By Bob Bryan

Steven Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for
Treasury secretary, says the top priority of the new Trump
administration will be to cut taxes. Mnuchin, a longtime Goldman Sachs employee and Hollywood
producer, said his support of Trump cost him a few friends along
the way. “There were a lot of people in California and New York who wanted
to stop being friends,” Mnuchin said. Both states were won by
Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Our first priority is to cut taxes,” Mnuchin said in an
interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box. “We want to cut the corporate
taxes, which will bring back growth.” During the interview, which also included Trump’s choice for
commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, Mnuchin described a plan to cut
the corporate tax rate to 15% from its current 35% level.

On personal taxes, Mnuchin said the planned tax cut from the
Trump administration would not favor the upper class because any
cut for the wealthy would be offset by “closing various
exceptions” in the tax code. He did not specify what these would
be but did say the “absolute level” of upper-class taxes would
not go down.

Mnuchin said the changes in the tax codes would be the largest
changes since those under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh speaks during ACI Lebanon
Golden Jubilee Grand Celebration, in Beirut September 1, 2014.
REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Beirut- Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh affirmed that
Lebanon has completed required legislation regarding digital security.
He said that Lebanon considers – combating money laundering and fighting
funding terrorism – a priority and therefore participating through its
private and public sectors in this field.

Salameh made the call in his address to the 2nd Anti-Cyber-crime
Forum themed “Fighting Digital Fraud and Piracy in the Banking and
Commercial Sectors in Lebanon.”

The event is organized by Al Iktissad Wal-Aamal group, in
collaboration with Special Investigation Commission (SIC) of the Central
Bank of Lebanon and the Cybercrime and the Intellectual Property Bureau
of the Directorate General of the Internal Security Forces.

Governor Riad Salameh said that the cyber-crime has been worrying
governments and monitoring bodies – since they are suspected to be
linked to terrorism. “These crimes have increased throughout the past three years,”
secretary general of the central bank’s SIC Abdul-Hafeez Mansour told
the forum.

Damascus (dpa) – Israeli planes fired two rockets at the outskirts of
Damascus early Wednesday, state media reported, citing a Syrian
military source. The planes fired the rockets from Lebanese airspace into the Sabora
area, the state-run Syrian News Agency (SANA) reported.

Earlier in the day, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights and a pro-Syrian regime website said loud blasts, believed to
be the result of Israeli airstrikes, rocked areas west of the Syrian
capital. “We believe they are Israeli strikes … carried out from over the
Lebanese territories and hit a Syrian post in the area of Sabora on
the outskirts of Damascus,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said. 

Reports about the airstrikes have been contradictory. The pro-Syrian regime website Dimashq al-An [Damascus Now] said that
four loud explosions were heard along Damascus‘ outskirts a little
after midnight. The website reported that the blasts were the result of “an aerial
Zionist aggression” which targeted a Syrian post on the
Beirut-Damascus highway and resulted in no loss of life. Israel hasn‘t confirmed the attacks. Two raids took place, one hitting an arms depot, the pro-Hezbollah
Mullhak website reported, citing its own sources.

Jbeil #LiveLoveLebanon #khazen

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.”

The article represent option of the author

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.