Excepts: UK bans Hizbollah military wing.OPEC tells US to stop harassment.
France's subserviance to Syria 3 July 2008

+++JORDAN TIMES 3 July '08:"United Kingdom (UK) bans military wing of
Hizbollah"
QUOTE:" 'It sends out a clear message that we (UK)condemn Hizbollah's
violence and support for terrorism' "

FULL TEXT:LONDON (AP) - Britain's Home Office banned the entire military
wing of Hizbollah on 2 July in a rebuke over the Lebanese Shiite group's
alleged role supporting militants in Iraq.
McNulty said the government had taken the action amid concerns over the
extent to which the Iranian-linked Hizbollah is helping Shiite militias in
southern Iraq, where Britain has 4,000 troops.
"Hizbollah's military wing are providing active support to militants in
Iraq, who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi
civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside
bombs," McNulty said.
He said the group's military wing also provides support to Palestinian
fighters.
Iraqi lawmakers have accused Hizbollah of training Shiite militiamen in
southern Iraq and helping to coordinate attacks on US-led forces.
Britain's troops in Iraq are based on the fringes of the oil-rich southern
city of Basra.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told lawmakers in the House of Commons that the
decision was made "on the sole grounds of new evidence of involvement in
terrorism in Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories". McNulty said
Hizbollah's social and political work in Britain would be unaffected. But
the ban will place tight limits on fundraising and means individuals can be
prosecuted for joining Hizbollah's military wing or arranging meetings for
it in Britain.
"It sends out a clear message that we condemn Hizbollah's violence and
support for terrorism," he said in the statement. "We continue to call on
Hizbollah to end terrorist activity and its support for terrorism... abandon
its status as an armed group and participate in the democratic process."
Britain lists 59 groups as banned terrorist organisations, including
Hizbollah's external security organisation, Al Qaeda and the Kurdistan
Workers Party, or PKK.
The new order must be ratified by parliament and would make it an offence in
Britain to belong to, or show public support for, Hizbollah's military wing.
Last month, British lawmakers formally removed the Iranian opposition group
the People's Mujahedeen of Iran from the list of banned terror groups, after
the Court of Appeal ruled in May that the group should no longer be banned
as it had renounced violence.

+++Saudi Gazette report
JEDDAH - In a toughest language used so far in the ongoing blame game over
the surging oil prices, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) asked US to stop harassing its members.
"I want that, as the world's first power, they stop harassing OPEC
countries," OPEC Secretary General Abdallah El-Badri said in response to a
question by Spanish newspaper El Pais that the US Congress wanted to take to
court those OPEC countries which don't adjust their production to the needs
of the market.
"With the boycott of Libya, the boycott of Iran and the problem created in
Iraq, there are five to six million barrels per day lacking on the market,"
the Libyan official said.
The soaring price of oil is not due to "the myth" of the lack of supplies as
Western countries have said, but to speculation sparked by the subprime
lending crisis in the United States, he said.
"There is nobody queuing for oil, all demand is satisfied," he added.
"In reality, it's all quite simple to explain: the subprime crisis last
summer in the United States had a bad effect on stock markets. Investors are
looking for other (financial) products and commodities have become the most
attractive for speculation," he said.
He countered the viewpoint that OPEC would not be interested in ending the
price rises. "High prices mean more revenues for the governments of the
consumer countries because the part that goes to taxes increases. More than
85% of our revenue goes back to the consumer countries; with that money we
buy textiles, food, raw materials or industrial products from the US or
Europe.
"We don't accumulate greater wealth with this situation, it isn't true,"
El-Badri told the newspaper in an interview published Wednesday.
He, however, hoped that if the market goes back to behaving according to the
relation between supply and demand, prices will drop. "If we leave the
market to speculators, one day it is said that the price reaches $140,
another that it will rise to $200, and the market goes into a panic. There
are many who are getting rich with the myth that there is an oil shortage,"
he said.
The OPEC secretary general also criticized a warning Tuesday by the
International Energy Agency of looming tensions over crude oil supply from
2010.
"With the current high level of prices, we cannot say that there will be
tension on the market," he said.
The industrialized world's energy watchdog stressed in a report on
medium-term prospects for the oil market that growth in supply would outpace
demand in the next few years before pressures built up again from 2010.
The IEA based its assumptions in its 2008 Medium-Term Market Report on oil
costing 110 dollars per barrel over the next five years to 2013, double the
figure it used in last year's report. - With input from agencies

+++THE DAILY STAR 3 July '08:"France is a captive to its ties with Syria" by
Michael Young,Opinion Editor

QUOTE:"What does France hope to
gain by inundating Syria with carrots?"

FULL TEXT:
From an article in Al-Hayat last Monday(June 30), citing a European
diplomatic source, we learn that France asked Syria to intervene in the
recent fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli to calm the tension
between the Alawite Arab Democratic Party of Ali Eid and Sunni groups in Bab
el-Tebbaneh. Syria denied it had anything to do with the fighting, then
asked Eid to remove dozens of his men from Jabal Mohsen, the Alawite
stronghold. President Bashar Assad must have been delighted to do such an
effortless favor for French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the run-up to their
one-on-one meeting in Paris on March 12.
If this is the level of assistance the French government is now begging from
Damascus, then it might be time for France to fold Resolution 1559 up into
an origami swan and let it float away forever. The United Nations
resolution, which France co-sponsored with the United States, was designed
to end Syrian influence in Lebanon. While one has to be realistic about
these things - Syrian influence won't just evaporate - to bring Syria into
the resolution of a neighborhood fight, one two decades old, is going
overboard in handing Assad chips he didn't ask for.
The French approach to Lebanon has been characterized by remarkable
incompetence in the past eight months, and by the absence of any discernible
strategy. After trashing Resolution 1559 last November by pleading with
Syria to permit a Lebanese presidential election (one the Elysee Palace had
thought to follow up with a triumphal Christmas visit to Beirut by Sarkozy),
the French stepped back when Assad rebuffed them. Humiliation was swiftly
swallowed, however, after the Doha agreement, when the Syrians received the
visit of Sarkozy adviser Claude Gueant, their reward for briefly failing to
obstruct the Lebanese Constitution.
What does France hope to gain by inundating Syria with carrots? Officially,
French spokesmen say that their aim is to break Syria off from Iran and
encourage negotiations between Syria and Israel. The latter point reveals
more than is immediately obvious. Sarkozy smells a possible peace deal and
doesn't want France to be on the sidelines when or if it comes about. Fair
enough. However, Assad accords little importance to France. His priority is
to use the legitimacy that Sarkozy has bestowed on him and talks with Israel
as a bridge toward the United States. The French have little leverage over
Syria to change this, because they have already given Syria everything it
wants at this stage: an end to the Assad regime's isolation, despite its
involvement in former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination and
despite its crackdown on Syrian dissidents; a reinvigorated role in Lebanon;
the offer of a signed association agreement with the European Union in the
not-too-distant future; and a willingness to manipulate the Hariri tribunal
in exchange for unspecified concessions from Syria.
Last week, an unidentified French source gave several Arab journalists in
Paris an outline of how the French government viewed the possibilities ahead
with respect to Syria. The source was not identified as an official, but as
"well informed." That's not saying much, but the fact that several Arab
journalists were said to be present suggested the source had a good read on
the French government's mood, while offering it deniability. Some obervers
have privately suggested the source is a Foreign Ministry official.
The London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat published a rundown of what was
exchanged, little of it reassuring for Lebanon. The source observed that a
resolution of the Shebaa Farms dispute would not be easy, though France and
other Security Council members were trying to work out scenarios to satisfy
both Israel and Syria. The Israeli government was divided over a withdrawal
from the farms, while France expected Syria to oppose a Lebanese Army
deployment in the area after a pullout because this would mean it was
Lebanese territory, which Syria has refused to recognize. For the source,
resolving the Shebaa issue was important to ensure that Hizbullah remained
on the sidelines in any Israeli-Iranian war.
The source also said there were "some signs" that Syria was willing to
distance itself from Iran. No evidence was provided, just a reading of what
the French took to be Syrian calculations. The source made a point worth
considering, however, namely that Syria did not want to pay the price for an
Israeli-Iranian war, which explained its willingness to talk to Israel
today. On the basis of that assessment, the source argued that the Israelis
felt a Syrian-Israeli agreement was easier than a Palestinian-Israeli one,
especially that arriving at an agreement with Damascus meant "granting Syria
responsibility for the security of [Israel's] north, given that what
concerns Israel is not the Golan but the security of its northern [border]."
The French source concluded that the most important Syrian concern was what
happened to the Hariri tribunal, before adding that there was a "French
conviction" that "if there is a radical change in Syria policy and Damascus
becomes more acceptable and one can work with it, then the tribunal file can
be buried in more ways than one."
If the source is authoritative, it is a sign of how far French thinking has
come since the days of President Jacques Chirac. While the source did not
suggest that France endorsed the Israeli view that Syria should be granted
responsibility for protecting Israel's north - which would effectively mean
bringing Syria's military back into Lebanon - the logic of a settlement
makes much more likely such an outcome, without France being able to do much
about it. In other words, if France is trying to push Syrian-Israeli
negotiations forward and knows that Israel welcomes a revival of Syria's
security role in Lebanon, a role that Syria will gladly take on because it
would mean a return of its hegemony over Lebanon, then refusing to concede
Syria such a role might block a Syrian-Israeli breakthrough.
Then there is the tribunal. Last October the French reportedly indicated to
the Syrians that everything was on the table if Damascus allowed the
election of a Lebanese president, including the future of the tribunal.
According to senior politicians in the March 14 coalition, French Foreign
Minister Bernard Kouchner, in conversations with them, made statements
implying that his government might be thinking of a quid pro quo to protect
the immediate Assad family from indictment.
Even if this is untrue, it is apparent that progress in the Hariri tribunal
is alarmingly slow. There is, plainly, more at play here than the sluggish
pace of setting up such institutions. The absence of any international
pressure to accelerate the formation of the tribunal, particularly from a
majority of Security Council states, has actually slowed down the process.
Despite Sarkozy's statements in Beirut supporting the tribunal, the momentum
of France's growing engagement of Syria means that Paris now sees the
tribunal as little more than an instrument to be bargained over in arriving
at an understanding with Syria. It's a fine strategy that Sarkozy is
pursuing, if the upshot is to end Lebanon's frail independence.
================
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.

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Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA