LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

September 20/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.september20.16.htm

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Bible Quotations For Today
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 08/34-38/09,01/:"Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’ And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.’

I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Book of Revelation 01/01-08/:"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 19-20/16

Hezbollah soliciting aid from wealthy Lebanon Shiites: report/Now Lebanon/September 19/16/
Hezbollah and LF make their case for Aoun presidency/Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/September 19/16
Board Chairman Of Pro-Hizbullah Daily Ibrahim Al-Amin: Kill Every Armed American Outside Of The U.S., Expel All Americans From Our Countries/The Middle East Media Research Institute/September 19/16
Iran Can’t Whitewash Its Record of Terror/By Adel Al-Jubeir/The Wall Street Journal/Sept. 18, 2016
Interview: Daniel Pipes on Muslim Immigration/Breitbart News Daily/September 19/16
Why Iran welcomes US-Russian deal on Syria/Zakiyeh Yazdanshenas/September 19/16
A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: August 2016/Honor killing, "self-styled emirs," child sexual abuse/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/September 19/16
Iran's Rouhani: Tactical Shift at the UN/Majid Rafizadeh Gatestone Institute/September 19/16
Beyond the shelling and war management in Syria/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
Will Iran steer clear of the US at the UNGA/Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
Iran and al-Qaeda: Why was Obama negligent/Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
Why has Saudi Arabia lost the ‘war for talent’ to Dubai/Najah Al-Osaimi/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
25 years later, MBC is the ‘last man standing’/Faisal J. Abbas/Al Arabiya/September 19/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on on September 19-20/16
Hezbollah soliciting aid from wealthy Lebanon Shiites: report
Hezbollah and LF make their case for Aoun presidency
MP Ahmad Fatfat: Aoun's Rhetoric Is Secterian
PM Sets Stage for Street Protests amid Warning against ‘Political Coup
Board Chairman Of Pro-Hizbullah Daily Ibrahim Al-Amin: Kill Every Armed American Outside Of The U.S., Expel All Americans From Our Countries
Salam Urges U.N. for Plan to Repatriate Syrian Refugees
Geagea: Hizbullah Wants a President with a Weak Personality
Shaker: I'll Only Turn Myself in to Judge who is Loyal to God
Kataeb Slams Presidential Vote Obstruction as 'Kidnap for Ransom'
Qazzi Presents the First Plan for the Return of Displaced Syrians
Raad: Electoral Law Essential for National Partnership
Beary: Security Situation Improved, I Follow Hizbullah's Concerns Through Media
Report: Syria Rebels Infiltrate Lebanon, Captivate Hizbullah Official
Berri Prefers Franjieh over Aoun, Says Has Much to Reveal if Necessary
Report: Hariri Could Hold Talks with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Salman
Salam, Cavusoglu chair UN round table on migrants, urge for return plan for Syrians
Bassil meets Hungarian counterpart in New York, attends UN refugees summit

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on September 19-20/16

Israel: Monday sees four attacks as wave of terror continues
Iran regime prevents holding concerts in two major provinces
IRAN: Milk being removed from the food table of so many people, due to its high price!
Iran: Beating political prisoner during transfer to court
Iran: Theoretician of execution and torture, reacts to UN Commissioner’s remarks
Iran stone exporters will be subject to 80 percent tax
Iran regime arrests 30 boys and girls for attending mixed-gender party in northern city of Rasht
Iran regime arrests 30 boys and girls for attending mixed-gender party in northern city of Rasht
‘All terrorists must be killed,’ says famed IDF general (res.) at Hebron shooter trial
Bombs Rain Down as Syrian Army Declares Truce Over
U.S.: Key Players in Syria Peace Process to Meet Tuesday in New York
Kerry: Terms Not Yet Met for U.S.-Russia Cooperation in Syria
French FM Says U.S.-Russian Deal is 'Only Basis' to End Syria Crisis
Air Strikes Hit Aid Trucks in Syria
War Crimes Investigators Seek Access to Syrian Refugees in Europe
NY, NJ Bombings Suspect Arrested after Shootout
Putin Cheers Crushing Win in Russia Parliament Vote
Saudi Arabia Says 17 Held after 'IS Plot' Foiled
Two Italians Kidnapped in Southern Libya
Israel Opens NATO Mission in Brussels
Qatar to create its own ‘Wall Street’ financial district

Links From Jihad Watch Site for on September 19-20/16
NYC jihad bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami arrested after gun battle with police
Armed and dangerous” Muslim Ahmad Khan Rahami wanted in connection with NYC jihad bombing
Merkel wishes she could “turn back time” to “prepare” Germany for Muslim migrants after party suffers huge losses
Journalist” asks Clinton if ISIS is attacking to try to swing election to Trump
White House press secretary on the Islamic State: “This is actually just a war of narratives”
U.S. government “mistakenly” granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants, many from countries of concern to national security
Muslim wanted for bombs in NYC and New Jersey sued police, claiming they persecuted him for being a Muslim
NYC bombing: FBI raids Elizabeth, New Jersey building after investigators find five “suspicious devices”
Bomb explodes in trash can near New Jersey train station
Robert Spencer in FrontPage: A Weekend of Coincidences

Links From Christian Today Site for on September 19-20/16
Syriac church hit by rebel missiles in Aleppo
Iraqi Christian who fled ISIS in Mosul now facing UK deportation
Emergency UN meeting after US-led forces strike Syrian troops
Anglicans divided over new bishops' group on homosexuality
Millions of Christians to unite to pray for revival in Britain
Refugee Council blasts May's emphasis on border control as UN summit begins
Belgium's euthanasia spike is a 'warning bell' to UK, MPs told
Christian convert from Islam sent back to prison in Iran
Amal Clooney and Boris Johnson to launch campaign to collect evidence of ISIS' 'abhorrent crimes'
15 dead after Muslim pilgrim boat sinks in Thailand
Al Shabaab attacks Somali town near Kenyan border, kill seven troops
Almost 30 per cent of French Muslims favour sharia over secular law
Archbishop of Canterbury joins Pope Francis for interfaith World Day of Prayer for Peace

Latest Lebanese Related News published on on September 19-20/16

Hezbollah soliciting aid from wealthy Lebanon Shiites: report
Now Lebanon/September 19/16/

Officials from the party have allegedly requested well-to-do residents of the Bekaa and South to sponsor children of party fighters killed in Syria.
BEIRUT – Hezbollah has allegedly requested wealthy Lebanese Shiites to support the children of the party’s fighters killed in combat in Syria, according to a Lebanese daily. Al-Mustaqbal, the official newspaper of the Future Movement that opposes Hezbollah, reported Sunday that the party was undertaking “secret efforts” to solicit financial support from wealthy residents of the Bekaa Valley and south Lebanon, where Hezbollah draws on considerable popular support. “Information leaked by a number of these wealthy [people] indicates that Hezbollah officials visited them in their homes bearing [lists] of the names of children of [fighters] that fell in Syria,” the report claimed. The Hezbollah officials purportedly asked the well-to-do residents to sponsor the children, including those of wounded Hezbollah fighters, and provide for their education and clothing.
“If you have one child you now have two, and if you have two, you now have three,” the Hezbollah representatives reportedly said during their visits.Al-Mustaqbal noted that the party has never made such a request before, even during its long periods of active combat operations against Israel.
The report comes amid reports Hezbollah is suffering from a financial crisis, with the US pressing stringent banking sanctions against the party which have forced Lebanese banks to take action. While the the sanctions have angered Hezbollah, party chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah insisted in a June 24 speech that Hezbollah’s entire budget is bankrolled by Tehran.“As long as there is money in Iran, we will have money,” he said defiantly.
Despite his claim that the sanctions would not hurt Hezbollah, Nasrallah added that his party was angry over Lebanese banks closing down accounts of charities and private individuals for their purported support for the party. “This is irresponsible, aggressive behavior,” Nasrallah said in a broadside aimed at the country’s banking sector. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said earlier in June that 100 Hezbollah-linked bank accounts had been shut down in the country, prompting an angry riposte from Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc later that day, which said Lebanon’s “monetary policy has lost its sovereignty.”
A US law passed on December 18, 2015 mandates the strictest sanctions yet against Hezbollah as well any individual or organization affiliated with it and any financial institution anywhere in the world that “knowingly facilitates a transaction” for it. In response, the Lebanese Central Bank issued Circular No. 137 on May 3, calling on Lebanese banks to abide by the US legislation, action has already been taken by banks against numerous Hezbollah officials. The sanction law and the Lebanese banking sectors adherence to it has enraged Hezbollah, with on of the party’s minister in the government, Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, saying in a mid-May cabinet session the sanctions “transgressed all red lines” and represented part of a “war of elimination.”However, Hezbollah on May 18 praised a directive by Salameh calling on banks to consult with the Central Bank before shutting accounts down. Information leaked by a number of these wealthy [people] indicates that Hezbollah officials visited them in their homes bearing [lists] of the names of children of [fighters] that fell in Syria.
 

Hezbollah and LF make their case for Aoun presidency
Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/September 19/16
BEIRUT: Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, on opposite ends of the political divide, teamed up Sunday to call on the Future Movement and its March 14 allies to elect MP Michel Aoun as president as the only way to end the prolonged presidential vacuum and avoid an escalation threatened by the Free Patriotic Movement. Nonetheless, the pleas issued separately by Hezbollah’s deputy head Sheikh Naim Qassem and LF deputy chief MP George Adwan are likely to fall on deaf ears as senior Future Movement officials have totally dismissed the possibility of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri backing Aoun’s presidential bid anytime soon. They also reiterated the Future bloc’s commitment to supporting Marada Movement leader MP Sleiman Frangieh’s candidacy for the presidency.
In the meantime, senior Hezbollah and Future officials will meet Tuesday as part of their ongoing dialogue aimed at defusing sectarian and political tensions stoked by the 5-year-old war in Syria. With the presidential election crisis being a main topic on their agenda, Hezbollah officials are expected to try to talk their rivals in the Future Movement into supporting Aoun’s candidacy for the country’s top Christian post, political sources said. But former premier Fouad Siniora, head of the parliamentary Future bloc, who staunchly opposes Aoun’s election as president, ruled out any compromise over the presidency.
“There is no compromise [over the presidency]. There is a democratic path that should take its course,” Siniora told Al-Jadeed TV station. He called on lawmakers from Aoun’s bloc and Hezbollah’s bloc, who have been boycotting Parliament sessions for more than two years, thwarting a quorum, to attend a new session slated for Sept. 28 to elect a president.
For his part, Speaker Nabih Berri, who has been hosting the Future-Hezbollah talks and the now suspended national dialogue, reiterated that the only solution to the political stalemate that has left Lebanon without a president for more than two years is through a “full-package” deal that includes the election of a head of state, an agreement on a new electoral law, the shape of a new government and administrative decentralization. “I don’t have any new initiative,” Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence. Asked to comment on the FPM’s reported optimism about electing Aoun as president at the Sept. 28 session, Berri said: “Let’s wait for the next 10 days to see the truth of scenarios being spread here and there.”Berri, who backs Frangieh against Aoun for the presidency, said: “There is nothing between me and Aoun. He says I am against him, but he is against himself.” The speaker, who indefinitely suspended the all-party talks on Sept. 5, said he will not resume the dialogue “unless all [parties] change their positions and come to the dialogue table to solve [problems] rather than make speeches.”
Earlier in the day, Qassem said the only way to end the presidential void was for all the political factions, including the Future Movement, to vote for Aoun, who is backed by Hezbollah, the LF and some March 8 allies. “Days have proved that the only path to the presidency passes through the election of Gen. Michel Aoun,” Qassem said in a speech during a graduation ceremony in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. “Big and regional powers, the Security Council and the League of Arab States will not be able to change this path. They have tried to change this path for more than two years, but they failed.”
“Delaying the election of a president will not change the equation and will only result in a longer vacuum and further obstruction and harming of the people’s interests,” Qassem said. Blaming the Future Movement for the presidential deadlock, Qassem said: “I advise the Future party, which is now blocking the election of a president, to end its hesitation. The road to a solution is known. It is in the interest of the country and their interest to have Aoun as president.” “When everyone agrees to endorse Gen. Aoun, we’ll be ready, we’ll go to Parliament and vote for him. ... A victory for Aoun is a victory for Lebanon,” he added. A similar view was echoed by Adwan, the LF deputy chief, who said that the election of Aoun as president or an agreement on a new vote system would spare the country threatened escalation by the FPM. “We are heading for a phase of escalation. There are two ways to avoid this escalation because political stability is essential for Lebanon,” Adwan said in a speech at an LF ceremony in northern Metn commemorating the party’s militiamen who were killed during the 1975-90 Civil War and the 34th anniversary of the assassination of the party’s founder and President-elect Bachir Gemayel in 1982.
“The first way is to elect a president. We, as the Lebanese Forces, have nominated Gen. Aoun [for the presidency],” he said. He called on Berri, Hariri and MP Walid Jumblatt, who all support Frangieh’s presidential bid, “to sit together and talk about Aoun’s candidacy as soon as possible because the situation cannot endure continuing postponement.”
Adwan said if no results were reached on Aoun’s candidacy, an agreement on a new electoral law to replace the controversial 1960 system would reduce tensions and prevent escalation. The FPM has threatened escalatory measures against the government over alleged marginalization of Christians in state posts. In addition to boycotting Cabinet sessions over the extension of senior military officials’ terms, the FPM has announced that it would stage protests on Sept. 28 and Oct. 13 in response to perceived slights in the Cabinet and at national dialogue sessions. LF media officer Melhem Riachi said the Future Movement was considering endorsing Aoun’s bid for the presidency. “We’ve discussed with our Future Movement allies the possibility of them endorsing Michel Aoun for the presidency and they’re now considering it,” Riachi said in interview with Future TV.

MP Ahmad Fatfat: Aoun's Rhetoric Is Secterian
The Daily Star/September 19/16/BEIRUT: Future Movement MP Ahmad Fatfat Monday singled out MP Michel Aoun’s sectarian rhetoric as one of the main issues his party has with the presidential candidate. In an interview with Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5), Fatfat said the Future Movement opposes the extreme sectarianism in Aoun’s speeches. No other Christian leaders reach that level of sectarianism in their rhetoric, he said. Aoun’s party, the Free Patriotic Movement, has recently accused the government of failing to abide by the National Charter, which calls for an equal power-sharing formula between Muslims and Christians. Fatfat’s remarks come as pressure is being mounted on the Future Movement to support the FPM founder’s presidential bid. However, Future officials have repeatedly expressed their opposition to Aoun. They insist that Marada Movement leader Sleiman Frangieh is their candidate for the presidency. On Sunday, officials from both Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, which both support Aoun’s candidacy, urged the Future Movement and its March 14 allies to back the FPM founder's presidential bid. But Fatfat instead called on the FPM and Hezbollah to change their minds and head to Parliament to elect a president the “democratic way.”A new presidential election session is scheduled for Sept. 28. However, Aoun’s bloc and Hezbollah’s bloc have been boycotting the sessions for more than two years, thwarting a quorum.

FPM Sets Stage for Street Protests amid Warning against ‘Political Coup’
Wajdi Al-Aridi/Asharq Al Awsat/September 19/16/Beirut- The Free Patriotic Movement is setting the stage for street protests under the pretext of attempting to restore constitutionality after the group boycotted cabinet sessions and rejected to attend parliamentary sessions aimed at electing a new president over the lack of consensus on FPM founder MP Michel Aoun. The FPM is now carrying out preparations in its regional offices across Lebanon to mobilize its supporters, despite a warning by Christian officials that their protests would be tantamount to a “political coup.” Sources that have been informed about the FPM’s preparations told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that its regional offices have gone on alert and are setting the stage in coordination with their allies, mainly the so-called Hezbollah that backs Aoun for the presidency, to resort to street protests. But the Christian officials said that “there are preparations for a political coup … that is a clear coup against the constitution and an attempt to ignite civil war.” Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan said on Sunday that the best way to avoid escalation is to elect a president. “The LF backs Aoun for the presidency,” he stressed. Another LF official told Asharq al-Awsat that the party rejects street protests and that it has warned FPM officials against taking any step that would threaten civil peace. Minister for Displaced Persons Alice Shabtini also said in remarks to Asharq al-Awsat that “Aoun is in a state of disarray and does not know what he is doing.” She referred to a meeting held by the Ambassadors of France, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States and the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon with Prime Minister Tammam Salam last week. Shabtini said the statement issued after the meeting is a confirmation that the major countries continue to back the government. Asked about the alleged coordination between Aoun and Hezbollah over the planned protests, Shabtini said she didn’t want to resort to assumptions. But the minister stressed that the FPM and Hezbollah have political and security cooperation linked to Iran.

Board Chairman Of Pro-Hizbullah Daily Ibrahim Al-Amin: Kill Every Armed American Outside Of The U.S., Expel All Americans From Our Countries
The Middle East Media Research Institute/September 19/16
Special Dispatch | 6617
On September 19, 2016, following of reports that American forces have entered Northern Syria, Ibrahim Al-Amin, board chairman of the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, published a virulent article titled "For Us, The Americans Are Murderers And Thieves Who Must Be Resisted." In it, Al-Amin attacked the U.S., which he claimed occupies Iraq and now Syria as well, and called to kill every armed American outside the U.S. and expel all "American functionaries," including diplomats, civil society activists and academics, from Arab countries.
The following is a translation of the article:[1]
"It is the 'right' of the Americans – the government, the people, and the institutions – to not learn from their experience in maintaining relations with the other peoples of the world. However, the problem lies in the fact that some of our own people do not wish to learn [either], and continue to rely on this group of murderers and thieves. What can be done with such people? Nothing. But every time, and in more than one place in the world, and in every generation, there is a group that realizes that the only way to deal with an arrogant murderer is by using own method, logic, and language.
"The U.S. does not suffice with reoccupying Iraq, but has decided to expand its conquest to Syria. The excuse it uses [to convince] itself is understandable, since all the elements it tasked with toppling the Syrian state, harming the resistance, and preventing any substantial change in the region have failed.
"Ok. It can do what it sees fit. But we too must do what suits us. We must shoot any American carrying arms outside the U.S., without considering the reason for his presence [outside the U.S.] and whether it is the result of a request by some element or another. This is an occupying force that must be resisted with bullets and fire.
"We will [also] expel all official American functionaries: diplomats, administrators, academics, and especially the peace-lovers, human rights and civil society [activists], and particularly the heads of civil society organizations. [Additionally,] we will expel anyone who interacts with them, whether directly or indirectly. This is just a handful of thieves who will not be swayed by words, requests, and even rebukes. They only understand the language of fire and iron.
"We have no method other than to expel the American occupation from our countries, whether it is military, security, diplomatic, or some other [type of occupation]. We will kill them and expel them and distance them from us. Whoever wants them present will have to pay the price of their filth."
[1] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), September 19, 2016.
 

Salam Urges U.N. for Plan to Repatriate Syrian Refugees
Naharnet/September 19/16/Naharnet/September 19/16/Prime Minister Tammam Salam on Monday urged the United Nations to devise a plan for the “safe return” of Syrian refugees from Lebanon to their country. “This huge and sudden influx of refugees is posing dangerous risks to our stability, security, economy and public services,” said Salam during the first-ever U.N. summit on refugees in New York. “Lebanon risks collapsing if the international community does not exert major efforts in this regard,” Salam added, addressing U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon. The prime minister also urged the world and the U.N. to “devise a detailed roadmap for the safe and honorable return of the Syrian refugees who are present in Lebanon to their country.” “This detailed plan must be devised within three months and it must detail the transportation needs, the places of departure and the financial cost,” Salam added.
“Collecting the funds needed for this plan must begin immediately so that it can be quickly implemented once the circumstances allow,” he urged. Salam also called for announcing quotas for countries in the region and beyond to share the refugee burden with Lebanon. “Negotiations for redistributing the refugees to areas outside Lebanon must begin before the end of this year,” the premier said, while calling for “boosting the funding of developmental projects at the local and regional levels.”“Mr. Secretary General, when will the world do something for Lebanon? When will the U.N. assume this mission and rally serious efforts to help refugees and displaced people?” Salam added, addressing Ban Ki-moon. Five years into the Syria conflict, Lebanon hosts more than one million refugees from the war-torn country, according to the United Nations. More than a third live in the Bekaa valley near the Syrian border.

Geagea: Hizbullah Wants a President with a Weak Personality
Naharnet/September 19/16/Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has reiterated that Hizbullah “is not serious” in its declared support for Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun's presidential bid, noting that the Iran-backed party prefers a president with a “weak personality.”“I believe that Hizbullah is not serious in its support for Aoun... and the party is only supporting Aoun through words. The biggest proof of this is the fact that after we in the LF party supported Aoun's nomination, a serious possibility for his election emerged and yet Hizbullah has not taken any serious step in this regard until the moment,” said Geagea in an interview published Monday by the German news agency DPA. “Hizbullah does not want the presidential elections to be held at the moment and maybe it is awaiting the outcome of the conflict in Syria,” Geagea added, noting that “they are linking the presidential file to other files in the region on the hope that they can achieve more gains.” “I don't know who they will eventually support... but they don't want a strong republic nor a strong president, because that would simply mean a weakening of the party's role,” the LF leader went on to say. He added: “I believe that they will support a president who does not have Aoun's characteristics... they will support a president with a weak personality so that they subjugate him and this does not apply to Aoun.” Geagea also admitted that he still has the ambition to be elected president himself. “It would not be about seeking posts or self-fulfillment but rather about realizing a lot of ideas that can enhance Lebanon's future,” the LF leader said, noting that “the circumstances are not ripe for this at the moment” and that the LF is still clinging to Aoun's nomination. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival, after months of political rapprochement talks between the two parties. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Shaker: I'll Only Turn Myself in to Judge who is Loyal to God
Naharnet/September 19/16/Pop star-turned-fugitive Fadel Shaker announced Monday that he will only turn himself in to a Lebanese judge who is “loyal to God,” denying reports that negotiations were underway to settle his legal status or allow him to leave the country. “I will only turn myself in to a judge who is loyal to God,” Shaker, who has sought refuge at the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, told MTV in a phone interview. “There are no mediations, contacts or efforts to reach a settlement,” he insisted. “These are mere reports, the words of deceitful media outlets. We have got used to the lies of the Lebanese media outlets,” Shaker added. “Lebanese media outlets are under the influence of certain parties and they have criminalized me and a lot of other people,” he went on to say, urging the media to “leave him alone.”Shaker dared any Lebanese official to present evidence that “proves that Fadel Shaker is a terrorist and murderer who killed army troops.”“I don't want moles to accuse me of being a terrorist. Let them show us footage from the CCTV cameras that were installed at (detained Islamic cleric Ahmed) al-Asir's headquarters. Let them show us where I carried a weapon to fight the army,” Shaker added. He also noted that he had “handed over the weapons” of his group to the army “a week before the Abra battle” and that the move was “documented by the army's intelligence directorate.” On September 5, As Safir newspaper said Shaker had asked Lebanese security agencies to facilitate his travel to Qatar. The pop star-turned-fugitive was sentenced in February to five years in prison on charges of sectarian incitement. He was also charged with “harming Lebanon's ties with a fraternal Arab country” during an interview he had conducted in the past few years. He was stripped of his civil rights and a warrant was issued for his arrest. In May 2015, he was sentenced to four and a half years in jail, but in June the Cassation Court nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. He was ordered released on bail in January. Around four years ago, Shaker became affiliated with extremist Salafist movements linked to cleric al-Asir, whose supporters fought deadly clashes with the army in the Sidon suburb of Abra in 2013. Asir was arrested last year at Beirut's airport as he sought to flee the country.

Kataeb Slams Presidential Vote Obstruction as 'Kidnap for Ransom'
Naharnet/September 19/16/The Kataeb Party on Monday slammed “the behavior of some parties towards the presidential crisis” as “unprecedented blackmail” and “kidnap for ransom.”“It is an unprecedented blackmail and an attempt to usurp the political system and kidnap the republic for a ransom,” said the party in a statement issued after the weekly meeting of its political bureau. “The stances that were voiced in the past hours confirm anew the presence of a dictatorship that is appropriating MPs' freedom, burying democracy, suspending the Constitution and establishing a customary system for Lebanon,” Kataeb added. And slamming the parties who are trying to “impose a president” on the country under the threat of plunging the country into “total chaos,” the party warned that “this is the worst scenario for the most dangerous existential crisis that Lebanon has gone through.”
Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties, including Kataeb, as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival, after months of political rapprochement talks between the two parties. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Qazzi Presents the First Plan for the Return of Displaced Syrians
Naharnet/September 19/16/Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi presented on Monday the first detailed project and mechanism for the return of displaced Syrians back to their homeland, as he warned of changes to the Lebanese entity shall the refugees remain in Lebanon. “The national identity is subject to change and the Lebanese entity is in danger and the return of Syrians to Syria is necessary,” stressed Qazzi in a televised appearance. Pointing to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York that will address the issue of refugees and migrants, Qazzi said: “The Labor Ministry is not interested in any decision taken today in New York on the subject of Syrian refugees outside the framework of their return to their country.”“If the return of Palestinians to Palestine is a right, then the return of Syrians to Syria is a duty,” he emphasized. “The next phase is entitled 'Syria for the Syrians and the Syrians to Syria.' We announce a comprehensive and detailed program starting in January 2017 where the implementation will be gradual and over two years,” he concluded. He stressed “the need to secure financial budget from the Arab and donor countries to cover the project expenses.”

Raad: Electoral Law Essential for National Partnership
Naharnet/September 19/16/Hizbullah's top lawmaker Mohammed Raad stressed Monday that the electoral law is essential for “national partnership.”“The election of a president is a main pillar but national partnership must be embodied in the electoral law, which is another main pillar without which political life cannot be stabilized,” Raad, the head of the Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, said. Hizbullah has recently showed solidarity with its ally the Free Patriotic Movement by boycotting a cabinet session that was held in the absence of the movement's ministers – Jebran Bassil and Elias Bou Saab. The FPM, which has the biggest Christian bloc in parliament, has suspended its participation in cabinet sessions and national dialogue meetings over accusations that other parties in the country are not respecting the National Pact.The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state based on Christian-Muslim partnership.

Beary: Security Situation Improved, I Follow Hizbullah's Concerns Through Media
Naharnet/September 19/16/UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major-General Michael Beary said on Monday that the security situation in Lebanon is much better, as he assured that he follows up on “Hizbullah's fears through media outlets.”“The situation is much better. Efforts must carry on to preserve peace and stability in south Lebanon in collaboration with concerned parties,” Beary told As Safir daily in an interview. “The major challenge lies in maintaining efforts to achieve success in the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 in terms of monitoring the cessation of hostilities, and to try to move towards a permanent ceasefire. In order to achieve this end, we have to maintain links with the parties, including through the tripartite meeting which leads to the required results, and that we continue to place visible marks on the Blue line in order to avoid any breach.” Beary drove the attention to the UNIFIL's collaboration with Lebanese army in that regard, he said: “There is a good relationship with the Lebanese army on the strategic and operational levels.”In terms of the relations with Hizbullah, Beary stressed that he personally has no direct contacts with the party, he said: “I follow Lebanese media and I can see what the concerns of Hizbullah are. We are working with the representative of the Lebanese government on the ground, namely the Lebanese army which is the main party that we communicate with.”

Report: Syria Rebels Infiltrate Lebanon, Captivate Hizbullah Official
Naharnet/September 19/16/Syrian rebels in the outskirts of Western al-Qalamoun in Rif Damascus held a Hizbullah official and his wife while they were driving through the Lebanese town of Ham, the Saudi Okaz daily reported on Monday. “Rebel factions in the outskirts of Western al-Qalamoun carried out a quality operation and were able to arrest Hizbullah official responsible for the party's armament named Hassan Murad, nicknamed Abou Abdullah, and his wife Karma Mahdi,” unnamed sources told the daily. “The assailants infiltrated into the Lebanese town of Ham on the Eastern Mountain Range on the border with Syria and were able to arrest Abdullah and his wife while they were driving through the town,” it added. “The rebels retreated back to the outskirts,” after the operation. The sources added on condition of anonymity that the rebels expressed willingness to negotiate the release of the hostages based on a set of conditions that include the withdrawal of Hizbullah from several regions in western al-Qalamoun. Hizbullah first began sending fighters in small numbers to Syria in 2012, to help protect Shiite shrines near the capital, Damascus, and has gradually escalated its involvement, dispatching fighters to ever more distant places to shore up the battered forces of President Bashar Assad.

Berri Prefers Franjieh over Aoun, Says Has Much to Reveal if Necessary
Naharnet/September 19/16/Speaker Nabih Berri criticized a campaign that held him accountable for the failure to elect founder of the Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun as president, and said that the purpose of the campaign is to “manipulate the facts and distort the truth,' As Safir daily reported on Monday. “Shall (al-Mustaqbal Movement leader) ex-PM Saad Hariri decide to support Aoun, the “General” would become a president the next day no matter what my stance is. How can I be the one obstructing his arrival at the Baabda Palace in that case?” asked Berri. However, the daily said that Berri does not hide his initial choice, he said : “Shall I be made to choose between Aoun and (Marada Movement chief) Suleiman Franjieh, I would unhesitatingly elect Franjieh and I have my reasons.”Furthermore, Berri criticized the FPM's decision to boycott the cabinet meetings under the slogan of commitment to the National Pact and how the movement considered the government as illegitimate after the FPM minsters boycotted its meetings, while the military government headed by Aoun in 1988 continued to work then despite the resignation of half its Muslim members. The Speaker went to say “I advise the FPM not to push too hard in embarrassing me because I can reveal much shall I decide to say what I know.”

Report: Hariri Could Hold Talks with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Salman
Naharnet/September 19/16/Al-Mustaqbal Movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri might visit Saudi Arabia in the next few days to hold talks with Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed Bin Salman, al-Akhbar daily reported on Monday. Hariri had visited Saudi Arabia last week before returning to Paris. He did not hold meetings with any of the Saudi officials, added the daily. March 8 camp officials told the newspaper that the “positions of Hariri and Saudi Arabia have not changed with regard to the presidency in Lebanon.” “Hariri has not received a new Saudi signal in that regard,” added the sources. “Hariri knows the pulse of his street. He is convinced that he could lose a lot if he supports the nomination of (Change and Reform bloc head Michel) Aoun, at a time when some are working from within the Mustaqbal movement’s ranks to make him lose his supporters,” added the sources. Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Reports emerged lately claiming that efforts were underway and that Hariri could change his mind and endorse Aoun for the presidency. The reports were dubbed as untrue by Mustaqbal officials. The supporters of founder of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum.

Salam, Cavusoglu chair UN round table on migrants, urge for return plan for Syrians
Mon 19 Sep 2016/NNA - Prime Minister, Tammam Salam, and Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, chaired, at the UN in New York on Monday, a round table on international efforts and cooperation about migrants and refugees. In his word, Salam highlighted the importance of tackling issues related to refugees and migrants, in order to enable host communities, and to prevent instability. "It is also important to bolster international cooperation in facing such a major problem, and secure multiplied efforts," he said. "The recognition of a refugee crisis and a joint responsibility is certainly a step in the right direction. But this step needs to be translated into action plans and tangible work," he added. "The international community must this time go further than promises. It must start implementing determined measures to face the reverberations of the tremendous demographic changes that have taken place in our countries," he underlined. Salam also maintained that violence must be ceased in Syria and a political solution must be reached. "Some countries participating in this summit can undoubtedly affect this process," he remarked. "One of the key concerns in the countries hosting huge numbers of refugees is the lack of security," he indicated, stressing on growing xenophobia. "We, in Lebanon, have repeatedly confirmed our absolute rejection of settlement," he reminded. "It is paramount that, as a measure to fight xenophobia, the United Nations announce a detailed and clear plan for the return of Syrians to their homeland," he concluded.

Salam from New York: For detailed plan to secure safe return of displaced Syrians to their homeland
Mon 19 Sep 2016/NNA - Prime Minister, Tammam Salam, on Monday called on the world countries to set a detailed roadmap to secure a safe and dignified return of displaced Syrians present in Lebanon to their homeland. "This thorough plan must be drawn within three months and determine the transportation and departure points with the full financial costs," Premier Salam said during the United Nations Refugees' Conference currently taking place in New York. He stressed the need for swiftly securing the needed funds for such a plan so as to immediately start its implementation once circumstances permit. Salam also demanded stepping up funding of development projects at the local and regional levels, calling for launching a campaign to raise funds for UNRWA to enable it to carry out its humanitarian obligations towards the Palestinian refugees, the completion of its educational programs, and the completion of the reconstruction of Nahr al-Bared camp. "This massive influx of displaced Syrians to Lebanon leaves serious impact on our stability, security, economy and public services' infrastructure," Salam said, noting that the number of displaced Syrians has reached what is equivalent to one third of the population, not to mention the 50,000 Palestinian refugees who fled from the fighting in Syria. Salam also said that the statistics by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that more than one hundred thousand Syrian children were born in Lebanon since the onset of the crisis in 2011, which means that the number of displaced Syrians shall continue to rise.

Bassil meets Hungarian counterpart in New York, attends UN refugees summit
Mon 19 Sep 2016/NNA - Foreign Minister, Gebran Bassil, held a bilateral meeting in New York on Monday with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Talks reportedly touched on an array of current affairs on top of which Syrians' displacement and migration. During the meeting, Szijjarto underlined his government's measures to prevent migration into Hungary, presenting Bassil with an official invitation to visit his country. For his part, Bassil thanked his counterpart for his "understanding position on Lebanon, as to the return of Syrians to their homeland, considering the negative impact of their presence on the social, security, economic, and demographic levels in Lebanon." Bassil also attended the opening of the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, alongside Prime Minister, Tammam Salam, who chaired Lebanon's delegation in New York. Moreover, he participated in the meeting that gathered Salam and Arab League Chief, Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on September 19-20/16

Israel: Monday sees four attacks as wave of terror continues
Ynetnews/September 19/16 /A bus driver was lightly injured in Wadi al-Joz in east Jerusalem; a stabbing attack was thwarted in Hebron; another stabbing attack occured at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the afternoon; two police officers were stabbed outside the Old City of Jerusalem in the morning; has the wave of terror returned? There were four terror attacks carried out throughout Israel on Monday. In the latest, a bus driver was lightly wounded in a stone throwing attack on Monday evening as it was travelling through the Arab Wadi al-Joz neighborhood in east Jerusalem. Magen David Adom paramedics arrived on the scene and treated the driver, while the Israel Police have begun a search for the stone throwers. Meanwhile, only moments before, a Palestinian man tried to stab IDF soldiers who were combing the area in the Abu Snina neighborhood of Hebron. The soldiers arrested the terrorist without firing a shot, and took him in for questioning. The US State Department issued a travel warning to east Jerusalem following Monday’s terror incidents. The warning stated that the reason for this is recent terror events in Jerusalem’s Old City, and said that civilians should avoid visiting areas in which there is a heavy police presence. American citizens were specifically warned to avoid going to the Old City’s gates - particularly the Lions’ Gate, Damascus Gate, and Herod’s Gate. Earlier in the evening, Jerusalem District Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner Yoram Halevy, addressed the recent wave of attacks and said that police will continue to close streets and stores after attacks. "We will close stores in any sector after an attack takes place so that we can sterilize the area."Halevy was referring to the fact that during the day, after terrorist attacks in Herod's Gate, east Jerusalem Police closed the Sultan Suleiman street shops. Police stressed that the decision was based on "operational considerations in order to establish information and complete the investigation of the attack." After several hours and an official police assessment, police decided to reopen the route and shops.
Two terrorists attempted to stab Border Police officers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron earlier on Monday afternoon. They were shot and very seriously injured before they could harm anyone. One attacker was declared dead at the scene, while the second was pronounced dead in hospital.
Stabbing attack at Herod's Gate
Also, a 38-year-old policewoman and a 47-year-old policeman were wounded in a stabbing attack at Herod's Gate in Jerusalem's Old City Monday morning; Magen David Adom (MDA) reported that the two were left in critical and serious condition respectively. The attack took place shortly after 7:30am. The terrorist apparently approached from the direction of Damascus Gate when he spotted the two members of the police. He followed them and stabbed them multiple times with a knife. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the policewoman was stabbed in the neck.

Iran regime prevents holding concerts in two major provinces
Monday, 19 September 2016/NCRI - The Iranian regime’s judiciary officials prevented holding concerts in the city of Behshahr in Mazandaran province, northern Iran. According to the state-run Fars news agency affiliated with Iranian Revolutionary Guards, a live concert by Hamid Askari, which was supposed to be held on September 17 in Hutu hall complex in the city of Behshahr was canceled by the regime’s officials.Hamid Askari confirmed the news on his personal page and wrote: “I hope the day comes when authorities find out that music does not destroy people's religion or belief but it is discrimination, corruption, embezzlement and bribery by the officials’ children that destroy our country. We do not expect that Rouhani (Iranian regime’s President) and his Minister of Culture do anything [about this issue] either. It seems that the issue of culture is Rouhani’s last concern.”In addition, according to the state-run T-News news agency, Pasdar (Revolutionary Guard) Reyhani, commander of the IRGC’s Corps in the province of Kermanshah (western Iran), opposed holding concerts in the city and said: “Indecent actions, improper veiling, dancing, mixing strangers (of opposite genders) in concerts have created a public outcry and, of course, there are limits to the patience of the people and the revolutionary youths, and the monitoring and legal systems certainly will not remain indifferent to this situation.”“Today, tolerating part of the vice in concerts in Kermanshah is not acceptable to the society. They should not assume that Kermanshah is a good place for cultural indifference and nonchalance,” he added.

IRAN: Milk being removed from the food table of so many people, due to its high price!
Monday, 19 September 2016/NCRI - The CEO of Iranian regime’s Cooperative Union of Dairy Products: “Due to the rising cost of dairy products, many people have removed milk from their food table despite its numerous benefits.”In an interview with the state news agency “Young Journalists Club” on September 15, “Mohammad Reza Ganji” stated that the per capita consumption of dairy products in Iran is currently around 80 Kilos. He added: “It was planned in the fifth development program to raise the per capita consumption of dairy products to around 160 Kilos. But it has not happened due to some factors such as drought, rising cost of animal feed and a decrease in purchasing power.”Ganji pointed to one of the factors which has raised the price of dairy products and said: “At the moment, high interest rates has led to an increase in the prime costs of the products.”
This new agency also quoted from Mohammad Reza Esmaeili, former CEO of Cooperative Union of Dairy Products, as saying: “At the moment, the per capita consumption of dairy products is around 70 Liters while the Ministry of Agriculture has announced a higher figure. This is not the right strategy.”Without giving a practical solution and only offering the empty slogans for increasing per capita consumption of dairy products, Esmaeili added: “Modifying food culture as well as supporting low-income families by the government are among the main factors which help increase the per capita consumption.”He concluded by saying: “Following the launch of targeted subsidies, the per capita consumption of dairy products fell which was a fatal blow to this industry.”

Iran: Beating political prisoner during transfer to court
Monday, 19 September 2016/NCRI - According to reports, political prisoner Mahmoud Naji was beaten severely by the officers and prison guards in Gohardasht (Rajaii Shahr) near Karaj west of Tehran while being transferred from the prison to a court. In the morning of September 17, Gohardasht prison guards and officers on the orders of the head of the prison, Mohammad Mardani, grabbed feet and arms of Mahmoud Naji and while severely beating him, forcibly transferred him to the court. This is while this political prisoner was sick and needed hospitalization due to stress and his poor health condition. Mahmoud Naji, who is imprisoned in Ward 2 of Gohardasht prison, has previously staged a hunger strike to protest against false case-making against him on bogus charges in both the revolutionary and criminal courts. During the transfer, he repeatedly told the prison agents that he is sick and in poor health condition and does not recognize nor accept their court. In addition, political prisoner, Afshin Baymani, who was earlier transferred to cardiac hospital for heart problem was returned to Gohardasht prison without treatment. This political prisoner, who has spent more than 16 years in prison, suffers from heart disease and high blood pressure and fluctuations. He was transferred to Tehran’s Cardiac Hospital on September 10, but was returned back on September 16 without treatment upon the order of Judiciary officials and transferred to solitary confinement cells which lack basic amenities. Doctors emphasized that this prisoner must remain in a quiet and stress-free environment. When Afshin Baymani protested his condition in the prison, the prison agents said: “You must remain in solitary confinement for one day. This is the direct order of the prison warden.”

Iran: Theoretician of execution and torture, reacts to UN Commissioner’s remarks
Monday, 19 September 2016/NCRI - In response to the statements of UN Commissioner” Zeyd Ra’ad Al Hussein” about the “fundamental problems” in regime’s judicial process and execution of juveniles by Mullahs’ regime, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Secretary General of regime’s human rights council, has defended the execution of prisoners. In a letter to the UN Commissioner on Friday September 16, Larijani tried to justify the executions and said: “It should be pointed out that the commitment to abolish the death penalty has not been accepted by the international community as a hard or soft commitment and there is no consensus in this regard. Besides, the international covenant on civil and political rights does not completely rule out the death penalty. Rather, it even allows the member states to use it under certain conditions. The death penalty is not a human rights issue, but an issue related to the criminal justice system and a deterrent element for serious crimes. Therefore, this punishment should be evaluated in accordance with the rights of victims and the right of society to live in peace and security. Any country has the right to choose its own criminal justice system or its legal, economic, cultural, political and social systems without the intervention of other countries. Purposes and principles of the United Nations charter clearly states, especially in article 2 paragraph 7, that nothing contained in the charter authorizes the UN to intervene in matters that are within the local jurisdiction of a member state.” With the start of the 33rd session of UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday September 13 in Geneva, Zeyd Ra’ad Al Hussein warned over the continuation of human rights violations in Iran under the rule of the Mullahs and the non-cooperation of the Mullahs’ regime with human rights organizations. He said: “Regarding the Islamic Republic, my office has not been allowed to have any kind of access from 2003… Our proposal to start technical talks about the death penalty has been, like other cooperation proposals, systematically ignored. This is unfortunate, especially considering the ongoing reports we receive on fundamental problems with the judicial administration of criminal justice, on the execution of so many people including juveniles, on prosecuting and discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities, on harsh restrictions on human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and on discrimination against women both in law and in practice.” Ra’ad Al Hussein criticized the number of executions in Iran under the rule of the Mullahs while expressing concerns over the ongoing execution of juveniles. He then pointed to the non-cooperation of the Iranian regime and said: “ Some countries may shut down UN (human rights) offices or refuse to cooperate with the international inspectors, but they should know that they can never close our eyes to the truth. We keep trying our best so that our reports on these countries remain accurate.”

Iran stone exporters will be subject to 80 percent tax
Monday, 19 September 2016/NCRI - According to a report by “Tasnim” news agency in September 14, the President of Stone Association of Iran has said: “Selling crude materials is one of the problems of Iran’s stone industry which like a pest is threatening its life and puts our valuable assets in this section at the disposal of other countries, with the least benefit and the most trouble.”Shafiei added: “At the moment, the prime cost of our products is high and that is one of the factors which is preventing Iran from having a successful participation in the global markets.”While comparing Iran to other stone-exporting countries, Shafiei pointed to the plight of the stone industry in Iran and said:” Stone exporters in many countries are enjoying a 100 percent tax exemption while Iranian stone exporters are subject to 80 percent tax. In this regard, necessary measures should be taken to support stone exporters.”He pointed to the disintegrated economy under Rouhani’s government and added: “Unfortunately, despite Iran’s high potential in producing decorative stones, we are witnessing that decorative and building stones are being imported from countries such as Turkey and China which is a serious threat to Iran’s stone market.”Shafiei concluded by giving some statistics on Iran’s stone industry. He said: “With 1950 mines and 6000 stone cutting units, Iran’s stone exports amount to $180 million. Besides, the total amount of Iran’s stone production has been 14 million tons, four percent of which, namely 516 thousand tons, have been exported.”

Iran regime arrests 30 boys and girls for attending mixed-gender party in northern city of Rasht
Sunday, 18 September 2016/NCRI - A total of 30 young girls and boys were arrested at a party after a raid by security forces, according to Iranian News sorces. A website called (asrekhabar) on Sunday 18 September reported that the clerical regime security forces during a raid on a party last Friday night in Rasht, northern Iran arrested 30 girls and boys. Commenting on the recent spate of arrests, Shahin Gobadi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said: “The clerical regime has never been so isolated at home and loathed by the Iranian people, in particular by the youth and women. As such, it is resorting to more and more repressive measures to confront this growing trend. This once again proves that the notion of moderation under Hassan Rouhani is a total myth. But it also indicates the vulnerable and shaky state of a regime that cannot even tolerate private festivities of the people, particularly the youth. It is becoming more evident that the mullahs are totally paranoid of any social gathering in fear of a popular uprising.”

Iran: Many girls deprived of education in the new academic year
Monday, 19 September 2016/NCRI - Less than a week away from the beginning of the new academic year in Iran, a large number of young girls are deprived of education. Following are remarks by a number of officials on just one province, southwestern Iranian province of Khuzistan, and just a few cities, but reflect a small example of the entire picture. Fazel Khamissi, head of the Department of Education in District 4 of Ahwaz, acknowledged that in many areas, only one of every four girls succeeds in obtaining a high school diploma. Javad Kazem Nassab Albaji, parliamentary deputy from Ahwaz, also said that in some parts of the Khuzistan Province, girls cry because there is no secondary schools and they are forbidden to go to schools in other regions. In Ismaelieh District of Ahwaz with the largest number of girls who have been left out of school, girls are discontented with the shortage of schools because there are no secondary schools in their villages. Lailie Nazarpour, expert in charge of women's affairs in Khuzistan Province, indicates that the number of girls who do not go to school is twice as much as boys. Girs are deprived of education for various economic and social reasons, shortage of schools, and living in areas which are difficult to pass in order to go to school. (The state-run asriran.ir website – September 17, 2016)

‘All terrorists must be killed,’ says famed IDF general (res.) at Hebron shooter trial
By Yonah Jeremy Bob, JPOST
Three ISDF generals were testifying on behalf of IDF Sgt. Elor Azria as the trial into the case of the soldier’s shooting of a subdued Palestinian terrorist continued at the Jaffa Military Court on Monday. In what could possibly be the most consequential day of the trial so far, the generals are expected argue that Azaria’s actions were justified given the dangerous circumstances surrounding the incident. The generals were also due to testify that they had seen worse behavior from soldiers in the past who had not been tried for criminal offenses in court. Famed IDF Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan was one of the top military brass testifying on behalf of Azaria on Monday. Dayan took the stand in support of Azaria, saying all terrorists must be killed. When asked, the reserve general dismissed the notion that killing a terrorist solely on the basis that he is a terrorist violates the rules of engagement.
“If you are in a mission in Syria you can shoot a terrorist anytime. If it is part of the mission, you can order a sharpshooter to shoot a terrorist even if there is no specific danger, if it helps the mission,” he stated in court. There was a titanic battle between IDF Lt. Col. Nadav Weissman, Dayan and defense lawyer Ilan Katz over control of the questioning. Weissman has dominated witnesses on cross-examination, interrupting them and leading them as he desired with the judges taking his side over Katz; not with Dayan. Katz slammed his hand on the table, saying Weissman cannot treat a major-general like Dayan as a criminal and the court instructed Weissman to give Dayan more space to answer questions as he wishes. Dayan’s main points went as follows. He said this case should never have gotten to a criminal probe, or certainly not before a full command investigation was first completed.
He said military police are not sufficiently experts in operational matters and that criminal probes should not happen until a full command investigation sets the facts of what happened. He expressed heavy concern that this case is harming the IDF every day it continues and harming future soldiers ability to defend themselves and know how to act. Dayan added these bigger concerns are why he got involved, and that he has little to say about the specific facts relating to Azaria’s case. With regard to Azaria, he did say that it seemed that Azaria had at most made a mistake and that no mistake in a dangerous operational situation should lead to a manslaughter charge. Confronted by a series of old cases from the late 1990s in which Palestinians were killed and criminal probes occurred under his command, Dayan said he did not recall the incidents. He added he never ordered a criminal probe before a full command probe had occurred, but that it was possible that the Military Advocate General ordered a probe on his own. Azaria is standing trial for manslaughter after he shot and killed Abdul Fatah al-Sharif on March 24, after the Palestinian had already been “neutralized” by two soldiers whom he had attacked.
Azaria said he shot Sharif suspecting he was wearing an explosive vest and accused the IDF commanders on the ground of failing to quickly call a bomb squad to check Sharif’s body before moving the body from the scene – a standard police procedure.In the incident, the IDF said that it overrode police procedure, due to having generally established that Sharif posed no threat and experience that keeping an attack scene open for too long could lead to further attacks. Throughout the case, IDF and police officials disagreed about whether it was wise or negligent to move Sharif before he was checked by a bomb expert .The trial that opened on May 9 has garnered nation-wide attention.

Bombs Rain Down as Syrian Army Declares Truce Over
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/Shells and bombs rained down on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Monday less than two hours after Syria's army declared an end to a week-long ceasefire agreed between Russia and the U.S. Damascus and its ally Moscow blamed rebels for the failure of the truce, but Washington said the terms had not been met for a key aspect of the deal – U.S.-Russia cooperation against jihadists. The U.S., Russia and other key players are to meet Tuesday in New York for talks on the process to end Syria's devastating five-year conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced millions. Stakes had been high when the ceasefire began on September 12, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warning at the time that it could be the "last chance" to save the country. But it unraveled about an hour before it had been due to expire on Monday night. An AFP correspondent in Aleppo reported that the northern city was being pummeled. Sirens wailed as ambulances zipped through the eastern rebel-held half of the divided city, the correspondent said, describing the bombardment as "non-stop." The Syrian armed forces announced the end to the truce, blaming rebels it said had violated the ceasefire more than 300 times and failed to "commit to a single element" of the U.S.-Russia deal. Under the agreement, fighting was to halt across Syria and humanitarian aid would reach desperate civilians -- particularly in devastated eastern Aleppo. The first few days had been calm, but violence escalated sharply, culminating in a deadly U.S.-led air raid at the weekend on a Syrian army position and fresh strikes on Aleppo.
Hopes buried
As part of the agreement, the U.S. military was to have set up a joint cell with Russian forces to target jihadists in Syria if the ceasefire held. Kerry said at U.N. headquarters in New York that Russia had failed to meet its side of the deal to enforce the truce, adding however that Washington was willing to keep working on it. The U.S. secretary of state had said the ceasefire was "holding but fragile" and held out hopes of ongoing talks with the Russians in Geneva. Moscow appeared to bury hopes that the truce would last, however. "Considering that the conditions of the ceasefire are not being respected by the rebels, we consider it pointless for the Syrian government forces to respect it unilaterally," said Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy. The Russian general said "the main issue" was that non-jihadist rebels had not been separated from Syria's former al-Qaida affiliate on the ground. Violence increased across the country on Monday, with fierce clashes reported east of Damascus and one child killed in regime shelling on the edges of Aleppo. Since September 12, 27 civilians, including nine children, have been killed in areas where the truce had been set to take hold, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The bloodiest day for civilians was Sunday, when a barrel bomb attack killed 10 in a southern rebel-held town and one woman died in the first raids on Aleppo since the truce started. The ceasefire came under massive strain after a U.S.-led coalition strike hit a Syrian army post Saturday near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where government forces are battling the Islamic State jihadist group. Syrian President Bashar Assad said Monday the coalition raid showed world powers support "terrorist organizations" like IS. "The latest example of this is the flagrant American aggression on one of the Syrian army's positions in Deir Ezzor," he said.
Air raid was 'intentional'
Senior government adviser Buthaina Shaaban told AFP Sunday that Damascus believed the raid, which killed at least 62 Syrian soldiers, had been "intentional."Loyalist forces backed by Russian and Syrian warplanes were fighting to roll back IS' advance there, a military source said. Under the U.S.-Russia agreement, fighting was to have halted across Syria and humanitarian aid would reach civilians suffering increasingly dire humanitarian conditions. On Monday, convoys of food and medical aid reached two hard-to-reach areas, according to David Swanson, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Aid was delivered to tens of thousands in rebel-held Talbisseh, where at least two people were killed by shelling during the truce. Another 78,000 people living in and around Greater Orum in the north of Aleppo province would also receive flour and health supplies, Swanson said. But convoys to rebel-held districts of Aleppo, besieged by government troops, were still stuck on the border with Turkey. U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said he was "pained" that Aleppo had still not received promised aid deliveries.

U.S.: Key Players in Syria Peace Process to Meet Tuesday in New York
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/The United States, Russia and other key players in the Syria peace process will meet Tuesday in New York after Syria's army announced the end of a week-long truce, a U.S. spokesman said. Foreign ministers from the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) comprised of some 20 countries including Saudi Arabia and Turkey will assess the situation, said State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner. The meeting "will be obviously a very important signal check ...to assess the agreement, the status of agreement that was reached with the US and Russia little over a week ago, and where we are, and what next steps need to be taken, where we need to see more improvement," he said. The ISSG meeting comes ahead of a U.N. Security Council session on Syria to be held Wednesday, to be attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. After months of negotiations, the United States and Russia agreed on September 9 to call for a ceasefire, the delivery of aid and the joint targeting of Islamist rebels in Syria. The ceasefire ran into trouble at the weekend when rebel-held districts of Aleppo came under a barrage of air strikes and the US-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in an attack that Washington said was unintentional. Earlier, Russia's defense ministry had appeared to bury the week-old truce, saying rebel violations made it "pointless" for Syrian troops to uphold it.
Syria's armed forces announced an end to the week-long truce on Monday evening, accusing rebel groups of violating the ceasefire more than 300 times. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said "it will not be an easy meeting" because of worsening US-Russia tensions, but he said all sides must try to work to revive peace efforts."We all need to take responsibility," Ayrault said. The faltering U.S.-Russian deal for Syria is set to dominate the agenda as world leaders gather at the United Nations this week for the annual General Assembly meeting.

Kerry: Terms Not Yet Met for U.S.-Russia Cooperation in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/The United States declared Monday that Russia had failed to meet its side of a deal to enforce a seven-day truce in Syria, but that Washington was willing to keep working on it. Under the terms of an agreement struck earlier this month in Geneva, the U.S. military would set up a joint cell with Russian forces to target Syrian jihadists if the ceasefire held. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters: "We have not had seven days of calm and of delivery of humanitarian goods."Under the terms of the Geneva agreement, the U.S. was supposed to rein in opposition forces and Moscow was to ensure its ally Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad halt attacks.Kerry had earlier said that this ceasefire was "holding but fragile" but that the other half of the agreement -- that Assad allow U.N. aid convoys to besieged areas -- was incomplete.
The Syrian military, meanwhile, has announced that after seven days it was ending its participation in the ceasefire, blaming the rebels for repeated breaches of the truce. Kerry, who was meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, reacted testily to the declaration, but implied there was time to save the deal. "It would be good if they didn’t talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this," he said, in brief remarks to reporters. "And I think it's, as I said yesterday, time to end the grandstanding and time to do the real work of delivering on the humanitarian goods that are necessary for access. "So we just began today to see real movement of humanitarian goods, and let's see where we are. We're happy to have a conversation with them," he said, of the Russian side. Under the deal, if fighting had been reduced significantly over seven days and aid had got through, the U.S. and Russian militaries were to have set up a joint targeting cell in Geneva. This would enable more accurate strikes on the Islamic State group and Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly the al-Nusra Front. U.S. and Russian officers were meeting Monday in Geneva, but the Defense Ministry in Moscow said it would be "pointless" to continue the truce in the face of rebel violations.

French FM Says U.S.-Russian Deal is 'Only Basis' to End Syria Crisis
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/The U.S.-Russian ceasefire deal for Syria is fragile but remains the "only basis" for achieving a political settlement of the conflict, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Monday. "The agreement is particularly fragile -- these past hours have shown this -- but it must retain a glimmer of hope. It is the only basis that the international community can draw on" to resolve the Syrian crisis, he said. Ayrault put forward a French proposal to set up a monitoring mechanism of the ceasefire and said all sides must unite to shore up the U.S.-Russian deal.
After months of negotiations, the United States and Russia agreed on September 9 to call for a ceasefire, the delivery of aid and the joint targeting of Islamist rebels in Syria. The ceasefire ran into trouble at the weekend when rebel-held districts of Aleppo came under a barrage of air strikes and the U.S.-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in an attack that Washington said was unintentional. Earlier, Russia's defense ministry had appeared to bury the week-old truce it agreed with the United States, saying rebel violations made it "pointless" for Syrian troops to uphold it. "What is lacking in this instance is good faith and sincerity," Ayrault told a news conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. The French foreign minister reiterated that President Bashar Assad's regime was to blame for ceasefire violations. "We should not have a short memory, the reality is, without a doubt, that the regime is mainly responsible for the tragedy in Syria", he said. More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria's war, now in its sixth year, with more than 13 million people driven from their homes.

Air Strikes Hit Aid Trucks in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/Air strikes hit aid trucks outside a Syrian Arab Red Crescent center in northern Aleppo province on Monday, a monitor said, hours after the army declared a truce over. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights did not immediately report any casualties in the raids on the Orum al-Kubra area. The strikes came shortly after Syria's army declared an end to a week-long ceasefire between the regime and non-jihadist rebels agreed between Russia and the United States.

War Crimes Investigators Seek Access to Syrian Refugees in Europe
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/U.N. war crimes investigators on Monday asked European countries to "remove barriers" to their work by giving them unhindered access to newly arrived Syrian refugees. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, which has been investigating human rights violations and war crimes in the country for the past five years, warned that the shift in refugee flows towards Europe had complicated its job. "It has become more difficult to access victims and witnesses with fresh information," commission chief Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. "We are appealing to countries inside Europe hosting newly arrived Syrian refugees to grant us access and remove any barriers to our work," he said, as he presented the commission's latest report to the council. Pinheiro refused to specify which European nations he was referring to, telling reporters only that the commission had been "in contact with several countries," adding that the investigators had received "assurances that we will have some positive answers." The investigators have never gained access to Syria itself, instead relying on nearly 4,600 interviews in the region and from Geneva, as well as pictures, medical records and other documents for its findings. Pinheiro stressed Monday the importance of accessing new arrivals from Syria, who could help the commission document new phases in the drawn-out conflict that has cost more than 300,000 lives. Their testimonies could prove essential to investigators compiling confidential lists of suspected war criminals and perpetrators of crimes against humanity. The aim would be to use the information they gather in future prosecution, including at the International Criminal Court. The commission's appeals to refer Syria to the ICC have however stalled in the U.N. Security Council. Commission member and veteran former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte voiced frustration Monday at the lack of accountability for the horrendous crimes committed in Syria. "I think it's time that the Security Council is doing something, because it is incredible after five years (there is) no justice for the victims," she told reporters. Investigator Vitit Muntarbhorn meanwhile said the commission was probing allegations that "incendiary weapons", including phosphorus and napalm, were used in three different locations in Syria. In its 12th report, published earlier this month, the commission said it was investigating claims that chlorine gas, a chemical weapon, was used in Aleppo in April. Muntarbhorn said they were also investigating another possible use of chlorine gas last month, but did not specify the location. A separate U.N. investigative panel concluded last month that Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces had carried out at least two chemical attacks, one in 2014 and one in 2015. It also found that Islamic State group jihadists had used mustard gas to attack the town of Marea in Aleppo province in August 2015.

NY, NJ Bombings Suspect Arrested after Shootout
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/U.S. police on Monday wounded and captured an Afghan-born American wanted over bombings in New York and New Jersey, which stoked terror fears less than 50 days before the country's presidential election. The bombings Saturday came on the same day as a separate stabbing rampage in Minnesota carried out by a Somali-American with possible links to the Islamic State extremist group. President Barack Obama, in New York on Monday to attend the U.N. General Assembly with world leaders, called on Americans "not to succumb to fear" in his first remarks about the three Saturday attacks. Obama stressed that investigators at this point saw "no connection" between the incidents on the East Coast and the Minnesota stabbing, where police said the assailant made "some references to Allah" in carrying out the attack. Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was wounded in a shootout with police in Linden, New Jersey, just four hours after the FBI released a mugshot of him and texted alert messages to millions of people in the greater New York area, describing him as "armed and dangerous."ABC News footage showed the bearded Rahami being stretchered into an ambulance, sporting a bloodied bandage on his right arm and moving his head moments after being taken into custody. Police confirmed his arrest and said two officers were wounded in the shootout. Rahami was injured in his leg and was undergoing surgery at hospital, one official said. Born in Afghanistan, he worked at a family restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey and is a U.S. citizen. Neither of the wounded officers are in critical condition, the official said. Evidence ties Rahami to Saturday night's bombing in New York's Chelsea neighborhood that injured 29 people and Saturday morning's Seaside Park, New Jersey pipe bombing, which forced the cancellation of a U.S. Marine race, officers said.
No indication of NY terror cell
Another pressure cooker device was found and defused close to the scene of the Manhattan explosion, and a nest of bombs were discovered late Sunday at the train station in Elizabeth, which were also defused. Bill Sweeney, a senior FBI official, said he was "ruling nothing out" when asked whether the same suspect was behind the bombs planted in Elizabeth. While the investigation is still active, the New York mayor said authorities were not currently looking for any other suspects in connection with what he called "an act of terror" in Chelsea. "I have no indication there is a cell operating in the area or in the city," Sweeney told a news conference in New York. City police chief James O'Neill said the investigation would now focus on whether Rahami acted alone and his alleged motives. Rahami, who has brown hair, brown eyes and a beard, was apparently seen in surveillance footage taken in Chelsea before the bomb went off. Police said the suspect had not been previously known to law enforcement, except in connection with a domestic complaint which was later retracted. Little is known about Rahami, other than that his family sued Elizabeth in 2011, accusing the city and local police department of discrimination in forcing them to close their chicken restaurant by 10 pm. The 2011 suit accuses police of unlawfully discriminating against the family on the basis of their Muslim faith and Afghan origin, causing pain, suffering, humiliation and "severe emotional distress." Neighbors complained about the noise and late hours of the take-out and eat-in restaurant. The suit was settled in 2012 in the city's favor, with a ruling that the city could close the restaurant, Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage told reporters on Monday.
Co-conspirators?
Sweeney said hundreds of FBI officers had been working round the clock, honing in on Rahami after stopping a vehicle in Brooklyn and questioning the passengers, and raiding homes in New Jersey. The investigation will now continue "to ensure we completely understand Rahami's social network," the FBI official said. Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, officials stress that lone-wolf attacks perpetrated by individuals who may be inspired by IS or al-Qaida propaganda are the greatest terror threat to the homeland. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN that a possible foreign terror connection would now be an "important line of inquiry."
"Who was Rahami acting with, if anyone? And if he had co-conspirators, what were their alliances? And I'm sure that's where the investigation will go."Although there has been no claim of responsibility for the Chelsea bombing or any of the bombs in New Jersey, a jihadist-linked news agency, Amaq, claimed that an IS "soldier" carried out the Minnesota stabbings. A 22-year-old Somali-American injured nine people in a shopping mall in St Cloud on Saturday before being shot dead by an off-duty police officer. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whose lead over Donald Trump in the polls has dipped, said Monday that the United States needed to invest "more time and more resources" in confronting the lone-wolf threat. Trump condemned the Obama administration's "weak" policies in opening the doors to "tens of thousands" of foreign immigrants, predicting more such attacks. "We're going to have to be very tough," he told Fox television.

Putin Cheers Crushing Win in Russia Parliament Vote
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Monday hailed a vote for "stability" after his ruling party won a record number of seats at parliamentary polls amid a low turnout.
The Kremlin's United Russia scooped three quarters of the seats in the 450-member State Duma after bolstering its tally to over 54 percent at a nationwide vote Sunday, securing a majority despite the longest economic crisis of Putin's 16-year rule. But the vote was marred by the lowest turnout for a parliamentary election in Russia's post-Soviet history, suggesting many are increasingly turned off by the Kremlin's total control over public discourse and posing potential questions over legitimacy. "For United Russia this was a good result," Putin told his government on Monday. "Given the current difficulties, the large amount of uncertainty and risks, people undoubtedly chose stability."Sunday's election followed a tumultuous few years that have seen Russia seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, sparking its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War, and the start of a military campaign in Syria. And despite a bruising recession that has hit average Russians hard, Putin's approval rating remains around 80 percent. Although he has not yet announced he is running, the strongman leader now looks set to stroll to victory in presidential elections in 2018.
Vote for Putin'
Pro-Putin parties were always expected to cruise to victory given the Kremlin's almost complete dominance of the media -- but the scale of United Russia's majority took some observers by surprise. "It's obvious that the overwhelming majority of those who voted de-facto voiced support for the president," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Three other parties -- which made up the last parliament and all back the Kremlin -- were the only ones to clear the five-percent threshold needed for representation. The Communists and the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party both won just over 13 percent, while A Just Russia received around six percent. No genuine opposition candidate appeared to have made it into the Duma for its new five-year term.  Yabloko and Parnas, liberal parties critical of Putin, failed to secure enough votes for a seat. "The new parliament won't be a legitimate representative body representing the will of interests of the citizens of the county," Parnas head Mikhail Kasyanov said in a statement. "It will remain an instrument for retaining control of power in the hands of Putin and his team."Overall interest in the vote was down dramatically after a low-key campaign that was dubbed the most boring in recent memory. Only 47.8 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots, compared with 60 percent in 2011, with many viewing the Duma as a toothless rubber-stamp chamber.
Urban elites appeared to have felt especially frozen out with the turnout in the biggest cities Moscow and Saint Petersburg below 30 percent.
'Not free and fair'
Looming large over this election was the specter of mass protests over vote-rigging following the last legislative polls in 2011, which grew into the biggest challenge to Putin since he took charge in 2000. The Kremlin was desperate to avoid a repeat this time round and has cracked down on the right to protest while making a show of stamping out electoral fraud. Human rights advocate Ella Pamfilova took over from the previous scandal-tainted election chief but the opposition accused her of ignoring violations even when they were caught on camera. Golos independent election monitors said in a statement on Monday that "there were fewer incidents of gross direct falsification than in 2011" but that the vote was "far from what can truly be called free and fair" because of the ruling party's domination of the campaign. Pamfilova admitted there were problems in several regions but said that "the level of transparency was incomparably higher than in the previous electoral campaign." Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said that while the handling of the vote was more transparent than before, "greater space is needed for debate and civic engagement."The poll also caused a diplomatic spat with Ukraine as residents on the Crimea peninsula elected candidates to Russia's parliament for the first time since Moscow annexed the region in 2014. Around Russia, elections for regional heads also showed Kremlin stalwarts dominating. In the North Caucasus region of Chechnya, strongman Ramzan Kadyrov claimed some 98 percent in the first vote on his decade-long rule after rights groups complained criticism was ruthlessly silenced during his campaign.

Saudi Arabia Says 17 Held after 'IS Plot' Foiled
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/Saudi Arabia said on Monday it has arrested 17 people from three cells linked to the Islamic State group which planned to attack military and other facilities. The interior ministry said 16 men and one woman were in custody. They are mostly Saudis but include one Yemeni, an Egyptian and a Palestinian. They are the latest arrests connected with the Sunni extremist group in Saudi Arabia. Since late 2014, IS has claimed a series of bombings and shootings against Shiites in the Sunni-majority kingdom, as well as the security forces. Dozens of people have been killed, largely in Eastern Province, which is home to most of the country's Shiites whom IS considers to be heretics. "Months-long efforts culminated in the foiling of a terrorist plot that was to be carried out by a network made up of three cluster cells connected to IS," the ministry said in a statement to the official Saudi Press Agency. "They targeted security officials and security, economic and military establishments and citizens in different locations." The ministry said suspects wanted to attach a bomb to the car of a defense ministry employee in Riyadh. They also targeted security students whom they planned to bomb with a remote-controlled device at a gate. Police also disrupted the delivery of two suicide vests and separately prevented a suicide attack by a suspect who had monitored "religious sites" in al-Ahsa region, which has a substantial Shiite community.
Suicide vests
Attacks were planned to take place over successive days earlier this year. The interior ministry added that, according to preliminary investigation, the suspects gave two suicide vests, training and automatic weapons to the bombers who attacked al-Rida mosque in Mahasen, al-Ahsa, on January 29. The Saudi bomber killed four people during Friday prayers at the mosque before worshipers disarmed and tied up his Egyptian accomplice who had fired on them. Also in January, the suspects blew up the car of a soldier in Riyadh's Aziziyah neighborhood, the ministry said. IS group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has called for attacks against Saudi Arabia, which belongs to the U.S.-led coalition bombing the jihadists in Syria and Iraq. In August, police said they shot dead a would-be suicide bomber targeting a mosque in the Shiite-dominated Gulf coast district of Qatif. Earlier that same month, police arrested a Saudi and a Syrian on their way to bomb a restaurant in the same area after training by IS, the interior ministry said. Three separate suicide attacks took place throughout the kingdom on July 4. A Pakistani resident blew himself up near the U.S. consulate in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, wounding two policemen. Another blast occurred at a Shiite mosque in Qatif, leaving the body parts of three people. And near Islam's second holiest site, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, four people died in the third suicide blast. No group claimed responsibility, but CIA director John Brennan said those bombings bore the "hallmark" of IS.
Authorities arrested 19 people, including 12 Pakistanis, after the July attacks.

Two Italians Kidnapped in Southern Libya
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/Two Italians were kidnapped in the south of conflict-torn Libya on Monday, Italy's foreign ministry said, without revealing any more details about the incident or the victims' identities.Citing Libyan sources, the Italian press said the pair worked for a ground handling company at Ghat airport near the Algerian border.

Israel Opens NATO Mission in Brussels
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 19/16/Israel has formally opened a mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels, aiming to step up ties with an alliance led by its staunchest supporter, the United States, an Israeli statement said Monday. The move, under discussion for several years, was announced in June as key NATO member Turkey normalized ties with Israel after severe strains with a once close regional ally. Israel's ambassador to the European Union Aharon Leshno-Yaar presented his credentials to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Friday, the Israeli embassy statement said. The two men discussed a new Joint Action Plan between Israel and the alliance, it said, without giving any details. "Israel attributes great importance to its relations with NATO. The opening of a permanent office reflects Israel's role in promoting peace and stability in the region," Leshno-Yaar said in the statement.NATO officials were not immediately available to comment. In June, Stoltenberg had noted that Israel had been an active alliance partner for 20 years and said it was essential to step up cooperation. "Violence in North Africa and in the Middle East is a clear threat to all our nations.... It is vital that countries which share the same values ... stand together against hate and terrorism," Stoltenberg said during a visit to NATO HQ by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. Turkey was a close ally of Israel until 2010 when Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza, leaving 10 activists dead.

Qatar to create its own ‘Wall Street’ financial district
Mon 19 Sep 2016/NNA - Qatar plans to establish its own version of New York’s "Wall Street" financial district, a senior official said Monday, as the emirate seeks to cut its reliance on oil and gas. Yousuf Mohamed Al Jaida, head of the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), said businesses including his own will relocate to the previously run-down Msheireb area of Doha from mid-2017. The project comes as gas-rich Qatar seeks to establish itself as a regional commercial powerhouse. The aim was to improve Qatar’s financial standing and create Doha’s "version of Wall Street or (London’s) Canary Wharf", said Mr Jaida. "The objective .... is to create a leading financial and business centre in the region," he said. "The relocation is part of our commitment to support Qatar in its efforts to diversify national income sources," Mr Jaida told a Doha press conference to announce the relocation. The new financial centre will cover an area of up to 300,000 square metres. Mr Jaida said he hoped the QFC’s relocation from central Doha would act as a catalyst for other companies including the Qatar Stock Exchange to follow suit. Msheireb is a major regeneration project in downtown Doha which seeks to revive an old commercial heart of the capital at an estimated cost of more than US$5 billion. It will not only incorporate the financial centre but also luxury apartments and museums. World Cup 2022 host Qatar’s attempts at economic diversification comes as it faces an estimated budget deficit of more than $12bn in 2016, its first in 15 years.--AFP

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on on September 19-20/16

Iran Can’t Whitewash Its Record of Terror
By Adel Al-Jubeir/The Wall Street Journal/Sept. 18, 2016
Ronald Reagan was fond of quoting John Adams, who famously said: “Facts are stubborn things.” So when Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif made public pronouncements about fighting extremism, the facts show that his comments are ironic at best and little more than insincere propaganda.
The fact is that Iran is the leading state-sponsor of terrorism, with government officials directly responsible for numerous terrorist attacks since 1979. These include suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Marine barracks at Beirut International Airport; the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996; attacks against more than a dozen embassies in Iran, including those of Britain, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia; and the assassination of diplomats around the world, to name a few examples.
Nor can one get around the fact that Iran uses terrorism to advance its aggressive policies. Iran cannot talk about fighting extremism while its leaders, Quds Force and Revolutionary Guard continue to fund, train, arm and facilitate acts of terrorism.
If Iran wants to demonstrate sincerity in contributing to the global war on terrorism, it could have begun by handing over al Qaeda leaders who have enjoyed sanctuary in Iran. These have included Osama bin Laden’s son, Saad, and al Qaeda’s chief of operations, Saif al-Adel, along with numerous other operatives guilty of attacks against Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and other targets. It is a fact that Saif al-Adel placed a call from Iran in May 2003 giving orders for the Riyadh bombings that claimed more than 30 lives, including eight Americans. Yet he still benefits from Iranian protection.
Iran could also stop funding terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, whose secretary-general recently boasted that his organization gets 100% of its funding from Iran. Iran could stop producing and distributing improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which have killed or injured thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Iran could halt supplying weapons to terrorists and sectarian militias in the region who seek to replace legitimate governments with Iranian puppets.
In Syria, the blood of the more than 500,000 people slaughtered by the regime of Bashar al-Assad stains the hands of Iran, which sent forces—both regular troops and nonstate actors—to prop up the Syrian regime. Iranian leaders have said publicly that if not for their efforts, Assad would have fallen from power.
Iranian officials sometimes lament sectarian strife and violence. But here again, the facts are stubborn. The region and the world were at peace with Iran until the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic revolution, whose principal slogan remains, “Death to America!” Mullahs seized power and vowed—as written in their constitution—to export the revolution and spread their ideology through religious and sectarian conflict.
To export the revolution, Iran set up so-called Cultural Centers of the Revolutionary Guard in many countries, including Sudan, Nigeria, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Comoros Islands. The aim was to spread their ideology through propaganda and violence. Iran went so far as to propagate that the Shiite Muslims living outside Iran belong to Iran and not the countries of which they are citizens. This is unacceptable interference in other countries and should be rejected by all nations.
It is this ideology of “Khomeinism”—driven by an appetite for expansion, fueled by anti-Western hatred and motivated by sectarianism—that has energized and empowered extremism. Only by ridding the world of this toxic and radical mind-set can sectarianism be contained, terrorism defeated and calm restored to the region. If Iran is serious about combating extremism, then it should refrain from policies and actions that give rise to extremism.
Since signing the nuclear deal with the U.S. last year, Iranian leaders have taken to pointing fingers at others to assign blame for the regional problems that they helped create. But before buying into their rhetoric, consider a few questions: Which country issues a fatwa for the execution of author Salman Rushdie, a death threat that is still in force today? (Iran.) What country has attacked more than a dozen embassies inside its own territory in violation of all international laws? (Iran.) What country managed, planned and executed the 1996 attack in Khobar Towers against the American Marines? (Iran.) Do these answers describe a country that is serious about combating terrorism and extremism?
The rest of the Islamic world has unanimously condemned Iran’s behavior. In Istanbul in April, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation formally rejected and deplored Iran’s policies of sectarianism, interference in the affairs of others and support for terrorism.
Saudi Arabia is a leader in the war against terrorism. My country brought the world together for an international conference in 2005 to align nations in the fight against terrorism. The kingdom contributed more than $100 million to create a global center for counterterrorism at the United Nations and established a 40-member Islamic Military Coalition to combat terrorism and extremism. It also is a member of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Counter ISIL and is part of the coalition’s continuing military operations.
The kingdom has also foiled several attacks aimed at the U.S., and its leaders have been a target of suicide terror attacks. The kingdom’s record is clear, and attested to by our allies and the international community.
Iran’s record is one of death and destruction, as the situation in Syria and parts of Iraq clearly attests. Words will not change that; concrete action will.
Saudi Arabia’s position has remained constant with regard to Iran. The kingdom would welcome better relations with Iran, based on the principles of good neighborliness and noninterference in the affairs of others. That means Iran has to abandon its subversive and hostile activities and stop its support for terrorism. Thus far, Iran’s record has not been encouraging.
Mr. Al-Jubeir is the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-cant-whitewash-its-record-of-terror-1474234929

