My tweet was short: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot. #Lebanon”

Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and a provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East.

It was an error of judgment for me to write such a simplistic comment and I’m sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah’s life’s work. That’s not the case at all.

Here’s what I should have conveyed more fully:

I used the words “respect” and “sad” because to me as a Middle Eastern woman, Fadlallah took a contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on woman’s rights. He called for the abolition of the tribal system of “honor killing.” He called the practice primitive and non-productive. He warned Muslim men that abuse of women was against Islam.

I met Fadlallah in 1990. He was willing to take the risk of meeting with a young Christian journalist from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. Fadlallah was at the height of his power. As I was ushered in, I was told that he would not look at me in the eye and to make it quick as there was a long line of dignitaries waiting.

The interview went 45 minutes, during which I asked him about Hezbollah’s agenda for an Islamic state in Lebanon. He bluntly told me that was his group’s dream but there would be room for other religions. He also joked at the end of the interview that the solution for Lebanon’s civil war was to send “all political leaders without exception on a ship away from Lebanon with no option to return.”

He challenged me to run the entire interview on LBC without editing. We did.

This does not mean I respected him for what else he did or said. Far from it.

It is no secret that Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah hated with a vengeance the United States government and Israel. He regularly praised the terror attacks that killed Israeli citizens. And as recently as 2008, he said the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust were wildly inflated.

But it was his commitment to Hezbollah’s original mission – resisting Israel’s occupation of Lebanon – that made him popular and respected among many Lebanese, not just people of his own sect.

In 1983, as Fadlallah found his voice as a spiritual leader, Islamic Jihad – soon to morph into Hezbollah – bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 299 American and French peacekeepers. I lost family members in that terror attack.

And it was during his time as spiritual leader that so many Westerners were kidnapped and held hostage in Lebanon.

When the Lebanese Civil War ended in 1990 with Syria taking full control of Lebanon, Hezbollah was and remains the only armed militia in Lebanon. Under Syria’s influence however, Hezbollah – declared a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union started becoming even more militant, with designs beyond Lebanon’s borders to serve agendas for Syria and Iran.

Fadlallah himself was designated a terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department.

In later years, Hezbollah’s leadership apparently did not like Fadlallah’s vocal criticism of Hezbollah’s allegiance to Iran. Nor did they like his assertions that Hezbollah’s leaders had been distracted from resistance to Israeli occupation of portions of Lebanon and had turned weapons against their own people.

Full Article

BEIRUT: A 10 percent rise in the airport tax will generate the “first-ever” modern advertising promotion of Lebanon, according to Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud.

He said the budget endorsed by the Cabinet on Friday contained an additional airport tax levy, to fund the campaign.

He added the Tourism Ministry’s budget for 2010 had jumped to $3 million, while it was only $1 million in 2009. Abboud explained advertisement and promotion would be concentrated in Russia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Abboud was speaking during a ceremony at the Grand Hills resort in Broummana in Mount Lebanon to mark the start of the tourist season.

Abboud stressed the importance of organized tourism in reviving the village and other mountainous regions.

“Mountain tourism constitutes less than 3 percent of the Lebanese tourism sector while it forms 70 percent of the sector in Cyprus,” he said.

Meanwhile, Abboud issued two directives to local tourist establishments, in which he urged investors at the primary stage of getting a license to apply for a final legal investment permit within three months.

“The primary stage approval is not an investment permit and doesn’t give the investor the right to start his investment. It’s only an initial approval to the project presented at the ministry,” the first directive said.

The second directive asked the owners of restaurants and bars to turn down the music volume, only play music in places where it was allowed and abide by earlier Ministry decisions. – The Daily Star

Lebanese airport latest news

• LJU lawyer dismisses lawsuit over members' credentials
• Tadamoun Sour leaves Lebanese soccer league
• Would-be robber arrested after firing gun at police
• Why is it called Geitawi?
• Man killed in hit and run, soldier hurt in road accident

As Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria sign free trade agreement, analysts discuss whether a new regional trading zone is in the cards.

Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria have agreed to set-up a regional agreement that would allow for free trade and travel between the four countries.

The news, first reported by the Lebanese business website iloubnan.info, would mean the removal of visas for travel between the four countries, as well as the establishment of a joint cooperation council to develop a free trade zone.

