English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 06/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 09/01-07/:”And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.’Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 05-06/2020
Pope Francis Offers Prayers for Beirut Victims
Pompeo reaffirms support for 'Lebanese people' after Beirut blasts
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II ‘deeply saddened’ by Lebanon blast
Macron to Visit Beirut Thursday as France Pushes Reconstruction
Israel’s Tel Aviv lights up city hall with Lebanon’s flag
Britain announces £5 million in aid for Beirut
Turkey Sends Rescue and Medical Teams after Beirut Explosion
U.S. Officials Say No Sign Beirut Blast was Attack
Qatar Sends Field Hospitals to Lebanon
WHO Airlifting Medical Supplies to Lebanon
Aoun Addresses Nation after Beirut Blast
Cost of damages to exceed $5 billion, Beirut governor tells Al Arabiya English
Ex-PMs Call for International or Arab Investigation Committee
Govt. Seeks House Arrest for Officials over Beirut Blast
STL Postpones Hariri Case Verdict after 'Tragic' Beirut Blast
Beirut blasts leave hundreds of thousands homeless; hundreds step up to help
Death toll in Beirut blasts rises to 135, around 5,000 injured: Health Minister
European politicians urge swift crackdown on Qatar’s funding of Hezbollah: Fox News
Watch: Hezbollah chief explains explosion scenario similar to Beirut blast
The port of Beirut, before and after Tuesday's explosion.
Beirut blast: Ammonium nitrate fertilizer behind many industrial accidents
Lebanese set up websites to find loved ones missing in Beirut explosions
Aid offers flood in after Beirut blasts leave 100 dead, thousands injured in Lebanon
'It's like a war zone without the war': Lebanese diaspora in shock after explosions devastate Beirut
It’s a catastrophe, Lebanon is gone’: Survivors recount Beirut blasts
Watch: Debris falls on Lebanese priest, parishioners during Beirut explosions
Beirut blasts: Lebanese MP Marwan Hamadeh resigns, says ‘government ineffective’
Millers fear for Lebanon’s food security after Beirut explosion
Cost of damages to exceed $5 billion, Beirut governor tells Al Arabiya English
Lebanon Is Collapsing and Urgent Reform Is Desperately Needed/Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz/FDD/August 05/2020
Hezbollah operatives seen behind spike in drug trafficking, analysts say./Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet/FDD/August 05/2020
Fireworks, ammonium nitrate likely fueled Beirut explosion/JON GAMBRELL and JOSEF FEDERMAN/Associated Press/August 05/2020
Apocalyptic Scenes as Blasts Ravage Beirut
Lebanese Survey Devastation after Massive Beirut Explosion
Beirut’s Mar Mikhael Street Resonates Death
Initial Investigations Point to Negligence as Cause of Beirut Blast
Lebanon Has Less than a Month's Reserves of Grain
Fireworks, Ammonium Nitrate Likely Fueled Beirut Explosion
Deadly explosion in Lebanon: Premier Kenney

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 05-06/2020
10 Kuwaiti MPs File No-Confidence Motion Against Finance Minister
Iran Executes Man Convicted for Killing Guards Soldier in 2017 Unrest
Irini Mission Team to Monitor Arms Embargo on Libya Completed
Amid tensions in Libya, Turkey’s hostile statements about UAE a provocation: Bahrain
 

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 05-06/2020

Britain's Struggling Banks Show the UK's Economic Weakness/Elisa Martinuzzi/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Long Lines at Polling Places Are Deadly in a Pandemic/Faye Flam/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
The Rich Still Want to Buy Their Ferraris/Chris Hughes/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Khamenei Doesn’t Trust The Democrats/Mark Dubowitz and Alireza Nader/Radio Farda/August 05/2020
Erdogan’s Target in Hagia Sophia Stunt was Ataturk’s Legacy/Aykan Erdemir/FDD/August 05/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 05-06/2020

Pope Francis Offers Prayers for Beirut Victims
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Pope Francis has offered prayers for the victims, their families, and for Lebanon after the enormous explosion in Beirut´s port on Tuesday. the enormous explosion in Beirut´s port on Tuesday. At least 100 people were killed and thousands injured.
The pontiff appealed that `´through the dedication of all the social, political and religious elements, Lebanon "might face this extremely tragic and painful moment and, with the help of the international community, overcome the grave crisis they are experiencing."International aid is heading to Beirut, with Poland sending a team of about 50 firefighters, including 39 rescuers with 4 dogs and a chemical rescue module. A Greek military transport plane is heading to Lebanon with a search and rescue team with specialized equipment and a sniffer dog, while Cyprus says it will be sending help.

Pompeo reaffirms support for 'Lebanese people' after Beirut blasts
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab Wednesday and reaffirmed Washington's "steadfast commitment" to help the "Lebanese people" after Tuesday's explosions in Beirut. Pompeo called it a "terrifying event" and stressed "our solidarity with and support for the Lebanese people as they strive for the dignity, prosperity, and security they deserve. Pompeo's tweet and the statement from his office made no mention of support for the Lebanese government.
On Tuesday, Pompeo phoned former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and informed him of the US decision to send medical aid and assistance to Lebanon. At least two explosions rocked Lebanon's capital on Tuesday, with the death count so far at 130 and more than 5,000 wounded.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II ‘deeply saddened’ by Lebanon blast
AFPWednesday 05 August 2020
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II said in a message of condolence to the Lebanese president on Wednesday that she was “deeply saddened” by the huge blast in the capital Beirut that killed at least 100 people. “Prince Philip and I were deeply saddened by news. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have been injured or lost their lives, and all those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected,” said the message released by Buckingham Palace.The European Union, Russia and Gulf states are among those offering assistance to Lebanon following an explosion at a warehouse in Beirut that killed at least 100 people and injured nearly 4,000.

Macron to Visit Beirut Thursday as France Pushes Reconstruction
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 05/2020
President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Lebanon Thursday, the first world leader to visit Beirut after the port blast that wreaked destruction across the capital, as France seeks to swiftly push reconstruction in its former colony. The blast on Tuesday, blamed on an unsecured store of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port, devastated entire neighborhoods, killed over 100 and left up to 300,000 without homes. It was the latest blow to a country already reeling from an unprecedented economic crisis and political turbulence amid growing exasperation with the powerful elite across Lebanon's different confessional communities. "I will go to Beirut tomorrow to bring the Lebanese people a message of fraternity and solidarity from the French," Macron wrote on Twitter. "We will discuss the situation with the political authorities," he added. The president's Elysee Palace office said Macron will "meet all political actors", including President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab. Both sides will be hoping the visit goes more smoothly than a trip last month by France's top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian who scolded Lebanon's political elite for being too "passive" in the face of an economic crisis compounded by the outbreak. In the aftermath of that visit, Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti resigned in protest at his government's lack of crisis management.
- 'Strength to recover' -
Beirut governor Marwan Aboud told AFP the estimated cost of the damage from the explosion was between $3.0 billion and $5.0 billion. France on Wednesday sent three planes to Beirut loaded with rescuers, medical equipment and a mobile clinic. Two military planes were to leave Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris with 55 search and rescue personnel on board and 25 tonnes of medical supplies, it said. A dozen emergency personnel will also be sent to Beirut shortly "to reinforce hospitals in the Lebanese capital," said the presidency. Le Drian later said a third, private humanitarian plane would leave from Marseille in the south of France with teams of medical workers who would be "immediately operational". He said France will continue mobilising assistance as needed. "For now, it is time to ensure international solidarity" with Lebanon, he told the LCI broadcaster, adding the destruction of silos holding grain in the blast was a particular concern. "There will also be a food need that is indispensable because the grain silos themselves exploded."The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization expressed fear Wednesday that the destruction of the silos would result in critical flour shortages.
The 55 rescuers being deployed from Paris Wednesday are specialists in post-disaster rubble clearing and rescue, said the Elysee. French Prime Minister Jean Castex was to gather ministers later Wednesday responsible for coordinating aid to Beirut. "As always, France will be there to show the solidarity and friendship that it has maintained with the Lebanese people for decades," he said. Le Drian reaffirmed the message from his own Beirut trip that reforms were essential for Lebanon to move on.
"The country has the necessary strength to recover -- what is needed is that a certain number of reforms are put in place."

Israel’s Tel Aviv lights up city hall with Lebanon’s flag
AFPWednesday 05 August 2020
Lebanon’s flag was projected onto Tel Aviv’s city hall on Wednesday after the devastating Beirut blasts, in Israel’s latest gesture toward a country with which it is technically at war. “Tonight we will illuminate the city hall with the Lebanese flag,” Tel Aviv’s Mayor Ron Huldai said on Twitter. “Humanity precedes any conflict, and our hearts are with the Lebanese people in the wake of the terrible disaster that befell them,” he added. In a Tweet, Avichay Adraee, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, addressed Lebanon by saying that “the state of Israel, its people, government, and army stand with the state of Lebanon.”He added that the municipality of Tel Aviv lit up its building with the colors of the Lebanese flag, saying: “our heart is with you.”Israel’s minister for Jerusalem affairs, a member of the far-right Jewish Home party, condemned the gesture following the explosions at Beirut port that killed more than 100 people and injured thousands of others. “It is possible and necessary to provide humanitarian aid to civilians who were hurt in Lebanon, but waving an enemy flag in the heart of Tel Aviv is moral confusion,” Raffi Peretz wrote on Twitter. Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, while tensions with the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah have spiked in recent weeks. Hezbollah and Israel fought a devastating month-long conflict in 2006 in which Lebanon’s infrastructure was badly damaged. The war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers. But on Tuesday, hours after the massive explosions at Beirut’s port, right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his National Security Council had offered Lebanon aid, via the UN. Addressing Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, Netanyahu extended “condolences to the people of Lebanon,” and said Israel remained ready to offer “humanitarian assistance” to those affected. In Gaza, a Palestinian territory where the poverty rate exceeds 50 percent due at least in part to a crippling Israeli blockade, residents of Khan Yunis organized a blood drive for casualties in Beirut. Israel tightly controls everything that enters and exits the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, but local authorities in Khan Younis said they were working with the Red Cross and Red Crescent to deliver the donated blood to Lebanon.

