Six In The Morning

ROBERT FISK

Sunday 11 November 2012

If Assad goes, Hezbollah will be alone in the Levant – much to the delight of Israel

Syria's fate is crucial to the future of the Lebanese group

Hezbollah was once the Lebanese “resistance”, the tough, courageous, self-sacrificing guerrilla army which drove Israel’s occupation soldiers out of Lebanon 12 years ago.

Today, it looks more like yet another Arab “security” institution – or insecurity institution – as it flies drones over Israel and continues to support, to the increasing condemnation of many Lebanese, the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader – famous for wind-milling between Syria and its opponents – is one of several Lebanese politicians to ask why Hezbollah does not give its military and political support to the Syrian “resistance” rather than the regime it is fighting. Hezbollah is not, as the US State Department claims, fighting alongside Assad’s men: but it has assumed “security” duties on the Syrian side of the Lebanese border – effectively keeping the Lebanese-Syrian frontier out of rebel hands – and uses its formidable intelligence services in the regime’s favour. At least four Hezbollah “martyrs” have been returned from Syria for burial in Lebanon.

POLITICS

Greek parliament passes penny-pinching 2013 budget

Politicians in Athens have approved a 2013 austerity budget. It's the latest attempt to persuade international creditors to release the next tranche of loans for the cash-strapped country.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras managed to drum up support for the 2013 budget among all three members of his coalition, meaning that the austerity measures passed through parliament by a relatively comfortable 167-128 margin in early hours of Monday morning.

Anti-austerity protesters had again gathered outside parliament to register their opposition.

The late night talks starting on Sunday followed a similar midweek deal on legislation allowing for spending cuts and tax increases over the next two years. The government is scrambling to secure the latest installment of emergency loans from international partners, with Samaras telling parliament he thought the 2013 budget would prove the final hurdle.

Fears of violent escalation after Gaza strikes

November 12, 2012 - 8:48AM

Ruth Pollard

Middle East Correspondent

JERUSALEM: Israel has launched multiple airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, killing seven Palestinians, while militants fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into southern Israel in what threatens to develop into a major confrontation.

Israel also confirmed on Sunday it had fired a series of warning shots into Syria, after one of its military posts in the occupied Golan Heights was hit with mortar fire from across the border.

The world needs to understand that Israel will not sit idly by in the face of attempts to attack us. 

The latest escalation began when a tunnel packed with explosives under the Gaza-Israel border blew up late on Thursday in what an Israeli military spokeswoman, Lieutenant-Colonel Avital Leibovich, described as an attempt to kidnap or kill soldiers.

Kenyan police ambush toll rises to 26

By AFP
Posted  Monday, November 12  2012 at  06:12

The police death toll from an ambush on Kenyan officers in the north of the country more than doubled to 26 Sunday after more bodies were found.

Locals in the northern district where the initial attack took place also said that fighting between police and gunmen had continued for a second day.

The previous police death toll from Saturday's attack on officers pursuing cattle thieves was 11.

But a police source who did not want to be identified told AFP: "More bodies have been recovered -- the total is now 29" -- including 26 police officers and three bandits.

The Dutch woman who ran away with Colombia's FARC

Tanja Nijmeijer moved to Colombia in 2002 where she joined the FARC guerrillas in their fight against the Colombian state. She will be a part of their negotiating team during peace talks in Cuba this month.

By Miriam Wells, Contributor / November 11, 2012

Smiling into the camera, a young female guerrilla picked up her guitar and dedicated a song to her family. "Don’t Cry For Me Argentina," Tanja Nijmeijer sang to her parents in Holland, who had not seen her in years.

This scene in a 2010 documentary provided the first images of Ms. Nijmeijer since she abandoned a comfortable life in Holland eight years earlier to fight a communist war against the Colombian state.

This fall, her startling story was brought back into the international spotlight, following the launch of the first official peace negotiations between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government in more than a decade. Colombia's internal war has persisted for more than 50 years.