As Lebanese politicians hold last-gasp meetings to agree on a consensus presidential nominee who can then be voted into power, people remain fearful that the two main political blocs will fail to reach a compromise.

While the March 14 majority bloc wants to be able to vote on its preferred candidate, some members of that bloc feel they are being forced into accepting a nominee favorable to the Hezbollah-led opposition, known as March 8.

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Terrorism is a contested terrain, a political landscape on which the highest levels of international military power engage in a deadly war. In 2007 terrorism remains an ominous threat, a political ghost invoked in the foreign policy rhetoric of Canada’s Conservative government surrounding the ‘War on Terror’.

In 2002 Canada unveiled an official list of ‘terrorist’ organizations, strikingly similar to the US governmental list of an equivalent nature. Today the Lebanese political movement Hezbollah, both the military and political wings, is officially considered a ‘terrorist’ organization by the government of Canada, a policy only endorsed by two additional countries internationally, the US and Israel.

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Photo: Lebanon Oil Spill 2006.

UNITED NATIONS: When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a slew of oil storage tanks and a key power station during its war against Lebanon in July 2006, the environmental damage was described as devastating. And now, more than 15 months later, the United Nations has released a report detailing the extent of the destruction caused by that oil spill to human health, biodiversity, fisheries and tourism.

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Lebanon’s feuding political leaders have a long history of digging their country into holes from which it can only emerge by climbing over piles of dead bodies. The current impasse is just the latest example of this tendency, but at least a few cooler heads are determined to avoid the errors of those who went before. It remains to be seen which “side” will prevail – not between the government and the opposition, but between the sane and insane factions in each camp. Not content with this level of uncertainty, however, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stepped back into the fray in defense of past traditions and future bloodshed.

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In the context of the campaign to challenge the listing of Hezbollah as a ‘terrorist’ organization in Canada, on Wednesday, October 17th, Tadamon! Montreal hosted a major lecture at McGill University as part of Culture Shock 2007.

Upwards of 200 people gathered to hear presentations from Bilal Elamine, the former editor of Left Turn Magazine, currently living in Beirut, Lebanon and Brian Aboud, a sociologist and historian active within Tadamon!. In addition a documentary film on the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, “A Summer Not to Forget”, by the Lebanese filmmaker Carol Mansour, was screened for the first time in Canada.

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As part of Culture Shock 2007 at McGill University.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17th, 6:30pm
Leacock Building, Room 232
McGill University, 688 Sherbrooke St.
Montreal, Canada

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Picketers outside Indigo’s downtown bookstore last Saturday urged shoppers not to enter because the Chapters-Indigo’s CEO heads a foundation that supports foreign soldiers who fight in the Israeli army.

The demonstration was set to coincide with the 20th anniversary of massacres that took place at the Sabra and Chatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

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In its strongest condemnation of Israel since last summer’s war, Human Rights Watch said yesterday that most Lebanese civilian casualties were caused by “indiscriminate Israeli air strikes”.

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Daily Star, Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Photo: Masser. A bombing by Israel in the Bekaa valley. Lebanon, July 2006

BEIRUT: Israeli surveillance drones cut through Lebanese skies on Monday and hovered above Southern as well as Bekaa regions. The Lebanese Army reported that an Israeli surveillance drone soared above the Southern village of Alma al-Shaab at 9:30 a.m. Monday and headed north toward the Bekaa regions of Riyaq and Baalbek. The plane left Lebanese skies at around 4 p.m.

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First Quebec Social Forum, from August 23rd to 26th, 2007 in Montreal…

Tadamon! Montreal a Workshop
Saturday, August 25th, 11am.
Why challenge the existence of the Canadian list
of “terrorist” organizations? The example of Lebanon.