Interview: Daniel Pipes on Muslim Immigration
Breitbart News Daily/September 19/16
http://www.meforum.org/6283/daniel-pipes-trump-muslim-immigration
Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes was interviewed on August 31 about Donald Trump's Muslim immigration policy by Breitbart London Editor Raheem Kassam on Breitbart News Daily (SiriusXM). The full transcript of the interview follows.
Multimedia for this item
Raheem Kassam: What a day, actually, to have you on because you've written this article recently in the Washington Times about part of Trump's immigration policy, specifically about his Muslim visa policy. But it's a big day for Donald Trump today as well with regard to his visit to Mexico to see the Mexican president and we know there are all sorts of Islamic terrorism issues concerning Latin America also. Then he'll be giving a speech in Arizona. Mr. Pipes, do you have a take on his visit to Mexico?
Daniel Pipes: I think it's a very high-risk undertaking because the sides begin so far apart that unless they have some groundwork in place, some kind of preliminary draft agreement on what they're going to say, it could work out to the detriment of Donald Trump.
Kassam: Well, this is something Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, said to me this weekend. He said the problem that Donald Trump has suffered is that he was getting into politics using a businessman's strategy, that is to say, trial and error. You make mistakes and then, over the course of time, you can correct those. But it doesn't necessarily work in politics because people always hold you to your previous positions. This is something you almost said in your article in the Washington Times, is it not? I believe your conclusion was something about Donald Trump learning slowly and erratically from his mistakes. Do you think that has changed recently? And do you think he's got there now with his immigration policy?
Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes: "I'm delighted to see [Donald Trump's] change in position. I think it's a very important one."
Pipes: Well, there clearly was a learning curve. I focused not so much on the Mexican question but on the Muslim question. He came out with this extraordinary statement which requires a complete shutdown and closure to Muslims entering the United States. He said that back in December and he doubled down on it, repeated it, elaborated on it; then, starting in the middle of June, he walked away from it and talked about extreme vetting, and then about not taking people from certain territories, which he implied would include places like France and Germany where there is a lot of political violence; and finally he settled on this formulation which is, I think, the only workable one: that you keep out the Islamists, you keep out the nasties, you keep out the people who want to do you harm. It took him eight months to get there, but he did get there. And as you correctly point out, in politics you can't always take that kind of time to change your positions. I'm delighted to see the change in position. I think it's a very important one, but one need hardly point out that having a complete ban on Muslims was a preposterous idea, just as getting the Mexicans to pay for a wall is preposterous.
Kassam: Is it simply the practicality of it in the implementation of it or do you think there is something philosophically wrong with it as well?
Aref Movasaq Rodsari (left) and Vesam Heydari, two of the hundreds of Muslim asylum seekers who have converted to Christianity at Trinity Church in Berlin.
Pipes: Both. I think it's practically difficult; there's a church in Berlin that's become famous as a place for Muslims to convert to Christianity. What are you going to do about that? It's also immoral. We don't judge people these days anymore by their skin color, by their religion, or other such characteristics. We look at the individuals. I've actually drawn up a very long list of questions to ask, to discern who is an Islamist. And it might seem awfully difficult, but if you think about it, if you give them enough attention, enough time, enough resources, you could do it. You could find out who's who. We're not doing that now. For example, the San Bernardino couple had posted on Facebook many of their views, but law enforcement was prohibited from looking at Facebook. Is this a serious way to protect ourselves? We have to ask questions, we have to do research, we have to find out who's coming into the country.
Kassam: I was in San Bernardino and I remember the news coming out that actually they had stopped law enforcement's investigation into Tablighi Jamaat, this sort of shadowy Islamist or fundamentalist group that operates out of headquarters in Dewsbury, United Kingdom. Now it's interesting, Mr. Pipes, that you're saying these things because you're somebody who can't exactly be called soft on the Islamist question. You are well known for having worked in this area for a very long time and the practicality of it is certainly fascinating to me and to a lot of our listeners. Is there somewhere they can find this list of questions you put together that would help discern an Islamist from an ordinary, non-Islamist Muslim?
"We don't judge people by how they dress, how they look, or what religion they are."
Pipes: Yes, I published it some years ago, now I've amplified it, but if someone goes to my website, Danielpipes.org, and puts in keywords such as "questions, moderate Muslims or Islamists," then they'll quickly see the list. I've actually also provided a blog with lists of questions other people came up with. Including, for example, Naser Khader, a prominent Muslim in Denmark, Robert Spencer, and others. I'm confident that it can be done, but the key point is that it has to be done on an individual basis. We don't judge people by how they dress, how they look, or what religion they are. We judge people on an individual basis.
Kassam: I'm just looking at these questions now, pulled it up quickly on danielpipes.org. "Finding moderate Muslims: Do you believe in modernity?" That is the first one from November, then you had another one in 2005, updated in May of this year, "Finding Moderate Muslims - More Questions." It's an issue close to my heart because, while I wouldn't actually call myself a practicing Muslim anymore, Daniel, I was born into a Muslim family, and an outright ban on Muslims, maybe determined by name or heritage or whatever – effectively that would keep me out of this country.
Moderate Muslims protesting President Obama's speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore on February 3, 2016.
Pipes: It certainly would, yes.
Kassam: So I think it's good that this policy is being developed. Of course we don't want any softening on the approach to Islamists, I think you and I can both agree on that, but tell us a little bit about, so our listeners can get a feel for what you guys now are doing at the Middle East Forum, what we can expect to see out of you guys in the near future?
Pipes: Well we've become more and more an operational outfit, as well as an intellectual one. So we're active in Congress, in courtrooms, on the campus. We're really bursting at the seams in terms of activities. I'll mention a couple things in Congress. One is that we are working to change the U.S. government's approach to the "Palestine refugee" question, which has been in amber for decades now, for sixty-plus years. It could use a shaking up. Second, we're looking at donations by Islamist leaders in the United States to politicians, and tracking who is giving to whom. It's not a lot of money in the larger scale of things, but it is significant and it is noteworthy to see who the Islamists see as their candidates.
Kassam: Can you point to any names from the outside?
Pipes: Well, it's quite striking that Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine both have received significant amounts and their Republican counterparts have not. In particular, Mike Pence has not, since he's been in politics for a long time.
Kassam: We're seeing at the moment something you guys are working on: I read it was in The Hill, about Saudi money for American mosques. This is becoming a feature of nearly all Western democracies, whether it's Saudi funding or a lot of Turkish money going into building mosques in Germany. There was a mega-mosque in the Netherlands which was recently constructed; where the money was coming from and what is was being used for, got hardly given any news time. Is that something you guys are chasing too?
Pipes: Yes, Rep. David Brat has introduced legislation that would say that there needs to be reciprocity. If there isn't freedom of religion and we can't do things over there – i.e. Saudi Arabia, which has no freedom of religion; it is the most oppressive country in the world other than, say, North Korea – then they can't fund activities here. Now, the legislation is still in its infancy, but I think it's a very important priority because until now, it's just been ad hoc, not letting the Saudis build a mosque here or there; it needs to be legislation. So this is a first step towards what I hope will be a successful piece of legislation.
Kassam: Well I think it's very important, as important in your country as it is in mine and across Europe as well. **Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, thanks so much for joining us here on Breitbart News Daily.

Why Iran welcomes US-Russian deal on Syria
Zakiyeh Yazdanshenas/September 19/16
TEHRAN, Iran — Lengthy negotiations between the United States and Russia appear to have finally paid off when they reached a deal on a cease-fire in Syria announced Sept. 10. If the truce — the cessation of all air and ground attacks by all parties for one week — is adhered to by both sides, the United States and Russia plan to subsequently establish a joint implementation center to coordinate intelligence and airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al-Nusra.The interests of Iran, as one of the key players involved in the complex and multi-dimensional conflict in Syria, will certainly be affected by the US-Russian agreement, like those of other actors. Indeed, while Iranian officials have formally welcomed the truce, they have also warned that it should not serve as an opportunity for militants to regroup and transfer fighters and arms.
Al-Monitor spoke with Nasser Hadian, a professor of international relations at Tehran University, about the situation. He said that Iran supports the US-Russian agreement in that it serves humanitarian goals, but the path ahead remains ambiguous. “It is only a temporary cease-fire, and it is unlikely that it will lead to lasting peace or the establishment of a new government in Syria.”
Touching on how possible US-Russian military cooperation could affect Iranian interests in Syria, Hadian said, “If the agreement takes hold, Russia and the United States will form a new military alliance against IS and Jabhat al-Nusra. Fighting these two groups is an Iranian goal too. So if the agreement is implemented, it will not harm Iran's interests.” He cautioned, however, “Discord might emerge in the next steps.”
Given Tehran’s growing cooperation with Moscow, it appears that Iran increasingly sees itself as Russia's strategic partner in the Middle East. Take for instance, Iran for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution allowing another country, Russia, to conduct military operations from one of its air bases. Thus, there is therefore also the question of how potential US-Russian military cooperation might impact the Iranian-Russian alliance in Syria.
Mohammad Jamshidi, a professor of international relations and an expert on US foreign policy at Tehran University, told Al-Monitor, “I see the alliance between Iran and Russia as strategic, and the various forms of military cooperation between the two countries in recent years confirms this. But the agreement between the United States and Russia is a kind of tactical coordination. The strategic goals of Russia and the United States in Syria are at odds with each other.”
Jamshidi added, “I believe that Russia did not deal with the United States at the expense of Iran's interests. Actually, the United States always seeks cease-fire agreements when pro-Syrian government forces achieve considerable victories on the battlefield. It uses these kinds of agreements as a tool to buy time in order to regroup armed groups, and Russia knows this.”
Nonetheless, Jamshidi does not believe the US-Russian deal can be considered detrimental to either Russia or its allies, including Iran. “The interesting point is that Russia, in comparison to the United States, makes strategic use of this agreement,” he said. Russia is buying time, too, he added.
“The Russians are denying the Obama administration the time needed for taking any decisive decision in Syria,” Jamshidi said. “I mean it's obvious that the Obama administration will not have anymore time to arm the opposition groups when the cease-fire period ends.”
Elahe Koolaie, a professor of international relations at Tehran University and a Russia expert, sees the US-Russian agreement as demonstrating the Russians' ability to advance their goals. “There are different overlapping interests and threats in Syria, and all of the involved players should use the opportunity to cooperate with each other,” Koolaie told Al-Monitor. “The agreement between Russia and the United States has a good possibility of reducing Iran's security threats too.”
Iran has stood by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the civil war erupted in 2011. It has done so based on the belief that Assad’s continued rule is tied to Iran’s regional security interests. One of these interests is maintaining the so-called Axis of Resistance. To achieve this objective, Iran has also for years supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, including paying a financial and political price for doing so. Considering Syria's physical and geopolitical position in regard to Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, it has a key role in maintaining the Axis of Resistance. Hence, Iran’s prioritization of keeping Assad in power. Indeed, Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has publicly stated that keeping Assad in power is an Iranian red line in Syria.
In this vein, Tehran-based Syria expert Amin Parto told Al-Monitor, “Iran’s interests in Syria will be guaranteed only if Bashar al-Assad maintains his power. The same thing is true about Russia. So, in the short term, and as long as there is no word about political transition, the agreement is aligned with Iran’s interests, as it presents a good opportunity for pro-Syrian government forces to revitalize themselves. But in the long run, it is at odds with Iran's defined interests because opposition groups and the United States will not accept any arrangement that does not include shifting [away from] the Baathist-Alawite [political] system in Syria.”
Al-Monitor also spoke with Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, in Washington. “It is high time for Iran to look for ways to soften its support for Assad,” he said. “Iran's long-held ‘Assad or nothing’ approach is highly unlikely to win in the end in Syria if a political solution is ever to be found. The Russians know that, the Turks know that, and Iran can keep itself relevant among key external players by recognizing this inevitable fact.”
Vatanka further emphasized, “In the end, Iran owes Assad nothing. For both moral reasons and for the sake of its long-term geopolitical interests, Tehran needs to show more flexibility. The more this war drags on, the less the likelihood that Syria as one state can be kept together, which Tehran says is its number one priority.”
Mindful of Iran’s stated position on the US-Russian deal, Vatanka added, “Iran has no option but to support this latest cease-fire. Any cease-fire that halts the madness of violence in Syria — however limited — must be seized. But this cease-fire alone will not end the war but might be a step that can be built on for a broader peace effort.”