Britain announces £5 million in aid for Beirut
The National/August 05/2020
UK offers to send search and rescue teams and medical experts to assist relief effort after massive blasts.
The UK on Wednesday announced a package of emergency relief for Lebanon following the twin explosions at Beirut Port the day before, which killed at least 135 people and injured thousands more. Britain has offered to send over expert search and rescue teams with specially trained dogs to help find those trapped under rubble and debris. It also pledged up to £5 million in emergency humanitarian funding to help people made homeless by the disaster, following a call between Hassan Diab, Prime Minister of Lebanon and Britain's foreign minister Dominic Raab. The UK has also offered enhanced support to the Lebanese Armed Forces, including tailored medical help, strategic air transport assistance, and engineering and communications support. Britain has also offered to send International Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) who could provide initial assessment and coordination with search and rescue teams. EMT offer a rapid provision of internationally accredited public health, medical and surgical teams including experts from the UK's National Health Service (NHS) and its private medical sector. “This was a devastating explosion which has caused enormous suffering and damage. The UK is a long-standing friend of Lebanon and the Lebanese people, and will stand with them in their hour of need,” Mr Raab said. International Development Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said that the world had been “shocked by the scenes of devastation and suffering” in Beirut. “My heart goes out to all those who have been affected by this tragedy and who have lost loved ones,” Ms Trevelyan said. “The UK stands ready to support the people of Lebanon in their time of need and has offered to send medics and rescue workers to treat those who have been injured.”The blast measured 4.5 on the Richter scale and was felt as far away as Cyprus, some 240 kilometres from Beirut. Before the incident, Lebanon was already experiencing a major economic crisis and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, as well as hosting over 1.5 million refugees from the war in neighbouring Syria. Nearly half of the city was damaged by the largest explosion, which Lebanon’s government blamed on 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive fertiliser, stored in an unsecured warehouse in the port. Prime Minister Hassan Diab has said he will determine within five days the exact cause of the explosions and “who was responsible”. Countries around the world have voiced their support and pledged to send aid to help repair damage estimated at between $3 billion and $5bn (Dh11bn-Dh18.4bn).

Turkey Sends Rescue and Medical Teams after Beirut Explosion
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 05/2020
Turkey said Wednesday it is sending search and rescue teams along with emergency medical personnel to aid Lebanese authorities in the aftermath of the devastating explosion that killed at least 100 people in Beirut and injured thousands.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said a field hospital was also in the works, adding that Turkey was sending humanitarian aid, medical equipment and medicine to Beirut. The dispatched teams were from Turkey's health ministry, disaster and emergency authority and the Red Crescent. Six Turkish citizens were injured in the massive explosion, including one who needed surgery, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the phone with Lebanese President Michel Auon late Tuesday and tweeted his condolences after the incident. A Turkish aid organization, Humanitarian Relief Foundation, was working in Beirut to help the injured get to hospitals. The group also tweeted it was preparing food packs for the victims."We will continue giving Lebanon all support with the hope that these difficult days will be overcome as soon as possible through solidarity and cooperation," the foreign ministry spokesman said.

U.S. Officials Say No Sign Beirut Blast was Attack
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 05/2020
Two U.S. officials said Wednesday there are no indications that the massive explosion Tuesday evening in Lebanon's capital was the result of an attack by either a nation state or proxy forces. A senior Defense Department official and a member of the U.S. intelligence community told The Associated Press that, at the moment, the explosion appears to have been caused by improper storage of explosives. Both individuals spoke Wednesday to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence briefings publicly. The senior Defense Department official told the AP that they had "no idea" what President Donald Trump was referring to when he said during a press briefing at the White House on Tuesday that the explosion "looks like a terrible attack."Trump later said that his "great generals" told him that they felt like it was an attack. Inquiries to the Pentagon on Tuesday about Trump's attack remarks were referred to the White House.

Qatar Sends Field Hospitals to Lebanon
Naharnet/August 05/2020
Qatar began flying field hospitals and medical aid to Beirut Wednesday, AFP correspondents saw, to ease pressure on Lebanon's strained medical system after the previous day's devastating explosions. Crews at Qatar's Al-Udeid airbase loaded collapsible beds, generators and burn sheets onto an Emiri Air Force C17 cargo plane, which subsequently took off for Lebanon. It was one of four due to fly from the Gulf to the Mediterranean country Wednesday. Officers estimated at least 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilogrammes) of aid would be flown on the inaugural flight, with two hospital units equipped with up to 550 beds due in Beirut by day's end. Tens of thousands of people were left homeless and thousands more crammed into Beirut's overwhelmed hospitals for treatment following Tuesday's catastrophic incident. Qatar's ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said on Tuesday that he spoke to Lebanese President Michel Aoun in the wake of the explosions at Beirut's port and offered the medical aid. Qatar was ready "to provide immediate support following the explosion at the port," he tweeted. Workers placed personal protective equipment kits on the seats of crew bound for Rafic Hariri airport in Beirut, which was already in the midst of a medical crisis amid a resurgence of coronavirus cases. "If there's news about humanitarian stuff, there's a high probability we'll be on one of the flights," said one of the pilots on the first of the aid relays to Lebanon from behind the controls of the Globemaster aircraft. Around him crew and loadmasters secured the frames that will form the field hospitals that Lebanese media reported will be erected at strategic points around the capital Beirut. Pilots at Al-Udeid, the largest airstrip in the Middle East and also the United States' biggest airbase in the region, have been involved in COVID-19 relief flights in recent months. Gas-rich Qatar has sent extensive medical aid to its allies including China and Italy throughout the coronavirus pandemic as it uses its logistical clout and deep pockets to cement diplomatic ties. Commanding officers "started calling last night, giving orders to prepare. It's not a normal flight, but it's part of the job," said a second pilot on the first flight to leave.

WHO Airlifting Medical Supplies to Lebanon
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 05/2020
The World Health Organization says it is airlifting medical supplies to Lebanon to cover up to 1,000 trauma interventions and up to 1,000 surgical interventions following the explosion in Beirut. WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said supplies airlifted from a "humanitarian hub" in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates would be used to treat burns and wounds caused by broken glass and other debris from the explosion. The airlift follows a request from the Lebanese health minister, and the supplies were expected to arrive in Lebanon later Wednesday. Jasarevic said in an email that the WHO will "stand ready to also provide other urgent support." Meanwhile, Russian emergency officials said the first plane with medical workers and equipment for a make-shift hospital had left the country and was en route to Beirut. Four more flights were due to follow in the next 24 hours with more rescuers and medical workers, as well as equipment for a coronavirus testing lab and protective gear. Some 150 Russian personnel will be deployed to Lebanon to help deal with consequences of the explosion that devastated Beirut.

Aoun Addresses Nation after Beirut Blast

Naharnet/August 05/2020
President Michel Aoun said authorities in Lebanon are determined to proceed with investigations and uncover the circumstances that caused the devastating Beirut port blast that left 80 dead and more than 3000 injured. Aoun said the High Relief Committee will assess the damages and provide the necessary assistance.He said "severe punishment measures" will be brought upon parties responsible for the blast. Turning to outside assistance, Aoun said: "We call for assistance in treating the injured and repairing the damage to the port and the capital."A blast in Beirut port on Tuesday killed at least 100 people and wounded thousands. Smoke was still rising from the port Wednesday morning. Major downtown streets were littered with debris and damaged vehicles, and building facades were blown out. Lebanese Red Cross official George Kettaneh said at least 100 people were killed and more than 4,000 were wounded, and said the toll could rise further.

Cost of damages to exceed $5 billion, Beirut governor tells Al Arabiya English
Leen Alfaisal, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud said Wednesday that it was too early to determine how much damage was caused by the explosions that ripped across Lebanon, but he said a single port would cost at least $3 billion.
"It is too early because every second we are seeing more and more things that were destroyed. But a rough estimate would be more than $5 billion," Abboud told Al Arabiya English. While speaking to Al Arabiya English, Abboud was inspecting the damages at the Port of Beirut, where 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were poorly stored, according to Lebanese officials. The blasts at the Port of Beirut devastated entire neighborhoods of the city and has killed more than 130 people and injured over 5,000. Earlier in the day, Abboud told LBCI that between 250,000 and 300,000 people were now without homes due to the explosions. Engineers and technical teams have yet to conduct an official assessment, he said, adding that damage from the blast in the port area seems to have extended over half of the city. Health Minister Hamad Hassan said a list of aid needed was compiled and sent to several countries. Countries around the world said they stood ready to help Lebanon recover from blasts.
- Al Arabiya English's Joseph Haboush contributed to this article.

Ex-PMs Call for International or Arab Investigation Committee
Naharnet/August 05/2020
Former prime ministers Saad Hariri, Najib Miqati, Fouad Saniora and Tammam Salam on Wednesday called for tasking an international or Arab investigation committee with probing Tuesday's catastrophic explosion in Beirut. "The former prime ministers extend their heartfelt condolences to the families of the martyrs, hoping that God Almighty will have mercy on their souls, heal the wounded and help all those afflicted by the terrible and unprecedented explosion that hit Beirut," they said in a statement after a Center House meeting. "The steadfast city of Beirut that has been suffering for more than four decades from endless chains of destruction and abuse is hit by a catastrophe, which could have been avoided if it was not for the absence of leadership, insight, and will," they added. "This had led earlier to a major breakdown in the confidence of the Lebanese people in the government and the presidential tenure, as well as in the trust of Arab and international communities," the ex-PM went on to say. They added that they find it necessary to ask the United Nations or the Arab League to form an international or Arab investigation committee composed of judges and investigators "who are professional and impartial to start their duties in uncovering the circumstances and causes of the catastrophe that occurred in Lebanon.""At the same time, the former Prime Ministers call on all the agencies at the port to work together to preserve the scene of the crime and to ensure that it is not tampered with," they said.

Govt. Seeks House Arrest for Officials over Beirut Blast
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 05/2020
The government on Wednesday said it wanted officials placed under house arrest over a cataclysmic Beirut blast, as it announced a two-week state of emergency in the capital. "We call on the military leadership to impose house arrest on all those who organized the storage of ammonium nitrate" at Beirut's port, Information Minister Manal Abdul Samad said, referring to the substance that sparked Tuesday's massive explosion. The blast killed more than 100 people and wounded thousands more, leading Abdul Samad to announce a two-week state of emergency with immediate effect.

STL Postpones Hariri Case Verdict after 'Tragic' Beirut Blast
Naharnet/August 05/2020
The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Wednesday announced the postponement of its verdict in the Rafik Hariri case to August 18, saying the move comes "out of respect for the countless victims" of Tuesday's Beirut blast. "The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is deeply saddened and shocked by the tragic events that shook Lebanon yesterday. The Tribunal expresses its solidarity with the Lebanese people in these difficult times," it said in a statement. "Today, the STL Trial Chamber issued a scheduling order postponing the pronouncement of the Judgment in the Ayyash et al. case, which it had scheduled for Friday 7 August 2020. This was out of respect for the countless victims of the devastating explosion that shook Beirut on 4 August, and the three-day of public mourning in Lebanon," the court added. It said the Trial Chamber will deliver the verdict on Tuesday 18 August 2020 at 11:00 AM (C.E.T). "The STL flag is flying at half-mast today to honor those who lost their lives, who were wounded and who are still missing as a result of the explosion in Beirut," the court added in its statement.

Beirut blasts leave hundreds of thousands homeless; hundreds step up to help
Abby Sewell, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Apart from the thousands of injured and more than 130 dead after Tuesday’s massive explosions at the Port of Beirut, hundreds of thousands are left without homes when many were already struggling to pay the rent.
Tuesday night, many residents in the hard-hit areas near the port could be seen wandering through glass-riddled streets lugging suitcases, some carrying household pets. Beirut’s governor, Marwan Abboud, said Wednesday that as many as 300,000 people had lost their homes in the blast. In response to the wave of displacement, hundreds of other Lebanese stepped forward, offering spare rooms, empty summer houses, and even hotel rooms free of charge. Many of those transactions were settled informally between friends, but some well-wishers have set about creating platforms on social media for people to offer and request housing. Nancy Chmayssem, who lives in Tripoli, far from the blast site, said the news of the explosion reminded her and her family of the bombings that had taken place during a period of unrest in their city a few years ago, and they felt compelled to help. The family opened their home to friends from Beirut who needed a place to stay. Then Chmayssem created an Instagram page, Open Houses Lebanon, to compile posts from do-gooders offering places to stay with locations and phone numbers. The page has drawn a massive response from locations throughout Lebanon.
“There are three apartments available in Bekaa for anyone who needs them,” she told Al Arabiya English. “My house is open to anyone who needs a place to stay. Please spread the message.”Alaa Hijab, who lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs, had a similar idea. Like Chmayssem, her own home was not damaged, but she had been watching the news of houses and apartments destroyed. She saw large numbers of people posting individual offers to help on social media but thought that a more centralized forum would be easier for people in need to navigate.
So she created an Instagram page, Shelter for Your Help, and began compiling the posts she had found as well as others that people sent to her. People began to contact her looking for houses in particular locations – one reached out today looking for a place in Koura – and she began posting those calls, hoping to match them with people willing to offer their homes. “I’ve never seen an incident that happened in Lebanon where the Lebanese people have not been helping each other – offering food, offering apartments, their own houses. This is one thing that is very special about the Lebanese people,” she told Al Arabiya English. Part of the reason for that spirit of mutual aid, she said, stems from lack of faith in the government’s will – or ability – to help. “I don’t think the government is even able to help any of these people with money, food, shelter -- I don’t think that they are capable of doing this,” she said. The housing crisis predated the port explosion. It is not only those displaced by the blast coming in search of housing, Chmayssem said, but also those rendered homeless by economic circumstances.
“There are even people contacting us who are thinking we are offering houses -- not just people who lost their homes in the explosion but people who need houses for reasons unrelated to the explosion,” she said. “There are people who don’t have a place to live and are asking us to give them a place to stay.”
Chmayssem said the idea was simple. “We are all in Lebanon one family and one hand, and alone we may not be able to do anything, but together we can make a difference,” she said.

Death toll in Beirut blasts rises to 135, around 5,000 injured: Health Minister
Leen Alfaisal & Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya EnglishWednesday 05 August 2020
The number of deaths in the Beirut blasts continues to rise with the latest figures at 135 deaths, around 5,000 wounded, Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hassan said Wednesday. "There are still tens missing," Hassan was quoted as telling a local Lebanese TV channel. Early Wednesday morning, the Red Cross said that there were 4,000 people injured and around 100 dead. “We have compiled a list of aid and sent it to several countries,” Hassan said. “We need everything to hospitalize the victims, and there is a acute shortage of everything.”Tuesday’s blast at port warehouses storing highly explosive material was the most powerful in years in Beirut, already reeling from an economic crisis and a surge in coronavirus infections. George Kettaneh told LBCI TV by telephone that the Red Cross was coordinating with the health ministry for morgues to take victims because hospitals were overwhelmed.
President Michel Aoun said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures, and he said that was “unacceptable.”He called for an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Officials did not say what caused the blaze that set off the blast. A security source and local media said it was started by welding work being carried out on a hole in the warehouse. “What we are witnessing is a huge catastrophe,” the head of Lebanon’s Red Cross George Kettani told a local broadcaster. “There are victims and casualties everywhere.”Hours after the blast, which struck shortly after 6 p.m. (1500 GMT), a fire still blazed in the port district, casting an orange glow across the night sky as helicopters hovered and ambulance sirens sounded across the capital. Thirteen hours after the blast, smoke was still billowing from the port, where a towering grain silos had been shattered. The blast revived memories of a 1975-90 civil war and its aftermath, when Lebanese endured heavy shelling, car bombings and Israeli air raids. Some residents thought an earthquake had struck. Dazed, weeping, and injured people walked through streets searching for relatives. “The blast blew me off meters away. I was in a daze and was all covered in blood. It brought back the vision of another explosion I witnessed against the US embassy in 1983,” said Huda Baroudi, a Beirut designer. Prime Minister Hassan Diab promised there would be accountability for the deadly blast at the “dangerous warehouse,” adding “those responsible will pay the price.”The US embassy in Beirut warned residents about reports of toxic gases released by the blast, urging people to stay indoors and wear masks if available.
Many still missing
“There are many people missing. People are asking the emergency department about their loved ones and it is difficult to search at night because there is no electricity,” Health Minister Hamad Hasan told Reuters. Footage of the explosion shared by residents on social media showed a column of smoke rising from the port, followed by an enormous blast, sending a white cloud and a fireball into the sky. Those filming the incident from high buildings 2 km (one mile) from the port were thrown backwards by the shock. Bleeding people were seen running and shouting for help in clouds of smoke and dust in streets littered with damaged buildings, flying debris, and wrecked cars and furniture. The explosion occurred three days before a UN-backed court is due to deliver a verdict in the trial of four suspects from the Shia Muslim group Hezbollah over a 2005 bombing which killed former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others. Hariri was killed by a huge truck bomb on the same waterfront, about 2 km (about one mile) from the port. Israeli officials said Israel, which has fought several wars with Lebanon, had nothing to do with Tuesday’s blast and said their country was ready to give humanitarian and medical assistance. Shia Iran, the main backer of Hezbollah, also offered support, as did Saudi Arabia. Cyprus said it was ready to offer medical aid. The explosion was heard throughout Cyprus, which is about 100 miles (160 km) away. At a White House briefing, US President Donald Trump indicated that the blast was a possible attack, but two US officials said initial information contradicted Trump’s view. *With agencies

European politicians urge swift crackdown on Qatar’s funding of Hezbollah: Fox News
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
European politicians are urging for an immediate crackdown on Qatar’s alleged support for terror finance and its funding of Hezbollah, according to a Fox News report after it obtained a damning dossier Qatari royalty proving weapons deliveries to Hezbollah. “A private security contractor, Jason G., penetrated Qatar’s weapons procurement business as part of an apparent sting operation. He told Fox News on Tuesday that a “member of the royal family” allegedly authorized the delivery of military hardware to the US- and EU-designated terrorist entity Hezbollah in Lebanon,” said in its report.
The dossier in question provided to and verified by Fox News showed several documents proving a direct link to a member of the Qatar royal al-Thani family with weapons devilries to Hezbollah since as early as 2017. Fox News’ report directly named Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Sulaiman al-Khulaifi, Qatar’s ambassador to Belgium and the NATO, as being involved in the terror financing accusations. Al-Khulaifi reportedly propositioned “Jason G.,” the undercover security contractor, with 750,000 euros to distract from the Qatari role in funding and sending weapons to the Lebanese Shia terrorist group Hezbollah. “[My goal was for] Qatar to stop funding extremists. [The] bad apples need to be taken out of the barrel and for [Qatar] to be part of the international community,” Jason G., using an alias to avoid retribution from Qatari authorities, was quoted by Fox News as saying. Qatar is accused of financing terror groups by the Arab Quartet of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, who cut off diplomatic relations with Doha in 2017. The latest report by Fox News corroborates an earlier report last week by Jerusalem Post in which al-Khulaifi allegedly offered a foreign consultant 750,000 euros ($879,805) to keep secret details that exposed Doha as funding Lebanon's Hezbollah, according to the , which says the consultant named al-Khulaifi in an exclusive. Al Arabiya English previously reported the allegations, first made in German newspaper Die Zeit, but the Qatari diplomat was unnamed at the time. The original report by German news outlet Die Zeit said the security consultant known as “Jason G.” has evidence that the Qatari government was aware of Qatari groups funding Hezbollah, which is designated as a terrorist organization by countries including the US and Germany. *Al Arabiya English's Tommy Hilton and Joanne Serrieh contributed to this report.

Watch: Hezbollah chief explains explosion scenario similar to Beirut blast
Leen Alfaisal, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
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Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah explained in a 2016 speech a “nuclear explosion” that could come detonate in Israel, using a description that matches Beirut blast which shook the capital on Tuesday. “The nuclear bomb I’m talking about is when a couple of our missiles falling on ammonium warehouses in Haifa’s port, which will lead to the same effect as that of a nuclear bomb,” Nasrallah said. “When the missiles fall on the warehouses, in an area with a population of 800,000, tens of thousands will die.”The video, as shared on social media, is a montage of Nasrallah’s speech followed by different shots of the Beirut blast. A huge blast at Beirut’s port devastated entire neighborhoods of the city and has killed more than 100 people and injured over 4,000, the Lebanese Red Cross said Wednesday. Initial investigations indicate years of inaction and negligence over the storage of highly explosive material in the port caused the blast, an official source familiar with the findings said.

The port of Beirut, before and after Tuesday's explosion.
Emily Judd and Omar Elkatouri, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Before and after photos of Beirut’s port released on Wednesday gave a first look at the extent of the damage in Lebanon’s capital city following Tuesday’s explosion. Aerial photos showed buildings and structures demolished and debris everywhere as the result of the blast, which is still under investigation.
Over 100 people were killed, with over 4,000 more injured, the Lebanese Red Cross reported Wednesday. Neighborhoods in the city’s central area have been devastated, with Beirut’s governor Marwan Abboud estimating the cost of damages is between $3 billion and $5 billion, according to the Lebanese National News Agency. “There are between 250,000 and 300,000 people who are now without homes,” Abboud said. The explosion registered as a 3.3. magnitude earthquake and was felt across the water in the island country of Cyprus.
The disaster occurred due to large amounts of ammonium nitrate – a highly flammable substance –stored at a “dangerous warehouse” in the port, according to Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab. “Facts about this dangerous warehouse…will be announced,” he said in remarks on Tuesday. About 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate had been stored in the warehouse, according to Diab. “I promise that this catastrophe will not go unpunished and those responsible will be held accountable,” he added. Ministerial sources told Reuters Wednesday that the Lebanese cabinet has decided all Beirut port officials who oversaw storage and security since its establishment in 2014 will be placed under house arrest. Meanwhile countries near and far have expressed solidarity, and sent monetary and medical aid to the country, which is already facing a severe coronavirus outbreak and an economic crisis.
France will send 55 security personnel, 10 emergency doctors, and six tons of medical equipment to Lebanon, according to French President Emmanuel Macron’s office. Kuwait delivered a military plane full of medical aid Wednesday morning. Russia sent five aircraft including a mobile hospital, doctors, and rescue workers to the Lebanese capital “to provide assistance and eliminate the consequences of yesterday’s massive explosion,” the country’s Ministry of Emergencies said. Australia has pledged $2 million in humanitarian aid to the country. The governments of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the UK have all expressed solidarity with Lebanon, offering support in the time of tragedy.

Beirut blast: Ammonium nitrate fertilizer behind many industrial accidents
AFP, Washington/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Ammonium nitrate, which Lebanese authorities have said was the cause of the Beirut blasts, is an odorless crystalline substance commonly used as a fertilizer that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades.
These include notably at a Texas fertilizer plant in 2013 that killed 15 and was ruled deliberate, and another at a chemical plant in Toulouse, France in 2001 that killed 31 people but was accidental. When combined with fuel oils, ammonium nitrate creates a potent explosive widely used by the construction industry, but also by insurgent groups for improvised explosives. It was also a component in the bomb behind the 1995 Oklahoma City attack. In agriculture, ammonium nitrate fertilizer is applied in granule form and quickly dissolves under moisture, allowing nitrogen – which is key to plant growth – to be released into the soil. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored for years in a Beirut portside warehouse had blown up, killing dozens of people and causing unprecedented damage to the Lebanese capital. However, under normal storage conditions and without very high heat, it is difficult to ignite ammonium nitrate, Jimmie Oxley, a chemistry professor at the University of Rhode Island, told AFP. “If you look at the video (of the Beirut explosion), you saw the black smoke, you saw the red smoke, that was an incomplete reaction,” she said.
“I am assuming that there was a small explosion that instigated the reaction of the ammonium nitrate – whether that small explosion was an accident or something on purpose I haven’t heard yet.” That’s because ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer – it intensifies combustion and allows other substances to ignite more readily, but is not itself very combustible. For these reasons, there are generally very strict rules about where it can be stored: for example, it must be kept away from fuels and sources of heat. In fact, many countries in the European Union require calcium carbonate to be added to ammonium nitrate to create calcium ammonium nitrate, which is safer. In the United States, regulations were tightened significantly after the Oklahoma City attack. Under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, for example, facilities that store more than 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms, 0.9 metric tonnes) of ammonium nitrate are subject to inspections. As per the Lebanese authorities, the warehouse contained triple that amount. Despite its dangers, Oxley said legitimate uses of ammonium nitrate in agriculture and construction has made it indispensable. “We wouldn’t have this modern world without explosives, and we wouldn’t feed the population we have today without ammonium nitrate fertilizer,” she said. “We need ammonium nitrate, we just need to pay good attention to what we’re doing with it.”

Lebanese set up websites to find loved ones missing in Beirut explosions
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Tuesday 04 August 2020
An Instagram page was set up to help identify those who went missing or were unheard from following the Beirut explosions on Tuesday. A separate website was created asking for donations to help the city recover from the catastrophic blasts. The crowdfunding has so far raised around $700,000 in donations. The Instagram page, @locatevictimsbeirut, has more than 30,000 followers, where photos of those missing and contact information for their loved ones are being posted. Multiple explosions ripped across Downtown Beirut on Tuesday. At least 60 people have died and more than 3,000 wounded, according to Health Minister Hamad Hassan. The country’s prime minister, Hassan Diab, said that a shipment of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate was stored in a warehouse at the Port of Beirut. It had been there for six years, Diab said, “without taking preventive measures.”

Aid offers flood in after Beirut blasts leave 100 dead, thousands injured in Lebanon
Lauren Holtmeier, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Countries around the world said they stood ready to help Lebanon recover from blasts in the Beirut port that shook the country to its core Tuesday night. Gulf and the Western nations have responded, saying they stand by Lebanon and are ready to provide assistance to the cash-strapped country that currently is in the midst of its worst economic crisis in decades. The country has faced shortages of medical supplies since mid-November as the crisis began to take hold, and Beirut's governor has estimated the damages to range between $3-5 billion. “We have compiled a list of aid and sent it to several countries,” Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hassan said. “We need everything to hospitalize the victims, and there is an acute shortage of everything.” The cause of the explosions is still unknown, but officials said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored at the port since 2014. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the explosions. The blasts caused damage to property throughout Beirut and could be felt in Cyprus, nearly 200 kilometers away. France’s President Emmanuel Macron said that aid was on the way, and that “France stands alongside Lebanon.” France will send two military planes to Lebanon with search and rescue experts, 15 tonnes of sanitary equipment and a mobile clinic equipped to treat 500 people injured in Tuesday's monster blast at Beirut port, the presidency said, AFP reported.
Saudi Arabia affirmed its full support and solidarity with the victims of the explosions that rocked Beirut. In the UAE, the Burj Khalifa lit up with a projected Lebanese flag and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted that “our hearts are with Beirut and its people.”
The UK said Wednesday it was “working urgently this morning on what we can do to help the Lebanese government with technical support and of course working with our allies to provide financial assistance,” British junior education minister Nick Gibb told BBC radio.
The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo likewise said the US was ready to assist Lebanese. Even Israel, which is technically at war with Lebanon, issued a statement offering medical and humanitarian aid. Initial speculation suggested the explosion may have been the result of an Israeli strike, but Israel denied the attack. “Following the explosion in Beirut, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, on behalf of the State of Israel, have offered the Lebanese government – via international intermediaries – medical and humanitarian aid, as well as immediate emergency assistance,” said a joint statement from the two ministries. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, said the Islamic Republic was ready to provide assistance “as always.”Lebanon has been in desperate need of foreign aid for years to save its fast-sinking economy. Where Western nations have pledged aid contingent upon reform, Iran, which backs its proxy Hezbollah, has recently offered to send aid to Lebanon. Tehran “is ready to offer medical and medicinal aid and help treat the injured and other assistance,” Rouhani wrote in a message to his Lebanese counterpart, according to the government website, AFP reported. Cyprus, a nearby island nation where the blast was also felt, said it was ready to offer medical aid. “Cyprus is ready to accept injured persons for treatment and send medical teams if required,” Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides told state broadcaster CyBC. Christodoulides said the Cypriot embassy in Beirut, which was closed at the time of the blast, was extensively damaged, Reuters reported.

'It's like a war zone without the war': Lebanese diaspora in shock after explosions devastate Beirut
The National/August 05/2020
British-Lebanese community frantically trying to help loved ones caught up in destruction. The massive explosions that tore Beirut apart were heard 240 kilometres away in Cyprus but shockwaves from the blasts travelled around the world.
The Lebanese diaspora in the UK on Tuesday watched from afar in horror as events unfolded. As authorities in Beirut counted the cost from the blasts, Father Fadi Kmeid, the head of Our Lady of Lebanon, London’s Maronite church, did the same.
Fr Kmeid called members of his congregation whose loved ones were missing or wounded. “I can't express myself in terms of what we are feeling,” he told The National, his voice trailing off as he spoke from his church in west London, which has a congregation of 1,500 families. "It’s devastation mixed with sadness, mixed with I don't know what.
“The majority of the people here left Lebanon during the time of war and these scenes bring back to them very difficult memories. It's a war zone without the war.”
Fr Kmeid said that apart from attending to the community in the UK, he was focused on getting aid to Lebanon after so much already sent to help the struggling country was destroyed at the port.
Our Lady of Lebanon has set up a fund to complement international efforts by the Lebanese Red Cross and Impact Lebanon’s disaster relief.
The crowdfunding page for Impact Lebanon’s disaster relief fund has raised £2.5 million (Dh12m/$3.2m) of its £5m goal.The organisation will be co-ordinating with Lebanese charities on how to use the money most effectively.
Hicham Felter, a British-Lebanese political strategist in London, said he sent messages to friends and loved ones immediately after the explosion to check on their safety.
Mr Felter said that while most had escaped unharmed, one friend had to be treated in hospital and given stitches.
The massive explosions that tore Beirut apart were heard 240 kilometres away in Cyprus but shockwaves from the blasts travelled around the world.
The Lebanese diaspora in the UK on Tuesday watched from afar in horror as events unfolded.
As authorities in Beirut counted the cost from the blasts, Father Fadi Kmeid, the head of Our Lady of Lebanon, London’s Maronite church, did the same.
Fr Kmeid called members of his congregation whose loved ones were missing or wounded.
“I can't express myself in terms of what we are feeling,” he told The National, his voice trailing off as he spoke from his church in west London, which has a congregation of 1,500 families.
"It’s devastation mixed with sadness, mixed with I don't know what.
“The majority of the people here left Lebanon during the time of war and these scenes bring back to them very difficult memories. It's a war zone without the war.”
Destruction inside a church in the aftermath of the massive explosion. AFP
Fr Kmeid said that apart from attending to the community in the UK, he was focused on getting aid to Lebanon after so much already sent to help the struggling country was destroyed at the port.
Our Lady of Lebanon has set up a fund to complement international efforts by the Lebanese Red Cross and Impact Lebanon’s disaster relief.
The crowdfunding page for Impact Lebanon’s disaster relief fund has raised £2.5 million (Dh12m/$3.2m) of its £5m goal.
The organisation will be co-ordinating with Lebanese charities on how to use the money most effectively.
Hicham Felter, a British-Lebanese political strategist in London, said he sent messages to friends and loved ones immediately after the explosion to check on their safety.
Mr Felter said that while most had escaped unharmed, one friend had to be treated in hospital and given stitches.
“A lot of people were very lucky to escape with minor injuries,” he said.
Mr Felter, who was the campaign director for Saad Hariri during the former Lebanese prime minister's 2018 re-election campaign, said the Beirut tragedy multiplied Lebanon’s existing problems.
“You have political crisis, economic crisis, a refugee crisis, the Covid crisis, corruption crisis and the grip of terror organisations on the country, which built a state within a state, before the shocking explosion,” he said. “It’s a perfect storm.”
The British government has pledged up to £5m in emergency funding to help the estimated 300,000 people made homeless in Beirut by the blasts.
The UK also said it offered support to the Lebanese armed forces and an emergency medical team. Queen Elizabeth II said she was “deeply saddened” by the news of the explosion. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have been injured or lost their lives, and all those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected,” she said. Hayel Khazaal, a community activist in the north of England, said he had been saddened by the events in Beirut but voiced anger over the apparent negligence that led to the explosions.
Lebanese officials have said the huge blast occurred after 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were left in a warehouse near the port for years.
“The loss of life and property that occurred yesterday was due to the corruption and gross negligence of the Lebanese governments,” Mr Khazaal said.
“We feel very sad about what happened and we will call for an international criminal investigation to uncover and hold those responsible accountable."

It’s a catastrophe, Lebanon is gone’: Survivors recount Beirut blasts
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
“It’s a catastrophe! Catastrophe in Lebanon! Lebanon is destruction! Lebanon is gone, bye!” one survivor told Al Arabiya on Tuesday after two explosions ripped through Beirut’s port. Another survivor said he blamed the “neglect” by the Lebanese government following the explosions. At least 70 people were killed Tuesday and more than 3,000 wounded in multiple explosions that rocked Downtown Beirut, Lebanon's health minister said. US President Donald Trump said he had reason to believe that the blasts were an attack. Buildings several kilometers away suffered material damage, the explosions were heard over 20 kilometers away from Beirut and residents in Cyprus said they felt the blasts. “I turned and wanted to return home and suddenly I heard an explosion. What happened, happened, and I was wounded and didn’t know anything else,” one survivor told Al Arabiya close to the site of explosions in Downtown Beirut. “I don’t want to give a specific number, but I will tell you that we have more [casualties] than our capacity. There are casualties, yes. There are critical injuries and other minor ones,” said one doctor at a hospital treating patients. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the explosions, which resulted in a giant mushroom cloud above the country. But Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were stored in the warehouse that exploded in the Port of Beirut.
*Al Arabiya English’s Joseph Haboush contributed to this report.

