonizers to build colonies on every hill, this same Sharon is withdrawing, under the threat of the Palestinian armed resistance, of course not willingly, from the Gaza Strip unilaterally. Of course he intends to make of this withdrawal a smoke screen to get almost full hold of the West Bank, but with armed resistance it will finally be liberated, and his strongest and mightiest army in the region and one of the few strongest armies in the world, shall also withdraw.

Unless the ZioAmerican plan to control all the Arab land from the gulf to the ocean is met with armed resistance than we are finished once and for ever.

Some Palestinians want to apply Gandhi's non-violent resistance, but I believe that they are trying to fool themselves, if they pretend not to see the difference between Palestinians facing Zionist occupation and aggression and its type of colonialism, and the British colonialist rule of India. The British occupation army counted about 70,000 men, and their armament compared to the Israeli Occupation Army is too primitive. India's population at the time was 300,000,000 people, while at the moment there are in Palestine more Zionists than Palestinian Arabs both living in an area of about 27,000 sq. kms, compared with the vast area of the Indian subcontinent. But the most important difference is that the British type of colonialism, which was the traditional type of exploiting the land and its cheep labor, while Zionist colonialism is the type that aims at, as we mentioned above, uprooting every Palestinian from his land, and replace him with a Zionist colonizers: so the only way to stay in our land is to:

Keep the armed INTIFADAH alive.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Miqati Wants More Time… Aoun to Miqati: Take Your Time

Miqati Wants More Time…

Once again, optimism that the cabinet would see light very soon did not triumph…

On Thursday, Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati announced after meeting President Michel Sleiman that the two agreed to give themselves more time before revealing the new government.

"After consulting with the President, we decided to wait in order for the government to live up to the Lebanese people's expectations," he said from the Baabda presidential palace. "We aspire for it to represent stability in Lebanon and avert strife among the Lebanese," he continued.

"We want it to be formed based on the constitution, because we cannot rely on unstable political foundations," he stressed.

"I urge the Lebanese to be patient with us … and I hope that we will announce the new government soon," the prime minister-designate said.

"We will not despair and we acknowledge the rights of parliamentary blocs to demand certain representation in Cabinet, but the President and I are entitled to our constitutional right that this government should represent all Lebanese," Miqati stressed.

Asked after the talks if he objected to Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun's acquiring of certain portfolios, he replied: "I want to assure that I did not get involved in any dispute with any side during the past three months."

"I did not place a veto on anyone and I only seek to achieve national interests," he highlighted.

Aoun to Miqati: Take Your Time

The head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc MP Michel Aoun declared that the conditions for the cabinet formation are not yet available and called Prime Minister-Designate Najib Miqati to take his time in the process, saying that he should not be given any deadlines in this issue.

In a chat with journalists following a meeting with Faisal Karami, the son of former Prime Minister Omar Karami, Aoun stressed that he does not have demands, only rights. “If the government was formed, you won’t know the reasons of the delay. But if it wasn’t formed, you will know.”

Commenting on the premier-designate's statements that he will not give up in the formation, Aoun said: "His war is with himself."

Addressing media reports that President Michel Sleiman is still insisting on maintaining the Interior and Defense Ministries, he stated: "Review the constitution. Rights are not opinions, but written words. I always speak based on the written word, which I respect. They are violating my rights and those launching the aggression should make concessions."

In case you missed it:

• Murr Wanted Russian Fighter Jets to ‘Scare’ Hezbollah!
• Wikileaks: Elias Murr: "Hizballah cannot launch a rocket from Solidere.... Let Hezbollah play with the Lebanese army... We'll shoot. No Joke!"...
• WikiLeaks: Hariri Backed Sleiman to ‘Embarrass’ Hezbollah!

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian