Monday, August 30, 2010

Our Lady of Naya Church

Top: A general view shows the rock-carved Saydet Naya Church (Our Lady of Naya Church) in the northern Lebanese mountain village of Kfarchleiman on August 26, 2010. The church is beleived to date back to the medevial age around 12th century A.D. when early Christians transformed a rocky reservoir of water into a monastic complex in the rugged mountains of north Lebanon. Second: The face of Christ is painted on the ceiling and walls of the Saydet Naya Church. Third: The face of Christ is painted on the wall of the Saydet Naya Church. Fourth: The face of Christ is painted on the ceiling of the Saydet Naya Church. Bottom: An ancient water reservoir is carved in the rock near the 12th century Saydet Naya Church. (All images - Getty Images via Daylife)

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Syria's Message: Us or Hizballah

Lebanese mourners walk past a portrait of the late founder of the Islamic republic in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, during the funeral of Hezbollah member Mohammed Fawaz in the village of Tibnin in southern Lebanon on August 26, 2010, two days after he and two other Lebanese men were killed in clashes in Beirut's Burj Abi Haidar district, between two pro-Syrian movements, the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the Sunni Muslim al-Ahbash group. (Getty Images via Daylife)

Hanin Ghaddar comments on the recent Hizballah-Ahbash clash in the Abi Haidar neighborhood of Beirut.  As always, the article is worth reading in full, excerpts below:
...
Thus, the clashes must be seen as a message from Syria to Hezbollah that Damascus is back and that the Party of God no longer single-handedly controls the political scene in Lebanon. It is also worth mentioning that this happened immediately after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that he would visit Lebanon on September 11 and 12.

Using a Sunni militia to deliver the message is interesting, as Syria might also be sending another message to the Saudis and Prime Minister Saad Hariri that it can protect the Lebanese Sunnis. As for the international community, Syria was clearly telling it that it can hurt Hezbollah, and that it should be given back Lebanon as a reward.

... The Lebanese in general and the Sunnis in particular are being given two options: Hezbollah’s control or the return of Syrian hegemony. This means that the Lebanese have to pay for the Syrian-Iranian alliance and for when this alliance weakens.

... The day after the clashes, Al-Ahbash officials went to Damascus to meet senior Syrian general and former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon Rustum Ghazali, a clear indication that Syria sponsors and controls Al-Ahbash. Of course, this does not mean that Syria and Iran are no longer allies. When Imad Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus, ... many laid the blame on the Syrian regime, claiming Mugniyah had been killed to sever the tie linking Hezbollah to the Hariri assassination.
...
Related Posts:

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Basketball: Lebanon Defeats Canada

Lebanese player Fadi El Khatib (C) tries to shoot the ball in front Canada's Jevohn Shepherd (R) during the preliminary round game between Canada and Lebanon at the FIBA World Basketball Championships in Izmir, Turkey on August 28, 2010. (Getty Images via Daylife)

Horrid Abuse in Saudi Arabia

Its hard to believe that this - 24 nails driven into this mother of three's body - took place over a span of a month. One month! BBCNews reports:
Ms Ariyawathie, a mother of three, travelled to Saudi Arabia in March to become a housemaid.

Detail of an X-ray film showing nails in hand of Sri Lankan housemaid Doctors say this X-ray shows nails embedded in the housemaid's hand

Last week, she flew back to Sri Lanka and was admitted to hospital in the south of the island, where she told doctors she had undergone abuse for more than a month.

"When we checked her, we found 24 metal pieces in her legs and hands. She still can't properly sit down and walk," Dr Kamal Weerathunga told BBC Sandeshaya.
This case is truly tragic, reprehensible and deserving of investigation (at the very least) by the authorities in Saudi Arabia. Of course, this isn't the first time this has happened in the oil kingdom, and it likely won't be the last.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Leb Web Digest: 27.08.10

France Offered Lebanon 100 HOT Missiles

... a high level French official informed Asharq Al-Awsat that French Defense Minister Herve Morin had sent a letter to his Lebanese counterpart Elias Murr in May – via the French Army Chief of Staff who was visiting Lebanon at the time – informing him that Paris was "ready" to deliver 100 HOT missiles to Beirut.  The HOT [High Subsonic Optical Remote-Guided Fired from Tube] missiles is a long-range anti-tank missile system designed by Euromissile that Beirut want to arm its French-designed Gazelle army helicopters with. 

The French official acknowledged that Israel "protested" the French decision ... and that Washington raised "question marks" ... However he also "categorically denied" that Paris had "given in to pressure" and that this was behind the deal not being completed.

The senior French official placed the blame for this arms deal's failure or delay upon Lebanon, citing the state of "confusion" that the Lebanese administration is suffering from, especially with regards to defense affairs.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Iran and Syria: Lebanon Tug of War

 
People check damages to their shops a day after street gun battles in Beirut's residential area of Bourj Abu Haidar, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010.(AP Photo via Day Life)

Michael Young spells it out in an editorial for the Daily Star, extensive quoting below:
You had to agree with the pro-Hizbullah daily Al-Akhbar when it observed in its Wednesday edition that one could only “naively” assume that the Burj Abi Haidar fighting the previous evening was the result of a personal dispute between supporters of Hizbullah and the Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, known as the Ahbash.

... most media outlets agreed that tension had been brewing in the neighborhood for some time. The Ahbash are close to Syria, not to say the Syrian intelligence services, which has long employed the group as a counterweight to Sunni militant groups the Syrian regime considers threatening, above all the Muslim Brotherhood. In the postwar period, the Syrians used the Ahbash against the Hariri family – indeed Ahbash members were suspected of involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri – and to undercut the authority of the mufti and the Sunni religious establishment.

... Here was, perhaps, the first armed confrontation between Iran and Syria in Lebanon, through proxies, to determine who will dominate the country in the future. More specifically, the Syrians, in endeavoring to revive their hegemony, have entered into a struggle for power with the only force that can stand up to them locally, Hizbullah, on which Damascus seeks to impose its priorities. Not surprisingly, Hizbullah has refused to surrender the political gains it accumulated during the past five years – gains, above all, in the service of Iran.

The heart of the problem is the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. A decision is expected from the institution in the coming months – whether indictments or the identification of suspects. Hizbullah feels it will be targeted by such a step and has raised the heat on the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri to immediately end Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal. Hariri has refused, and can afford to buy time. That’s because Hariri knows that Syria intends to use any tribunal decision as leverage over Hizbullah, to push the party to surrender to Damascus key posts it controls in the public administration and the security and military apparatus.

In light of this, Syria, like Hariri, is waiting for the tribunal to come out with something first, before opening negotiations with Hizbullah; while Hizbullah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, keen to avoid any such bargaining, is out to create an intolerable situation on the ground so that Hariri is left with no choice but to scuttle the tribunal before its findings push the party into a corner.

Initially, Hizbullah felt that it had a range of options to intimidate Hariri. Party spokesmen ominously mentioned a return to May 2008, when Hizbullah and Amal overran western Beirut militarily and forced the government of Fouad Siniora to annul two decisions that the party regarded as threatening. Hizbullah officials also raised the possibility of bringing down the current government. However, at a summit in Beirut several weeks ago, President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and President Bashar Assad of Syria signed on to a statement that effectively ruled out both measures.
...
What will be interesting to watch in the coming weeks is what happens on the margins of the Syrian-Iranian struggle over Lebanon. The Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, whose allegiances are with Syria, must yet be very careful of how he manages his relationship with Hizbullah. It was indicative of Berri’s dilemma that during the Burj Abi Haidar incident Amal issued a statement saying it was not involved, even as some of its men fought on Hizbullah’s side.

Walid Jumblatt is another politician who must play the Syria-Hizbullah rivalry very carefully. He has been especially vocal recently in calling for the tribunal to be abandoned. That’s because it only exacerbates the tensions between Damascus and Hizbullah, and Jumblatt and his community happen to be caught in the middle. The Druze leader has been the target of repeated condemnation in Al-Akhbar lately, principally because Hizbullah views him as particularly vulnerable (which Jumblatt is), and wants to keep him in line.

...What divides Syria and Iran is power, which is something neither is presently inclined to share in Beirut. Even if Hizbullah and Syria avoid episodes like the one on Tuesday, there will be other outbursts of violence or political altercations as the tribunal nears the time when it takes some sort of action.

Particularly revealing is the extent to which Hizbullah feels confident that it can out-maneuver Syria in Lebanon. Damascus was never very good at anchoring itself among the Lebanese without its army and intelligence services around to enforce its dictates. Ironically, Hizbullah has become the principle bulwark resisting a Syrian comeback, because the party wants to preserve Lebanon for Iran. What abysmal choices we Lebanese are left with.
 Related Posts:

Hizballah-Ahbash Clash in Beirut


Hizballah fighters clashed with Ahbash (a Syrian-backed Sunni organization) fighters in the Abi Haidar neighborhood of Beirut on the night of August 24th, 2010, leaving one Hizballah official (Mohammad Fawaz, the Hizballah director for the neighborhood) and his bodyguard dead.  A 19 year old Kurdish resident of the neighborhood (described as an Ahbash fighter) along with another bystander were also killed (reportedly in a nearby neighborhood which got caught up in the fighting).  NOWLebanon has a good on the ground piece on the finding.

Meanwhile, speculation abounds as to the "significance" of the clash given the Ahbash's unilateral and superseding loyalty to the Syrian regime - and, of course, Hizballah's to Iran - and the feverish fervor and eagerness to fight displayed by both parties.

The clash comes in light of intense speculation and popular apprehension of upcoming Special Tribunal for Lebanon indictments rumored to be issued in December.  In recent weeks Hizballah has aggressively maneuvered to cast doubt on the Tribunal and the investigation into the Hariri assassination (as well as those that followed) and paint it as an international conspiracy contrived against the Iranian-outfitted group. 

Some images of the gunfight (via DayLife) and its after effects below:
Above: A Lebanese gunman takes position along Burj Abi Haidar Street in Beirut, late on August 24, 2010, during clashes between the Shiite movement Hezbollah and a Sunni Muslim group al-Ahbash (Getty Images). Second: Lebanon's Hezbollah gunmen walk at Burj Abi Haidar street in Beirut during clashes (Reuters Pictures).Third: Lebanese civil defense workers carry an injured man that was hit in the clashes that erupted (AP Photo). Bottom: Lebanese people flee the area of clashes in Beirut's Burj Abi Haidar neighbourhood on August 24, 2010 (Getty Images).

In Egypt: Two Megacities Rise out of the Desert

The New York Times reports:
...
Cairo has become so crowded, congested and polluted that the Egyptian government has undertaken a construction project that might have given the Pharaohs pause: building two megacities outside Cairo from scratch. By 2020, planners expect the new satellite cities to house at least a quarter of Cairo’s 20 million residents and many of the government agencies that now have headquarters in the city.

Only a country with a seemingly endless supply of open desert land — and an authoritarian government free to ignore public opinion — could contemplate such a gargantuan undertaking. The government already has moved a few thousand of the city’s poorest residents against their will from illegal slums in central Cairo to housing projects on the periphery.
...
Enormous subdivisions have sprung up in the dunes outside of Cairo, on an almost incomprehensible scale. Already a million people have moved to 6 October City, due west of Cairo, named for the date of the 1973 war between Egypt and Israel still hailed as a seminal Arab victory. A similar number have moved east of the city, to a settlement unimaginatively dubbed “New Cairo.”

The government’s original plans — which are widely considered more wishful than literal — conceived of 6 October City’s expanding to 3 million by 2020 and New Cairo to 4 million, primarily as havens for working-class Cairenes. So far, however, the overwhelming majority of new residents come from Egypt’s uppermost economic strata.
...
The Egyptian government has spent untallied millions of dollars building new roads and power and water lines to the desert areas it designated for future development. It has sold huge parcels of land to developers in opaque deals, and built some low-income housing. But it has relied primarily on private developers to put up the cities’ more expensive villas and condos, as well as the malls and offices.
...
Other pioneers include some of the richest Cairenes, who buy villas on golf courses and in gated compounds. They have been joined by some of the poorest, drawn by factory and construction jobs, or to serve the rich. Other poor people are shuttled in against their will by the government to isolated tracts of row houses.

The juxtaposition of rich and poor highlights one of Mr. Abdelhalim’s greatest concerns. ...

Consider Haram City, the first affordable housing development here built by a private company. Phase 1 was just completed this summer, and 25,000 people have moved in. When it is complete in two years, Haram City will house 400,000 people — a single project with the population of Miami.

Although it was designed for lower-income workers, some of Haram City’s first residents are indigent Cairenes who were displaced by a rockslide and moved to this distant development by the government. They complain that they are isolated, and that it costs them nearly as much to take the bus into the city as they can earn in a day’s work.
...
Haram City was conceived as an affordable neighborhood for lower-middle-class professionals, but the government has bought hundreds of units and is filling them with some of Cairo’s poorest inhabitants — importing the city’s historic class tensions to the replacement 6 October City.

Piecemeal development has created short-term hiccups as well. The new development lacks a subway, sufficient jobs, schools and medical services. Businesses, however, are relocating to the new city and the government plans to put many of its ministries and service buildings there.
...
A few miles farther out in the desert is the extreme side of replacement Cairo: an exclusive golf course community called Allegria, already half built, and the planned luxury development of Westown, flanking the main highway from Cairo to Alexandria. Developers are building a replica of downtown Beirut, which will serve as an urban hub for all the gated communities and other developments proliferating in the desert.
...

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Hassan Fadlallah: R.I.P.

This is a bit delayed ... but below you'll find links to two of the better articles on Fadlallah I've found, looking at his past and commemorating his passing: