ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who has helmed the energy giant for
the last decade and struck deals around the world, is expected to
be President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state,

transition officials told media on Saturday. The 64-year-old Texas native has no governing or diplomatic
experience, and has spent the entirety of his career at Exxon,
where he began as a production engineer
in 1975 after graduating from the University
of Texas at Austin with a civil engineering
degree.

The foundation for Tillerson’s knowledge of foreign diplomacy is
thought to be his extensive experience traveling across the the
world for Exxon, which has operations in more than 50 countries,
according to the
Wall Street Journal. Already, his dealmaking history has begun to draw criticism —
through his work at Exxon, Tillerson has cultivated
longstanding ties to the Russian government that date back to
the 1990s.

Tillerson has struck several major deals with the Russian
state-run corporation Rosneft and has a personal relationship
with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, who in 2013 awarded him
the country’s Order of Friendship. Tillerson’s appointment is also drawing scrutiny for the
potential for conflicts of interest; Exxon’s global operations
are extensive, and Tillerson owns company shares worth $151
million, according to securities filings reviewed by the Journal.

khazen.org offers its full supports to the Lebanese authorities in the arrest of Bassel el Amin and his likes. Lebanon, the Lebanese people, our country, our officials, our religious figures are a red line. It is against the Lebanese laws to insult our country. There is a difference between free speech and insulting our country. […]

by Bethan McKernan

Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have defended sharing an inaccurate map of Lebanon annotated with Hezbollah military positions and warehouses, saying the map was for “visual illustration” purposes. 

The official IDF Twitter account posted the map titled “Declassified map of Hezbollah’s
military infrastructure in Lebanon” on Tuesday, highlighting more than
80 towns and villages and thousands of spots it said were home to sites
such as rocket launchers and infantry positions.

“This is a war crime,” the tweet’s caption said, alongside the tagline “Hezbollah’s hiding behind Lebanon’s civilians.” 

It was shared hundreds of times before one Twitter user
pointed out that the picture couldn’t be a declassified military map
because the image’s history showed it been created using Google Maps by
an IDF spokesperson account, and featured repetitive patterns. 

The map – which according to the Times of Israel
was construed as an IDF attempt to build a case for future military
action and demonstrate Israel’s sophisticated intelligence-gathering
capabilities – was shown to foreign diplomats visiting Israel, local
television reported.

When asked for comment, the IDF confirmed that the map is
inaccurate, calling it in effect “an illustration of what is going on in
Lebanon”.

By Reuters,

Hezbollah called
on Friday for a Lebanese government to be formed as quickly as possible,
weeks after the country elected a president and named a prime minister.

Prime
minister-designate Saad al-Hariri said last month his efforts to form
the government faced “stumbling blocks”, testing hopes he could quickly
steer the country out of political crisis.

“Everyone
is responsible for looking for ways out, for solutions, and to
cooperate for us to reach the necessary conclusion on the government,”
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said, referring to Lebanon’s
political factions. The “government … must be formed as soon as
possible.”

by Shana Lebowitz

Getting stronger, looking hotter, being less humiliated when
climbing the stairs with spry colleagues — these are all solid
reasons to work out.

And yet if you’re having trouble mustering the motivation to hit
the gym regularly, do yourself a favor and stop lecturing
yourself about the myriad benefits of physical activity. It’s
hardly helping.

A better bet? Put a time on your calendar and do it, and trust
that you’ll like it.

That’s according to Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and
behavioral economics at Duke University and the author of the new
book about human motivation, “Payoff.”
Ariely visited the Business Insider office in November and
explained that too many people make the same mistake when trying
to motivate themselves to do anything, whether that’s working out
or writing a report.

The mistake is anticipating that the workout will be
awful the whole time and that the only reason to do it is to
achieve those long-term goals mentioned above. The
activity we’re dreading is rarely as painful as we imagine it
will be, Ariely said — in fact, there’s a good chance we’ll enjoy
it.

Here’s Ariely:

“When we think about running, it just seems like it’s really
going to be miserable and painful and unpleasant and so on. And
we don’t engage in it. But the fact is that once we’re in the
task, life changes. All of a sudden, we think less about the
misery and we learn to enjoy things.”

In other words, as you’ve probably heard before, the hardest part
of working out is
just getting started. Once you do, Ariely said, thoughts of
getting stronger and looking better kind of melt away as you take
in the sensation of your breath, the music coming through your
headphones, and the sound of your feet hitting the ground.

In psychologist-speak, the mistake we’re making here is placing
too much value on extrinsic motivators, like long-term health
goals, and too little on intrinsic motivators, like having fun
right now.

From Naharnet

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea snapped back
Thursday at Syrian President Bashar Assad over the latter’s criticism of
Lebanon’s so-called dissociation policy. “Lebanon’s continuation of its dissociation policy is
specifically in Assad’s interest, because ‘should Lebanon speak’ it will
definitely be against him,” Geagea said in a statement.

In an interview with Syria’s al-Watan newspaper, Assad
has noted that “Lebanon cannot dissociate itself from the blazes that
are raging around it.” “It cannot endorse ‘the policy of no policy’ or what has been called the dissociation policy,” Assad said.

Although the Lebanese state has officially adopted the
dissociation policy, Hizbullah has sent thousands of fighters into the
neighboring country to help Assad fight an Islamist-led uprising. The party has argued that its controversial intervention was necessary to protect Lebanese border towns from extremist groups.

On the other hand it was also reported that an assassination plot could be planned
against him, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat
pointed the finger at the Syrian regime saying it is the “primary
suspect” behind such a plot, As Safir daily reported Thursday.

Jumblat said he believes that the “biggest winner who
will benefit from my assassination is the Syrian regime which has grown
stronger after the field developments on the battlefront in Syria,” he
told the daily.

“In compliance with the security advice, I am residing
most of the time at Moukhtara. If it was not for a minor surgery that I
had to take in one of my eyes, I would not have come to my residence in
Clemenceau in such circumstances,” he went on to say.

by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has lashed out at Lebanon
over its disassociation policy approved in 2012, which ensured that
Lebanon’s political factions did not take sides in Syria’s civil war. The
policy miraculously managed to save Lebanon from being dragged into the
brutal war next door, despite the fact that Hezbollah ignored the
policy as it openly fought alongside Al Assad forces in Syria.

In
an interview with the Damascus daily Al Watan, the Syrian president
said, “Lebanon cannot be dissociated from the fires flaring up [in the
region] and [cannot] adopt the policy of no politics or what is called
the disassociation policy.” Observers believe it was a direct
warning to recently elected president Michel Aoun not to forget that he
has to answer to Damascus. “As long as the [president] is a
patriot and works in favour of the Lebanese, Lebanon will become
stronger. And when Lebanon is strong, Syria will be at ease and
stronger,” Al Assad said. Aoun reconciled with pro-Syrian parties in Lebanon too, especially Hezbollah, which chose to fight alongside the Ba’ath regime.

It
remains unclear whether Aoun will now abolish or alter the 2012 “Baabda
Declaration” that was approved by rival March 8 and March 14 leaders —
including Hezbollah — to “keep Lebanon away from the policy of regional
and international conflicts and sparing it the negative repercussions of
regional tensions and crises”.

On Wednesday, Aoun received the
pro-regime Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Al Deen Hassoun, accompanied by
Syria’s Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim, which raised the ire of a
leading pro-opposition journalist, Carol Maalouf. Maalouf
attacked the head-of-state and Cardinal Mar Bisharah Butros Al Ra‘i (who
also welcomed the Mufti) on her Facebook page that mobilised supporters
and opponents alike.