Aug
22
SBP’s control over NBFCs opposed
Filed Under Business, News, Pakistani News | Leave a Comment
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has warned the federal government that its proposal to bring Non-Bank Financial Companies (NBFCs) under the regulatory control of State Bank of Pakistan would turn the central bank into a corporate and securities regulator and will result in overlap of jurisdictions for financial and non-financial entities.
Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that the SECP, which at present regulates the NBFCs, has termed as “piecemeal solution” a proposal raised on Tuesday at a meeting here to empower the SBP to regulate NBFCs as well as business groups owning both financial and commercial concerns.
The Tuesday’s meeting was held over a proposal to amend the Banking Companies Ordinance and was presided over by Finance Minister Naveed Qamar.
The SECP is also of the view that the proposal has not been discussed with the stakeholders and could hurt the market, it is learnt.
The commission, the sources said, had conveyed to the Finance Ministry that the supervision of the NBFCs was transferred just five years ago to the SECP and that the reasons for transfer needed to be studied before any reversal of the decision.
Leasing companies, in fact, have always been under the SECP. And, the commission now wants the federal government to carry out “regulatory impact assessment” before any decision and that all the market players should be consulted.
Meanwhile, the Investment Bank Association of Pakistan has convened a meeting on Thursday to discuss the pros and cons of the proposal. The association’s chairman, Rashid Mansur told Dawn that he would hold meetings with individuals and members in order to come with a joint view point.
However, in response to a question, he said: “the timing of the proposal is a bit strange and odd”. He said this was not an issue which could be resolved overnight and needed a lot of time. He said that the SBP had rationale while deciding to hand over the regulation of the NBFCs to the SECP in the past and there was a need to study that rationale now.
He said that keeping in view the timing of the proposal and the micro economic situation, the proposal could not be in the interest of the economy and the capital markets.
Meanwhile, the Leasing Association of Pakistan also held a meeting over the issue.
An amendment to Banking Companies Ordinance based on the proposal will enable SBP supervisors to oversee the banking group on a consolidated basis. The central bank will be able to monitor risks in their entirety and appropriately apply prudential norms to all aspects of the business conducted by the group worldwide.
Aug
22
A joint investigation team of different agencies has been constituted to probe the two suicide bomb blasts outside Wah Ordnance Factories in, which at least 71 people were killed and over 100 others injured.
Filed Under News, World News | Leave a Comment
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has directed the authorities to make efforts to expose the hidden hands behind the incident. The area was cordoned off after the blasts and security put on high alert. A suicide attacker along with a suicide jacket was arrested. Advisor on interior Rehman Malik visited POF Hospital and enquired about the health the injured persons. He announced financial assistance of three hundred thousand rupees each for the heirs of the deceased and one hundred thousand rupees each for the injured. The Punjab Chief Minister Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif also the injured at POF hospital and announced five hundred thousand rupees each for the heirs of the deceased, one hundred thousand rupees each for the injured and fifty thousand rupees each for slightly injured.
Source
Aug
18
SBP’s control over NBFCs opposed
Filed Under Business, News | Leave a Comment
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has warned the federal government that its proposal to bring Non-Bank Financial Companies (NBFCs) under the regulatory control of State Bank of Pakistan would turn the central bank into a corporate and securities regulator and will result in overlap of jurisdictions for financial and non-financial entities.
Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that the SECP, which at present regulates the NBFCs, has termed as “piecemeal solution” a proposal raised on Tuesday at a meeting here to empower the SBP to regulate NBFCs as well as business groups owning both financial and commercial concerns.
The Tuesday’s meeting was held over a proposal to amend the Banking Companies Ordinance and was presided over by Finance Minister Naveed Qamar.
The SECP is also of the view that the proposal has not been discussed with the stakeholders and could hurt the market, it is learnt.
The commission, the sources said, had conveyed to the Finance Ministry that the supervision of the NBFCs was transferred just five years ago to the SECP and that the reasons for transfer needed to be studied before any reversal of the decision.
Leasing companies, in fact, have always been under the SECP. And, the commission now wants the federal government to carry out “regulatory impact assessment” before any decision and that all the market players should be consulted.
Meanwhile, the Investment Bank Association of Pakistan has convened a meeting on Thursday to discuss the pros and cons of the proposal. The association’s chairman, Rashid Mansur told Dawn that he would hold meetings with individuals and members in order to come with a joint view point.
However, in response to a question, he said: “the timing of the proposal is a bit strange and odd”. He said this was not an issue which could be resolved overnight and needed a lot of time. He said that the SBP had rationale while deciding to hand over the regulation of the NBFCs to the SECP in the past and there was a need to study that rationale now.
He said that keeping in view the timing of the proposal and the micro economic situation, the proposal could not be in the interest of the economy and the capital markets.
Meanwhile, the Leasing Association of Pakistan also held a meeting over the issue.
An amendment to Banking Companies Ordinance based on the proposal will enable SBP supervisors to oversee the banking group on a consolidated basis. The central bank will be able to monitor risks in their entirety and appropriately apply prudential norms to all aspects of the business conducted by the group worldwide.
Source
Jun
20
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama chose winning over his word.
The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too.
No more.
The chance to financially swamp John McCain - and maneuver for an enormous general election advantage - proved too great an allure.
Obama, a record-shattering fundraiser, reversed course Thursday and decided to forgo some $85 million so he could raise unlimited amounts of money and spend as much as he wants.
“It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Obama said in announcing that despite his previous commitment, he would rely only on private donations because “the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken.”
And with that, the first-term Illinois senator tarnished his carefully honed image as a different kind of politician - one who means what he says and says what he means - while undercutting his call for “a new kind of politics.”
McCain, for his part, painted the issue as a character test, saying: “This election is about a lot of things. It’s also about trust. It’s about keeping your word.”
Not that the Arizona senator has much room to talk. He, too, has cast himself as a reformer who tells it like it is but his words and actions sometimes conflict with that identity.
Overall, the race between Obama and McCain amounts to an authenticity contest.
Voters are craving change from typical Washington ways and each candidate is claiming he offers a new brand of politics that transcends poisonous partisanship. Yet, each candidate, in what he says versus what he does, also is undermining his own promises not to become the politics of usual.
McCain, for instance, opposed President Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Now, as a White House hopeful in 2008, he supports them; he says doing otherwise would amount to a tax increase. He also long advocated an eventual path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants. Then, while in the GOP primary, he emphasized securing the borders first; he says he listened to the public outcry and a defeated Senate bill.
The Republican also rails against special interests, yet he has faced criticism for having former lobbyists at his campaign’s helm. And, just this week, McCain assailed Obama for proposing a windfall profits tax on oil, despite saying last month he would consider the same proposal.
“McCain’s a four-star flip-flopper,” said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic operative who worked for John Edwards in the primary. “The John McCain of 2000 wouldn’t vote for the John McCain of 2008.”
True or not, Republicans were quick to pound Obama over his money announcement.
“‘Change We Can Believe In’ has been thrown overboard for ‘Political Expediency I Can Win With,’” said Todd Harris, a Republican analyst and aide to former presidential candidate Fred Thompson in the primary. “Every time Obama’s change rhetoric meets his actual change record it evaporates in a cloud of hypocrisy.”
Last year, as Obama competed against fundraising behemoth Hillary Rodham Clinton and before his fundraising prowess was evident, Obama proposed that both major party general election nominees agree to stay in the public financing system.
In a November 2007 questionnaire, Obama answered “yes” when asked: “If you are nominated for president in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?” He added: “I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”
Then, Obama raised enormous sums - and he started backing away from that position.
McCain, however, had indicated he would go along with the proposal and, since clinching the GOP nomination, has been trying to hold Obama to his commitment. Obama “said he would stick to his word. He didn’t,” McCain complained Thursday, and then told reporters in Minnesota, “We will take public financing.”
Obama made his announcement as McCain was in the Democrat’s hometown of Chicago - where McCain had come to raise money.
Obama’s decision also came one day before the candidates were required to report their May fundraising totals.
The move could be the death-knell for the post-Watergate federal financing system designed to lessen the large donors’ influence and reduce corruption.
It certainly will give Obama an extraordinary advantage over McCain and Republicans who have struggled to match Democratic fundraising this election cycle. Within hours, Obama showed his financial might by rolling out a 60-second television ad in 18 states, including several that have been reliable GOP strongholds.
Obama made the money announcement in a video message to supporters - and sought to empower them to give more.
“You’ve fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford,” Obama said in an appeal seeking donations from $25 to $2,300 and beyond.
“Let’s build the first general election campaign that’s truly funded by the American people,” Obama said - ignoring the fact that the system he’s opting out of is paid for by taxpayers who donate $3 to the fund when they file their tax returns.
