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Saniora Meets Kuwait Envoy to Deplore 'Hizbullah Cell', Mashnouq Ready to 'Cooperate'
2017-08-01
[An Nahar] A Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
bloc delegation led by ex-PM Fouad Saniora on Monday visited Kuwaiti Ambassador to Leb Abdul-Al al-Qinai to condemn alleged Hizbullah
...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
involvement in a "terrorist cell" that has been busted in the Gulf emirate.

In addition to Saniora, the delegation comprised MPs Atef Majdalani, Amin Wehbe and Ahmed Fatfat.

"We came here today to express, in the name of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc, our condemnation of the presence of a Hizbullah group in the so-called al-Abdali cell, which has been verified after a three-year trial," said Saniora after the talks.

"This act would only lead to sabotaging ties between Leb and the brotherly state of Kuwait, which was among the first countries to embrace Lebanese expats," he added.

"The state of Kuwait has always stood by Leb and supported its stability, growth and development," Saniora went on to say.

Also on Monday, Kuwaiti Ambassador al-Qinai held talks with Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq at the Interior Ministry.

Mashnouq said the meeting tackled the issue of the letter of protest that Kuwait has submitted to Leb over Hizbullah's alleged involvement in the cell.

Expressing his "great respect for Kuwait," Mashnouq expressed "his readiness and the readiness of the Lebanese security agencies to cooperate with the Kuwaiti interior ministry and to offer any help possible in this case or any other issues," Leb's National News Agency said.

The supreme court in Sunni-ruled Kuwait, which has a sizable Shiite minority, last month convicted 21 Shiites of forming a "terrorist cell" with ties to Iran and Hizbullah and plotting attacks in the Gulf state.

Kuwait has protested to Leb over the alleged training of the cell members by Hizbullah, which has ministers in the Lebanese government.

Earlier this month, Kuwaiti authorities expelled 15 Iranian diplomats and shut down the military, cultural and trade missions of the Iranian embassy in Kuwait over Tehran's backing of the "terrorist cell."

Iran said the allegation is baseless.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Abou Faour: First MERS Infection Detected in Lebanon
2014-05-09
As the slow motion pandemic continues...
[AnNahar] Health Minister Wael Abou Faour announced on Thursday afternoon that the first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus has been detected in Leb.

"One person has been diagnosed with MERS, and he was being treated at a hospital in the country," Future television quoted the minister as saying.

But Abou Faour noted that the infected patient "has left the hospital after showing signs of recovery."

Ministry sources told An Nahar daily that the man, who is a Lebanese national, arrived in Leb coming from a Gulf country.

Earlier in the day, the minister denied that any MERS cases were detected in Leb, stressing that all precautions have been taken at the Rafik Hariri International Airport.

"We took some measures at the airport. Two thermal cameras were installed to detect individuals with high body temperatures, the first indicator for infections with the MERS virus," the state-run National News Agency quoted him as saying.

"Until the moment, all samples taken at the hospitals have tested negative. No cases of infection with the deadly virus have been recorded in Leb so far," added the Minister in the morning.

Abu Faour's comments came after touring the airport accompanied by head of the Public Health parliamentary committee Atef Majdalani where they inspected the measures taken at the airport to halt possible entry of infected individuals to Leb.

On Wednesday, media reports raised fears that an infected Saudi national was transferred to the Hotel Dieu hospital on suspicion of MERS infection, but were renounced by the hospital afterwards.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
March 14 Hands U.N. Petition Demanding STL Probe All Assassinations
2014-02-28
[An Nahar] The March 14 forces on Thursday handed the U.N. secretary-general's representative in Leb a petition demanding the expansion of the Special Tribunal for Leb's mandate to cover all liquidations against March 14 figures.

"We handed the U.N. secretary-general's representative in Leb a petition signed by 69 MPs and demanding the expansion of the STL's jurisdiction to involve all liquidation crimes that targeted Lebanese leaders, from the attempt on MP Marwan Hamadeh's life to the liquidation of martyr minister Mohammed Shatah," al-Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
bloc MP Atef Majdalani said after a March 14 delegation handed the petition to U.N. Special Coordinator for Leb Derek Plumbly.

