Palestinian fighters, Saida 1968

Picture: Arab Image Foundation collection

Clashes

Monsters and Critics reports:

Shia opposition followers and rival Sunnis who back the western-backed Lebanese government clashed late Friday on the streets of the capital, Lebanese police said.

Machinegun fire was heard across the areas of Ras al-Nabaa and Wataa al-Moustabeh but no further details were available, the police said.

Local media reported that followers of the Shia Amal movement, who are loyal to the opposition headed by Hezbollah, clashed with the Future Current movement led by Saad Hariri.

The Lebanese army immediately cordoned off the two areas and closed major streets inside.

Graduates to join strike

The governing body of the Alumni Association and the National Institute for Management and Development decided at an extraordinary meeting:

1 - to call staff and employees in public administrations to participate in the strike called by the union on 4 April.

2 - to keep their meetings open in preparation for a furthers strikes.

Teachers to strike

The Leftist Assembly For Change reports:

General assemblies, called by the Executive Board of the Teachers Association in Lebanon, have decided to strike this Thursday in protest at low pay, the high cost of living and inflation.

They declared, "the strike will take palce in all educational institutions (public and private) to correct salaries and wages, the inflation rate—which exceedes 50 percent and threatens the lives of teachers and others on low income.

The North Branch of the Teachers Association have backed the 3 April strike.

No ID

Mike Sergeant of the BBC highlights the plight of stateless refugees:

Mohammed and his sister Maysa are Palestinians, but they have no passports and no identity cards. They are not even given the status of refugees. Legally, they don't seem to exist at all.

They are among about 3,000 so-called "non-ID" Palestinians in Lebanon.

Many don't qualify for aid and have been unable to leave the refugee camps, find jobs or even get married.

"Last year the government prevented me from doing my exams," says Mohammed, a 21-year-old student. "They arrested me because I don't have an ID. Without an ID, I can't do anything."

One day strike

Lebanon's Daily Star reports:

The General Labor Confederation (GLC) on Monday called a one-day general strike in Lebanon for 7 May because of the government's refusal to raise the minimum wage from LL300,000 (£100) to LL960,000 (£321) per month.

The GLC said it wanted to set a new monthly minimum wage of LL960,000, with an additional 63.3-percent pay raise for workers in the private sector. In a statement, the confederation called on employees from the private and public sectors to participate.

Billboard

AFP on Hezbollahs' battle of the billboards:

Hours after Hezbollah commander Imad Mughnieh was assassinated, huge billboards of his burly face were printed and ready to display all over Lebanon.

Ressalat, is a Hezbollah-funded organisation that handles advertising and cultural events for the group.

Like any ad firm, Ressalat's creative director Mohamed Noureddine and his team hunkered down after Mughnieh's killing to come up with a sophisticated campaign.

"We came up with a stencil of him so that people can remember him like they do Che Guevara," Noureddine said. "This guy sacrificed his life and it is his right to be recognised and for people to see his picture."

Mental pain

Medical researchers have discovered the worrying mental health problems brought on by the war:

Major depression was the single most common disorder.

The researchers calculated that by the age of 75 years, about one-third of the Lebanese would probably have had one or more [mental health] disorder. Only half of the Lebanese with a mood disorder ever received professional help; treatment rates for other mental disorders were even lower.

The average delay in treatment ranged from 6 years for mood disorders to 28 years for anxiety disorders. Finally, exposure to war-related events increased the risk of developing an anxiety, mood, or impulse-control disorder by about 6-fold, 3-fold, and 13-fold, respectively.

Dollars for guns

According to the Jerusalem Post:

US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, David Johnson, met with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, Interior Minister Hassan Sabei and senior security officials, the embassy said in a statement.

Johnson "reaffirmed the United States' steadfast support of Lebanon and discussed the ongoing $60 million Internal Security Forces (ISF) assistance program, which is helping the ISF enforce the rule of law and protect the Lebanese people within their sovereign state," said the statement.

The US has sharply increased its military assistance to Lebanon since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel in a show of support to Saniora's government. US assistance to Lebanon was $270 million in 2007, more than five times the amount provided a year earlier.

Picture lebgraffiti

Emigration

Mark Farha notes in Global Politician:

Over 900,000 Lebanese emigrated between the outbreak of civil war in 1975 and 2001 (about 45 percent during the last decade of Syrian tutelage).

Although it was once assumed that a majority of these recent emigrants are Christian, one study estimates the percentage departure rates within each confession as: 22 percent of Sunnis; 21 percent of Shiites; 21 percent of Maronites; 23 percent of Greek Orthodox; and 15 percent of Druze.

A 2006 study conducted by the Lebanese Emigration Research Center at Notre Dame University (in Lebanon) found that emigration is equally sought by Muslims (59.7 percent) and Christians (61.3 percent), and for virtually the same socio-political reasons.

The available data thus raises questions about the longstanding assumption that the large majority of Lebanese citizens living abroad are Christians.

Picture: Arab Image Foundation

Hariri killed by 'criminals'

So the Syrians did not kill Rafiq Hariri after all, says UN investigator Daniel Bellemare.

The UN investigation headed by Canada's former chief prosecuter found that a "criminal network" killed Hariri.

This gang is linked to other attacks against Lebanese figures carried out between October 2004 and December 2005.

