http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0608071773181509.htm
Arab League foreign ministers hold emergency meeting on Lebanon
Beirut, Aug 7, IRNA
Lebanon-Arab League-Emergency Meeting
The foreign ministers of the League of Arab States held an emergency meeting in Beirut on Monday to voice solidarity with Lebanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora appealed to fellow Arab states to help stop Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
according to IRNA, Siniora burst into tears while delivering his speech to the audience and reading a report on death of more civilians at the Lebanese village of Houla.
Meanwhile, Arab leaders are considering holding an emergency summit on Lebanon in Saudi Arabia later this week.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was expected to make the call during the current emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut Monday.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa was quoted by Lebanese newspaper As-Safir as saying that there was agreement in principle among Arab countries to hold a summit.
Moussa, who arrived in Beirut Sunday, added that chances for a summit would become clearer after the meeting of Arab foreign ministers.
Moussa, following a meeting with President Emile Lahoud Monday, said the ministers would also consider whether those Arab countries having diplomatic relations with Israel must summon their ambassadors.
"This has become a widespread demand," he said.
The Arab foreign ministers' meeting comes as senior Lebanese officials have objected to the context of a draft resolution the US and France have drawn up for the UN Security Council.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said upon his arrival in Beirut on Sunday that the Franco-US draft resolution is a recipe for further aggression on Lebanon.
He said that the resolution should call for withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and Shebaa Valley.
"Otherwise, ceasefire would be meaningless, because, the Lebanese defense force should fight occupation."
1416/1412
---> Lebanon-Arab League-Emergency Meeting
News sent: 18:15 Monday August 07, 2006
This is one example of what Agenda 21 can do to common people...
Sagebrush rebellion puts rancher behind bars
Don Cox RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 4/20/2002 07:22 pm
One Nevada cattle rancher is incarcerated in a Reno halfway house by order of a federal judge, and another lost his herd when it was impounded and auctioned by the U.S. government.
Cliff Gardner of Ruby Valley and Ben Colvin of Goldfield are among the latest casualties in a battle against federal government management of public rangeland in the West. The conflict is fierce in Nevada, where the U.S. government controls 87 percent — about 60 million of approximately 70 million acres — of the land inside state boundaries.
Nevada’s percentage of federally managed land is the country’s highest.
It helped ignite the West-wide Sagebrush Rebellion against government authority in the 1970s and 1980s, a fight that continues to flare in Nevada’s high desert.
Gardner and Colvin are among what federal authorities say is a handful of ranchers in the state who refuse to recognize government authority over the land where thousands of cattle graze.
“I’m not obligated to sign the grazing permit or pay the grazing fee,” said Colvin, 63, who had 62 cows impounded and sold by the federal Bureau of Land Management last year. “It doesn’t apply to me.”
The BLM took Colvin’s cattle, claiming he owed the government $70,000 in grazing fees and fines. Colvin says he has about 25 cows on his central Nevada ranch that he’s preparing to graze on the range this year. He says he won’t pay for grazing permits.
Gardner, whose ranch is located in the northeastern part of the state, is serving a 30-day sentence in the halfway house for grazing without a permit, which was revoked in 1994. Gardner, 63, must also spend three months under house arrest for illegally grazing cattle on land managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
Colvin and Gardner have become rallying points for states rights activists in Nevada.
At Gardner’s hearing, more than 50 protesters, with three wearing white wigs as American Revolutionary War patriots, jammed the U.S. District Court in Reno. Protesters also showed up at the auction of Colvin’s cattle in Palomino Valley north of Reno-Sparks. At one point, a BLM law enforcement officer drew his gun on a protester who also was armed.
“The BLM broke every law we’ve got when they confiscated those cattle,” said Colvin, who claims government regulation is ruining his ranching operation. “It’s like somebody coming out and stealing stuff right out of my front yard.”
BLM officials in Reno say the cases involving Colvin and Gardner are the exception, not the rule, as about 700 ranchers with federal permits graze cattle on 46 million acres of bureau-managed range in Nevada.
“I don’t consider those people trespassing on public land to be ranchers,” said Bob Abbey, the BLM’s state director. “We have 700 authorized to graze on public lands. With one or two exceptions, they work closely with us. These people are paying their fees and complying with the grazing system.”
Ranching by the rules
One of those people is Stephen Ferraro, 59, a rancher with about 500 cattle in Paradise Valley, 40 miles north of Winnemucca.
Because Nevada’s range is made up of so much public and so little private land, Ferraro’s ranching business, like many others in the state, is a combination. Ferraro owns 1,700 acres and holds two permits, one with the BLM and another with the forest service, to graze on about 12,000 acres of public range in the nearby Ranta Rosa Mountains.
But, the permits don’t allow unlimited grazing.
“It’s different each year,” said Ferraro, whose grandfather homesteaded in Paradise Valley in 1869.
This year, Ferraro can graze cattle on BLM range from March 1 to May 20. He can be on forest service land from May 20 to Sept. 1. He can return to the BLM allotment from Sept. 18 until about Christmas.
“They control you,” Ferraro said of the federal land managers.
It’s a delicate, sometimes contentious, relationship. Conflicts can arise, range experts say, because government land management policies can impact a rancher’s business.
“It’s a little better than it was under Clinton,” said Duane Boggio, a Paradise Valley rancher, who, like some of his neighbors, complains that grazing policies of the administration of former President Clinton were too restrictive.
Management patterns changed in the 1970s when Congress passed a variety of environmental laws, requiring the BLM and other agencies to balance ranching with conservation issues such as wildlife habitat.
“These interest groups think we’re destroying this stuff,” Boggio said of anti-cattle activists. “That’s not the case.”
Boggio holds two BLM permits and one with the forest service. Like Ferraro’s permits, they allow certain numbers of cattle in certain areas at certain times.
When they’re not grazing on public land, the cattle owned by Boggio and Ferraro are kept on the home ranches.
It’s the combination of private and public land, ranchers say, that allows them enough range to keep their cattle fed.
“You can’t have too many at one place,” said Boggio, referring to government grazing regulations. “You can’t allow cows in one area all year round.”
Protecting against overgrazing?
Many environmentalists claim the system isn’t working. But BLM officials say it is supposed to reduce cattle grazing’s impact on water sources and wildlife habitat.
“I believe, in the past, there has been some overgrazing,” Abbey said. “The ranching community is working closely with us to implement grazing practices that are more environmentally responsible.”
Activists who want cattle removed from public land say grazing is destroying the range. They also say grazing permits amount to taxpayer-supported welfare for ranchers.
Permits come with “animal unit months,” for which Nevada ranchers are paying $1.43 each this year. An AUM is a cow and a calf grazing on the public range for a month. The cost of an AUM can vary from year to year, depending on a complex formula tied to beef prices and other market forces.
Last year, Nevada ranchers paid more than $1.6 million in grazing fees. Half the money funded range improvements, 12 1/2 percent went to state grazing committees and 37 1/2 percent ended up in the federal treasury.
It may be a cheap deal for ranchers, who also are taxpayers, but the BLM and some environmentalists contend the rest of the public can also benefit.
“We have a park here in the city and we pay to have the park taken care of,” said Carson City’s Elsie Dupree, president of the Nevada Wildlife Federation. “If ranchers are taking care of the public lands in the same way, then let them have their subsidy.”
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2002/04/20/12593.php