Obama blamed his decision in part on McCain and “the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups.” But he failed to mention that the only outside groups running ads in earnest so far are those aligned with Obama - and running commercials against McCain.
So much for being a straight shooter. Source
Jun
2
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage.
Weisman, 49, conducted a survey of 1,533 heterosexual men to research a book aiming to give women an insight into why some smart, successful men opted to stay single — and help lifelong bachelors understand why they are still the solo man at parties.
He concluded that most men were not afraid of marriage — but they were afraid of a bad marriage.
“Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all,” Weisman told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“This is the first generation of people who have grown up with bad divorces. People assume there is something wrong if you don’t marry but these are men who have made a different choice and not given in to social pressures.”
The release of his book “So Why Have You Never Been Married? - Ten Insights into Why He Hasn’t Wed,” comes amid a growing trend for more people to stay single, with less social or religious pressures on men — and women — to tie the knot.
Weisman said U.S. figures showed that in 1980 about 6 percent of men aged in their early 40s had never married but this number had now risen to 17 percent.
AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES
Weisman said his online survey found there are three groups of bachelors — about 8 percent who never want to marry, 62 percent want to marry but of which half won’t settle for anything less than perfection, and about 30 percent who are on the fence.
Four out of 10 bachelors did not want children compared to three out of 10 wanting to be a father. The rest were undecided.
But while 72 percent of respondents said they were not afraid of marriage, about half of them said the situation that scared them most was marrying the wrong person.
“It’s so important to these men to get it right. My best advice to single women after bachelors is to be patient. If you’re in a hurry to get married you’ll be frustrated,” he said.
Weisman also found that financial issues, both positive and negative, played a large part in men’s fear of commitment.
“Those with little money said they would have nothing to offer a partner, with some suffering self-esteem issues and withdrawing from the dating pool,” said Weisman, an engineer-turned-author with two books now published.
“While those who are financially sound were terrified what a bad divorce could do to them.”
Weisman said his research blew away any idea that single men were unhappy.
“A compelling issue was how many of them had found contentment in a never-married life,” he said. “They had created lives full of careers, friends and ambitions. It was not like they walk around all day worried about not being married.”
For him, researching the book made him also look at himself — and he ended up living with a girlfriend for the first time.
“Now we’re looking at getting married. As I researched the book I found I was looking at men 10 years older than me and it was like looking into the future. If I didn’t change, nothing would,” he said.
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
May
21
China warns over quake corruption
Filed Under BBC News, News | Leave a Comment
Chinese regulators have warned that relief efforts for the Sichuan earthquake must be transparent, and say any corruption will be punished.
The Communist Party’s anti-corruption commission said any action that hampered progress or wasted supplies would be swiftly dealt with.
Officials are working to get tents and supplies to the five million people made homeless by the 12 May earthquake.
The death toll currently stands at 40,075, with another 32,361 missing.
Almost 250,000 people have been injured.
Rescuers now hold out little hope of finding any more survivors.
On Tuesday, two people were pulled alive from collapsed buildings but on Wednesday there were no fresh reports of rescues.
‘Entirely dependent’
Both domestic and international aid has been flowing into the earthquake zone, with supply planes landing from countries including the US, Russia and Singapore.
But China says more tents are desperately needed to provide temporary shelter for families.
QUAKE STATISTICS
Up to Tuesday 20 May:
40,075 dead
247,645 injured
145 confirmed aftershocks above level 4, 23 above level 5, biggest 6.1
34,000 medical staff in quake zone
Nearly 280,000 tents, 480,000 quilts and 1.7 million jackets sent
6bn Chinese yuan ($860m, £440m) received in donations, from China and abroad
Drinking water for 7m people restored
Source: Chinese government
See a detailed map of quake zone
Sichuan tourist trail in ruins
Town mourns as search goes on
Bulldozers have been levelling ground so that more camps can be set up, reporters at the scene said.
In one tent city in Mianzhu, a 52-year-old man told the French news agency AFP that he had nothing.
“We don’t know where we’re going to find money to rebuild our village,” Ma Jingsuan said. “We’re entirely dependent on the government.”
On Tuesday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to send 250,000 temporary housing units to the region by the end of June, and one million within three months.
In a circular, the Communist Party’s graft watchdog told local agencies to deal “swiftly and severely” with any official corruption linked to relief work, Xinhua news agency reported.
The source, destination and quantity of relief supplies should be made public, it said, and police should crack down on any fraudulent collection of donations for earthquake victims.