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: August 2016/Honor killing, "self-styled emirs," child sexual abuse
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/September 19/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8973/islam-britain-august
"To use the term 'honor killing' when describing the murder of a family member -- overwhelmingly females -- due to the perpetrators' belief that they have brought 'shame' on a family normalizes murder for cultural reasons and sets it apart from other killings when there should be no distinction." — Jane Collins, MEP, UK Independence Party.
Voter fraud has been deliberately overlooked in Muslim communities because of "political correctness," according to Sir Eric Pickles, author of a government report on voter fraud.
"Not only should we raise the flag, but everybody in the Muslim community should have to pledge loyalty to Britain in schools. There is no conflict between being a Muslim and a Briton." — Khalil Yousuf, spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community.
Only a tiny proportion -- between five and ten percent -- of the people whose asylum applications are denied are actually deported, according to a British asylum judge, quoted in the Daily Mail.
Police in Telford -- dubbed the child sex capital of Britain -- were accused of covering up allegations that hundreds of children in the town were sexually exploited by Pakistani sex gangs.
August 1. Nearly 900 Syrians in Britain were arrested in 2015 for crimes including rape and child abuse, police statistics revealed. The British government has pledged to resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK by the end of 2020. "The government seems not to have vetted those it has invited into the country," said MEP Ray Finch. The disclosure came after Northumbria Police and the BBC were accused of covering up allegations that a gang of Syrians sexually assaulted two teenage girls in a park in Newcastle.
August 1. Male refugees settling in Britain must receive formal training on how to treat women, a senior Labour MP said. Thangam Debbonaire, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees, called for a "refugee integration strategy" so that men "understand what is expected of them." She said it could help prevent sexual harassment and issues "including genital mutilation."
August 2. Jane Collins, MEP for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), launched a petition calling for the BBC to stop using the term "honor killing." The petition says the term "cultural murder" should be used instead. It states:
"To use the term 'honor killing' when describing the murder of a family member — overwhelmingly females — due to the perpetrators' belief that they have brought 'shame' on a family normalizes murder for cultural reasons and sets it apart from other killings when there should be no distinction.
"Murder is murder, whether it be for cultural excuses or others. The term 'honor killing' is a euphemism for a brutal murder based on cultural beliefs which have no place in Britain or anywhere else in the world."
August 3. Zakaria Bulhan, a 19-year-old Norwegian man of Somali descent, stabbed to death an American woman in London's Russell Square. He also wounded five others. Police dismissed terror as a possible motive for the attack, which they blamed on mental health problems. But HeatStreet, a news and opinion website, revealed that Bulhan had uploaded books advocating violent jihad on social media sites.
August 4. A public swimming pool in Luton announced gender-segregated sessions for "cultural reasons." The move will give men exclusive access to the larger 50-meter pool, while women will have to use the smaller 20-meter pool. The gender-segregated sessions are named 'Alhamdulillahswimming,' an Arabic phrase which means "Praise be to Allah." UKIP MEP Jane Collins said the decision to have segregated times for swimming was "a step backwards for community relations and gender equality." She added:
"The leisure center said this is for cultural reasons and I think we all know that means for the Muslim community. This kind of behavior, pandering to one group, harms community relations and creates tension. Under English law we have equality between men and women. This is not the same in cultures that believe in Sharia Law."
August 5. Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood may be allowed to seek asylum in Britain, according to new guidance from the Home Office. The document states that high profile or politically active members
"may be able to show that they are at risk of persecution, including of being held in detention, where they may be at risk of ill-treatment, trial also without due process and disproportionate punishment.... In such cases, a grant of asylum will be appropriate."
The new guidance contradicts previous government policy. In December 2015, then Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would "refuse visas to members and associates of the Muslim Brotherhood who are on record as having made extremist comments."
August 5. Stephen Bennett, a 39-year-old father of seven from Manchester, was sentenced to 180 hours of community service for posting "grossly offensive" anti-Muslim comments on Facebook. One of the offending comments: "Don't come over to this country and treat it like your own. Britain first." He was arrested under the Malicious Communications Act. The judge said Bennett, whose mother-in-law and sister-in-law are Muslims, was guilty of "running the risk of stirring up racial hatred." He described it as "conduct capable of playing into the hands of the enemies of this country."
August 6. British MPs face a six-year alcohol ban when the Palace of Westminster, which has dozens of bars and restaurants, undergoes a multi-billion-pound refurbishment beginning in 2020. They will move to an office building operating under Islamic Sharia law. Their new home, Richmond House, is one of three government buildings which switched ownership from British taxpayers to Middle Eastern investors in 2014 to finance a £200 million Islamic bond scheme — as part of an effort to make the UK a global hub for Islamic finance. Critics say the scheme effectively imposes Sharia law onto government premises.
August 8. Lisa Duffy, a candidate to succeed Nigel Farage as leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), called for a ban on Muslim women wearing a veil in public buildings, shopping centers and on buses and trains. She also demanded that Islamic faith schools be closed to combat radicalization, as well as a "complete and comprehensive ban" on Sharia courts in the UK. She said the veil is "a symbol of aggressive separatism that can only foster extremism" and claimed that it is often "forced on women by men who view them as their property."
August 8. Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative MEP and Chairman of the European Parliament's Intergroup Group on Animal Welfare, called for all halal meat offered for sale in the UK to be clearly labeled as such. He wrote:
"The halal market is worth £2.6 billion in Britain alone, and the export market is also growing particularly in the Middle East. Most of us eat halal meat unwittingly on a daily basis, since it is sold in most major outlets, including big brand-name supermarkets, without being labelled as such."
August 9. Tanveer Ahmed, a 32-year-old taxi driver from Bradford, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the "barbaric, premeditated" murder of a shopkeeper in Glasgow. Ahmed admitted to repeatedly stabbing Asad Shah to death outside his shop in March 2016 in a sectarian attack motivated by hatred of Shah's religious views.
Ahmed, a Sunni Muslim, confessed to attacking Shah, who belonged to the Ahmadi branch of Islam, which believes Mohammed was not the final Muslim prophet. As he was led from the dock, Ahmed raised a clenched fist and shouted in Arabic: "Praise for the Prophet Mohammed, there is only one Prophet." His cry was repeated by supporters in the public gallery.
Tanveer Ahmed (right), a Sunni Muslim, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for the murdering Asad Shah (left), who belonged to the Ahmadi branch of Islam. Ahmed confessed to killing Shah in Glasgow because he claimed Shah had "disrespected the Prophet Mohammed."
August 11. ITV News reported that Kadiza Sultana, one of three British schoolgirls who left their homes in east London to join the Islamic State, was killed by a Russian airstrike in Raqqa, Syria. Sultana had been living in Syria after leaving her home in February 2015 to join IS. She had travelled with her friends Amira Base and Shamima Begum, both of whom are believed to still be in Raqqa. "Sultana had become disillusioned with life in the medieval terror state and was making plans to flee back to Britain," ITV said.
August 11. Muslim women are the most economically disadvantaged group in British society, according to a report by the Women and Equalities Committee of the House of Commons. Figures suggest they are three times more likely to be unemployed job-seekers than women generally, and twice as likely to be economically inactive.
The report also found that jobless rates in the Muslim community run at more than double the rate of the general population (12.8% against 5.4%). It called for a change in law that would force companies to introduce "name blind" applications to reduce "unconscious bias" against Muslim and other minority candidates.
August 12. Voter fraud has been deliberately overlooked in Muslim communities because of "political correctness," according to a government report. Sir Eric Pickles, author of the report, warned that election fraud was commonplace "especially in communities of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background" but it has been ignored because of "over-sensitivities about ethnicity and religion."
The investigation began after a scandal in Tower Hamlets, London, where Mayor Lutfur Rahman was removed and his election declared void after he was found by a court to have committed electoral fraud, including vote-rigging. Pickles said never again in Britain should people be told they will "burn in hell" if they do not back a particular candidate. He added: "Electoral malpractice is far more common than just one isolated London borough thanks to the state's collective state of denial."
August 13. British schoolchildren should be required to make a regular US-style pledge of allegiance to the British flag, according to Khalil Yousuf, a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. He said: "Not only should we raise the flag, but everybody in the Muslim community should have to pledge loyalty to Britain in schools. There is no conflict between being a Muslim and a Briton."
August 14. Metropolitan Police of London announced a £1.7 million "Online Hate Crime Hub" to investigate offensive comments on Facebook and Twitter. The so-called Twitter Squad, created by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, will identify online abuse and report it to the appropriate police force. Civil liberties groups worry the new unit could stop people expressing opinions for fear of arrest. "There's a risk of online vigilantism, where people who are offended by the least thing will have a license to report it to the police," said Andrew Allison of the Freedom Association. An offense of malicious communication carries a prison sentence of up to two years.
August 16. The Crown Prosecution Service announced that Anjem Choudary, 49, one of the most notorious Islamists in Britain, was convicted of inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organization, namely the Islamic State. A top associate of Choudary, Mohammed Rahman, 33, was also convicted for the same offense. The jury delivered its verdict on July 28, but it was not announced until August 16, after the conclusion of a related trial. On September 6, both men were sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison.
Choudary, a lawyer by training, had for years managed to avoid prison by treading the fine legal line between the inflammatory rhetoric of Islamic supremacism and the right to free speech. Up until now, he had never been convicted of any offense. The judge said he crossed the line by pledging an "oath of allegiance" to the Islamic State, which has been proscribed as a terrorist organization. Evidence presented in court linked Choudary to 15 terror plots since 2000 and more than 500 British jihadists fighting with IS.
August 16. British authorities allowed two Pakistani Islamists to speak at mosques throughout Britain as part of a seven-week tour called Sacred Journey. Muhammad Naqib and Hassan Haseeb led a high-profile campaign in Pakistan in praise of Mumtaz Qadri, an Islamist who murdered Pakistani politician Salman Taseer in 2011 for opposing Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws. Qadri claimed it was his religious duty to kill the Punjab governor.
After arriving in the UK, Naqib was welcomed at Lambeth Palace by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. They discussed interfaith relations and ways to counter "the narrative of extremism and terrorism."
Shahbaz Taseer, whose father was murdered by Qadri, criticized British authorities for allowing the clerics into the country. He said:
"These people teach murder and hate. For me personally I find it sad that a country like England would allow cowards like these men in. It is countries like the UK and the US that claim they are leading the way in the war against terror and setting a standard. Why are they allowing people in that give fuel to the fire they are fighting against?"
The Home Secretary has the power to ban people from the UK if their presence is deemed to not be "conducive to the public good." In June 2013, former Home Secretary and now Prime Minister Theresa May used these powers to ban Robert Spencer, an American expert on radical Islam, for saying that Islam "is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society."
August 20. The Daily Mail reported that a Muslim train driver who went through a red signal light before he crashed a train at London's Paddington Station in June had gone without food or drink for 15 hours because of Ramadan.
August 20. In an article for the Mail on Sunday, a British asylum judge revealed that only a tiny proportion — between five and ten percent — of the people whose asylum applications are denied are actually deported. He also wrote:
"I am an experienced asylum judge in a major British population center and you must believe me when I say this: our immigration controls are broken and the country cannot cope.... the truth is that the great majority of the claimants at my tribunals are not attempting to escape persecution at all. They are economic migrants, pure and simple....
"A colleague of mine had before him the case of a Muslim from Asia who had lived here for years with a wife and children, and then went back to his country of birth to marry three other wives, as he is allowed to do under Islamic law, and had more children.
"Those later children then claimed British nationality, even though we don't recognize polygamy in our marriage laws, and the mothers also claimed the right to come over here with the children on the basis of a right to family life. That obligation was imposed on the UK Government by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Astounding as it might seem to you or to me, they were successful on appeal....
August 22. The Justice Ministry announced measures to combat Islamic extremism in British prisons. The move came after an official inquiry concluded that inmates acting as "self-styled emirs" were exerting a "radicalizing influence" over fellow Muslims. The most dangerous Islamist extremists are to be removed from the general prison population and held in separate prison units, to prevent them from proselytizing other inmates. In addition, prison wardens will be instructed to confiscate extremist literature and to remove anyone from Friday prayers who is promoting anti-British beliefs.
August 23. The Police Service of Scotland announced that the hijab will become an optional part of its uniform. Chief Constable Phil Gormley said he hoped the move will encourage more Muslim women to join the force.
August 24. Michael Coe, a 35-year-old convert to Islam and a close associate of Anjem Choudary, was found guilty of assault and battery after knocking a 16-year-old boy unconscious in east London because he was hugging a girl. Coe, also known as Mikaeel Ibrahim, left the boy unconscious and bleeding after he kicked his head.
August 25. The trial began of two Islamic State supporters accused of murdering an imam in Rochdale because they viewed his practice of Islamic healing as "black magic." Mohammed Hussain Syeedy, 22, and Mohammed Abdul Kadir, 24, were said to have developed "a hatred" of Jalal Uddin, 71, when they discovered that he practiced Ruqya healing, which involves the use of amulets. Uddin suffered multiple injuries to his head and face in an attack, thought to have involved a hammer, in a children's playground on the evening of February 18.
Opening the case at Manchester Crown Court, prosecutor Paul Greaney QC said:
"Who hated a decent man like Jalal Uddin with such virulence? The answer to that important question is to be found in the twisted ideology of ISIS, sometimes known as Islamic State. Jalal Uddin was a practitioner of a form of Islamic healing called Ruqya. ISIS regards this practice as black magic and adheres to the view that those who engage in it deserve severe punishment, even death."
August 26. The BBC reported that the number of minors detained under the Terrorism Act more than tripled over two years. Forty-six were detained in 2015, compared with 13 in 2013, with the youngest aged only 13. The threefold rise is believed to be the result of police stopping unaccompanied minors on outbound flights who they believe could be travelling on to Syria.
August 27. A close associate of Anjem Choudary ran a series of front companies that received more than £1 million of taxpayers' money to run computer training courses in libraries and job centers. That money was then transferred to key members of Choudary's banned terrorist group Al-Muhajiroun (ALM). Even after the government learned about the associate's links to Choudary, it continued to grant him money for another four years.
The businessman received £1,187,883 (€1,398,000; $1,574,000) of public money between 2012 and 2014 alone, according to the Mail on Sunday, which wrote: "It has never been revealed until now that ALM was relying on government money to stir up hate against Britain."
August 27. Police in Telford — dubbed the child sex capital of Britain — were accused of covering up allegations that hundreds of children in the town were sexually exploited by Pakistani sex gangs. Officers were accused of taking too long to probe allegations, including eyewitness accounts of older men selling drugs and alcohol to teenagers.
An abuse victim called for an independent inquiry: "I never want any other girl to go through what I did. We need a Rotherham-style inquiry in Telford. It has been going on for at least two decades. When will it stop?"
Another victim said: "I dread to think how many victims there have been over the years. It wouldn't surprise me if the offending was on the same scale as Rotherham."
The Rotherham inquiry revealed that over the course of 16 years, 1,400 girls as young as 11 were raped, tortured and beaten, mostly at the hands of men from the town's Pakistani community. Police and municipal officials in Rotherham downplayed the abuse because of fears of being accused of racism.
August 31. A YouGov poll found that a majority of Britons are in favor of banning the burka in public spaces. According to the poll, 57% of Britons support a ban; 25% are opposed. The only age group to oppose a ban was 18-24 year-olds; all others were in favor, with the oldest 65+ group supporting a ban by 78% to 12%. All major political parties also had a plurality of voters in favor of a ban. A separate question asked by YouGov found that 46% of Britons want to ban the burkini; 30% are opposed.
August 31. National Churchwatch, a multi-faith organization dedicated to reducing crime in places of worship, issued a security warning for British churches after jihadists murdered a Catholic priest in France. The group's director, Nick Tolson, said the risk of an attack had risen since the July 26 murder of Father Jacques Hamel. "My experience tells me it won't be a large church or cathedral," he said. "It'll be a small church where there's not much around and the police are a long way away." The group has sent a 12-page security guidance — Counter Terrorism Advice for Churches — to every church in Britain.
**Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Iran's Rouhani: Tactical Shift at the UN
Majid Rafizadeh Gatestone Institute/September 19/16

