Lebanon bank sues ex-Syrian intelligence boss for fraud

BEIRUT – The head of Lebanon’s Al-Madina Bank, which collapsed two years ago in one of the country’s biggest banking scandals, has sued the former Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon for alleged embezzlement.

Al-Madina president Adnan Abu Ayyash accuses General Rustom Ghazaleh and three brothers of spiriting away 72 million dollars from the bank between 2000 and 2003, his lawyer Jean Azzi told AFP Thursday.

Ghazaleh headed the much-feared Syrian intelligence which left Lebanon last month as part of a troop withdrawal that ended Damascus’s 29-year military and political grip on its smaller neighbour.

U.N. Warns of Fragile Situation in Lebanon

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N.’s top political official warned that despite recent progress the situation in Lebanon is fragile and violence between Israelis and Palestinians is steadily increasing.

Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary-general for political affairs, called Wednesday for an end to bombings and acts of intimidation as Lebanon prepares for parliamentary elections starting May 29. The elections are happening under a new government that was installed following the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Prendergast also urged Israel and the Palestinians to meet on a continuing basis to address the rising violence that is “compounding a corresponding deterioration in trust and confidence between the two sides.”

OPINION

Walid Jumblatt, or the poverty of low expectations

By Michael Young

It was a coincidence, but doubtless one many would find illuminating, that Walid Jumblatt was recently reading (and may still be) Rebecca West’s “The New Meaning of Treason.” For the prevalent view among many Christian voters today is that the Druze leader is a compulsive turncoat. A title he is far less likely to be caught with, however, is “Great Expectations.”

Why is that? Because Jumblatt is the rare Lebanese politician who can pretend to national stature, but instead consistently prefers to creep back into the recesses of tribal chieftainship, content with controlling his 200,000-strong Druze community while ensuring that others give him just enough leverage so that he can escape political obliteration. Beyond that, Jumblatt’s ambition falters, the oxygen becomes thinner; the man whose talents are unparalleled among the country’s politicians turns into a shifting manipulator, someone who in a few jagged phrases can demolish the sympathy he spent months carefully building up.

U.S. academic believes Syria still influential in Lebanon

Washington has its own plans, says Michael Hudson

By Clancy Chassay

BEIRUT: Renowned Middle East expert Michael Hudson said Syria continues to hold influence over Lebanon despite its recent withdrawal, and that the U.S. has its own plans regarding future Syrian – Lebanese relations.

Speaking at the American University in Beirut’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Hudson – who is director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington – cited a recent statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggesting America believes that now Syria is officially out of Lebanon it should play a role helping its neighbor manage on its own.

“One of the demands Condoleezza Rice is making on the Syrians is … ‘It’s not enough that you got out of Lebanon. We want you to be proactively helpful in keeping the Lebanese from falling apart now that they’re on their own,'” said Hudson.

Christian politicians urge youths to take part in polls

Freedom ‘did not emerge from a void’

By Nada Bakri

BEIRUT: Various Christian politicians urged Lebanese youths and civil-society sectors to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections to reform Lebanon and help it realize its sovereignty, freedom and independence.

Kesrouan MP Farid Khazen, Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) member Ibrahim Kanaan as well as Alain Aoun and George Abi Zeid from the National Bloc were speaking during a conference at Notre Dames University, in Zouk Mosbeh.

Khazen said: “We are currently facing a historic situation.

“We should prove our ability to rule ourselves and reform our country or we will be faced with a catastrophe no one can assess the results of.”

Khazen explained to a large audience of NDU students and professors that Lebanese politicians and decision-makers are the reason behind the deterioration of the country’s political situation.

Aoun Calls for Geagea Release From Jail

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon – In a sign of the dramatic changes in a Lebanon free of Syrian control, Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun visited his former arch foe in jail Wednesday and called for his release after 11 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement in an underground cell.

The meeting between Aoun and imprisoned Christian leader Samir Geagea comes about 10 days before crucial parliamentary elections that opposition politicians hope to sweep, and could lead to more alliances at the polls between supporters of the two.

“The page of the past cannot be partially turned. Either it is fully turned or it is not,” Aoun said after the hour-long meeting, which he described as emotional. “Keeping him in prison is an injustice… I declare my solidarity with him until he is released.”

Aoun is a former army commander and was interim prime minister in 1988-89. Geagea led the now defunct Lebanese Forces militia. The two fought a savage war for control of the Christian heartland in the final days of the 1975-90 civil war in which some 800 people were killed. Aoun, who returned from 14 years of exile in Paris this month, said the meeting with Geagea symbolized a new beginning.