According to Majdalani, the petition was signed by four premiers and former premiers and the parliamentary blocs of al-Mustaqbal, the National Struggle Front, the Lebanese Forces
A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb...
, the Phalange Party
The Kataeb (Phalange) party was founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936, who modeled the party after Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement's uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Nazi salute. Despite the party's uniform, its strong sense of nationalism and dedication to a single charismatic leader, the Lebanese Kataeb was not and never became a fascist party nor did it espouse a totalitarian ideology.
, and independent MPs.

"The criminals managed to assassinate an elite group of our leaders but they did not and will not manage to evade punishment or break the will of the Lebanese to achieve freedom, independence and decent living," Majdalani stressed.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Bomb Targeting Hezbollah Found In Beirut
2013-04-11
[Jpost] Bomb was safely disposed of; had al-Qaeda linked group al-Nusra's signature with anti-Hezbollah, anti-Syria statements.

A bomb discovered in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut on Wednesday reflected the increasing spillover of the Syrian war into Leb.

The bomb had writing on it that included the signature of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front along with anti-Hezbollah and anti-Syrian statements, according to Leb's Daily Star.

Hezbollah blocked off the area and disposed of the bomb, preventing security forces from reaching the scene, the report said.

In Syria on Tuesday, 12 Hezbollah members were killed in an ambush near Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
, Al-Arabiya TV reported.

Sources close to the Lebanese terrorist organization said the attack maimed more than 20 fighters and they were transferred to a hospital in south Beirut.

This follows a steady stream of reports that Hezbollah is involved in the fighting in Syria in an effort to defend the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
Also on Tuesday, the Future Movement in Leb, headed by MP Saad Hariri
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.
, the younger son of the assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri and the main member of the anti-Hezbollah March 14 Alliance, criticized the terrorist groups involvement in Syria.

"We condemn the increase in the number of Lebanese dead in Syria as a result of the continuing involvement of Hezbollah in the fighting," the Future Movement said, as quoted by the Daily Star.

The statement went on, "[Hezbollah] has endorsed a new role for its arms in line with regional plans and away from the Lebanese national interest."

Hezbollah has made efforts over the past years to appear as a Lebanese national movement, to appeal to the masses and downplay its Islamic and Iranian associations. However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
by increasing its role in Syria to prop up Assad, the Shi'ite movement risks exposing itself to criticism that it does not act in the interests of Lebanese.

Leb has a history of parties and ethnic groups acting in their own interests rather than in the interests of the state.

The Future Movement statement also complained over the continued shelling of Lebanese territory by the Syrian army.

"Such involvement associates Leb with a number of dangers and further hurts the image of Hezbollah, which has distanced itself from its primary [purpose, which is] leading a resistance against the Israeli enemy," MP Atef Majdalani of the Future Movement said.

On Monday, two Hezbollah fighters were killed alongside Syrian forces in the village of al-Qasayr near the Lebanese border, AFP reported.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Mustaqbal Names Hariri as Premiership Candidate
2011-01-17
[An Nahar] Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Sunday renamed Saad Hariri as its premiership candidate.

"Al-Mustaqbal named Hariri as its candidate for the premiership," MP Atef Majdalani announced following a meeting of Al-Mustaqbal Movement at Center House.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of caretaker PM Saad Hariri.
"Really, I'm quite convinced that I am the perfect one for the job. So I've hired me."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Majdalani Accuses Opposition of Paralyzing Government
2010-12-07
[An Nahar] Mustaqbal MP Atef Majdalani on Monday accused the Hizbullah-led Opposition of crippling the Government, stressing the need to convene Cabinet.

He said Cabinet should convene to discuss forest fires, appointments and other pending issues.
"I do not know when the Syrian-Saudi efforts could achieve results. But what I see is very painful," Majdalani told the Voice of Leb radio station.

"The other team is violating the Constitution by imposing its agenda," he said, stressing that it is the Prime Minister, in consultation with the President, who plans Cabinet agendas.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hariri: Lebanese Made the Accusation against Syria at Time of My Father's Murder
2009-05-09
Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri on Thursday responded to charges made by his political opponents that his movement had accused Syria of the assassination of his father ex-premier Rafik Hariri, saying: "The people of Lebanon made the accusation when the crime took place."

"I am the son of Rafik Hariri and I say the accusation made against the Syrian regime is political," Hariri told a huge electoral rally in the area where MP Walid Eido and his son were assassinated in a car bomb in 2007.

Addressing the crowd, Hariri said: "You were the first to know that the accusation did not come from nowhere. You also know that Rafik Hariri, prior to his assassination, was threatened by well-known people at the top of the pyramid of the previous regime under (Syrian) tutelage."

Hariri reiterated his political stance regarding the 2005 assassination crime that killed his father saying: "If Israel was the one that assassinated my father, then why the attempts to hinder the Special Tribunal? Israel assassinated Palestine, gentlemen it assassinated Palestine."

"We shall never fall into the trap of arms, sedition and civil war. We shall maintain our path -- that of the legitimate state, justice, moderation and education," Hariri said.

He was referring to events last year on the same day when Beirut was overrun with violence.

"Today is the first anniversary when madness believed it could overrun Beirut, but the city overran madness with its patriotism," he said.

Hariri added, "The only weapon my father provided for young people is the weapon of education and progress. When Lebanon was under tutelage, when all Lebanese were desperate to have a state and an army, Rafik Hariri drafted the plan for state institutions," Hariri said.

He accused his political opponents of attempting to carry the country outside the Taef accords. "The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is established and justice is coming. Criminals won't escape justice," Hariri charged.

He announced Al-Mustaqbal Beirut 3 district list which includes Tamam Salam, Imad al-Hout, Ghazi Aridi, Atef Majdalani, Ammar Houry, Nabil de Freij, Ghazi Youssef, Bassem al-Shab and Mohammed Qabbani.

Earlier, Jamaa Islamia parliamentary candidate Imad al-Hout said: "We don't want any sectarian clashes. We shall proof that May 7 events are behind us."

Beirut 3 parliamentary candidate Culture Minister Tamam Salam added: "I am honored to be with Hariri on a single list. We want a strong Arab Lebanon far removed from any axis."

Transportation and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi addressed rally supporters saying: "Beirut knows how to overcome hardships. This is the capital that has vanquished every injustice."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Majority hands the Parliament petition on proposed amendment
2007-12-28
A delegation of Lebanon’s majority MPs which included Akram Chehayyeb, Antoine Zahra and Ammar Houri handed the petition on the proposed amendment to the Secretary-General of the Council of Deputies Adnan Dahir at 2 PM local time .

Chehayyeb said : "On behalf of the majority we have presented the petition on the amendment of article 49 of the Lebanese constitution to allow the election of the Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman as President of the Republic signed by more than 10 MPs . This is an additional proof of the sincere desire of the parliamentary majority of March 14 to save the presidential elections by the election of Gen. Michel Suleiman as the compromise president for all of Lebanon, specially since the country is going through a lot of turmoil."

MP Antoine Zahra said : “I apologize for the absence of MP Walid Eido and MP Antoine Ghanem , two of the colleagues that Akram and I are used to accompany . He added those 2 MPS that were killed by 'wild pigs' will be back one day when Lebanon becomes a truly independent and democratic and free country.”

Eido and Ghanem who were outspoken anti Syrian MPs were assassinated in 2007. Syria ( and not the wild pigs ) was accused of the assassination but it denied any wrongdoing .

The MPs who signed the petition are Eli Aoun, Antoine Zahra, Imad Houri, Mustafa Hashim, Mohammad Qabbani, Serge Torsrkisian, Nabil de Freij, Riyad Rahhal, Jawad Boulos, Henry Helou, Akram Chehayyeb, Atef Majdalani, Ghazi Youssef. The petition urges the parliament to adopt the proposed amendment without any further delay to facilitate the election of General Suleiman and save the country from further turmoil.

MP Ali Bazzi, a member of Speaker Nabih Berri’s bloc predicted Berri will reject the petition, because he considers the government that initiated the proposed amendment to be unconstitutional.

Yesterday Hezbollah parliament bloc leader Mohammad Raad attacked Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government and accused it of seizing the presidential powers. Raad pledged "new complications" to the already tense situation.