The deal, signed by the foreign ministers of the four countries on the sidelines of the Turkey-Arab Cooperation Forum in Istanbul, comes only one week after Turkey presented a range of measures to strengthen its economic ties with its eastwards neighbors, including Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Turkey and Syria already signed a similar agreement in 2008, leading to a $300 million increase in trade flow between the two countries between 2008 and 2009, a trend that is expected to continue despite continued US sanctions on Syria.

Dr. Yusuf Mansur, a Jordanian economic consultant, said the agreement brings great perks for Jordan.

“We export fruit and vegetable to Lebanon and it’s an important market,” Mansur told The Media Line. “It’s important that we have such an agreement to remove any trade barriers.”

“If trade can come via land that’s preferable to the sea,” he said regarding trade with Turkey. “The many cultural ties with Turkey will make it work and there will be a great substitution in Turkey of Jordanian goods instead of European Union goods.”

Analysts said the free trade zone would stand to benefit from are the increasing levels off Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Lebanon, a country seen as a safe economy during troubled economic times.

“There is indeed a substantial increase of foreign direct investment in Lebanon,” Marcus Marktanner, Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at the American University of Beirut, told The Media Line. “What really seems to matter currently is the deterioration of the global investment climate in general, and the economic meltdown in the Gulf in particular. But Lebanon has been relatively isolated from global economic dynamics.”

“Paradoxically, Lebanon looks attractive today, because it looked non-attractive in the past,” he said. “Neither did Lebanon participate in the global economic boom of the 1990s, nor the bubbles that followed it.”

Some Western observers see Turkey’s efforts to strengthen its economic ties with its eastern neighbors as a sign that the country is slowly shifting eastwards after negations to join the European Union have reached a standstill.

But the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reiterated Turkey’s desire to join the European Union.

“Turkey is determined to become a full member of the European Union,” he told reporters. “The deal should not be seen as an alternative to the European Union.”

Copyright © 2010 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

If Lebanon had a US-style colour-coded “war-fear” alert ranging from white to purple, we are now – courtesy of Israeli president Shimon Peres, the White House spokesman and the head of the Lebanese Hizbollah militia, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – hovering somewhere between pink and red.

Has Syria given the Hizbollah a set of Scud ground-to-ground missiles to fire at Israel? Can Israeli aircraft attack them if the Hizbollah also possess anti-aircraft missiles? Can the Lebanese army take these weapons from the Hizbollah before the balloon goes up?

It is a long-standing saga, of course, and Israel has been itching to get its own back on the world’s most disciplined guerrilla movement. You can forget al-Qa’ida when it comes to Hizbollah’s effectiveness – after the Israeli army’s lamentable performance in 2006, when it promised to destroy the Hizbollah and ended up, after the usual 1000-plus civilian dead, pleading for a ceasefire. Over the past few months, Mr Nasrallah has been taunting the Israelis to have another go, promising that an Israeli missile attack on Beirut airport will be followed by a Hizbollah rocket attack on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.

But over the past week, a warning by Mr Peres that the Hizbollah has received Scud missiles from Damascus – or via Syria from Iran – and a refusal by the Hizbollah to even discuss its own disarmament within a Lebanese “national dialogue” chaired by the Lebanese President, Michel Suleiman, has darkened the spring skies over both Lebanon and Israel. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said this week that the United States has expressed its concern to both the Syrian and Lebanese governments over “the sophisticated weaponry that … is allegedly being transferred”. Mr Peres started the whole thing off a day earlier when he declared that “Syria claims it wants peace while at the same time it delivers Scuds to Hizbollah, whose only goal is to threaten the state of Israel.”

These hootings and trumpetings have always had a strong element of hypocrisy about them. The Scuds – even if Hizbollah has them – are as out-of-date as they are notoriously inaccurate. In the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam Hussein’s Scuds caused fewer than a hundred deaths. The more Peres thunders about the danger they represent, the more Hizbollah’s allies in Iran – supposedly trying to build a nuclear weapon – take pride of place in public imagination over the continued and illegal Israeli colonisation of Palestinian land.

As for Mr Nasrallah, he promised only a year ago that Hizbollah’s disarmament could not be discussed by the Lebanese government – only during the so-called “national dialogue”. And now the “national dialogue” has begun, the organisation has made it clear that it has no intention of discussing disarmament with other Lebanese political parties.

The problems are legion. Hizbollah is itself represented in the Lebanese parliament, and under the Doha agreement which followed Hizbollah’s one-day military takeover of west Beirut in May of 2008, it also has an effective veto over majority decisions taken by the Lebanese cabinet. And even if the Shia Muslim Hizbollah’s opponents in the Cabinet – they are largely Sunni Muslim with a prominent Christian contingent – ordered the Lebanese army to take weapons from the militia, they would be unable to do so for one simple reason. At least half the army – possibly two-thirds – are themselves Shia Muslims, and would obviously object to attacking the homes of brothers, sons and fathers in the Hizbollah.

A clue to the seriousness with which everyone now takes the possibility of war is contained in a remark made by an anonymous US spokesman who warned that the transfer of Scud missiles to Hizbollah would represent a “serious risk” to Lebanon. Not to Israel, mark you – but to Lebanon. There is no doubt that this is an allusion to frequent threats from the Israelis themselves that in another war with Hizbollah, the Lebanese government would be held responsible and as a result Lebanon’s infrastructure would be destroyed.

This does not sound so bad in Lebanon as it does elsewhere. For in its last Lebanese war – the fifth since 1978 – the Israelis blamed the Lebanese government for Hizbollah’s existence and smashed up the country’s roads, bridges, viaducts, electricity grid and civilian factories, as well as killing well over 1,000 civilians. Israel’s casualties were in the hundreds, most of them soldiers. What worse can Israel do now against the ruthlessness of the Hizbollah, even after the accusations of war crimes levelled against its equally ruthless rabble of an army?

Claire Wrathall
18.11.09

Strolling along the Corniche, which runs along the northernmost stretch of Beirut’s Mediterranean seaboard, on a warm Saturday evening, dodging power walkers, promenaders and soignée women with dogs in their handbags, it was striking how very good-looking so many Beirutis are.

Not perhaps the fishermen hoping to catch supper with a spindly rod balanced on the parapet wall; the narghile (or shisha-pipe) smokers huddled close to their cars from whose radios blasted loud Lebanese pop; or ka’ik vendors, peddling discs of hot bread with fist-sized holes, through which locals thread their arms in order to “wear” them home, like giant bangles.

But many of the women — some in hijabs, a few in sweats, others in Saturday-night best — had the demeanour of models. Even the mothers of children en route to the giant Ferris wheel at Lunapark looked more serene than their western counterparts might in similar circumstances.

This is most likely thanks to cosmetic surgery. Even in these credit-crunched times, Lebanon’s First National Bank is offering loans of up to $5,000 to “cover all your plastic surgery operations”, under the banner “Beauty is no longer a luxury”.

The reason has its roots less in vanity than in Lebanon’s war-torn past. Twenty years ago, when the civil war still raged, 90 per cent of surgeons’ work was reconstructive; today it’s almost all cosmetic.

Three years on from the Israeli bombing of southern Beirut, and despite what the UK’s Foreign Office calls a “fragile” peace and a visible military presence, Lebanon feels reborn.

Take the vibrant pedestrianised downtown district known as Solidère, a risen-from-the-rubble development of offices, shops, bars and cafés, stylistically a little too polished and post-modern, perhaps, but its faux rue-de-Rivoli arcades keep the sun off shoppers concerned for their complexions.

This was the part of town I was staying in, at the city’s smartest, newest hotel, Le Gray, a sophisticated, efficient 87-room boutique that opened on 1 November.

A more stylish alternative to the two InterContinentals on the Corniche — hitherto Beirut’s best hotels — it’s already made the city a more alluring destination for European weekenders.

It’s already so popular with locals that my friends and I in our group couldn’t get a table here for Sunday lunch, neither at its smart sixth-floor restaurant, Indigo — which offers a broadly international menu like its London namesake — nor its buzzy corner café, improbably named Gordon’s (despite a fine range of Lebanese salads) after its proprietor, Gordon Campbell Gray, the hotelier behind London’s One Aldwych and Dukes and Antigua’s Carlisle Bay.

Fortunately, there was space on the roof terrace, alongside its heated mauve-tiled, glass-walled swimming pool, from which on a clear day you can see not just the sea, but snow-capped Mount Lebanon.

