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LEBANON: Report linking Hezbollah to Hariri assassination raises questions

In a bombshell report published Saturday, the German weekly Der Spiegel says the investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is moving toward the conclusion that the Shiite militia Hezbollah was behind the attack.

Based entirely on an unnamed source or sources, the Spiegel report said Lebanese investigators monitoring cellphone usage in the vicinity of the car-bomb explosion that killed Hariri lucked into a breakthrough discovery.

According to the report, the cellphones were used exclusively for phone calls among the alleged assassins except for one instance when one of the suspects used a phone to call his girlfriend. 

From that single call, investigators figured out the name of the  operative. Allegedly, he was Abdul Majid Ghamlush, described as an Iranian-trained agent who belongs to a "special forces" unit of Hezbollah, according to the report, which then goes on to link him to higher-ups in Hezbollah, including a commander named Hajj Salim. 

SYRIA, LEBANON: Nests of spies uncovered in the Middle East

Alleged spy Roxana Saberi has been released from an Iranian prison, but intrigue continues to plague the region with Syria confirming the arrest of two British citizens on terrorism charges and Lebanon reeling from the discovery of an Israeli spy network.

The 36-year old mother of four, Maryam Kallis, and 28-year-old Yasser Ahmed were arrested eight weeks ago by Syrian plainclothes intelligence officers, according to their families. On Sunday, the Syrian embassy in London confirmed the arrests (in Arabic), accusing the two Britons of working with a terrorist group connected to Al Qaeda.

“The Syrian Authorities arrested Mrs. Kallis and Mr. Ahmed in Damascus on the 17 March 2009, and the interrogations indicated that both Ms. Kallis and Mr. Ahmed are working for a terrorist network related to the Al Qaeda organization and other members of the network were also arrested by the Syrian Authorities,” read a statement released by the embassy.

SYRIA: List of top 100 businessmen signals another turning point

Just one month after Syria launched its fledgling stock exchange, the country appears to be taking another step down the path of economic liberalization with the release of the very first "Top 100 Syrian Businessmen" list by the Syrian business magazine Al-Iqtisadi. 

Similar lists appeared regularly on the pages of Forbes until Wall Street’s collapse turned the formerly celebrated Fortune 500 CEOs into reviled symbols of market excess almost overnight.

And so, even as the U.S. gets ready to nationalize large sections of the financial sector in a move that right-wing critics are calling seeping socialism, Syria is struggling to shed its semi-socialist protectionism in favor of free(er) market capitalism and the foreign investment that comes with it. 

But lack of transparency has proved a major obstacle to attracting this much-needed investment, and gaining access to the financial records of Syria’s most powerful men constitutes a major feat of investigative journalism. 

“[The list] took nearly a year to compile,” Al-Iqtisadi executive editor Hamoud Mahmoud told Syria-news.com. “It took a lot of research to get all the information, which is being published for the first time.” 

MIDDLE EAST: Arabs assail new Israeli government

Perhaps no one summed up Arabs' disillusionment and frustration with the new Israeli governmentof  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman better than writer Talal Awkal in Thursday’s edition of the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam. 

“If the outgoing government, which claimed it was committed to peace, continued building the racist Separation Wall, set up more military roadblocks, taking their number up to 650, sped up its efforts to Judaize Jerusalem, and expanded the construction of settlement housing units to unprecedented levels, what can we expect from a government of which Netanyahu and Lieberman constitute the main pillars?” Awkal wrote. 

Awkal was not alone in his wry, despondent assessment of the new Israeli team. 

Reactions from across the Arabic press show how recent statements made by Netanyahu and the controversial Lieberman have been taken as confirmation of what they describe as Israel’s expansionist agenda. 

QATAR: Egypt gives Qatar the cold shoulder

One could call it a cold-shoulder war.

With his decision not to show up at the Arab Summit in Doha, Qatar, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak furthered the ongoing mutual hostility between his country and the Persian Gulf kingdom of Qatar.

“There won't be any reconciliation between Qatar and Egypt soon,” wrote Ahmed Moussa, a staunch spokesman of Mubarak’s regime, in today’s issue of the semi-official Al Ahram daily. “Egypt sent a message to the Qataris and reduced the level of representation, which shows that Qatar should revise all its positions toward Egypt.”

It was announced Saturday that Mubarak would not attend the summit. But Egypt will be represented by a delegation headed by the minister of state for parliamentary affairs, Moufid Shehab.

SYRIA: Damascus getting courted from all sides

The Syrians know what they want: to have their cake and eat it too.

The government in Damascus wants to enjoy good relations with moderate Arab regimes and Western powers while conserving its strong ties with Iran and non-state actors like Hamas and Hezbollah, analysts say. 

But what do the Americans want in the Middle East?

From the point of view of Arab observers, the U.S. policy in the region has been inconsistent .

One day, it’s waging war in Iraq. Another day, it is stating support for the creation of a Palestinian state while approving of Israeli politicians who don’t seem to want it.

Then lately, with President Obama in office, it is engaging with the Syrians to woo them away from the influence of the Iranians.

SYRIA: A "kangaroo court" infringing on human rights

A group of friends chatting in a cafe and criticizing politicians is a common scene in many parts of the world.

Not in Syria.

Muhamad al-Husseini, 67, landed in jail for criticizing corruption and “insulting the Syrian president” while sitting at a popular cafe in Damascus.

The supreme state security court sentenced Husseini to three years in jail in 2007 based on reports by security services officials who reportedly overheard him.

Husseini’s case -- and those of 200 more Syrian detainees tried or charged between January 2007 and June 2008 by this special "kangaroo court" that prosecutes individuals seen as a threat to the state -- was the subject of an extensive report issued today by the New-York based Human Rights Watch.

SYRIA: U.S. opens up to Damascus

Damascus has long been accused of waiting out the Bush administration in hopes of getting a better diplomatic atmosphere under a new American presidency. And indeed, since President Obama took over from Bush in January, the tide seems to be turning favorably for Syria.

Two delegations from the U.S. Congress have already visited Syria. Later this week, Sen. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is expected in Damascus.

The U.S. is certainly sending positive messages to the country treated by the previous administration as an associate member of the “axis of evil,” along with such U.S. rivals as Iran and North Korea.

Obama has offered to engage in dialogue with Iran and Syria, breaking from the ways of Bush, who imposed economic sanctions on Damascus accusing it of fostering terrorism in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon.

LEBANON: The battle to get God out of marriage in the Middle East

They said “I do” and sealed their marriage.

But this time, the wedding ceremony was not blessed by a sheik or a priest in a church or mosque, as is usually the case in Lebanon.

It was performed in a bar.

To protest laws that do not allow for civil or secular marriages to be conducted in their country, a group of Lebanese couples decided to tie the knot in mock civil weddings Thursday evening in Gemmayze, a bustling neighborhood in downtown Beirut.

Other similar ceremonies will continue to be held this weekend.

Activists have been campaigning in vain for years to make civil marriage legal in Lebanon. Although petitions were signed across the country for the right, religious leaders in this small, multi-sectarian country steadfastly oppose the move.