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/09/19/majid-rafizadeh-gatestone-institute-irans-rouhani-tactical-shift-at-the-un/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8970/iran-rouhani-un
By criticizing and blaming the U.S. for not honoring the terms, Rouhani plans to exploit President Obama's weak point, as the negotiating team has been doing all along, by invoking Obama's fear that Tehran might pull out of the nuclear deal -- a move that would highlight the failure of the accord. This tactic will, as usual, successfully pressure the administration to give Tehran even more geopolitical and economic "carrots," and pursue a policy with Iran of agreeing to even more concessions.
Rouhani's tactical shift is intended to reinforce Iran's entrenched revolutionary ideal of anti-Americanism, appease Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, and ensure his second term presidency.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will be attending the 71st session of the UN General Assembly in New York this week.
Based on the latest developments, all signs point to a tactical shift by Rouhani, in which his messages and tone will be quite different this year.
In the previous sessions of the UN General Assembly, Rouhani and his team adopted a diplomatic tone in order to have the UN Security Council lift sanctions against Iran. He praised the success of the nuclear agreement, its contribution to peace and its prevention of more tension and potential conflagration in the region. Iran's objective was achieved: a few months later, when all four rounds of the Security Council sanctions were removed, billions of dollars and billions of cover-up stories arrived, all cost-free gifts from the U.S.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the UN General Assembly, September 26, 2013. (Image source: president.ir)
After achieving these goals for Iran's ruling politicians, Rouhani's message this year will switch to blaming the U.S. for all sorts of injurious shortcomings in the nuclear agreement, which Iran, incidentally, still has not signed.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran, and has hidden Iran's supposed non-compliance with the nuclear deal to which it never officially agreed in the first place. The deal, in fact, seems only to have existed in the overheated imaginations of the US and other gullible members of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Nevertheless, the U.S. has ignored what Iran's violations could be, and has assisted Tehran in evading any terms of the nuclear agreement it wished.
In addition, now that Iran has seen that the U.S. had lost all political leverage to pressure Tehran through the Security Council sanctions, and that, as critics of the deal had repeatedly and urgently warned, sanctions could not be "snapped back," partly due to the veto power of Russia and China, Rouhani will be openly delivering the hardline messages of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the generals of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who enjoy power over Iran's economic and political systems.
Khamenei and the senior cadre of the IRGC draw their legitimacy and power from the revolutionary principle of opposing the U.S., the "Great Satan."
After the billions of dollars from the nuclear deal were delivered, the regime's anti-American remarks and behavior only increased. For Rouhani, any expectation of rapprochement with the U.S. must be prevented, and also any domestic political liberalization prevented from occurring.
Reasons for Rouhani's tactical shift in more publicly adhering to Iran's revolutionary principle of anti-Americanism also include Iran's leaders' awareness that President Obama is tightly and desperately clutching the nuclear agreement until he leaves office: he considers the deal his crowning foreign policy accomplishment and legacy. By criticizing and blaming the U.S. for not honoring the terms, Rouhani plans to exploit President Obama's weak point, as the negotiating team has been doing all along, by invoking Obama's fear that Tehran might pull out of the nuclear deal -- a move that would highlight the failure of the accord. This tactic will, as usual, successfully pressure the administration to give Tehran even more geopolitical and economic "carrots," and pursue a policy with Iran of agreeing to even more concessions. Rouhani and Zarif will, as usual, conduct bilateral talks with American diplomats behind the closed doors to make sure they are achieved.
Rouhani's public shift to Iran's hard-line political spectrum is also partially pitched to Iran's upcoming presidential elections. He needs the firm support of the hard-line leaders -- fundamentally that of Supreme Leader Khamenei, who enjoys the final say in Iran's domestic and foreign policy, and that of the IRGC leaders -- in order to assure his election to a second term.
By more publicly delivering Khamenei's message -- that the US is not adhering to the terms of the nuclear deal and that it is supposedly the U.S. that has been "breaking oaths and not acting on their commitments and creating obstacles" --
Rouhani is most likely hoping further to endear himself to Khamenei and the IRGC and prove his loyalty.
A recent poll by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland revealed that the moderate camp's popularity has not only decreased, but that Iran's former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
"now represents the single largest threat to Rouhani's re-election, and trails the once-popular incumbent by only eight points. Suddenly, the ex-president [Ahmadinejad] seems once again to be a real political contender."
Rouhani had also promised the Iranian people that the nuclear deal would improve their economic life. Since the implementation of the nuclear deal, however, the Iranian people have (unsurprisingly) not seen the fruits of the deal and the billions of dollars that the government has received. Rouhani will undoubtedly be trying to distract people's attention from blaming the Iranian government by pointing to the U.S. as the culprit.
In one of his latest speeches, Khamenei pointed out that the U.S. is attempting to "destroy Iran's economic relationships with other countries." He added:
"Was it not supposed to be so that the unjust sanctions would be removed and it would have an effect on people's lives? After six months, is there any tangible effect on the lives of the people? If not for America violating its oaths, would the administration not be able to do many things during this time? ... Of course it has been some years that I have been repeating this about the lack of trust with America, but for some it was hard to accept this reality."
Another issue on Rouhani's agenda will be to promote, at the governmental level, business deals and trade, which will further financially benefit the IRGC and Khamenei, not Iran's private sector.
Rouhani will more likely attempt to justify Iran's military adventurism in the region by playing the anti-terrorism card, even though Iran is still the leading sponsor of terrorism.
Rouhani's government will most likely focus on spreading the narrative of Khamenei and the IRGC, that Iran is an indispensable force in fighting the Islamic State and other extremist groups; that regional and global powers need to join Iran in this battle, and that Iran is the victim of terrorism in the region. In addition, Rouhani will presumably attempt to buttress the argument that the international community needs to support the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in order to defeat terrorism.
Rouhani's tactical shift is intended to reinforce Iran's entrenched revolutionary ideal of anti-Americanism, appease Khamenei and the IRGC, and ensure his second term presidency.
***Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, political scientists and Harvard University scholar is president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He can be reached at Dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu.
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Beyond the shelling and war management in Syria
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
The only right thing the US did in Syria in the past five years was an airstrike that mistakenly targeted regime troops. Washington apologized, but Moscow has never done so when its troops have shelled Syrian opposition posts. If US troops repeatedly shelled regime troops and allied militias, intentionally or otherwise, there would be a desire to negotiate a peaceful solution to this tragedy. However, the war goes on due to the absence of balance against Russia and Iran, which support Damascus. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was born due to this imbalance. It is also why the Syrian regime rejects any solutions that do not restore its power over the entire country. This is the first time regime forces have been shelled by the US, after enjoying air supremacy for years. This supremacy has made Syrian President Bashar al-Assad feel that his regime is secure regardless of how many troops and battles he loses, so he refuses to accept a reasonable political solution that ends the crisis. Was the shelling intentional, as some Assad-affiliated media claim? Of course not, because the US could have justified it and shifted the blame to the regime or Russia. However, Washington admitted it was a mistake due to an absence of coordination. Ever since Moscow announced its participation in the war, Washington clearly wants to avoid a clash between the coalition forces it leads and those allied with the Assad regime. Ever since Moscow announced its participation in the war, Washington clearly wants to avoid a clash between the coalition forces it leads and those allied with the Assad regime
War management
The disagreement we hear about is limited to the responsibility of managing military operations. Everyone agrees on one enemy in Syria: ISIS. Russia’s massive military presence on the ground supports regime and Iranian forces in their battles against the Syrian opposition, which still surprises everyone with its ability to resist. Assad, Iran and Russia have failed to achieve their goal despite besieging the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in many areas and cutting its supplies. Until today, the tripartite aggression has failed to seize Aleppo, which it had promised to do. The Americans’ shelling of Assad’s forces may push Moscow to coordinate with them to avoid fatal mistakes. Alternatively, Russia may use it as an excuse to limit the US military presence in Syrian airspace, as Moscow has always considered it a violation of Syrian sovereignty. There is not much time left for the administration of US President Barack Obama to come up with new ideas for a political solution on the basis of recent negotiations between Moscow and Washington. The US shelling will not change the superpowers’ management of the war. What was said about a “secret agreement” between them seems nothing more than discussions that have not achieved anything on the ground. **This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on Sept. 19, 2016.

Will Iran steer clear of the US at the UNGA?
Camelia Entekhabi-Fard/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
The 71st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will see significant opportunities for many countries to discuss their national interests in New York. Some leaders attend for publicity and propaganda and use the UN as a podium for their preaching. Meanwhile, others come to settle disputes. Hearing the US president’s speech on the opening day is always interesting and important but other nations are important too. Among the other nations which are considered controversial, Iran should be watched carefully at this year’s General Assembly. Since the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, most of the publically elected presidents have tried to normalize relations with the US. The annual meeting of the UNGA in New York represents a key opportunity for a meeting between the US president and the Iranian president, one that could make history. Iran’s President Hassan Rowhani is set to attend the UNGA on Sept. 22 and gave the opening session a miss as, according to some veteran diplomats, it is not considered politically respectable to attend on the first day. He is on his way back from a trip to Venezuela, via Cuba, where he attended a meeting of the Non Alliance Movement.
His visit comes despite earlier announcements that he would not attend. It was, however, too late for the UN to schedule in a speech by the Iranian president. In lieu, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is scheduled to appear on behalf of the president. Rowhani may be tempted, in his last year of office, to significantly improve relations with the US, prompting him to attend the UNGA. One factor could also be the less-than effective implementation of the nuclear deal signed in 2015. A meeting with US President Obama would do a lot to raise Rowhani’s public standing
A meeting with US President Obama would do a lot to raise Rowhani’s public standing if he desires to run for re-election. He tested the waters three years ago with a much-publicized phone call to Obama – a brave move on Rowhani’s part. After that phone call, he was criticized and attacked by the hardliners but managed to sustain the support of the supreme leader. Then came Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s unplanned (or was it?) corridor handshake with Obama. This year, the supreme leader’s website published a guide for all Iranian officials attending the UNGA. In the letter, Ayatollah Khamenei noted that he had previously visited the UN headquarters in New York to talk with world leaders, adding that it did not have anything to do with the US. He went on to add that his actions and behavior should act as a model for all Iranian representatives this year and insinuated that Rowhani and Zarif should steer clear of the US administration.

Iran and al-Qaeda: Why was Obama negligent?
Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
Late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s relations with Iran are no longer a secret. Few days ago, Devin Nunes, chairman of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, revealed that Bin Laden had close ties to the Iranian regime. Nunes told Fox News that the Barack Obama administration has access to plenty of documents which have been officially revealed. They are part of more than one million documents, which confirm that strong relations existed between the Iranian regime and Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s documents reportedly reveal that Iran mobilized al-Qaeda. They suggest Iran’s involvement in supporting Bin Laden, covering for him and facilitating matters for him and for his supporters. The question is why does the Obama administration cover for Iran, which continues to level malicious accusations against countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that are victims of terrorism?
The terror letter
In a letter sent by Bin Laden to one of his operatives called Karim, the late leader wrote: “I have some notes about your threats against Iran. I hope you and your brothers take this well. You did not consult with us in this dangerous matter that harms everyone’s interests. We expect you would consult with us for these important matters, for as you are aware, Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel and communication, as well as for the matter of hostages. There is no need to open a front with Iran.”The issue is not just the relations that existed between Iran and al-Qaeda. The question is why does the Obama administration cover for Iran, which continues to level malicious accusations against countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that are victims of terrorism?
**This article was first published in Okaz on Sept. 19, 2016.

Why has Saudi Arabia lost the ‘war for talent’ to Dubai?
Najah Al-Osaimi/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
At a discussion about Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 in London recently, I found myself engaged in a conversation with young Saudi female students. The conversation mainly revolved around how they wanted to move to Dubai after completing their degrees in the UK. Surprisingly, it was not the first time this subject had come up during my discussions with young Saudi woman. Indeed, the vast majority of Saudi women after graduating from universities abroad, find themselves facing two choices: either to return home to work and be subject to social and regulatory limitations, or to take the harder choice and move elsewhere. It is mostly Dubai due to its proximity to home.
I find this alarming, given the generous investment by Saudi Arabia in providing quality education for women in the US and Europe, the premise of which is to get them back home to take advantage of their new expertise, and in essence, drive national development. Saudi Arabia’s fund for women to study overseas has become massive over the course of the last decade. The total average annual sum spent by Saudi Arabia’s government on each female student is estimated to be between $35,000-45,000 a year. Looking at the figures released by the Ministry of Higher Education, which shows that women represent 26 percent of the number of students studying abroad, this means that Saudi Arabia has spent in excess of $50 million on women’s overseas education during the last 10 years.
Social and regulatory restrictions
There are various reasons behind why young Saudi women think of building a career elsewhere, instead of returning to their homeland. But there is one that stands out. Although Saudi Arabia has taken the, some might say, liberal step of educating its women abroad, there have been no accompaniments to the initiative in terms of relaxing social and regulatory restrictions back at home, much of which they enjoy in the West. The consequences to the Saudi economy are dire because the billions spent in educating women will be another country’s gain. The current situation of women’s rights is characterized by a status quo, and although there have been some forward thinking steps in favour of women back in Saudi Arabia, these are insufficient to meet the aspirations of a new generation of women in terms of professional development and equal opportunities found in leadership positions.
The social restrictions are also an issue for Saudi women who have become used to a certain culture in the West. If they returned home they would face a restriction of movement due to a ban on driving as well as barriers to access to justice, and family pressure caused by a male guardianship system. It has left some of the most educated, talented and entrepreneurial women with no choice but to move elsewhere away from these limitations.
However, investing in girls’ education was a smart move by Saudi Arabia, in order to build a human capital that drives a sustainable future for economic growth. Nevertheless, continuing to provide quality education without enacting any actual reform on the most pressing issues facing women in the country, will result in Saudi Arabia losing “the war for talents”. Therefore, it will massively limit the benefits that would otherwise come to the country from what is considered a generous and costly project. Talent can shape the economic and social progress of global cities, and Saudi Arabia has an ambitious vision to go global. One way to achive that is to address barriers restricting women, by developing further policies that assure gender equality. And creating opportunities that allow them to fully contribute in the national development, while also embracing more modern social values that are commensurate with a young generations intellectual and societal expectations. This is the only way to keep Saudi Arabia’s arsenal of highly skilled young women from driving other countries innovation and economies.

25 years later, MBC is the ‘last man standing’
Faisal J. Abbas/Al Arabiya/September 19/16
I was only ten years old when MBC began broadcasting via satellite from London in 1991. To me, that was a moment in history equivalent to the 1984 launch of the Apple Mac computer. It changed everything – not just for me but for a whole generation who was suffering from the mind-numbing effect of Arab state-owned media outlets. MBC came in with a very unique proposition. Unlike most other Arab satellite channels, which popped up at the time, it wasn’t a flag-carrier of a particular nation; rather it took a much a regional pan-Arab positioning. Furthermore, it blended Arab and Western/international content in a way that resonated with a whole generation of highly globalized young Middle Easterners. Indeed, the channel gave us the best of both worlds. We were able to watch Egyptian TV “Mousalsalat” (series) as well as dubbed versions of top Mexican Telenovelas (Turkish and Korean drama followed suit later on). MBC also invested heavily in its own production. For decades it was renowned for its nightly news presented by top-notch anchors such as Nicole Tannouri, Motaz Dimirdash and Antoine Aoun. On the entertainment front, Razan Maghrabi did the Arab version of “Top of the Pops” and our Hollywood reporter, Raya Abi Rached, interviewed some of the biggest names in international show businesses.
It was through MBC that Arabs worldwide rallied together to support causes that unified them. From standing up to Israeli aggressions in Palestine and Lebanon to creating and cheering pan-Arab moments, such as British boxing sensation “Prince” Naseem Hamed in the 90s, and Palestinian “Arab Idol” star Mohammad Assaf more recently. Prince Naseem Hamed of Britain, center, with arms raised get the points decision against Manuel Calvo from Spain for the IBO Featherweight Championship of the World at the London Arena in London in 2002. (AP)
Continuing with the “best of both worlds” theme, MBC aggressively went after all formats which it deemed suitable and popular with its audience. The group – which is now based in Dubai and consists of over a dozen different channels – is also home to the Arab versions of The Voice, Project Runway, Top Chef and Got Talent.
Yet, the Arab world has hardly been only about fun and games. Sadly, it is mostly doom and gloom that comes out of the region and, at the turn of the century, there was a growing concern that no credible, dedicated and professional newscaster was filling the vacuum. This concern was intensified following 9/11 and the Iraq war as it became clear that some Gulf news channels were airing extremist views and propagating al-Qaeda ideology.
As such, Al Arabiya – which this English website is part of – was born in 2003. In conjunction with the MBC group, the new 24-hour news channel sought to be a calm, liberal, rational and informed voice in a region plagued by shouting, conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies. Financial burdens on the side, Al Arabiya paid a hefty price for its professionalism as it mourned a large number of reporters killed on duty over the years. However, it also reaped the rewards when it was chosen as the first TV channel to interview US President Barack Obama, upon inauguration in 2009, and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in 2016.
Al Arabiya was the first TV channel to interview US President Barack Obama upon his inauguration in 2009. (Al Arabiya). As a person who followed the MBC story from day one – first as a mere consumer of its great content and currently as one of those who oversees its production of this content – I can’t but say on the occasion of its 25th anniversary that I am certainly proud to have had the chance to be part of its success over the past four years. Being an insider meant that I got to experience many of the serious challenges – ranging from tough financial decisions to dealing with security threats – that our senior management deals with on a daily basis.
It was through MBC that Arabs worldwide rallied together to support causes that unified them. From standing up to Israeli aggression in Palestine and Lebanon to creating and cheering pan-Arab moments.
All I can say is managing a group of this size and impact is no easy task. However, looking back at what happened to almost all our competitors over the past two and a half decades, it is inspiring that MBC today is indeed the ‘last man standing’. This could have only been achieved by a clear and ambitious vision and the willingness to take the plunge...and these are the two attributes, which define MBC’s chairman and founding father, Sheikh Waleed al-Ibrahim.
Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum awards Sheikh Waleed al-Ibrahim for his achievements over last 25 years. (Dubai Media Office). I personally have learned so much from my four years working as the English Editor-in-Chief with this group. If I were to summarize it, I would say that MBC teaches you that life will always throw obstacles and challenges at you. Yet, one must succeed and stay on top. This can only be achieved if we continue to believe in our slogan and always seek to “see hope everywhere”.
So, on behalf of all of us here... Thank you and happy 25th anniversary, Sheikh Waleed!