The Daily Star, BEIRUT: A new Cabinet cannot be formed unless Lebanon’s politicians find solutions to a number of contentious issues, a Future Movement official said Monday. “Matters are complicated concerning Cabinet formation,” former MP Mustafa Alloush told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5). These complications are the “tip of the iceberg,” he said.

Meanwhile, Change and Reform MP Hikmat Deeb said that “agreements have been made on fundamental issues,” during a morning talk show on LBCI. However, he added that some disputes over “minor details” remain unresolved.

Caretaker Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) that disagreements over the distribution of ministerial portfolios indicate that political rivals “favor their personal interests over that of the state.”

He said that Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri had “made big compromises, including the election of [President] Michel Aoun, on condition that the Cabinet would be formed within a week of his election.” Derbas blamed Hariri and Aoun for the delay in Cabinet formation, but said that he believes that the PM-designate will “make further settlements to accelerate [an agreement] on his Cabinet lineup.”

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By Stephen Zunes   – National Catholic Reporter – ncronline.org

There are more than a few ironies regarding the Oct. 31 election by
the Lebanese parliament of former Gen. Michel Aoun, a Maronite Catholic
who received his military training in the United States, as the
country’s new president. One of the most striking is his shifting
allegiances and the inconsistencies of U.S. policy toward Lebanon.

Aoun’s political party, known as the Free Patriotic Movement, is the
most popular Christian-led political group in the country, surpassing
the once-dominant far-right-wing Phalangists. Aoun’s party is aligned
with the March 8 Alliance, one of the two main political blocs in the
country, which includes leftists and Arab nationalists, as well as
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed radical Shiite group. As a result, both The Washington Post and The New York Times announced the election of the “Hezbollah ally” to the presidency and The Guardian referred to him as “a staunch ally of Iran.”

In 2007, former Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., when he was ranking
member of the Middle East Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, accused Aoun and his supporters of being “agents” and
“boot-licking Lebanese proxies” of Syria and Iran, whom he referred to
as the “puppet masters pulling on the strings.” He further accused
“Aounists” of trying to “take through violence and intimidation what
they cannot achieve at the ballot box.”

In reality, Aoun has become president last month through a
constitutional process by a democratically elected parliament. This was
not the case back in 1988 when he led a military regime, one of two
rival governments. In October 1990, as the only major obstacle remaining
to implementing the Taif Accords, which finally brought an end to that
country’s bloody 15-year civil war, he was ousted by Lebanese and Syrian
forces. The operation was openly supported by the United States,
concerned with Aoun’s then-alliance with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein,
the only foreign leader who provided Aoun’s regime with unconditional
support.

JBEIL BYBLOS #khazen Mar Youhana – Jbeil

Reuters Adam Payne

Francois Fillon will stand for the French conservatives in the
upcoming presidential election after claiming victory over Alan
Juppe in the Republican party primary on Sunday.

Partial results based on four-fifths of the primaries’ polling
stations showed Fillon winning by a huge margin of nearly 40%.

Fillon is set to go head-to-head with Marine Le Pen of far-right
party Front National in May’s election, meaning that the French
left-wing is set to be excluded from the contest altogether
after five years of socialist Francois Hollande in power.

Fillon, a socially conservative free-market advocate who has been
dubbed as France’s answer to former UK Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, had won over 67 percent of the vote in a
one-on-one battle with Juppe, who trailed on around
32%.

By Mary Rezac

Vatican City,  (CNA/EWTN News).- There once was a Pope called “The Green Pope.” He earned the title from both the religious and the secular alike,
because he wrote frequently about the environment and asked all
Catholics to be better stewards of God’s creation.  

Under this pope’s pontificate, the Vatican became the world’s first
sovereign state to become carbon-neutral, meaning that all of the small
country’s greenhouse gas emissions are offset by renewable energies and
carbon credits, thanks to extra trees and solar panels. He also made use
of a more energy efficient, partially electric popemobile. No, “The Green Pope” is not Pope Francis.

It’s his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, which may come as a surprise to those who believe Benedict’s legacy was his staunch conservatism.   During the World Day of Peace celebration in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI
chose the theme “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation.” “We are all responsible for the protection and care of the environment,” he said.

Drawing on the wisdom from his own predecessors, including Pope John Paul II, Pope Leo XIII and Pope Paul VI, Benedict in his message
implored his flock to view climate change and care for creation as an
extension of the Church’s care for humanity. He also addressed the
phenomenon of “environmental refugees” several years before Francis
noted the environment’s contribution to the current refugee crisis. “Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such
realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss
of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and
aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural
catastrophes and the deforestation of equatorial and tropical regions?
Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of ‘environmental refugees’,
people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to
forsake it – and often their possessions as well – in order to face the
dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement? Can we remain
impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access
to natural resources?” Benedict asked in his message.

Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Although Lebanon’s President-elect Bashir Gemayel was
assassinated on September 14, 1982 — along with 26 others who perished
when a bomb exploded in the Phalange Party headquarters in Ashrafieh —
the country’s Judicial Council finally launched a trial in absentia,
calling on Habib Shartouni, who confessed to planting the bomb before
escaping from prison, to turn himself in.

Jean Fahd, the
magistrate entrusted with the case, issued a statement that gave
Shartouni an ultimatum to hand himself over to the judiciary “within 24
hours at the latest from the March 3, 2017 trial session”, though it is
unclear what meaning that ultimatum has.

Fahd further demanded proof that Nabeel Al Alam, a second culprit involved in the plot, is dead Shartouni,
a member of the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP), was born into a
Maronite Catholic family in Aley (Chouf Mountains) and served in one of
the SSNP stations there though he fled to Cyprus and France at the
beginning of the civil war where he attended university and obtained a
business degree. During a 1977 visit to Lebanon, he formally joined the
SSNP and became an active member though it was unclear whether Syrian
intelligence operatives recruited him in France. It was in Paris that he
met Nabeel Al Alam, then a leading SSNP intelligence lieutenant, who
made a big impression on him.

Al Alam knew that Shartouni’s family
members lived in the same building where the Phalange Party kept a
headquarters, which most probably justified the recruitment. Two days
after the assassination, the 24-years-old Shartouni was arrested by the
Lebanese Forces and handed over to the Lebanese judiciary. In his
confession, he called Bashir a traitor and accused him of selling the
country to Israel, and acknowledged that he “was given the explosives
and the fancy long-range electronic detonator by Al Alam, who promptly
fled to Syria and vanished.

By Paul Szoldra

While on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump often
asserted that “torture
works.” But one meeting with legendary Marine Gen. James
Mattis appears to have made him rethink that stance. On Saturday, Trump met with the retired four-star general at the
real-estate mogul’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course
for about an hour to discuss the possibility Mattis could be
tapped to serve as defense secretary.

Details about the private conversation are hard to come by,
but Trump did reveal an interesting bit
Tuesday to reporters at The New York Times when asked about
waterboarding.

From The Times:

“‘He said, “I’ve never found it to be useful,”‘ Mr. Trump said,
describing the general’s view of torturing terrorism suspects. He
added that Mr. Mattis found more value in building trust and
rewarding cooperation with terror suspects: ‘”Give me a pack of
cigarettes and a couple of beers and I’ll do better.”‘

“‘I was very impressed by that answer.’

“Torture, he said, is ‘not going to make the kind of a difference
that a lot of people are thinking.'”

It amounts to a “remarkable” reversal for the president-elect, as
The Times put it. It also somewhat contradicts the position of
Trump’s national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn, who has said “all options are on the table.”
Before he campaigned for Trump, however, Flynn criticized the practice.

By Babu Das Augustine, Banking Editor

Dubai: The recent political developments in Lebanon such as the
election of President Michel Aoun and the designation of Saad Hariri to
form the government is expected to boost investor confidence in the
country’s financial system. However analysts say in the short to medium
term, banks’ foreign asset holdings paint a grim picture.

In
mid-October, Banque du Liban (BdL), Lebanon’s central bank, published
data showing that Lebanese banks’ foreign assets, mostly in the form of
foreign bank placements, had declined by $1.9 billion (Dh6.9 billion)
between May 2016 to August 2016, and by $1.1 billion in August alone. As
a result, Lebanese banks’ net foreign liabilities increased to $18
billion in August from $15 billion at the beginning of the year.

The
repatriated $1.9 billion of foreign assets were invested in long-term
Lebanese government Eurobonds and BdL certificates of deposits (CDs)
that increased the banks’ overall exposure to the sovereign.

The
large reduction in Lebanese banks’ foreign assets is the result of a BdL
financial operation that began in May. Although the BdL has not
disclosed details of this operation, according to Moody’s estimate, BdL
bought $2 billion of Eurobonds from the Lebanese Ministry of Finance in
exchange for an equivalent amount of debt denominated in Lebanese
pounds.

Additionally, there are reports that BdL bought roughly $6
billion of Lebanese pound denominated Treasury bills over the summer
from commercial banks at a premium and sold them the $2 billion in
Eurobonds and an additional $4 billion in CDs. Banks were required to
keep the profits generated from these transactions as Lebanese
pound-denominated reserves ahead of the implementation of International
Financial Reporting Standard No 9, which takes effect in 2018.

Lebanese Saints