Watch: Debris falls on Lebanese priest, parishioners during Beirut explosions
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Debris fell on a priest and his parishioners in Beirut during the powerful explosions that erupted in the port of the Lebanese capital, according to a video of the holy mass that was being livestreamed online. The exact location and fate of the people seen in the video shared by Alhurra correspondent Steven Nabil have not yet been known. A huge blast in port warehouses near central Beirut storing highly explosive material killed 78 people, injured nearly 4,000, and sent shockwaves that shattered windows, smashed masonry, and shook the ground across the Lebanese capital. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise further after Tuesday’s blast as emergency workers dug through rubble to rescue people and remove the dead. It was the most powerful explosion in years to hit Beirut, which is already reeling from an economic crisis and a surge in coronavirus infections. President Michel Aoun said that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures and said it was “unacceptable.”He called for an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday and said a two-week state of emergency should be declared. (With Reuters)

Beirut blasts: Lebanese MP Marwan Hamadeh resigns, says ‘government ineffective’
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Lebanese MP Marwan Hamadeh resigned from parliament during a live interview on Al Arabiya, saying that he no longer felt honored to be part of an “ineffective government” following the deadly explosions that erupted in the port of Beirut. “Tonight, I’ve taken with full independence the decision to resign from the House of Representatives, because I am no longer honored to be a member of institutions that watch the country’s devastation with a total bias that it destroyed and impoverished in front of the world, under an ineffective presidency, a government that is a monster that is only a mix of opposition and elite parties,” Hamadeh told Al Arabiya. Hamadeh, a former journalist turned politician, previously survived an assassination attempt in 2004 when a car bomb explosion injured him and killed one of his bodyguards. He is a member of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party led by Walid Jumblatt.

Millers fear for Lebanon’s food security after Beirut explosion
Jacob Boswall, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Tuesday’s explosion in the port of Beirut may have long-lasting impacts on Lebanon’s precarious food security, wheat importers fear. The blast, which killed dozens and injured hundreds on Tuesday, appeared to have significantly damaged Lebanon’s national wheat silos, situated in the port.
The silo contains essential grain reserves including wheat, corn, and barely. Lebanon, which imports up to 80 percent of its food needs, is particularly reliant on imported soft wheat to make Arabic flatbread, a national staple. But more concerning than the damaged goods is Lebanon’s ability to continue importing essentials such as wheat. Only 16.9 percent of Lebanon’s wheat supply is grown locally, making Beirut’s largest port an important lifeline for the country. The blast damaged two vessels offloading wheat at the time of the explosion, in addition to port machinery for discharging goods, and machinery within the silos.
Ahmad Hoteit, President of the Syndicate of Lebanese Food Industries, worries that slowed wheat imports will pose serious problems for a government already struggling to feed its population. By early 2020, around half of Lebanese people struggled to buy basic food essentials due to the plummeting economy.
Bread is one of the few food items which has not increased in price during recent currency inflation. This is thanks to government subsidies to keep this essential item affordable – but this relies on the steady inflow of wheat from abroad.
“It will be difficult if we have a wheat import shortage. We don’t know if the port can continue to function,” Hoteit told Al Arabiya English. While the extent of the damage to the silo’s grain reserves is still unclear, it is likely that the estimated 15,000 tonnes of wheat stored in the silos will be unfit for consumption after the explosion. The blast was caused by a fire in an area containing highly explosive material, such as Sodium nitrate, according to Lebanon's Head of General Security. The presence of Sodium nitrate will render the silo’s remaining wheat unusable, Hoteit added.
A full examination of the silo’s contents and the impact of toxic chemicals will be carried out on Wednesday morning, according to Hoteit. The silo’s manager Assaad Haddad could not be reached for comment. The nearby Bakalian Flour Mills, located near the port, was also impacted by the blast. “The mill is not really ok but we will deal with it tomorrow,” Patricia Bakalian, chief executive officer of the mill told Al Arabiya English. Bakalian herself is currently recovering from the blast, after being caught “very close to the fire” at the time of the explosion. Mill owners will convene on Wednesday to assess the damage to their equipment and stocks, according to Bakalian, who was unable to comment on the extent of the damage to her mill.

Cost of damages to exceed $5 billion, Beirut governor tells Al Arabiya English
Leen Alfaisal, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday 05 August 2020
Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud said Wednesday that it was too early to determine how much damage was caused by the explosions that ripped across Lebanon, but he said a single port would cost at least $3 billion. "It is too early because every second we are seeing more and more things that were destroyed. But a rough estimate would be more than $5 billion," Abboud told Al Arabiya English. While speaking to Al Arabiya English, Abboud was inspecting the damages at the Port of Beirut, where 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were poorly stored, according to Lebanese officials. The blasts at the Port of Beirut devastated entire neighborhoods of the city and has killed more than 130 people and injured over 5,000. Earlier in the day, Abboud told LBCI that between 250,000 and 300,000 people were now without homes due to the explosions. Engineers and technical teams have yet to conduct an official assessment, he said, adding that damage from the blast in the port area seems to have extended over half of the city. Health Minister Hamad Hassan said a list of aid needed was compiled and sent to several countries. Countries around the world said they stood ready to help Lebanon recover from blasts.
- Al Arabiya English's Joseph Haboush contributed to this article.

Lebanon Is Collapsing and Urgent Reform Is Desperately Needed
Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz/FDD/August 05/2020
جوناثان شانزر ومارك دوبويتز: لبنان ينهار والإصلاح العاجل حاجة ماسة
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/89179/jonathan-schanzer-mark-dubowitz-fdd-%d8%ac%d9%88%d9%86%d8%a7%d8%ab%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%b2%d8%b1-%d9%88%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%83-%d9%88%d8%a8%d9%88%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b2-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86/
Lebanon is unraveling. Last year’s massive public protests over the government’s failure to collect trash or provide other key services now seem like minor quibbles. The COVID-19 pandemic has all but wiped out already falling remittances from the Lebanese diaspora. With its economy in a tailspin, the government missed a payment on a $1.2 billion Eurobond in March and effectively defaulted on all outstanding Eurobond obligations, including $2.7 billion in payments due in April and June.
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and others are working to assess the problem and offer solutions. But with Lebanon, it won’t be easy.
First, Lebanon has a Hezbollah problem. Hezbollah controls the health ministry and is the majority partner in the current coalition. It is designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, Canada, the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council and several Latin American countries. International donors cannot in good faith bail out a government controlled by a terrorist group that answers to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, according to both Democratic and Republican administrations.
A direct consequence of Hezbollah’s political control is that Lebanon’s financial system is rife with corruption, money laundering, drug smuggling and other illicit finance. As a result, many of Lebanon’s most important financial institutions are in the crosshairs of a lawsuit in the United States: Bartlett v. Société Générale de Banque au Liban S.A.L. (SGBL), et al. The complaint alleges that these banks provided financial services to Hezbollah and “facilitated the flow of U.S. dollar-denominated funds Hezbollah used to bankroll its operations in Iraq.” These operations killed Americans. This introduces liabilities, potentially in the form of liens on bailout funds, that the donor community cannot ignore.
Another complicating factor is that Hezbollah physically controls chunks of Lebanese territory—the Beqaa Valley, southern Lebanon and a Beirut suburb known as Dahiyeh. The group maintains a missile arsenal larger than any European country in NATO. Iran furnished Hezbollah with more than 150,000 rockets that threaten its southern neighbor, Israel. And its recent acquisition of precision-guided munitions from Iran threatens to devastate Israel’s civilian areas, prompting Jerusalem to openly consider preemptive strikes. The risk of another ruinous Lebanon war triggered by Hezbollah is an additional red flag for donors. Why finance a country that will be flattened shortly thereafter in a predictable—and avoidable—war?
There is also the question of how much cash Lebanon needs. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies commissioned a report by renowned economist James Rickards, who advised governments and banks on past bailouts, to answer this question. The new report suggests that Beirut requires a staggering $67 billion in fresh money to stabilize Lebanon’s banking sector, assuming an unofficial exchange rate of 4,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar. That does not include $22 billion in losses incurred by the central bank, Banque du Liban (BdL). Nor does it include anticipated net losses of $4.2 billion or more from the defaulted Eurobonds. The total cost of a bailout would thus exceed $93 billion. But even that is probably a lowball, as the real exchange rate is ticking far higher, according to recent reports.
Lebanon’s nearly $100 billion hole doesn’t even include public infrastructure and other needs. For context, the IMF’s largest-ever bailout was $57 billion for Argentina in 2018.
How did Lebanon accrue this mountain of debt? A Ponzi scheme. Banks took foreign currency deposits from Lebanese customers at home and the Lebanese diaspora, including from Hezbollah’s drug smuggling and other illicit operations. The banks used these deposits to make their own deposits with the BdL. The BdL used these funds for government spending, such as imports and interest payments—all at favorable exchange rates that defied the realities of a country that generates little foreign currency and has no exports to speak of. The entire financial system, led by the BdL, assured Lebanon’s population that their dollar and pound deposits were safe, even as the system crumbled.
The Lebanese government knew what was happening. The political elite perpetuated the fraud. The government should therefore be held accountable.
There is one obvious way to do this. As Rickards notes, Lebanon possesses an astonishing 286.8 metric tons of gold. This ranks Lebanon as the 20th-largest holder of gold among countries reporting to the IMF. At $1,800 per ounce (market price as of June 30, 2020), that is approximately $16.5 billion. It’s not $93 billion, but it’s a start—particularly if coupled with genuine reform.
Where Lebanon goes from here is anyone’s guess. Under the grip of Hezbollah (and by extension, the Islamic Republic of Iran), beset with corruption and political dysfunction, saddled with staggering debt, and struggling amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, huge challenges lie ahead. A simple bailout is not the answer—even if one were feasible. An overhaul of the banks and the political system is needed. So is a crackdown on Hezbollah, its financial conduits and its smuggling operations. Anything less would be tantamount to terrorism finance and the perpetuation of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history.
For the Lebanese government, there may be one way to buy time. It’s a long shot, but one worth taking. The United States, with the support of Israel, can offer a short-term bailout for Lebanon—but only on the condition that Hezbollah agrees to remove its arsenal of precision-guided missiles from the country. Admittedly, this would not be a long-term fix. But it could help Lebanon forestall financial implosion while also helping to avert a devastating war.
*Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
*Mark Dubowitz is chief executive officer. Follow them on Twitter @JSchanzer and @mdubowitz.

Hezbollah operatives seen behind spike in drug trafficking, analysts say.
Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet/FDD/August 05/2020
جوبي واريك وسعاد مخنيت: تقرير يعري ويفضح تجارة حزب الله بالمخدرات ومسؤوليته عن شحنة من حبوب الكوبتاغون صادرتها ايطاليا يقدر ثمنها بما يزيد عن بليون دولار
Authorities in Italy recovered 84 million tablets of the amphetamine Captagon, a record haul worth an estimated $1.1 billion.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/89182/joby-warrick-and-souad-mekhennet-fdd-hezbollah-operatives-seen-behind-spike-in-drug-trafficking-analysts-say-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a8%d9%8a-%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%83-%d9%88%d8%b3%d8%b9%d8%a7%d8%af/
At first glance, the shipping trailers that arrived at the Italian port of Salerno appeared to contain only paper, rolled up on giant industrial spools as tall as a man. But when an investigator sliced into one of the rolls with an electric saw, he unleashed an avalanche of little beige pills.
Police found more caches inside other paper rolls, and by the time the search ended on July 1, customs agents had recovered 84 million tablets of the amphetamine Captagon. It was a record haul, worth an estimated $1.1 billion, and even more jarring was the suspect initially named by police as the likely source: the Islamic State.
Yet, within days, suspicions began to shift toward different Middle Eastern groups. Intelligence officials concluded that the drugs did originate in Syria, but in factories located in areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
The amphetamines departed Syria from Latakia, a coastal city with dedicated Iranian port facilities, and a known hub for smuggling operations by Tehran’s ally, Hezbollah.
Italian police learned of the shipment because they happened to be monitoring the communications of a local crime family that was supposed to pick up the drugs, the authorities in Italy said.
Whether Hezbollah was directly involved in the Italian shipment is not yet known, but investigators say the episode fits a pattern of recent drug cases in the Middle East and Europe linked to the powerful Lebanese militia.
Facing extreme financial pressures because of U.S. sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and Lebanon’s economic collapse, Hezbollah appears to be growing increasingly reliant on criminal enterprises, including drug smuggling, to finance its operations, U.S. and Middle Eastern analysts said.
Law enforcement officials have linked Hezbollah to a string of major drug seizures, in locations ranging from the empty desert along the Syria-Jordan border to urban centers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to central and southern Europe.
Many of the cases involve counterfeit Captagon, a synthetic drug that Hezbollah operatives began manufacturing more than a decade ago and has gained prominence as a moneymaker as the group’s military and financial commitments have expanded, intelligence analysts say.
U.S. sanctions are hitting Hezbollah, and the pain is showing “They have stepped up the whole business with Captagon. There is no doubt about that,” said a Middle Eastern intelligence official who closely tracks Hezbollah’s illicit enterprises.
The analyst, like several other officials interviewed, requested anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments.
“The thing is to find any way to bring money into the organization,” the official said, “and Captagon is additional income.”
In addition to last month’s historic Captagon seizure on Italy’s western coast, customs officials in several other U.S.-allied countries have confiscated multi-ton shipments of Captagon in the past year, with Hezbollah operatives identified among the suspects.
In February, police in Dubai found more than five tons of Captagon tablets in hidden compartments inside reels of industrial cable. Lesser quantities of the amphetamine, along with other illicit drugs, have been seized in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece and Jordan.
In June, a report by the European law enforcement agency Europol warned that Hezbollah operatives were believed to be “trafficking diamonds and drugs” and laundering the proceeds, using European countries as a base.
The most recent drug cases suggest a collaboration among a diverse array of actors, including Syrian business executives with ties to the Assad government as well as organized crime families, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials said.
Coordinating the logistics — and sharing the profits — are operatives from Hezbollah, with support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the officials said. Both Shiite groups have shown a growing willingness to work with partners normally regarded as enemies, including even criminal affiliates of Sunni extremist groups such as the Islamic State.
“When it comes to making money, they [Hezbollah] don’t care about sectarian differences or religious differences,” John Fernandez, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Counter-Narcoterrorism Operations Center, said in a recent briefing on Hezbollah at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “We’ve seen them working with Sunni criminals, Christian criminals — and even with Jewish crime syndicates.”
A club drug in the gulf states.
Hezbollah’s forays into the illicit drug trade date back to at least the 1990s, a few years after a loose collection of armed Lebanese Shiite factions first coalesced under the “Party of God” banner to fight Israel.
Some of the groups had historical ties to the illegal drug trade in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and the money earned from drugs became an early, and significant, contributor to the group’s income, current and former U.S. law enforcement officials say.
Some Hezbollah operatives eventually cultivated relationships with Latin American drug cartels, which became partners in elaborate networks for contraband smuggling and money-laundering schemes. Ultimately, Hezbollah’s leaders were compelled to make peace with an activity that most faithful Muslims view as immoral, said Matthew Levitt, a former FBI counterterrorism official and author of a 2013 history of Hezbollah’s external operations and financial networks.
U.S. accuses Lebanese banks of laundering money for Hezbollah “It usually started with logistics, but over time, people became more involved with money laundering and then with the narcotics themselves,” Levitt said. “That’s how Hezbollah stumbled into this.”
Hezbollah officially denies any involvement with illicit drugs, and some U.S. and European intelligence officials believe the militia is mainly a passive beneficiary of a drug trade conducted by Lebanese operatives only loosely affiliated with the group.
But FBI records show that, as early as the mid-1990s, Hezbollah’s top spiritual advisers were quietly condoning drug dealing, telling members that narcotics trafficking was “morally acceptable if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of a war against the enemies of Islam,” according to a declassified 1994 report.
An interactive database unveiled by Levitt on Monday includes hundreds of government documents and court records linking Hezbollah operatives to drug smuggling, money laundering and other criminal enterprises in dozens of countries around the world, while also charting terrorist attacks financed by such illicit proceeds. Some of the activity clearly is “bottom-up” — initiated by low-ranking individuals seeking personal gain — but all of it is “very much encouraged by people at the top,” Levitt said.
“At the end of the day, it is a distinction without a difference,” he said, “because Hezbollah is knowingly and wittingly accepting tens of millions of dollars from the proceeds” of the illicit drug trade.
Among the varieties of drugs associated with Hezbollah, Captagon is a relative newcomer, one that is linked to a previous episode of maximum stress for the group.
After Hezbollah suffered heavy losses in its 2006 war with Israel, Iran supplied its militant allies with pharmaceutical equipment needed to manufacture counterfeit Captagon, current and former U.S. officials say. The resulting product was a knockoff version of a stimulant that was once used legally to treat depression and other psychological disorders.
The drug, also known by its generic name fenethylline, was sold under the brand name Captagon until the early 1980s, when most countries banned it as being highly addictive. But in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah-linked factories were soon producing the counterfeit version of the drug by the ton. Then, with the start of Syria’s civil war, some manufacturing facilities moved to Syria, where they could operate without threat of interference from Lebanese or international law enforcement agencies.
The new factories are located in government-controlled coastal provinces where Hezbollah maintains a heavy presence, U.S. and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said.
“The production in Syria started when Hezbollah entered the war” in 2012, said the Middle Eastern official who tracks Hezbollah’s illicit enterprises. Now, the official said, “everyone is getting a commission, from the distributors to the high-level army officials who look the other way.”
ISIS seeks to use drug to create superhuman soldiers. The income is partially offsetting huge financial losses incurred by an organization that traditionally relied on Iranian subsidies and a mixture of legitimate and illicit business to finance its operations in Lebanon and beyond.
Hezbollah’s coffers have been drained by years of open-ended military campaigns in Syria and Yemen, and the group took a massive hit this year when Tehran announced sharp cuts in financial support.

Fireworks, ammonium nitrate likely fueled Beirut explosion
JON GAMBRELL and JOSEF FEDERMAN/Associated Press/August 05/2020
Fireworks and ammonium nitrate appear to have been the fuel that ignited a massive explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut, experts and videos of the blast suggest. The scale of the damage — from the epicenter of the explosion at the port of Beirut to the windows blown out kilometers (miles) away — resembles other blasts involving the chemical compound commonly used as an agricultural fertilizer. But the compound itself typically doesn't detonate on its own and requires another ignition source. That likely came from a fire that engulfed what initially appeared to be fireworks that were stored at the port.
Online videos of the disaster's initial moments show sparks and lights inside the smoke rising from the blaze, just prior to the massive blast. That likely indicates that fireworks were involved, said Boaz Hayoun, owner of the Tamar Group, an Israeli firm that works closely with the Israeli government on safety and certification issues involving explosives. “Before the big explosion, you can see in the center of the fire, you can see sparks, you can hear sounds like popcorn and you can hear whistles," Hayoun told The Associated Press. "This is very specific behavior of fireworks, the visuals, the sounds and the transformation from a slow burn to a massive explosion.”
Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, offered a similar assessment. “It looks like an accident,” Lewis told the AP. “First, there was a fire preceding the explosion, which is not an attack. And some of the videos show munitions what I could call popcorning, exploding like ’pop, pop, pop, pop.’”He added that “it’s very common to see fires detonate explosives."“If you have a fire raging next to something explosive, and you don’t put it out, it blows up," he said.
The white cloud that accompanied the massive blast appeared to be a condensation cloud, often common in massive explosions in humid conditions that can follow the shock waves of an explosion, Lewis said. Orange clouds also followed the blast, likely from toxic nitrogen dioxide gas that's released after an explosion involving nitrates.
Experts typically determine the power of the blast by measuring the crater left behind, which appeared massive in aerial footage shot on Wednesday morning by the AP. The Beirut blast, based on the crater and glass windows being blown out a distance away, exploded with the force equivalent to detonating at least 2.2 kilotons of TNT, said Sim Tack, an analyst and weapons expert at the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor. What initially started the fire at the port remains unclear. Beirut was sunny before Tuesday's explosion, with a daily high of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).
Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi, in comments to a local TV station, made no mention of ignited fireworks but said it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. That amount could cause the explosive force seen in the blast Tuesday, Tack said.
Based on the timeline and the size of the cargo, that ship could be the MV Rhosus. The ship was initially seized in Beirut in 2013 when it entered the port due to technical problems, according to lawyers involved in the case. It came from the nation of Georgia, and had been bound for Mozambique.
“Owing to the risks associated with retaining the ammonium nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port’s warehouses," the lawyers wrote in a 2015 article published by shiparrested.com. “The vessel and cargo remain to date in port awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal.”
It remains unclear what conditions the ammonium nitrate had been stored in — or why tons of an explosive chemical compound had been left there for years. Lebanon already was on the brink of collapse amid a severe economic crisis that has ignited mass protests in recent months.
The devastation surrounding the port resembled other ammonium nitrate explosions, such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and a 1947 ship explosion that struck Texas City, Texas. It also is unclear what conditions a possible shipment of fireworks at the port had been stored in. Fireworks are very common in Lebanon, used to celebrate religious occasions and weddings. While military explosives are generally safe to transport, common “cheap pyrotechnics” made in China are often of very low quality and can ignite very easily, especially in hot weather, said Hayoun, the Israeli explosives expert.
The “end result,” he added is that “hundreds of tons of energetic materials” were detonated to create a explosion of this magnitude.
“It started definitely with fireworks,” he said.

Apocalyptic Scenes as Blasts Ravage Beirut
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
An entire port engulfed in fire, ships ablaze at sea and crumbling buildings: the site of the massive blast in Beirut's harbor area resembled a post-nuclear landscape. Soldiers cordoned off the area, littered with glass and debris from the explosion which officials said was the result of fire catching in a warehouse where hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate were stored. A woman in her twenties stood screaming at security forces, asking about the fate of her brother, a port employee. "His name is Jad, his eyes are green," she pleaded, to no avail as security forces would not let her enter. Nearby another woman almost fainted while also asking about her brother who worked at the port. Ambulance sirens rang throughout the area as vehicles ferried the dead out for at least three hours and fire trucks rushed in and out of the blast zone. Inside the port itself, the hangars looked like charred cans, everything destroyed beyond recognition as fire-fighting helicopters flew overhead, dumping water. Abandoned luggage was strewn across the area. Next to one untouched bag lay an unattended corpse. Every parked vehicle within a radius of several hundred meters sustained damage from blast, so big that it was felt in Cyprus, 240 kilometers (150 miles) away.
'Corpses everywhere'
The cars closest to the site of the explosion were reduced to scrapyard metal, their wailing alarms and flashing lights adding to the chaos.Exhausted firemen were rushing to the scene, some searching for colleagues sent in earlier to put out the initial fire that was raging before the bigger explosion shook the city. With the help of the security forces, civil defense teams scoured the area for corpses, as officers screamed at reporters who were trying to document the disaster. "What are you taking pictures of? There are corpses everywhere," said one of them. The confirmed death toll stood at 73 at 2:00 am but with more than 3,000 wounded and hospitals struggling to cope, a much higher final count seemed inevitable. Members of the security forces broke down in tears when one of their colleagues was brought to them dead on a stretcher. A fellow police officer pulled out a picture of the deceased with his fiancée, as his comrades wept.

'Don't know what to do'
A ship anchored off the port was ablaze from the mushroom of fire, causing panic among the authorities fearing the fuel onboard would trigger another tragedy. Sitting on a sidewalk near the site of the blast, at least 10 crew members of two cargo ships damaged in the explosion were waiting to be treated by medics. "The ship is sinking in the water, the explosion caused an opening in it, and there are serious injuries on board," said an Egyptian member of the crew of one of the ships, Mero Star. "We heard firecrackers and we saw smoke coming out of a warehouse ... and after a few minutes the explosion happened," said another crew member, who asked not be named. Syrian and Egyptian crew had arrived at the port on Tuesday on board a ship carrying cargo from Ukraine, and many were planning to head back home on Tuesday. "From the day we set sail six months ago, we had been looking forward to this day of homecoming," said one Syrian seafarer. Another Egyptian crew member said he was planning to go back home on Wednesday after months at sea.
"But I will not be able to," he told AFP. "I don't know what to do."
 

Lebanese Survey Devastation after Massive Beirut Explosion
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Residents of Beirut awoke to a scene of utter devastation on Wednesday, a day after a massive explosion at the port sent shockwaves across the Lebanese capital, killing dozens of people and wounding thousands. Smoke was still rising from the port, where a towering grain silos had been shattered. Major downtown streets were littered with debris and damaged vehicles, and building facades were blown out. At hospitals across the city people had been waiting all night for news of loved ones who had gone missing or were wounded. Others posted requests for help online.
The Lebanese Red Cross said Tuesday that at least 100 people were killed and 3,000 wounded, with the toll likely to rise as more bodies are being pulled from the rubble. It was unclear what caused the blast, which appeared to have been triggered by a fire and struck with the force of an earthquake. It was the most powerful explosion ever seen in the city, which was on the frontlines of the 1975-1990 civil war and has endured conflicts with neighboring Israel and periodic bombings and terror attacks. “L’Apocalypse,” read the front page of Lebanon’s French L’Orient Le Jour newspaper. Another paper, al-Akhbar, had a photo of a destroyed port with the words: “The Great Collapse.”Lebanon was already on the brink of collapse amid a severe economic crisis that has ignited mass protests in recent months. Its hospitals are confronting a surge in coronavirus cases, and there were concerns the virus could spread further as people flooded into hospitals. Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi told a local TV station that it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014.
Witnesses reported seeing an orange cloud like that which appears when toxic nitrogen dioxide gas is released after an explosion involving nitrates.
Videos showed what looked like a fire erupting nearby just before, and local TV stations reported that a fireworks warehouse was involved. The fire appeared to spread to a nearby building, triggering the explosion, sending up a mushroom cloud and generating a shockwave.
“It was a real horror show. I haven’t seen anything like that since the days of the (civil) war,” said Marwan Ramadan, who was about 500 meters (yards) from the port and was knocked off his feet by the force of the explosion.
The blast destroyed numerous apartment buildings, potentially leaving large numbers of people homeless at a time when many Lebanese have lost their jobs and seen their savings evaporate because of a currency crisis. The explosion also raises concerns about how Lebanon will continue to import nearly all of its vital goods with its main port devastated. There is also the issue of food security in Lebanon, already hosting over 1 million Syrians amid that country’s yearslong war. The port's major grain silo is run by the Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade. Drone footage shot Wednesday by The Associated Press showed that blast tore open those grain silos, dumping their contents into the debris and earth thrown up by the blast. Some 80% of Lebanon’s wheat supply is imported, according to the US Agriculture Department. Estimates suggest some 85% of the country’s grain was stored at the now-destroyed silos. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency quoted the Raoul Nehme, the minister of economy and trade, as saying that all the wheat stored at the facility had been “contaminated” and couldn’t be used. However, he insisted Lebanon had enough wheat for its immediate needs.
Nehme said Lebanon also would import more wheat for its needs. The nation's economic crisis is rooted in decades of systemic corruption and poor governance by the political class that has ruled the country since the end of the civil war. Lebanese have held mass protests calling for sweeping political change since last autumn but few of their demands have been met as the economic situation has steadily worsened.

Beirut’s Mar Mikhael Street Resonates Death
Beirut - Thaer Abbas/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Lebanon’s most famous bustling street has turned into a ghost town. Soon after Monday’s massive explosion at Beirut Port, the parallel Mar Mikhael Street, always described as vibrant and full of life, looked like a rebellious spirit refusing to leave a dead body. People were seen running in every direction, looking for their loved ones, who went missing in the rubble, or trying to grab what was left of their houses and belongings. Screams of the wounded, who were loaded onto passing cars and trucks, merged with ambulance sirens to compose the saddest hymn of agony.
The street was known for its many nightclubs and venues and a large number of famous restaurants. It was already suffering from the worst economic crisis that hit Lebanon in its modern history, then the coronavirus pandemic came to add salt to the injury. The explosion put the final nail in the coffin of a beautiful neighborhood. Along the street, glass buildings completely collapsed, leaving behind metal skeletons with some furniture tangled or covering smashed vehicles. One of the passers-by was talking to a friend over the phone, telling him: “I saw the horrors of war... but this is way harsher.”Photos of missing persons were all over TV screens and social media. Most of them are employees at Beirut Port, as well as citizens who were in the area surrounding the site of the explosion. Some witnesses spoke about casualties lost in the sea. The scale of the explosion was colossal. The ground shook for a few seconds, followed by a large blast that shattered the windows of many buildings, all the way to the outskirts of Beirut, such as Baabda and Hazmieh, which are located at the other end of the capital. Al-Hamra area, which is relatively far from the site of the incident, sustained heavy destruction. Its shops were severely damaged by the blast that blew up most of the buildings’ windows, including the façades of the American University Hospital in Beirut. The sound of the explosion resonated in the island of Cyprus. The Jordanian Seismological Center recorded the tremor measuring 4 degrees on the Richter scale. According to unconfirmed reports, there were about two and a half tons of stored ammonium that exploded as some workers attempted to repair a small window, in order to avoid theft.

Initial Investigations Point to Negligence as Cause of Beirut Blast
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Initial investigations indicate years of inaction and negligence over the storage of highly explosive material in Beirut port caused the blast that killed over 100 people on Tuesday, an official source familiar with the findings said.The prime minister and presidency said on Tuesday that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures. “It is negligence,” the official source told Reuters, adding that the storage safety issue had been before several committees and judges and “nothing was done” to issue an order to remove or dispose of the highly combustible material. The source said a fire had started at warehouse 9 of the port and spread to warehouse 12, where the ammonium nitrate was stored. Tuesday’s explosion was the most powerful ever suffered by Beirut, a city that is still scarred by civil war three decades ago and reeling from a deep financial crisis rooted in decades of corruption and economic mismanagement. Badri Daher, Director General of Lebanese Customs, told broadcaster LBCI on Wednesday that customs had sent six documents to the judiciary warning that the material posed a danger.
“We requested that it be re-exported but that did not happen. We leave it to the experts and those concerned to determine why,” Daher said. Another source close to a port employee said a team that inspected the ammonium nitrate six months ago warned that if it was not moved it would “blow up all of Beirut”.
According to two documents seen by Reuters, Lebanese Customs had asked the judiciary in 2016 and 2017 to ask the “concerned maritime agency” to re-export or approve the sale of the ammonium nitrate, removed from the cargo vessel, Rhosus, and deposited in warehouse 12, to ensure port safety.
One of the documents cited similar requests in 2014 and 2015. “A local and international investigation needs to be conducted into the incident, given the scale and the circumstances under which these goods were brought into the ports,” said Ghassan Hasbani, former deputy prime minister and a member of the Lebanese Forces party. Shiparrested.com, an industry network dealing with legal cases, had said in a 2015 report that the Rhosus, sailing under a Moldovan flag, docked in Beirut in September 2013 when it had technical problems while sailing from Georgia to Mozambique with 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate.
It said that, upon inspection, the vessel was forbidden from sailing and shortly afterwards it was abandoned by its owners, leading to various creditors coming forward with legal claims. “Owing to the risks associated with retaining the ammonium nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port’s warehouses,” it added.

Lebanon Has Less than a Month's Reserves of Grain
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Lebanon's main grain silo at Beirut port was destroyed in a blast along with the wheat inside, leaving the nation with less than a month's reserves of the grain although other vessels with supplies are on the way, the economy minister said on Wednesday.
Raoul Nehme told Reuters a day after Tuesday's devastating blast that Lebanon needed reserves for at least three months to ensure food security and was looking at other storage areas. He said reserves now stood at "a bit less than a month".
The explosion was the most powerful ever to rip through Beirut, leaving the port district a wreck of mangled masonry and disabling the main entry port for imports to feed a nation of more than 6 million people. The Beirut silo was capable of holding 120,000 tonnes of grain, said Ahmed Tamer, the director of the port of Tripoli, Lebanon's second biggest city. The port in Tripoli, Lebanon's second biggest port, is not equipped with grain storage facilities but wheat could be transferred to warehouses 2 km (about one mile) away, he said. At the time of the blast, the Beirut silo held no more than 15,000 tonnes of wheat as some millers had unloaded cargoes directly because of a delay in issuing letters of credit for payment, Ahmed Hattit, the head of the wheat importers union, told the local Al-Akhbar newspaper. Hattit said existing reserves of flour were sufficient to cover market needs for a month and a half and said there were four ships carrying cargoes totalling 28,000 tonnes of wheat that had not docked at the port yet. Lebanon is trying to immediately transfer four vessels carrying 25,000 tonnes of flour to the port in Tripoli, an economy ministry official said, Reuters reported.

