DAILY SCOPE: ’Israel’ Traumatized, Al-Quds Op. Original

Local Editor

NEWSPAPERS HEADLINES:

ASSAFIR:

Nasrallah Meets Mokbel: All Support to Army

"Israel" Traumatized: "Jewish" State and Its ‘Eternal Capital' Targeted

AL-AKHBAR:

Al-Quds Operation...Resistance Originality in Time and Place

Suleiman Protects Suspect Naturalization Decree

THE DAILYSTAR:

Parliament in New Failed Bid to Elect President

THE GUARDIAN:

Spanish Government Urged to Recognize Palestine as a State

THE NEW YORK TIMES:

"Israel" Shaken by 5 Deaths in Synagogue "Assault"

Headlines of Lebanese newspapers directed the compass towards Palestine, despite the very hot domestic topics that have been broiling in the Lebanese arena. Today, Lebanon awaits the session designated to elect a new president, the committee to activate the electoral law, and updates on the ongoing file of the abducted Lebanese soldiers.

Also, the newspapers shed light on the visit of Defense Minister Samir Moqbel to Hizbullah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, which gained more significance as the former had visited Iran recently.

As-Safir newspaper wrote that the Lebanese are not expecting any outcome on the election of a new president as all domestic and regional implications do not show any change will occur, meanwhile they await the ‘positive signs' of Ain al-Tineh to ripen. The paper said that ‘Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah met with the Lebanese Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, which is unprecedented.

The newspaper noted that this visit gains major importance as it comes in the context of the army's battle against the terrorist groups. Also, giving it more importance is Moqbel's recent visit to Iran and his support to Lebanon accepting the Iranian endowment (which was immediately blocked in the Council of Ministers by the March 14 camp).

The Lebanese daily underscored that Sayyed Nasrallah assured Hizbullah's support to the military institution.

On another hand, the Nejmeh square witnesses the first session of electing a new president following the Parliament extension. According to al-Akhbar newspaper, the session will most probabl be postponed like the 15 previous sessions. The paper noted, that despite the ‘positie signs' the Lebanese House Speaker has declared, yet he has not given any details on this regard during the past two days. His visitors said there are no signs to any consensus, yet Berri intentionally is trying to spread positive ambiances. Yet, Berri mediums accentuated that he has ‘strong indications on this matter', yet refuses to disclose it.

The Daily Star for its part, in light of the ongoing ‘food' scandal in Lebanon, paid a visit to one of the major slaughterhouses in Lebanon and described it as follows:

Kilometers away from the Karantina slaughterhouse the pungent smell overwhelms the senses. The stench - a cocktail of animal feces, urine, rotting carcasses and dry blood - emanates across east Beirut, even reaching suburbs like Dora, Dikwaneh and Burj Hammoud. Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib told The Daily Star Tuesday that the slaughterhouse would be temporarily shut down for renovation works as of Wednesday morning.

Slotted away off the Karantina highway, on the Beirut River, the 20-year-old slaughterhouse is surrounded by an industrial park where rats scurry around underneath trucks and feral cats fight over food. Things only get worse upon entering the slaughterhouse grounds.

The cattle waiting for slaughter are tightly packed into barns in the shadow the slaughterhouse building. They struggle for space in their own feces, openly exposed to the rats and feral cats strolling in from the industrial park.
None of this appears to be a controlled and sanitized environment.

While the issues surrounding the Karantina slaughterhouse are not new, the topic has become even more potent over the last week following Health Minister Wael Abu Faour's campaign against restaurants selling contaminated meat.
Abu Faour caused mayhem in the Lebanese food industry when he announced that several of the country's most prominent restaurants and supermarkets were selling contaminated products.

Several establishments blamed meat traders they said were certified by the government, which has now shifted the spotlight onto the Karantina slaughterhouse.

Karantina provides meat to several of Beirut's butchers and restaurants, and it is all on display at the entrance to the building. Full carcasses hang from hooks on the ceiling as traders chop them up wearing no gloves and the meat rubs against rusty pillars. The slaughterers' children can also be seen running around the complex helping their parents.

The other half of the building is where the slaughter takes place. Dead sheep are lined up across the concrete floor; several cows are hung from the ceiling by their legs waiting to be slaughtered; while others run around in confusion with their necks tied to a rope attached to the ceiling. The staff poke and prod the cows, waiting for a moment to tie their legs and hoist them up. Blood streams everywhere.

On another note, al-Akhbar newspaper said the Palestinians delivered two messages with the operation carried out on Tuesday: the first to the "Israeli" occupation implying that all the oppression and escalation of the occupation forces cannot set back the Palestinians from defending al-Quds and their rights, while the other is directed to the Palestinian authorities stating that the Palestinians have learned how to retaliate for themselves and respond against tyranny.

Five Zionist settlers were killed and several others injured in a shooting attack in a synagogue in the occupied western al-Quds neighborhood of "Har Nof", according to initial reports.

The shooting, which was executed by two Palestinians, occurred on Shimon Agassi St. on Tuesday morning. The two attackers were reportedly martyred at the scene by police, with a third possibly in the area.
Several other settlers are reported injured, two in serious condition, according to Haaretz.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad hailed the operation, saying it was in reaction to the killing of a Palestinian bus driver. In a statement, Hamas movement said it was "a response to the murder of the martyr Yusuf Ramuni." A Palestinian bus driver from east Al-Quds was found hanged inside his vehicle late on Sunday after being beaten.
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The New York Times said on Wednesday that the US senate rejected a bill to limit NSA spying.

A bill that was aimed at curbing the spying programs of the US National Security Agency has been rejected by the Senate.

The Senate voted down the USA Freedom Act by a vote of 58-42, leaving it two votes shy of the 60 it needed.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who drafted the bill, blamed what he said was fear-mongering by the bill's opponents for its defeat. "Fomenting fear stifles serious debate and constructive solutions," he said. "This nation deserves more than that."

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, worked hard to defeat the bill, which had the support of the Obama administration and a coalition of technology companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

But Tuesday's vote only put off until next year a debate over security and personal liberties. While a Republican-controlled Senate is less likely to go along with the kinds of reforms that were in the bill, which sponsors had named the USA Freedom Act, the debate could further expose rifts between the party's interventionist and more libertarian-leaning wings.

The new Congress will also be working against a hard deadline because the legal authority for the data collection will expire next year.

Under the bill, which grew out of the disclosures in June 2013 by Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor, the NSA would have gotten out of the business of collecting Americans' phone records. Instead, most of the records would have stayed in the hands of the phone companies, which would not have been required to hold them any longer than they already do for normal business purposes, which in some cases is 18 months.