There have already been reports of scam text messages calling for donations to help survivors.
In the earthquake zone, many residents whose homes are still standing have been sleeping outside because of continued fear of aftershocks.
Rain has also been falling, compounding their misery. On Tuesday, Mr Wen ordered patrols to constantly monitor all dams as the bad weather continued.
Thousands of residents have also been evacuated from an area in Qingchuan county where large cracks have appeared in the top of a mountain, Xinhua said.
May
15
People over 60 urged to get one-time shingles shot
Filed Under Most Pepular, News, USA News | Leave a Comment
ATLANTA - People 60 and older should get a one-time shingles shot that can help prevent the painful rash, U.S. health officials are recommending. There’s a 50-50 chance the shot will prevent shingles for those 60 and up, though the odds get worse the older you get. But shingles can be severe for some people, and the government believes it’s worth the $160-per-dose cost.
Caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, shingles is a blistering skin rash most common in older people. It usually ends after four weeks, but one in five victims develop long-term nerve pain. Other complications include scarring and loss of vision or hearing.
The chickenpox infects about 95 percent of Americans, although some suffer mild illness and may not know they’ve had it. As many as one in three infected people develop shingles later in life.
Even those who have already had shingles should get the shot if they are over 60, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The vaccination was recommended by an influential government advisory panel in 2006. The CDC officially adopted the recommendation this week.
The announcement should encourage more doctors to give the shot and lead more private insurers to pay for it, said Kelley Dougherty of Merck & Co., the drug company that makes the only available shingles vaccine. About 2.5 million doses have already been distributed.
Source
May
15
DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co is recalling over 650,000 of its top-selling F-150 pickups as well as a Lincoln-branded truck because of a problem with the brake hose that could cause the vehicles to lose braking power.
The automaker has recalled 2005 and 2006 model year Ford F-150 and Lincoln Mark LT trucks, according to the recall notice posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on its website on Wednesday.
Ford trucks covered by the recall are equipped with 5.4-liter engines. The brake hose on those trucks can detach from an intake manifold, causing the driver to lose the “assist” function that provides additional power to the brakes, according to the safety notice.
The trucks could still be stopped with remaining braking power but it would require drivers to apply “more force to the pedal,” Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood said.
He said Ford had received reports of 11 minor accidents but no injuries because of the brake hose defect.
The sweeping recall covers almost 606,000 vehicles in the United States and comes just as Ford is gearing up to launch all-new versions of its F-Series pickup truck line.
U.S. sales of the Ford trucks are down 16 percent this year in a downturn tied to high gasoline prices and a slumping U.S. housing market.
In addition to the trucks covered by the U.S. government recall, there are another 50,000 of the trucks on the road in Canada covered by a similar recall procedure, Ford said.
Ford said customers in the United States and Canada affected by the recall could have brake hoses replaced at Ford dealerships starting in late June.
Ford customers with questions can call 1-800-392-3673 for more information, the automaker said.
(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
May
15
DALLAS - In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.
The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as “crazy rasberry ants” - crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and “rasberry” after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.
“They’re itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they’re just running everywhere,” said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. “There’s just thousands and thousands of them. If you’ve seen a car racing, that’s how they are. They’re going fast, fast, fast. They’re crazy.”
The ants - formally known as “paratrenicha species near pubens” - have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.
The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.
“At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed,” said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.
The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.
But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.
They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.
Worse, they, like some other species of ants, are attracted to electrical equipment, for reasons that are not well understood by scientists.
They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner’s gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven’t caused any major problems there yet.
Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants - which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season - appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.
“The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good,” said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.
It’s not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.
At the same time, the ants aren’t taking the bait usually left out in traps, according to exterminators, who want the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen restrictions on the use of more powerful pesticides.
And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.
“It looked like someone had come along and poured coffee granules all around the perimeter of the rooms,” said Lisa Calhoun, who paid exterminators $1,200 to treat an infestation of her parents’ home in the Houston suburb of Pearland.
The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.
“This one seems to be like lava flowing and filling an entire area, getting bigger and bigger,” said Ron Harrison, director of training for the big pest-control company Orkin Inc.
Source
May
10
Hezbollah militants take over West Beirut
Filed Under CNN News, News, Top Stories | Leave a Comment
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) — Hezbollah militias took control of western Beirut on Friday, dealing a major blow to the U.S.-backed government in Lebanon.
Future TV, with a poster of slain leader Rafik Hariri, whose family owns the station, burns Friday in Beirut, Lebanon.
1 of 3 Walid Jumblatt, a Druze leader and part of the March 14 pro-government coalition, described it as a “coup.”
Jumblatt’s coalition called the takeover an effort to “bring Syria back to Lebanon” and extend Iran’s reach to the Mediterranean.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Hezbollah leaders of trying to “protect their state within a state.”
Hezbollah leaders did not make public statements Friday.
Two pro-government TV stations were shut down — and the building of one, Future TV, was soon on fire. Nadim Mounla, the head of Future TV, said Hezbollah had sent a “clear message” that it would destroy the stations.
The building housing offices of a newspaper was set on fire as well. It and the two TV stations are owned by the prominent Hariri family, leading supporters of the government.
Hezbollah “turned their weapons … toward the hearts of the innocent civilians of Beirut,” said Samir Geagea, executive director of the Lebanese forces, reading a statement after a meeting of the pro-government March 14 coalition.
“They invaded their neighborhoods and shelled their homes with a hail of bombs that were sent from Tehran through the Damascus gateway,” he said.
“The purpose behind this coup is to bring Syria back to Lebanon and allow Iran to reach the Mediterranean,” he said.
Syria and Iran support Hezbollah, and Syrian troops occupied Lebanon from 1990 until 2006.
Iran said Friday that “U.S.-Israel adventurism” is the “main cause for lingering crisis and instability” in Lebanon. State-run news agency IRNA, citing Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, added that “Iran’s stand on Lebanon has always been based on non-interference in a matter that is entirely related to the Lebanese nation, alone.”
And Syria’s state-run news agency SANA said President Bashar al-Assad discussed Lebanon during a meeting with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
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“The two sides hoped that the brothers in Lebanon would be able to find a solution to this situation through dialogue among themselves in a way that preserves the security and stability of Lebanon,” al-Assad said.
The country’s elected, pro-Western government has long been locked in a power struggle with Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called that conflict “a strategic and historic victory” but acknowledged underestimating the cost in lives and destruction.
In public statements and demonstrations in recent years, the Shiite militant group backed by Iran and Syria threatened to use its power and popularity to oust the Sunni-led government, triggering fears of a new civil war that could further destabilize the volatile region.
Lebanon was crippled by a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.
Government troops and another militia group, Fatah al-Islam, fought a series of bloody battles last year over control of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. More than 150 people were reported killed in those clashes.
In a written statement, the U.S. secretary of state said the United States is “deeply concerned” about the violence.
“Backed by Syria and Iran, Hezbollah and its allies are killing and injuring fellow citizens, undermining the legitimate authority of the Lebanese government and the institutions of the Lebanese state,” Rice wrote.
“Seeking to protect their state within a state, Hezbollah has exploited its allies and demonstrated its contempt for its fellow Lebanese. No one has the right to deprive Lebanese citizens of their political and economic freedom, their right to move freely within their country or their sense of safety and security.”
The White House said Rice is reaching out to the Lebanese government. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said she also discussed Lebanon with officials from Saudi Arabia, France and the United Nations.
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, “We are very troubled by the recent actions of Hezbollah. We urge Hezbollah to stop their attempt to defy the lawful decisions taken by the democratically elected Lebanese government.”
The Lebanese army did not join the battles that erupted this week. Taking sides could throw the military — with its own political factions — into disarray.
Soldiers instead effectively negotiated a surrender of pro-government positions, Lebanese Internal Security Forces and Western military observers said. Jumblatt said the government is “now at the end of a gun barrel” and expects the “conditions for surrender will be offered sooner or later.”
“I think … it’s a coup,” he said. “The Lebanese army is in total paralysis.”
With pro-government gunmen out of the way, fighting in the capital eased a bit Friday after two days of intense gunbattles echoing through Beirut’s streets.
At least 11 people have been killed and 44 wounded in the clashes since Wednesday, according to Lebanese Internal Security Forces.
Earlier this week, the government demanded Hezbollah shutter its telecommunications operations, which Hezbollah called an act of war. The government also fired the chief of security at the Beirut airport amid a probe of allegations that Hezbollah had installed cameras and other monitoring equipment there to spy on political opponents.
Saad Hariri, the leader of the government’s bloc in parliament, is the son of the late former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose 2005 assassination sparked protests that brought the current government to power and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops. Since then, dynamics in Lebanon have been reshaped by the war between Hezbollah and Israel, and by the ongoing power struggle between Hezbollah and the government