Katsav calls Russia to mediate for release of captured “Israeli” soldiers…(1)

“Israeli” President Moshe Katsav said he shall ask his Russian counterpart Vladinir Putin, during his expected visit to Moscow, to help release the “Israeli” soldiers captured by Hizbullah.

Katsav considered that it is the obligation of U.N. Security-General Kofi Annan and International Red Cross to intervene on behalf of the soldiers by providing "“Israel”" with information about them.

The “Israeli” President added that "“Israel”" will be ready after receiving information to pay the price needed for the release of the three “Israeli” soldiers, captured in a resistance operation in the occupied Lebanese Shibaa farms.

Hizbullah had asserted more than once that no information about the soldiers will be given unless a big price is paid by "“Israel”".

The abduction of the soldiers  has greatly affected the morale of occupation troops.

Lately, an “Israeli” soldier, a friend of one of those captured, committed suicide.

Cabinet opens new chapter in suit vs. “Israel”
Inquiry will probe alleged use of depleted uranium in South…(2)

The government ordered an investigation on Thursday into “Israel’s” alleged use of depleted-uranium (DU) ammunition during its occupation of Lebanon.
If conclusive evidence emerges that the “Israelis” used DU weapons, it will be added to the list of grievances that forms the basis of a pending lawsuit to win reparations from “Israel”.
The Health and Environment ministries and the National Council for Scientific Research, in coordination with the army, have been charged to investigate allegations that the “Israeli” Army fired DU shells in the South, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said after Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.
Michel Tueni, the government-appointed lawyer handling the lawsuit, said preliminary investigations suggest there is substance to speculation that DU ammunition was used in the South.
But “the presence of depleted uranium will definitely be taken into account in the suit, pending the final investigation,” he told The Daily Star. “It’s a very important part and will require modifying the suit.”
Tueni said he had raised the issue in Lebanon following the outcry in Europe over the use of DU rounds during NATO’s 1999 campaign in Kosovo and the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq.
According to the US-based International Action Center, an anti-war group, at least 272 tons of DU and uranium dust were left around Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia by US and British forces during the Gulf War. A symposium in Baghdad in December 1998 found higher rates of childhood leukemia and other cancers in people living around Basra, and attributed this to DU contamination.
Steffan de Mistura, the UN’s south Lebanon coordinator, said Thursday that the reported use of DU ammunition by “Israel” should be proven and publicized. Mistura, who met Speaker Nabih Berri, added that a “scientific analysis” should be conducted and its results compared with the findings in other countries.
British Ambassador Richard Kinchen told Berri that his government was willing to provide any “information or assistance” for an investigation.
The “Israeli” Army admitted last week for the first time that it has made use of DU shells for years, according to “Israel’s” Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
“Israel’s” Maariv daily has reported that Arab-”Israeli” MP Issam Makhoul has called for an urgent meeting of the Knesset’s
Foreign Affairs and Defense (War) Committee to discuss the “use of depleted uranium against south Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories.”
A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute asserts that “Israel” is one of the countries with DU munitions in its arsenal. Given “Israel’s” own nuclear program and well-developed military industry, it is also suspected of manufacturing its own DU ammunition.
An “Israeli” military spokesman has admitted that DU weapons were used by its navy against  “marine targets” but had stopped using the ammunition about 18 months ago. On warships, DU ammunition is generally used by rapid-firing gatling guns, a defensive weapon against sea-skimming anti-ship missiles.
UNIFIL spokesman Timur Goksel said the peacekeeping force had no evidence of DU weapons having been fired in the South.
“We couldn’t tell. We’re talking of tens of thousands of rounds fired from the ground, the sea and the air. It’s not something we could possibly tell without a proper scientific investigation,” he said.
He added, however, that the low-intensity conflict fought in the South precluded the regular use of DU ammunition. Hizbullah’s lightly armed fighters adopted hit-and-run guerrilla tactics and had no need for armored vehicles.
But Goksel admitted that it was possible the “Israelis” made sporadic use of DU ammunition.
“South Lebanon has been a weapons laboratory for a long time,” he said.
The occupation zone allowed the “Israeli” Army to test-fire various weapons systems and conduct training exercises with virtual impunity.
“Israeli” air crews practiced their skills against wadis and buildings in the South with almost no risk of being shot down. “Israel’s” Spike anti-tank missile was secretly tested in the South for 16 months from the beginning of 1998.
One Lebanese civilian was killed and at least four others wounded before the “Israeli” Army declassified the weapon and placed it on the international arms market.
Christopher Foss of London-based Jane’s Defense Weekly said that there was little reason for the “Israelis” to have used DU ammunition in the South.
He said that “Israel’s” Merkava tanks were capable of firing DU shells but that the expensive ammunition was impractical against the targets normally found in the battlefields of the South, such as buildings or squads of resistance fighters.
“A DU round would go in one side of the building and out the other,” Foss explained. “It wouldn’t demolish the building, just punch a hole in it. It would have no effect against a group of people either.”
One of the most effective DU-firing anti-armor platforms is the US Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt II, a “tank-busting” warplane equipped with 30mm gatling guns.
“Israel” has no A-10s but the AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship, which is equipped with a 30mm machine gun, is in service with the “Israelis” and has been used regularly to attack targets in Lebanon.
The International Action Center has claimed that the Apache’s 30mm cannon can fire DU rounds. But Foss disagreed.
“I think the Apache has different ammunition. Its primary weapon (against tanks) is the Hellfire missile,” he said.
The 30mm single-barreled chain gun slung beneath the nose of the Apache is designed to fire three different types of bullet: a high-explosive dual-purpose round, a high-explosive incendiary round, and a target-practice round. None of them are tipped with DU.

“Israel” opens fire on Lebanon from Shibaa farms area…(3)

“ The “Israeli” army fired on southern Lebanon several times in less than 12 hours from the Shibaa farms area, Lebanese police said Thursday.

Around 6:00 a.m (0400 GMT), Lebanon's Bestra hill was hit by two shells fired by an “Israeli” Merkava tank from Ramta in the Shibaa farms area, and also came under heavy machine gun fire, the police said.

Two hours later an “Israeli” patrol backed by a tank was seen around Ramta and four explosions of unknown origin were heard.

The “Israeli” army had already fired on Lebanon Wednesday evening after it noticed movement along the border, near the Shibaa farms, an “Israeli” army source said.

“Israeli” troops captured the Shibaa farms from Syria in 1967 and still hold them, though Beirut now says they are Lebanese territory and should have been evacuated by the “Israelis” when they withdrew from southern Lebanon in May after 22 years of occupation.

The Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbullah, which spearheaded the struggle against “Israel’s” occupation of the region, kidnapped three “Israeli” soldiers during a raid in October in the area.

Backed by Damascus, Tehran and Beirut, the movement had warned it would pursue its anti-”Israeli” attacks as long as the sector was occupied.

Lebanon sentences 36 more for collaboration with “Israel”…(4)

“ A Beirut military court has handed down 36 more sentences against Lebanese accused of collaboration with “Israel” during its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon, a judicial source said Thursday.

Five people were sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia for "collaboration with the enemy," the source said.

One defendant was found not guilty and another one, accused of collaborating with “Israeli” intelligence, was released for having also assisted the Lebanese services.

The 29 others received jail sentences between one month and five years for entering enemy territory without permission when they lived in once “Israeli”-occupied southern Lebanon, enrolment in the now-disbanded “Israeli”-allied South Lebanon Army and collaboration with the SLA militia.

The convictions bring to 2,211 the number of sentences handed down since June 5, just two weeks after “Israel’s” withdrawal, when Lebanon began trying Lebanese accused of collaboration, some of whom in absentia.

A statement by the government commissioner to the military court, Judge Nasri Lahoud, said that the number of the collaborators detained by Lebanese authorities since the pullout and until January 16 was 2,929 people, Beirut papers reported Thursday.

Among the 2,211 people who have already been tried, 11 people have been sentenced to death and three others to life in prison, but all in absentia.

South still far from effective recovery
Land mines and limited financial resources biggest concerns…(5)

Leftover land mines, poorly-staffed hospitals and limited financial resources are just some of the problems putting the South’s recovery on hold, conference participants said on Thursday.
Organizations involved with the South’s rehabilitation gave it poor marks on the first day of a two-day conference to assess development projects in the former occupied zone.
Ali Fayyad, director of the Consultative Center For Studies and Documentation, which sponsored the conference at Beirut’s Marriott Hotel, summed up the assessment in the opening ceremony by telling the 100 conference attendees that little progress has been made in the South and that plenty of problems were going untreated.
Most of the issues, he and others agreed, boiled down to insufficient funding.
“The people of the South,” he said, “are still surviving on (diaspora) money and on the little income that agriculture brings them. The problem is that development projects have hit the wall with regard to fund-raising.”
Representing President Emile Lahoud, Social Affairs Minister Assad Diab said 222 villages in the South, including 142 in the liberated areas, were in the “intensive care unit.”
He said the area’s reconstruction was one of the country’s biggest challenges. “This is a challenge against underdevelopment and deprivation.”
Healthcare problems are also hitting south Lebanon hard. Speaking on behalf of the Health Ministry, Bahij Arbid said since the liberation, the ministry has made health services for citizens its top priority in the South.
The ministry, according to Arbid, has provided support for the Marjayoun and Bint Jbeil government hospitals. He admitted, however, that healthcare in the South suffered financial difficulties, especially the Bint Jbeil Hospital, which had to shut down some of its departments.
Arbid said the Health Committee for the South and the Western Bekaa would soon be formed and would include private- and public-sector representatives who would closely study the needs of both regions.
He also said various healthcare studies were conducted and presented to potential international donors, including the European Union, the Arab League, France, and United Arab Emirates.
Another issue of major concern was land mines. UNIFIL Major Francis Afory called them the “hidden danger” facing civilians in the liberated areas and said clearing out land mines was a prerequisite for any serious infrastructure or development in the area.
Afory argued that the South needed a center to deal with the issue and that awareness campaigns needed to be designed for different audiences, such as students, seniors, and soldiers.
Afory said a study conducted by the United Nations found there were about 70,000 land mines and about 190 land mine fields, in addition to about 300 traps. UNIFIL has removed 2,200 mines. UNIFIL has cited figures of over 130,000 mines.
Afory cited financial difficulties as UNIFIL’s biggest stumbling block to clearing mines. Lack of information about the locations and types of land mines, in addition to the nature of the land, are also hindering the process, he said.
Naji Kodeih, who represented the Environment Ministry, said that the ministry’s strategy for the South was to rehabilitate environmental damage caused by military action, develop prevention measures in order to promote an environmentally-friendly area, and prevent future deterioration of natural and archaeological assets.
He said that the ministry contributed to many projects in coordination with different civic organizations such as the United Nations Environment Program and the Lebanese Environment and Development Observatory.
Education Ministry director-general Mtanios Halabi said the liberated South needed everything from new schools to equipment to teachers.
Building schools would not just help educate students, he argued. “Their more important roles are for social and national enforcement,” he said.
Halabi also said that most students needed therapy and special attention because of the long, traumatic experience of the “Israeli” occupation.
Public Works and Transportation Ministry director-general Fadi Nammar said his ministry has designed two projects to build roads and rehabilitate public buildings, and said that progress was made on both.
Nammar said workshops would be organized by his ministry as part of its “vital contribution to the development and reconstruction of the liberated areas.” The goal, he explained, was to “guarantee the return of normal life and enforce the resistance and survival of this part of the country.”

"Destination" attacked by “Israeli” hackers…(6)

Destination, the Internet network of ITX, an independently owned information technology company based in Beirut, Lebanon, issued a statement saying that it "has been attacked by hackers based in "“Israel”" through the “Israeli” Internet provider Net Vision. Destination's home page was defaced and replaced by the word MOSAD in large characters together with propaganda language."

"The attack appears to be reprisal for the role of ITX in the technical designing programming of http://www.manartv.com, the Internet site of Al-manar Television, a Beirut based TV station with national and international (satellite) coverage. What the Internet site does is provide information and news of the Al-Manar daily broadcasts for the benefit of its viewers worldwide," said ITX.

The company added, "ITX had electronically procured the Microsoft. Amazon.com and other international advertisements for the benefit of many of its client web sites including http://www.manartv.com. This was a purely business transaction with benefits directly related to the number of visits to the site which, in the case of Al-Manar, substantial and quite interesting from the point of view of the advertisers. To date, ITX has not received any cancellation from either Amazon or Microsoft. On its part, the management of Manar had already given its instructions to ITX to discontinue the banners of both Microsoft and Amazon.com."

Earlier General-Director of Al-Manar Channel Nayef Krayyem revealed that B-Central a system owned by Microsoft Corp. had few days ago sent a message to Al-Manar channel asking to take part in ads banner program using Al-Manar web site.

Footnotes:

1-      Manar TV, 18-1-2001.

2-      The Daily Star, 19-1-2001.

3-      AFP, 18-1-2001.

4-      Same source.

5-      The Daily Star, 19-1-2001.

6-     Manar TV, 18-1-2001.