All Top Stories All Opinions All interviews All Reportages More statements Recherche Newswires Israel’s Olmert resigns amid lingering turmoil

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his resignation on
Sunday, but the political uncertainty gripping Israel and casting a
shadow over US-backed Middle East peace talks is far from over.

“I have decided to end my functions as prime minister of the government
of Israel,” Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, days
after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was elected leader of their centrist
Kadima party.

“I hope that Tzipi Livni will succeed in forming a national government
with the composition she wants,” Olmert said in remarks broadcast on
television. “For my part I will help her with all my strength.”
Olmert must still submit his resignation to President Shimon Peres, who
will grant Livni 42 days to form a new government and avert snap
general elections, which polls indicate would bring the right-wing
Likud party to power.

Olmert is meanwhile likely to stay on as interim premier until a new government is sworn in, which could take several months.

Olmert has been battling a wave of corruption allegations for several
months, and on July 30 he said he would step down once a new leader was
chosen in the unprecedented party vote. His term was also troubled by
Israel’s inconclusive war against Lebanese Hezbollah in July 2006.

The Kadima leadership result confirms Livni’s meteoric rise to become
the most powerful woman in Israel and could now see her follow in the
footsteps of Golda Meir, the country’s first woman prime minister.

The turmoil unleashed by several graft allegations dogging Olmert
threatens to derail already sluggish US-backed peace talks with the
Palestinians that were relaunched last November but have made little
tangible progress since.

Olmert has been battling a wave of corruption allegations for several
months, and on July 30 he said he would step down once a new leader was
chosen in the unprecedented party vote.

As foreign minister, Livni has led negotiations with the Palestinians,
which were formally relaunched 10 months ago with the stated goal of
ending the decades-old conflict by the end of the year. But the two
sides remain deeply divided on core issues, including final borders,
Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the future status of Jerusalem and
the fate of some 4.6 million Palestinian refugees. The negotiations
could complicate Livni’s efforts to form a new coalition, with the
ultra-Orthodox Shas Party — a key partner in Olmert’s administration
– having vowed to quit the government if Jerusalem is even discussed.
The Palestinians want mostly-Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel seized
in the 1967 Six Day War, as the capital of their future state. Israel,
however, considers the entire city to be its “eternal, undivided”
capital, a claim not recognised by the international community.

Source:iloubnan

Construction permits in Lebanon increase by 26.5 % in the first seven months of 2008

BEIRUT – Bank Audi’s Weekly Monitor reported that figures released by
the Order of Engineers of Beirut and Tripoli showed that construction
permits totaled 6, 074, 843 million square meters in the first seven
months of 2008, up by 26.5 percent relative to the same period of the
previous year.
This increase reflects acceleration in construction activity in the
first seven months of 2008, which can be caused by the hike in real
estate demand that is motivating contractors to launch projects in
order to meet this high demand, according to Bank Audi.

During the month of July 2008, new construction permits totaled 976,685
square meters, up by 32.6 percent compared to the same month of 2007.
This year-on-year increase continues the upward trend in construction
activity, which resulted in a year-on-year rise in the area of newly
distributed construction permits in each of the previous months of
2008. Even in May 2008, which witnessed a political deterioration, a
year-on-year-rise in construction activity was noted, although smaller
than the rise of previous months, the report said.

In June 2008, the double-digit year-on-year growth in construction
permits was resumed, only for this trend to continue with more vigor in
July, as the year-on-year growth in July was 12.9 percent greater than
that noted in June.

However, when comparing July 2008 to June 2008 in terms of the total
permits, a slight monthly slowdown can be observed, as construction
permits went down by 6.3 percent in July 2008, relative to the previous
month, according to Weekly Monitor.

Mount Lebanon accounted for the majority of distributed construction
permits in the first seven months of 2008 with 49.8 percent of the
total. The region was followed by North Lebanon with 16.5 percent of
permits, South Lebanon with 15.9 percent, Beirut with 12.1 percent, and
the Bekaa with 5.6 percent.

Source: Iloubnan

 

Saudi Arabia donates 44 million dollars to support Lebanon schools

Beirut – Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Seniora announced Saturday that
Saudi Arabia donated 44 million US dollars to support public schools
students.

The announcement was made after a meeting between Seniora and Saudi
Arabia ambassador to Lebanon Abdul Aziz Khoja at the governmental
palace.

The donation was to cover tuition fees and books for
public school students from Kindergarten through Grade 9 for the
academic year 2008-2009, Seniora said. A smaller part of the funds
would be set aside to support the educational body, he added.

‘Saudi Arabia has always supported Lebanon’s economy as well as its
stability and development,’ Seniora told reporters at a joint news
conference with Khoja.

The prime minister said he would visit Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks for a meeting with King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz.

Source:Monsters and Critics

Lebanon Jews to rebuild Beirut’s Maghen Abraham Synagogue

Beirut- In 1983, Isaac Arazi and his wife were caught in sectarian
fighting during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war. A Shiite Muslim militiaman
helped the couple escape.

Arazi, a leader of Lebanon’s tiny Jewish community, sees the
incident as a lesson in the Arab country’s tradition of tolerance. Now
he is trying to make use of that tradition, along with the global
diaspora of Lebanese Jews, in a drive to rebuild Beirut’s only
synagogue, damaged during the war.

“Those who don’t have a past don’t have a future,” Arazi said to explain his push to rebuild the synagogue.

Beirut’s Maghen Abraham Synagogue opened in 1926 in Wadi Abou Jmil,
the city’s Jewish quarter, located on the edge of west Beirut near the
Grand Serai palace, where the government meets, and within walking
distance of parliament.

Lebanon then was something of a haven for Jews, some of whom were
the descendants of those who had fled the Spanish inquisition; it later
served a similar role for refugees from Nazi Germany. With “no history
of anti-Jewish tensions,” it was the only Arab country whose Jewish
population rose after Israel’s creation in 1948, according to Kirsten
Schulze, a lecturer at the London School of Economics and author of
“The Jews of Lebanon.”

By the mid-1960s, there were as many as 22,000 Lebanese Jews, said
Arazi, 65. In addition to heading the Jewish Community Council he owns
a food-machinery business with 1,000 customers.

All Together

“Christians, Muslims and Jews were all living together when I was
growing up,” said Liza Srour, 57. “Whenever there was a war with
Israel, or tension, the government used to provide protection for us.”

That changed with the nation’s 1975-1990 civil war, as Jews fled the
violence triggered by rivalries among the nation’s Christian, Muslim
and Druze factions and emigrated to Europe, North and South America.

Now, Arazi said, only 100 Jews live permanently in the country,
while another 1,900 go back and forth or have intermarried into other
religions. Srour is the only Jew still residing in Wadi Abou Jmil.

In 1982, according to an Associated Press report at the time,
Israeli shells tore through roof of Maghen Abraham as the Jewish state
invaded southern Lebanon in an effort to crush Palestinian guerrillas.
The synagogue has been closed ever since, its brittle entrance gate
chained and padlocked. Plaster and rubble are scattered on the floor.

Political Calm

Arazi figures it will cost about $1 million to restore the
synagogue. Making the effort possible is the end of an 18-month crisis
between Lebanon’s political factions, the blessing of the Lebanese
government, financial support from a downtown reconstruction project
and acquiescence from the Shiite Hezbollah movement that fought a
month-long war against Israel in 2006.

He so far has raised about $40,000 for the project, but has promises
of more. Ten percent of the estimated cost will come from Solidere SAL,
a company founded in 1994 by then-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri — later
assassinated in a bombing supporters blame on Syria — to rebuild the
capital’s downtown.

The company has given $150,000 to each of 14 religious organizations
that are restoring places of worship in Lebanon — about $2.1 million
in all. “We help all the communities,” said Solidere chairman Nasser
Chammaa.

The Safra family, whose Safra Group includes Brazil’s Banco Safra SA
and Safra National Bank of New York and which was based in Lebanon in
the 1940s as part of the Jewish community, has agreed to help fund the
project once work begins, Arazi said.

Financial Help

Joseph R. Safra, nephew of Republic National Bank of New York
founder Edmond Safra, said: “We do not comment on private matters.”
Joseph Safra heads Arview Holdings, Inc., a New York
financial-consulting and advisory firm.

Two banks in Switzerland whose founders have Lebanese- Jewish roots
also agreed to provide financing, Arazi said. One of the banks has
pledged $100,000 toward the synagogue’s restoration. Arazi declined to
name the banks.

Even the warring factions in Lebanon’s government have blessed the
project. “This is a religious place of worship and its restoration is
welcome,” Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, 65, said in an interview.
Hussain Rahal, a spokesman for Hezbollah, said his group — which
refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and which the West
considers a terrorist organization — also supports the restoration of
Maghen Abraham.

“We respect the Jewish religion just like we do Christianity,” he
said. “The Jews have always lived among us. We have an issue with
Israel’s occupation of land.”

Arazi said work on the restoration is to begin next month.
Meanwhile, his council is already working on plans for its next
project: restoring Beirut’s Jewish cemetery, where about 4,500 people
are buried.

Walking among the weeds overgrowing the cemetery’s tombstones, Arazi said: “I remember my father when I come here.”

Source:Yalibnan

UN chief to demand Israel pay Lebanon $1 billion in reparations

Beirut- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will demand that Israel pay
Lebanon $1 billion in compensation for damages caused during Israel’s
2006 war against Hezbollah , according to reports by 2 Israeli
newspapers (Israel national news and Haaretz ) that quoted Lebanese
media reports.

According to the report, the sum which is based on World Bank
appraisals, is aimed at covering the environmental and material damages
caused by the Second Lebanon War.

The fundamental part of the compensation demanded is for the damage
caused to the Lebanese coast due to an oil spill following an Israeli
bombing of a southern Beirut power plant in Jiyeh , which the Lebanese
said had caused “an ecological disaster,” and caused some 110,000 oil
barrels to leak into the Mediterranean Sea.

According to the report, Ban plans to submit a report to the United
Nations General Assembly at the end of the month, stating that the
damage Israel caused to the oil reservoir polluted Lebanon’s coast, and
that the pollution spread to neighboring countries, especially Syria,
Cyprus , Greece and Turkey..

What made matters worse was the Israeli naval blockade and its military operations that had made any cleanup impossible.

“The immediate impact can be severe but we have not been able to do
an immediate assessment,” said U.N. Environment Program executive
director Achim Steiner in Geneva following the attack on the Jiyeh
power plant . “But the longer the spill is left untreated, the harder
it will be to clean up.”

Photo: Crude oil resulting from an Israeli attack on the Jiyeh power
plant during the 2006 Israeli war on Hezbollah , covers a tourist beach
in Beirut, Lebanon. During this war the Lebanese infrastructure was
devastated by Israeli bombardment , over 1200 Lebanese were killed and
over 110, 000 housing units were destroyed . UN estimated that the
total cost to Lebanon was in excess of $15.00 billion as a result of
the Israeli bombardment

Source: Yalibnan