The question of "motive" still needs explaining.

Food crisis—Lebanon

Lebanon's Al-Akhbar reports:

For the second time in two months, the southern suburb are facing a bread shortage. The reason for the crisis is that seven of the main furnaces have used up their quotas of subsidized flour.

Yesterday evening long queues formed outside the bakeries. There are fears that this latest shortage will trigger a new round of protests.

Food prices—Egypt

Al-Ahram reports on the impact of spiraling food prices in Egypt:

Laila Mahmoud, a housewife and mother of three, said that pasta is now beyond her budget since its price rose from LE1.6 to LE4.6 (£0.42) per kilogramme, while rice increased from LE2 to LE4 per kilogramme.

I can buy 20 loaves of subsidised bread at LE1, while one pound is not enough to buy 250 grammes of pasta," revealed Mahmoud. Hence, the demand on subsidised bread has jumped markedly and bread lines have become commonplace across the country.

Adel Fathi, a supervisor at one of Al-Masriyeen's bakeries in Al-Zeitoun, said sales there reach 23,000 loaves of bread daily. "We begin selling at 6am and run out of bread at around 4pm," stated Fathi.

The supervisor explained that this outlet is responsible for selling the production of one bakery in the district whose quota is 23 sacks of 100 kilos of subsidised flour, making 23,000 loaves of bread. But this output still seems too few.

Thoraya Ahmed, 50, came too late at 4:14pm and went home empty handed. "I just got back from work, so I missed my chance of buying bread. What can I do?" Ahmed pondered as she walked away.

But Islam Ali, another destitute bread hunter, was adamant in buying the staple food. Although he was turned away at the outlet, the young man hurried to another which had not run out yet.

Daoud Corm

Still life by Daoud Corm 1852-1930

Siddiqine

A devastated town recovers, in a way, writes Rebecca Murray:

Mohanna's house was bombed by Israel during the 34-day conflict in 2006, as were houses of most residents of Siddiqine— an impoverished village of 6,000, about 10km inland from Tyre.

Siddiqine resembled a flattened moonscape in the bitterly cold and damp winter that followed, with more than 700 homes out of a total 1050 hit, and half that number completely destroyed.

Mohanna lost two tobacco harvests from the bombardment and cluster munitions, and is now $10,000 in debt. Forced to give up supplementary work in construction after his heart surgery, the 62-year-old struggles to provide for his family and pay a monthly $100 medication fee for his son—who has violent seizures related to chronic meningitis.

During the fall of 2006, the Hezbollah and its reconstruction wing, Jihad al-Binaa, criss-crossed the south and Beirut's southern suburbs, surveying the destruction of up to 140,000 housing units valued at more than 1.5 billion dollars, and providing families up to 10,000 dollars for rentals while their homes were rebuilt.

More than a year and a half later, Mohanna still waits for the government's promised $8,000. He has only received $3,000 out of a potential $10,000 from Hezbollah.

Although Siddiqine's main road is now peppered with construction sites, and structures are slowly rising, there is a prevalent mood of pessimism.

Picture: A cluster bomb

Arab bourgeoisie

Sursock's Top 5 members of the Arab bourgoisie.

1) Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal al Saud
Alwaleed's business empire, through Kingdom Holdings, stretches across four continents. It has held stakes in Apple Computers, News Corporation, Fairmont Hotels and Saks Fifth Avenue. His shareholding in the world's biggest bank, Citigroup, is valued at nearly $10bn.

He is also in line to snap up $200m of apartments in London's West End.

2) Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Holdings
The group's profits for 2006 were up a record 35 percent to $1.735bn, and there are now rumours of even greater expansion plans in China and South East Asia.

3) Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed al-Maktoum, chairman of Emirates Airline
Emirates has been in profit for 18 consecutive years, last year achieving $762m on a turnover of nearly $7bn.

4) Sultan Bin Sulayem, chairman of Dubai World
Having managed to complete the $7bn takeover of P&O, Bin Sulayem has seen his influence on the shipping world grow.

He also heads real estate giant Nakheel, the developer behind the World and Palm projects off the coast of Dubai.

5) Sulaiman Abdul Aziz al-Rajhi, banker
Al-Rajhi holds the largest individual stake in his family's Al Rajhi Bank, which has consistently reported the most profitable operations among all of Saudi Arabia's banking groups.

A co-founder of the bank, he also boasts the country's biggest poultry farm, a building materials business and real estate.

The family have diversified family investments into gypsum, agriculture, steel and other industrial sectors. The Al Rajhi are Saudi Arabia's wealthiest non-royals.

Abuse of Palestinians…

Returned with interest...

No war?

The IHT quotes Hassan Nasrallah's address to a mass rally in Dahieh, south Beirut.

"It is not simple for America to launch a war on Iran, or for Israel to launch a war on Syria or Lebanon.

"I want to remind you that an Israeli war is no longer a picnic. An Israeli war has become very costly because there is in Lebanon the strength, will and education of the resistance (Hezbollah) as well as the blood of the resistance's martyrs.

"The Israelis have been in a state of worry and fear, not only in Palestine but all in parts of the world," he said. "Let them be frightened and worried. Let them taste the fear and fright which they inflicted on our peoples."

"Can Israel be eliminated? Yes and a thousand times yes, Israel can be eliminated."