Le Gray’s location on Place des Martyrs couldn’t be better, close to the café-encircled Place d’Etoile (they don’t call Beirut the Paris of the East for nothing) and Beirut Souks (more of a mall than a medina).

It’s also convenient for the city’s three main mosques — its proximity to the visible-for-miles 21st-century Mohammed al-Amin mosque ensures you never get lost — and the city’s three cathedrals.

Not that there aren’t myriad secular sights, too, ranging from Roman baths and colonnades to the Sursock Museum of modern Lebanese art (Le Gray, too, has more than 500 contemporary paintings and sculptures), by way of Byzantine mosaic pavements, crumbling Ottoman mansions and the National Museum.

Le Gray is metres from the Quartier des Arts, aka Saifi Village, a redevelopment of the area once bisected by the Green Line, the barricade that divided Muslim west Beirut from the Christian east side during the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Here I found galleries and shops selling jewellery, richly embroidered local fashion (check out the coats in Assyla, on Riadh Sohl Street), carpets and homeware.

On Saturday mornings, Saifi also hosts a terrific farmers’ market, Souk el Tayeb, where locals buy organic veg, aromatic spices, flatbread brushed with herb-infused oils, the deep-fried lozenges of minced lamb and cracked wheat they call kibbeh and exquisite home-made marzipan.

That said, it would be a shame to spoil your appetite for lunch, especially if you’ve booked a table at, say, Casablanca, an old villa on the Corniche with modern interiors, sea views and a menu rich in slightly Asian takes on local fish.

Beirutis dine late, after which the beautiful people gather in the bars of Gemmayzeh, immediately east of Saifi and 10 minutes from Le Gray.

For the moment, the place to be is Myu on rue St-Antoine but next weekend sees the opening of Bar ThreeSixty on top of Le Gray, a glass-walled, blue-lit, lantern-shaped structure with jaw-dropping views. Beirut’s beau monde won’t be long in making it their own.

DETAILS

The flight
BMI flies daily from Heathrow, returns from £429.40, www.flybmi.com

The hotel
Le Gray has doubles from $346.50, www.legray.com

The restaurants
Casablanca Ain el-Mreisseh, Corniche (0011 961 1369 334) Myu Rue St-Antoine (0011 961 334 476)

Tours
Black Tomato offers a Beirut-based four-day package from £1,105pp that can include skiing, from January to March, as well as visits to Baalbek, Byblos and into the Bekaa Valley, www.blacktomato.co.uk, www.lebanon-tourism.gov.lb

Michel Hayek’s new predictions in “Ahmar Bel Khat el-Aarid” on LBCI (28/10/2009)

- Unidentified objects will be seen, this time not only in the air, but in different places. These revelations will be the subject of many studies.

- An old archeological site will be discovered with carvings and paintings related to space, astrology and unidentified objects.

- Despite the many dialogues and negotiations and compromises regarding the government formation, I see a number of top Lebanese politicians regretting it after the formation.

- Joseph Sader’s kidnapping case reaches an end.

- The case of the four generals to further developments and complications; I see a red circle of heat around it that is about to expand.

- An unexpected event will accompany an official Lebanese holiday.

- Parliamentary brouhaha; some parliamentary seats will be in peril, there will be a rush to find a settlement.- Confusing battle over former minister Wiaam Wahhab’s name.

- An Iranian military action outside its borders.

- An israeli plot, of a different kind and with a different tactic

- according to my calculations, it has failed twice so far – a thrid attempt is on the way.

BEIRUT: Lebanon successfully made three entries in the Guinness Book of Records over the weekend for the largest plate and the largest plates of hummus and tabbouleh. The “Hummus and Tabbouleh are 100 percent Lebanese” festival took place on Saturday and Sunday at Saifi Market in Downtown Beirut. Thousands attended the two-day event marking Lebanon’s attempt to claim the two dishes.
The dishes were prepared un der the watch of Guinness adjudicator Tallal Omar by 250 sous chefs from the Kafaat catering school. The 50 chefs were led by the famous Lebanese chef and culinary figure Ramzi Choueiri.
The first attempt for the largest hummus dish reached an incredible 2056 kilograms, shattering the previous record of 362.8 kilograms set in New York in 2006. The tabbouleh dish weighed in at an even more astonishing 3557 kilograms, which surpasses Israel’s previous record of 2359 kilograms.
Both dishes were prepared in the world’s largest plate designed by Lebanese engineer Joseph Kabalan which was designed to hold over 3 tons.
The event was organized by the International Fairs and Promotions group (IFP), along with the Association of Lebanese Industrialists (ALI) and the Industry Minister Ghazi Zaiter.
The event was held to affirm the origins of the dishes after the ALI’s claim that the specialties are sold internationally as Greek or Israeli dishes, undermining the cultural originality of the dishes and causing huge losses for the Lebanese economy.
At the event, Ghazi Koraytem, president of the Syndicate of Lebanese Food Industries called for the international recognition and registration of the dishes as being Lebanese in origin.
The festival, which attracted thousands of people to Saifi Market, was set up to include many stalls from Lebanese caterers and artisans. Famous presenter Michel Azzi acted as the master of ceremonies for the event, keeping the crowd lively and amused throughout the various stages of the record attempts.
At the event Azzi said: “We wish that the Lebanese could share this sense of unity all the time in all endeavors.”
At times the security struggled to keep the enthusiastic audience back away from the giant dishes. Mona, from Beirut, said: “This is an important issue to the Lebanese. If Israel attempts to break the record again, we will keep breaking it and prove that these dishes are Lebanese.”
The ALI has claimed their case is similar to the European Union court ruling in 2002 that ruled feta cheese to be Greek.
Geographical appellation rights exist for sparkling wine from the French Champagne region and Scotch whisky, and according to ALI, Lebanon should be able to patent hummus and tabbouleh dishes.

JEDDAH: The prosecutor in the case of a woman journalist who was handed 60 lashes for her role in an LBC program covering the sex exploits of a Saudi man has appealed the ruling and called for a harsher punishment.

Suleiman Al-Jumaei, lawyer for sex braggart Mazen Abdul Jawad, said the prosecutor appealed the sentence handed to LBC media person R.A., one of seven accused in the case.

“The public prosecutor challenged the punishment of 60 lashes saying it was too light and not in sync with her role as a coordinator and the one who prepared and advertised the program,” said Al-Jumaei.

“The verdict, however, is only at its primary stage. It will not be executed without the approval of the appeals court. The court may either uphold or revoke it,” he added.

He also expressed his worry at how slowly the Disputes Committee for Publications is dealing with Abdul Jawad’s complaint against the LBC. The complaint was submitted three months ago to the committee, which operates under the Ministry of Culture and Information.

Abdul Jawad claims that the LBC edited and re-contextualized a long video shoot into a short segment to present him in the worst possible light.

“LBC has violated printing and publications regulations by portraying Abdul Jawad in a bad manner, particularly as it goes against the religious values and traditions of Saudi Arabia. It was the channel that violated these values first when it filmed the segment. The channel also violated Saudi law by operating from an unlicensed Jeddah office,” he said.

He added that if the Disputes Committee for Publications does not carry out its job properly then his client has the right to sue the Ministry of Culture and Information for damages.

“When the committee’s decision comes, I will study it and pursue the channel anywhere in the world if it is in the interests of my client,” he said. The lawyer has also submitted an additional petition to the committee urging it to pass judgment quickly.

The Ministry of Culture and Information says it has forwarded Abdul Jawad’s complaint to the Disputes Committee for Publications, which would only examine whether there are violations of regulations pertaining to printing and publication.

Arab News failed to get any comment on the matter from the channel’s office. Malik Maktabi, the host of “Bold Red Line,” said in an earlier statement that he was not authorized to comment on the case.

Save the «man in the cube», who chose to be held within 3 days what will future generations can afford: in addition to Snoop pedestrians on the sidewalk Achrafieh who received volunteer Rami Eid, will bear the last rise in water level, high temperature, scarcity of water and food for the world to know the effects of climate change, in the Association by «Indy ACT» expose the Arab position which impedes the Copenhagen negotiations
Bassam Kantar
Since eight in the morning, he chose activist and playwright Lebanese Rami Eid (24 years), to voluntarily enter into a transparent cube 2X2 square meters, placed on the pavement of Achrafieh in Beirut. Rami knows that the task chosen to implement the Commonwealth of independent activists «Indy ACT» difficult, if not almost impossible.
Rami was the title of «men in the cube», which will live for 3 days, began yesterday morning, and ending the tenth on Sunday morning. Rami testing, during this period, the various impacts of climate change, where Sikabd a bitter struggle with rising temperatures and shortages of food and water, rising sea levels, threatening the sinking of the entire cube where he lives.
And consider «Indy ACT» to this activity that represents the «excessive realism» what will be the future of humanity, if the global warming.
Expect responsible media «Indy ACT» gift Farhat, this activity is to attract the attention of the public and the media because it «a unique and innovative». It adds to «News»: «in the past, many of our activities on climate change, but this issue is still far from the attention of Arab public opinion. To the extent that some story of a man plunge into a cube, fictional, but they already represent the case of symbolic of what could be the future of humanity after years. Our message from Beirut says that we still have a little time remains to avoid becoming the story «The last man in the cube» reality.
Indicate that the selection of Farhat Rami Eid to do the job came after the announcement «Indy ACT» via «Facebook», and set strict conditions for participation, in particular the full commitment of the living conditions inside the cube. And draw the Farhat that provide many of the activists to carry out this role, including girls Abidin their willingness to carry out this task. She adds: «already chosen one of the girls, but declined later, and after Eid Rami expressed its full commitment to, ruled out other candidates. In response to a question: Farhat recognized that the choice of a girl swimming gown to perform the task, he would draw more attention, but not to the issue of climate change. It adds that the ability to survive for a long key, in addition to a sense of culture and environmentalists, and these qualities met in Rami.
It contains the transparent cube, made locally, on a chair and table, television and put them a PC and an Internet connection and an electric fan, also provided food and water. However, this does not mean that all of these tools will remain available for the scope of the cube, when noon spare volunteer guarding the cube for fear of intrusion passing electric current, which led to the breakdown of the fan, and thus is on the Rami looking for a way to adjust it with high temperature in the absence of ventilation. But at night, no one knows!
Rami chose to transcribe notes within three days of the cube through the Internet. Refuses to talk directly to people, but contacts are friends through his cell phone. Rami writes on the special page on the site «twitter» http://twitter.com/Man_In_The_Cube short comments, and interact with those who write to him and ask him how he felt after long hours of sitting in a cube and exposure to sunlight Achrafieh not overshadowed by yesterday, although no cloud the passage of nearly a month early autumn.
And comments by: «I will now read the book« Life of Pi »the author Yan Martel, and I invite you all to read. Later he wrote: «show high insect people to know what’s going on here and why I sit in this cube and I am a fan backlash of their actions, even though I do not speak directly with them».
In addition to «twitter», Rami chose to write lengthy notes on the blog site set up by the «Word Press» http://themaninthecube.wordpress.com. At two in the afternoon Rami wrote in his blog: «It has been 6 hours. All I can say that the weather is hot and humid here too. Cube began sinking, and the water will rise shortly. There is little food and water, and I’m trying to adapt to it ».
When the fifth night, the water has inundated more than half a meter of the cube, and this morning, if all goes well, will begin a new phase Rami within the cube, representing the residents of the land who are exposed to floods resulting from sudden and severe hurricanes, likewise try to save purposes and the rest of the precious food in their homes, but the difference is that Rami will not be able to leave the cubic, as do thousands of refugees Almnakhien, especially in the areas of the Far East, Valmkaab is Earth, but will also be in the event of disaster.
In turn, indicates the Executive Director for «Indy ACT» Wael Hmeidan that this event is part of the path of Mosul campaign «350.org», which will culminate on 24 this month «Global Day of Action against climate change». Organized during this day, thousands of activities, and coordinate «Indy ACT» these activities in our region, to encourage Governments to participate actively in the negotiations, the Copenhagen Summit.
This summit is one of the last opportunities to save the Earth from the effects of climate change. Humaidan just return from a tour of the negotiations that took place in Bangkok last week, he expressed dismay at the position of Saudi Arabia during the negotiations. He points out that the Saudi delegation holed behind the G-77, which calls for shared responsibility, but differentiated responsibilities, between the industrialized and developing countries, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Humaidan adds: «in Bangkok and in all previous rounds remaining oil trade, the only reason for the enthusiasm of Saudi Arabia, which does not seem interested in what happens to the population of Arab countries in the event of continuing climate change».

Tair Falsieh gathering up the tails of blast media rumors
As if they had been waiting for some event, Israel initiated with the first news of the explosion Tair Falsieh to exploit it and put it in the context of breach of resolution 1701, and lodge a formal complaint against Lebanon in the UN Security Council, led in his news headlines Hebrew media, which aired a videotape allegedly Army occupation that «prove» that Hezbollah the means of escape from the combat scene. Quoted a delegate of Israel to the United Nations, Gbriila Shelef, complaint against Lebanon to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, and the President of the Security Council. Claims Tel Aviv through the complaint, that the event is a «serious breach of resolution 1701», and to talk about «a second explosion of a weapons depot belonging to the Hezbollah in the past three months, and it proves that the organization maintains a weapon is illegal south of the Litani River, and build military infrastructure in the region ».
The following Shelef, in its letter, that Hezbollah «use villages inhabited by civilians for the storage of ammunition … In this way the (Hezbollah) have used residents as human shields ». He also pointed the finger at the Lebanese army, saying that the «parties in the army (Lebanese) turn a blind eye deliberately building up Hezbollah, renewed infrastructure in southern Lebanon», stressing that «the Lebanese government responsible for each event is located on the territory».
A spokesman for the Israeli army had been circulated the tape, which says that an Israeli drone image of the sky of Lebanon. The video shows a persons occupation they claim «Hizbollah militants in possession of the means of combat on the back of a truck in an attempt to smuggle them before the arrival of UNIFIL and the Lebanese army to the scene», with reference to the pictures are not clear. Continues to monitor the video trucks that came out of the scene. The Israeli military claims that it «went to another store in the village of Deir Qanun river».
In turn, accused the Israeli President Shimon Peres, Hezbollah as «exposes Lebanon at risk», and saw that Israel «re what was to be returned to Lebanon», and therefore they «are not a threat to Lebanon». The Peres, during a speech at the Galilee, that «there is no reason not to be peace between us, was in Lebanon could become a Switzerland of the Middle East, but Hezbollah is destroying Lebanon as Hamas, the Palestinian Authority Palmyra». And Perez expressed his confidence in «we will be victorious in the field of security and other areas as well».
According to Israeli media that the army of occupation, called UNIFIL forces to investigate the explosion, on the background as evidence that Hezbollah continues to smuggle weapons into southern Lebanon and hiding in the houses, contrary to Resolution 1701. And saw an Israeli military spokesman said the blast «a continuation of the explosion in the Armory in Khirbet peace», on 14 July.
The former chairman of the research division of Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Jacob Amidror reserve and saw that the “explosion Tair Falsieh enabling Israel to achieve political gains achieved if the international forces of the incident, and this is what will not be, because it will violate the Hezbollah point of resolution 1701, and this is precisely what Israel will want working on the show ». But he pointed out that the talk about the «active filter or store a weapon of bombing would weaken the party, is the word of exaggerated».
I tried some of the Israeli media suggest that there is a role for the Israeli security services in an explosion Tair Falsieh over the question of the fact causes, although the result of a technical error, or the work of the long arm of Israel.
Some Israeli media have suggested that there is a role for the Israeli security services in the blast
The “Ha’aretz” that “Israel is following developments in the preparedness of southern Lebanon since the explosion to make sure that Hezbollah will not try to ignite the front with Israel in the wake of the explosion.” The “Maariv” newspaper quoted a security sources said that “there are aerial photographs that show for a second bombing in the village in the wake of the first explosion, and that Hezbollah seeks to strengthen the offensive and defensive Mnzawmath in Lebanese villages.”
The field, according to correspondent “News” in the district of pictures (Amal Khalil) that the people of the village, who slept the night of the explosion to rumors talked about the killing of Jesus and his son, 3 others, and the house was destroyed by an explosion of an ammunition depot in the garage, woken by the White Btbakte erected without damage, as Jesus himself Touring the whole health of the journalists in front of his home, the future well-wishers on his recovery. The son, still since before the incident in Beirut, where he lives and teaches at the university, and found no trace “of the three men” alleged: What Every one is infected, one of the elements of civil defense, the result was suffocating smoke, fire, and is treated.
Surprising that seized people from inflating the media of the accident also appeared on the Lebanese army soldiers and members of the Italian contingent, who flocked in the morning, to impose the necessary measures, as many have expressed surprise at the limited damage that focused on the burning garage, which is an area of 4 square meters.