{"id":387,"date":"2007-09-21T12:15:25","date_gmt":"2007-09-21T12:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2007-09-21T12:15:25","modified_gmt":"2007-09-21T12:15:25","slug":"news-20-sept-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/news-20-sept-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"News (20 Sept. 2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Haaretz, here<\/a>. (Thanks friday-lunch-club<\/font><\/u>)<\/div>\n
“… In his meetings, Welch told his counterparts that efforts must be made to bolster the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, suggesting that any Israeli operations may bolster Siniora’s rivals, the pro-Syrian factions in Lebanon…”<\/div>\n

40 March 14 MPs<\/a> have returned to Beirut and are currently residing at the Phoenicia Hotel under extremely tight security measures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Revue de presse : Politique ext\u00e9rieure<\/a>, 20 septembre 2007
<\/span>Selon Damas : \u00ab On a besoin d\u2019une personnalit\u00e9 qui tient le dossier des relations bilat\u00e9rales, <\/strong>19 septembre 2007 (V.P. Sharaa stated that Syria is in favor of a Lebanese understanding that would lead to the election of a new president. He said that Syria does not interfere in Lebanese affairs, especially in the choice of a president, but let it be understood that proper relations between the two countries requires a personality who can deal with with all aspects of the relationship. He warned against the US striking Iran.)<\/p>\n

\n

A Damas, lors de l\u2019audience accord\u00e9e \u00e0 une d\u00e9l\u00e9gation des partis libanais, M. Farouk CHARAA, Vice-pr\u00e9sident syrien, a affirm\u00e9 l\u2019attachement de la Syrie \u00e0 une entente libanaise qui conduirait \u00e0 la facilitation de l\u2019\u00e9lection d\u2019un nouveau Pr\u00e9sident de la R\u00e9publique. Il a affirm\u00e9 que Damas ne s\u2019ing\u00e9rait pas dans les affaires libanaises, notamment dans l\u2019\u00e9ch\u00e9ance pr\u00e9sidentielle, mais il a laiss\u00e9 entendre que l\u2019organisation des relations entre les deux pays exige une personnalit\u00e9 qui tient les dossiers des relations sous tous leurs aspects.<\/p>\n

M. CHARAA a estim\u00e9 que les deux prochains mois seront difficiles pour la r\u00e9gion, car il n\u2019y a pas d\u2019indices sur des compromis ou des solutions sur les dossiers br\u00fblants. Il a \u00e9galement indiqu\u00e9 que tout coup qui sera port\u00e9 \u00e0 l\u2019Iran renversera toutes les \u00e9quations dans la r\u00e9gion. Si l\u2019Administration am\u00e9ricaine et Isra\u00ebl, en accord avec l\u2019Europe, frappent l\u2019Iran, toute la r\u00e9gion sera embras\u00e9e. (As-Safir)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

La Syrie attend une r\u00e9ponse des Etats-Unis et de l\u2019Arabie Saoudite \u00e0 l\u2019initiative du Pr\u00e9sident du Parlement libanais, <\/strong>18 septembre 2007 (Syria is waiting for a US and Saudi response to Berri’s initiative.)<\/p>\n

\n

Sur le plan des positions politiques, des sources diplomatiques ont r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9 hier \u00e0 Al-Hayat une position marquante selon laquelle un certain nombre de hauts responsables syriens que l\u2019Ambassadeur de France \u00e0 Damas M. Michel DUCLOS avait rencontr\u00e9, ont signal\u00e9 \u00e0 ce dernier que l\u2019initiative de BERRY au sujet de l\u2019\u00e9ch\u00e9ance pr\u00e9sidentielle au Liban s\u2019inscrivait dans le cadre des efforts d\u00e9ploy\u00e9s par la Syrie pour r\u00e9pondre favorablement \u00e0 la demande fran\u00e7aise de jouer un r\u00f4le positif dans cette \u00e9ch\u00e9ance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Revue de presse: Relations France Syrie <\/strong>(Kourchner said he does not exclude a visit to Syria if Damascus abstains from all meddling in Lebanon.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Le Ministre fran\u00e7ais des Affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res, M. Bernard KOUCHNER, a indiqu\u00e9 hier qu’il n’excluait pas de visiter la Syrie et de faire preuve d’une ouverture plus grande envers ce pays, si Damas s’abstenait de toute ing\u00e9rence au Liban.\u00a0suite<\/a><\/p>\n

Le Ministre fran\u00e7ais des Affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res, M. Bernard KOUCHNER, a indiqu\u00e9 hier qu’il n’excluait pas de visiter la Syrie et de faire preuve d’une ouverture plus grande envers ce pays, si Damas s’abstenait de toute ing\u00e9rence au Liban.\u00a0suite<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Le Ministre fran\u00e7ais des Affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res, M. Bernard KOUCHNER, a indiqu\u00e9 hier qu’il n’excluait pas de visiter la Syrie et de faire preuve d’une ouverture plus grande envers ce pays, si Damas s’abstenait de toute ing\u00e9rence au Liban.\u00a0suite<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Al-Safadi: we won\u2019t take part in electing a president with half+1 quorum<\/strong> (Translation thanks to Mideastwire.com<\/a>) <\/p>\n

\n
Tha\u2019ir Abbas of Asharq Al Awsat, an independent Saudi owned newspaper, wrote on September 19: \u201cThe Lebanese public works minister Muhammad Al-Safadi, the head of the parliamentary Tripoli Coalition which is part of the March14 bloc, settled the issue of his coalition over the issue of the quorum necessary to elect the next president with his announcement to Asharq Al Awsat in Beirut yesterday that he will not accept to participate in electing a president with the half+1 quorum and that he will not recognize the legitimacy of any president elected solely by the March 14 team of which his coalition, which includes four MPs, is part. Al-Safadi warned strongly against electing the president with a half+1 quorum and considered that doing so \u201cwill expose the country to a risk of civil war\u201d. <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

CNN reports that another U.S. official said<\/a> he has seen satellite imagery of that attack that shows a hole in the center of a building’s roof with the walls still largely intact. <\/p>\n

That would strongly indicate a laser guided bomb was used with a fused warhead that exploded after the bomb entered the building roof. The photo is highly classified and not expected to be publicly released.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Pentagon official could not confirm several recent news reports that nuclear material from North Korea has arrived in Syria and was the potential target of a recent Israeli airstrike there.<\/p>\n

In fact, he said none of the information he had reviewed as part of his job indicated any nuclear material was involved<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

SYRIA\u00a0URGED TO HONOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION<\/a> — <\/p>\n

\n

More than two-dozen human rights groups from around the world called on Syria Sept. 10 to honor the country’s constitutional guarantee of free expression and to release prisoners of conscience.<\/p>\n

The groups, in an effort spearheaded by the Cairo-based Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, called on Syria<\/a><\/a> to “work on strengthening freedom of expression and to put an end to all repressive practices against journalists and activists, including harassment, torture and arbitrary detention” in a letter to President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n

In the letter, signatories specifically called for the release of prominent human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, journalist Michael Kilo and political activist Kamal al-Labwani. Groups from Russia, Bahrain, Tunisia and Lebanon signed the letter alongside international organizations like the International Federation of Journalists and Freedom House.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On a lighter note, one reader posted this note in order to suggest that Lebanon could get worse:<\/div>\n
\n
(NY Times Sept. 21) Calls for a Breakup Grow Ever Louder in Belgium….more than three months after a general election, Belgium has failed to create a government, producing a crisis so profound that it has led to a flood of warnings, predictions, even promises that the country is about to disappear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are two different nations, an artificial state created as a buffer between big powers, and we have nothing in common except a king, chocolate and beer,\u201d said Filip Dewinter, the leader of Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Bloc….\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Syria: Air incursion shows Israel not interested in peace<\/a>, International Herald Tribune<\/font><\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/font><\/div>\n

Hanegbi: Syria has restrained its statements<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haaretz, here. (Thanks friday-lunch-club) “… In his meetings, Welch told his counterparts that efforts must be made to bolster the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, suggesting that any Israeli operations may bolster Siniora’s rivals, the pro-Syrian factions in Lebanon…” 40 March 14 MPs have returned to Beirut and are currently residing at the Phoenicia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,15,22,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-israel","category-lebanon","category-us"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nNews (20 Sept. 2007) - Syria Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/news-20-sept-2007\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"News (20 Sept. 2007) - Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Haaretz, here. 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