The Lebanese media has also expressed pessimism about Saturday's election session and predicted that it will most probably meet the fate of previous attempts and leave the country without a president until after the new year when the parliament will be in recess. Saturday Dec. 29 is the date set for the election of the president.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Ahmadinejad & Hezbollah blocking Lebanon presidential vote
2007-11-21
MP Atef Majdalani on Tuesday accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ally Hezbollah of blocking the presidential elections in Lebanon.

Majdalani, in a statement to Naharnet, said the March 14 majority alliance is committed to two stands: "Principles of the Cedar Revolution and Patriarch (Nasrallah) Sfeir's list" of candidates. "Obstacles are being placed not by us, but by Hezbollah and its allies. The problem is with Ahmadinejad and no one else," Majdalani added. The March 14 alliance, Majdalani added, is "keen on safeguarding the Christians' " role and civil order in Lebanon." He reiterated the March 14 stand of supporting any agreement on a consensus presidential candidate listed by the Maronite Patriarch.

Majdalani did not disclose his source of information, but Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah delivered a defiant speech about 9 days ago in which he blasted the March 14 alliance and urged the president to form a second government , which could further destabilize the country. Many political analysts were in agreement that Nasrallah's defiant speech has torpedoed the French initiative which is aimed at bringing Lebanon's feuding leaders to agree on the election of a new president and avoid a power vacuum that could plunge the country into further chaos.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Majority condemns Aoun for demanding that Siniora quit
2006-09-01
Lebanese politicians from the March 14 Forces and the parliamentary majority lashed out on Thursday against Kesrouan MP Michel Aoun for calling for the formation of a national unity Cabinet. In an interview with As-Safir daily published Thursday, Aoun said Prime Minister Fouad Siniora "will pay the price of his stubbornness." Aoun was responding to the premier, who said a day earlier that the Cabinet would not resign.
“We warned you of the dangerous repercussions that might happen if the government does not resign but you don't care; now we will choose the appropriate time to achieve the desired change in our own way...”
"This will happen very soon; he will then not have time to pack his things because he will be forced to leave quickly," Aoun said.

Addressing the people, the head of the Reform and Change parliamentary bloc threatened: "We warned you of the dangerous repercussions that might happen if the government does not resign but you don't care; now we will choose the appropriate time to achieve the desired change in our own way." He added that Siniora's government "has forged an alliance with foreign countries working against Lebanese parties."

Following Aoun's statement, government allies expressed their strong disapproval of Aoun's stance. The head of the Democratic Renewal Movement, former MP Nassib Lahoud criticized what he called "a programmed campaign against the government that aims to shift the attention away from the humanitarian and socioeconomic crisis of the Israeli offensive against Lebanon." In a statement released following the movement's weekly meeting Thursday, Lahoud said "this campaign does not meet the priorities of the Lebanese."

“... some parties are seeking either to increase their shares in the Cabinet so that they can hamper ministerial decisions or prevent the current government from assuming its responsibilities...”
"Lebanon is at a turning point and cannot bear internal disputes and tense speeches; it needs cooperation among all the parties," he added. Lahoud also said citizens' priorities were lifting the Israeli air and maritime blockade, reconstructing houses and roads and fully implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 as a way of reaching a sustainable cease-fire.

Future Movement MP Atef Majdalani criticized calls for the creation of a national unity Cabinet, saying they were aimed at toppling Siniora's government. In a statement issued on Thursday, Majdalani said that "some parties are seeking either to increase their shares in the Cabinet so that they can hamper ministerial decisions or prevent the current government from assuming its responsibilities in implementing UN Resolution 1701 and the creation of an international tribunal to try those accused in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Thinly veiled insults greet Lahoud's statements about Hariri
2006-01-04
Condemnations and thinly veiled insults continued to be made against President Emile Lahoud on Tuesday, as politicians demanded that the president "stop misleading the people". Former President Amin Gemayel said "what is important now is to rid the country of the remaining security apparatus," adding that "President Lahoud is part of that system and is protecting it."

Gemayel's comments were made to the Al-Jazeera TV station Tuesday, and mainly concerned an interview with former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam broadcast on Al-Arabiyya TV last Friday and Saturday. Gemayel said Khaddam's revelations represent "a new embarrassment for President Lahoud, who is putting a lot of constraints on the government and hindering it from making the necessary changes to the security apparatuses." He added that the presidency itself is now under a "vicious assault," recalling Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir asked Lahoud to "learn from the past." The Phalange Party leader said "it is up to the president to make a decision that will serve the country."
He's suggesting Gay Paree is lovely this time of year. St. Helena's not.
Gemayel blamed the political impasse in Lebanon on the campaign against Lahoud and the general belief Lahoud had a "direct or moral involvement (in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri) because of the suspects among those close to the presidency."

MP Atef Majdalani called on Lahoud to "stop misleading the people, making false claims, stop pretending" and just "go away." In a statement, Majdalani said "Baabda's statement was a cover-up of the deep hatred that President Lahoud feels for the martyr Rafik Hariri." Lahoud had claimed his relations with Hariri were "positive and respectful." Majdalani asked whether Lahoud had forgotten the "vicious media campaign that his team led against Rafik Hariri during the elections of 2000 through the official media." The MP further asked the president if he had forgotten that "his officials in Baabda demanded the removal of the evidence at the crime scene (of Hariri's assassination) by removing Rafik Hariri's convoy and opening the road."

In a separate statement, MP Mohammad Qabbani accused Lahoud of "violating the Constitution three times. The first was when his term was extended when he was army commander; the second was when he was elected president; and the third time was when his term for the presidency was extended." Qabbani called on "all forces that are still covering up for the president" to "side with the country and not with the remainder of the security system."

MP Antoine Andraos said it was time Lahoud heeded the repeated public calls and "leave the presidency." Andraos further slammed Lahoud's "irresponsible and appalling practices." He added that the president had "lost his legitimacy" on the same day that Syria completed its withdrawal from Lebanon last April.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Damascus press launches scathing attacks on Lebanese politicians
2005-12-28
The Syrian media continued its attack against Lebanese politicians on Monday, accusing MP Saad Hariri of "manufacturing false witnesses" in the assassination of his father and describing organizers of the March 14 independence demonstrations as "liars and mercenaries."
Winning friends and influencing people right and left, aren't they?
Fayez Sader, the director-general of radio and television in Syria, in a statement criticized "Hariri Junior" as the agent of France.
"I, myself, have many times seen him Apache dancing!"
"Hariri Junior creates nicknames for witnesses he manufactures and masks to undermine Syria (..) and for every witness and mask more than $200,000 in cash is delivered directly or through mediators who collect commission," he said.
Yo! Over here! I'm a witness! I seen it!
Sader added that former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri had succeeded in building up Lebanon's politics and economy, "but failed to build men." In an interview with Arab satellite network Al-Arabiyya on Thursday, Hariri had lashed out against Syria, accusing it of being a "terrorist regime" seeking to "change the democratic regime in Lebanon."

The Baath newspaper published a letter written by Salah Mansour to the "lying and hireling March 14 chorus." Mansour described Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt as "the socialist feudalist with moods changing like the four seasons, who received Syrian protection the day it rained bullets above his head in Mukhtara." Telecoms Minister Marwan Hamade, whose car was hit by a bomb on October 1, 2004, was dubbed "a rancorous man whose car tires were worn out coming back and forth to Damascus with poems of praise to the Syrian regime." And his scathing description of Nayla Mouawad, MP and widow of the slain President Rene, was said to be an "old lady acting like a young girl who knocked on every Syrian door in search of a ministry and a parliamentary seat here and there."

The paper also criticized MPs Akram Chehayeb, Ahmad Fatfat, Walid Eido, Atef Majdalani and other "minor liars" for stealing public funds and damaging the Syrian presence in Lebanon with ingratitude on orders from the U.S. Embassy.
He also condemned by name all the residents of Sidon, the Mormon Tabernacle Chorale, and Ohio State University — "liars and thieves, the lot of them!"
In response, a PSP statement said such campaigns were no longer effective and reminded the Syrian regime "Lebanon provided the stage for its quarrel with Israel, not the Golan." It called on Syrian papers to focus on Syria's "achievements in democracy, freedom, the building of a state, prisons and cellars." The PSP also asked them to end the "ridiculous sequence" produced and directed at Damascus' intelligence offices.
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