Fireworks, Ammonium Nitrate Likely Fueled Beirut Explosion
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Fireworks and ammonium nitrate appear to have been the fuel that ignited a massive explosion that rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut, experts and videos of the blast suggest. The scale of the damage — from the epicenter of the explosion at the port of Beirut to the windows blown out kilometers (miles) away — resembles other blasts involving the chemical compound commonly used as an agricultural fertilizer. But the compound itself typically doesn't detonate on its own and requires another ignition source. That likely came from a fire that engulfed what initially appeared to be fireworks that were stored at the port.
Online videos of the disaster's initial moments show sparks and lights inside the smoke rising from the blaze, just prior to the massive blast. That likely indicates that fireworks were involved, said Boaz Hayoun, owner of the Tamar Group, an Israeli firm that works closely with the Israeli government on safety and certification issues involving explosives. “Before the big explosion, you can see in the center of the fire, you can see sparks, you can hear sounds like popcorn and you can hear whistles," Hayoun told The Associated Press. "This is very specific behavior of fireworks, the visuals, the sounds and the transformation from a slow burn to a massive explosion.”Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, offered a similar assessment. “It looks like an accident,” Lewis told the AP. “First, there was a fire preceding the explosion, which is not an attack. And some of the videos show munitions what I could call popcorning, exploding like ’pop, pop, pop, pop.’”He added that “it’s very common to see fires detonate explosives."
“If you have a fire raging next to something explosive, and you don’t put it out, it blows up," he said. The white cloud that accompanied the massive blast appeared to be a condensation cloud, often common in massive explosions in humid conditions that can follow the shockwaves of an explosion, Lewis said.
Orange clouds also followed the blast, likely from toxic nitrogen dioxide gas that's released after an explosion involving nitrates. Experts should be able to determine the power of the blast by measuring the crater left behind, which appeared massive in aerial footage shot on Wednesday morning by the AP.
What initially started the fire at the port remains unclear. Beirut was sunny before Tuesday's explosion, with a daily high of 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi, in comments to a local TV station, made no mention of ignited fireworks but said it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. Based on the timeline and the size of the cargo, that ship could be the MV Rhosus. The ship was initially seized in Beirut in 2013 when it entered the port due to technical problems, according to lawyers involved in the case. It came from the nation of Georgia, and had been bound for Mozambique. “Owing to the risks associated with retaining the ammonium nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port’s warehouses," the lawyers wrote in a 2015 article published by shiparrested.com. “The vessel and cargo remain to date in port awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal.” It remains unclear what conditions the ammonium nitrate had been stored in — or why tons of an explosive chemical compound had been left there for years. Lebanon already was on the brink of collapse amid a severe economic crisis that has ignited mass protests in recent months. The devastation surrounding the port resembled other ammonium nitrate explosions, such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and a 1947 ship explosion that struck Texas City, Texas. It is also unclear what conditions a possible shipment of fireworks at the port had been stored in. Fireworks are very common in Lebanon, used to celebrate religious occasions and weddings. While military explosives are generally safe to transport, common “cheap pyrotechnics” made in China are often of very low quality and can ignite very easily, especially in hot weather, said Hayoun. The “end result,” he added is that “hundreds of tons of energetic materials” were detonated to create an explosion of this magnitude. “It started definitely with fireworks,” he said.
 

Deadly explosion in Lebanon: Premier Kenney
August 04/2020
Premier Jason Kenney issued the following statement regarding the deadly explosion in Beirut, Lebanon:
“As Albertans, we are saddened to hear about the massive deadly explosion that occurred today in the port area of Beirut, Lebanon.
“While we do not yet know the exact cause of the explosion, we know that the effect of the blast has been devastating. The death toll, already in the dozens, seems destined to rise over the next few days. There are thousands injured, and we fear their number will grow as well.
“Alberta shares a great friendship with Lebanon. Our province has been home to people of Lebanese heritage for more than a century, and they have played an important part in building today’s Alberta.
“We offer our heartfelt condolences to those who have lost their lives and those left to mourn, and our sympathy to the injured.
“To the many Albertans who have family living in Lebanon, we join you in hope that your loved ones are safe. We offer you our thoughts, our prayers and our love.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 05-06/2020

10 Kuwaiti MPs File No-Confidence Motion Against Finance Minister
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Ten Kuwaiti lawmakers on Tuesday filed a no-confidence motion against Finance Minister Barak al-Shitan. According to Kuwait’s Parliament Speaker Marzouq al-Ghanim, the request came after the parliament discussed in its regular session motion filed by MP Riyadh al-Adsani. Adsani grilled the minister for the second time in a few weeks over almost the same issues and this time accused the minister of attempting to overburden citizens with additional charges. It includes three axes, the first of which is related to the 2020 economic document, the Public Institution for Social Security, as well as financial issues and misleading of public opinion. Ghanim said that the parliament “may not issue its decision in this regard before seven days of the submission date,” in accordance with article 102 of the constitution and article 144 of the National Assembly’s regulations. Voting on the request will take place in a special session on Wednesday, he added. Ghanim further explained that Article 101 states that “every minister should live up to the responsibilities and duties of their positions, and if the parliament loses confidence in any of the ministers, then they should step down immediately.”
The no-confidence motion can only go through if approved by an “overwhelming majority,” amid a voting process in parliament, one that ministers are barred from taking part, he noted. The 10 MPs are Rakan al-Nasef, Omar al-Tabtabaei, Mubarak al-Hajraf, Ahmad al-Fadhl, Safa al-Hashem and Khalil al-Saleh, as well as Khaled al-Shatti, Salah Khorshed, Saleh Ashour, and Adasani.

Iran Executes Man Convicted for Killing Guards Soldier in 2017 Unrest
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
Authorities on Wednesday executed an Iranian for killing an elite soldier during anti-government unrest in 2017, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said, drawing condemnation from a rights group. Mostafa Salehi, one of several men sentenced to death for their roles in anti-government protests in recent months, was convicted of shooting Sajjad Shah-Sanai, a member of the Revolutionary Guards. His execution was carried out as a retribution sentence demanded by the victim’s parents, ISNA said. The unrest of late 2017 and early 2018 began as demonstrations against economic hardship that spread across the country, triggering violence that killed 21 people and led to thousands of arrests, according to officials. The economy is again in freefall, crippled by US sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, and activists say the death sentences against Salehi and others are aimed at intimidating future protesters. Iran’s clerical rulers have denied this. “The silence of the international community about the execution of Salehi can be considered a green light for more executions,” said Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group, in a statement. In July, the judiciary suspended the executions of three other men linked to anti-government protests last November, after the hashtag “Don’t execute” was tweeted millions of times in Iran’s Farsi language by Iranians inside and outside the country. Salehi was executed in Isfahan “at the request of (Shah-Sanai’s) parents,” ISNA said, quoting a statement from the province’s justice department. Under Iranian religious law, the family of a victim of murder and some other crimes can demand the death of the guilty party, or commute the sentence in return for financial compensation. Iranian officials have accused arch-foe the United States and government opponents living in exile of fomenting unrest. In June, Iran’s judiciary said it had sentenced to death Ruhollah Zam for allegedly fueling the late 2017 riots on social media.
Zam, a Paris-based journalist-turned-activist, was detained in 2019 after apparently being lured to Iraq, according to the Revolutionary Guards.

Irini Mission Team to Monitor Arms Embargo on Libya Completed
Paris- Michel Abou Najm/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
The German frigate, “Hamburg,” set sail from Wilhelmshaven in northern Germany on Tuesday. It is carrying 250 soldiers and has departed at the start of a five-month mission. It is expected to reach its Mediterranean patrol zone off the Libyan coast by mid-August and will be part of the EU Operation Irini, launched to enforce a United Nations embargo on the flow of weapons into Libya, collect data on Libya’s illegal oil exports as well as its migrant smuggling crisis. On July 17, the Rome-based Italian San Giorgio took over the mission as the flagship after being assigned by the EU.
On July 15, French Navy Dassault Falcon 50 made a surveillance mission for the first time as Irini asset. The aircraft departed from NAS Lorient and made a stop in NAS Hyeres. After a fuel stop in Sigonella AB the Falcon left the Sicilian airbase to return to its home base. By this, Irini’s mission has been completed with least 20 European countries contributing to it in one way or another. Greece, France, Germany, Luxemburg, and Poland have been deployed in Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Irini replaces the controversial Operation Sophia, set up in 2015 to fight people-smuggling across the Mediterranean.
Despite the new reinforcements, European diplomatic sources in Paris are skeptic about Irini's ability to accomplish its first mission, which is preventing the flow of arms. Sources have recalled what happened on June 10 when Turkish warships flashed their radar lights three times at the French warship Courbet in the eastern Mediterranean.Courbet was on a NATO mission to check whether a Turkish vessel was smuggling arms to Libya after it turned off its transponder, failed to identify itself and did not give its final destination. The same thing happened with a Greek frigate and probably in the same place, they noted. According to French sailors, cargo ships loaded with weapons do not reveal their true identity and claim that they are heading to Tunisian coasts, then they veer left to Misrata port to unload their cargo.
 

Amid tensions in Libya, Turkey’s hostile statements about UAE a provocation: Bahrain
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/Sunday 02 August 2020
Bahrain denounced Turkey's defense minister’s statements about the UAE and described it as “hostile” and an “unacceptable provocation,” the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. “Bahrain denounces the hostile statements of the Turkish Defense Minister, Hulusi Akar, regarding the United Arab Emirates, considering it an unacceptable provocation that contradicts diplomatic norms, and a reprehensible threat to a brotherly Arab country that is known for its constructive role in the international community,” the ministry said in a statement. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, had called Turkey to “stop intervening in Arab affairs” on Saturday. “The provocative statement of the Turkish Minister of Defense is a new low for his country's diplomacy. The Sublime Porte and colonialist illusions belong to the archives of history. Relations are not conducted with threats and intrusions, and there is no place for colonial illusions at this time. It is more appropriate for Turkey to stop interfering in Arab affairs,” Gargash said in his tweet. The UAE minister’s statement came a day after Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar claimed that the UAE was committing “malicious acts” in Libya and Syria, in statements carried by Turkish and Qatari media outlets. The UAE, along with other Arab allies, have condemned Turkey’s interference in the Libyan conflict. Libya has plunged into chaos since the 2011 toppling of dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Clashes between the two main warring parties in the country, the Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Haftar and the Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Fayez al-Serraj, have intensified recently. Many foreign powers have backed different sides of the conflict with varying degrees of support, with the most prominent countries being Turkey backing the GNA and Egypt backing the LNA.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 05-06/2020
Britain's Struggling Banks Show the UK's Economic Weakness
Elisa Martinuzzi/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
The UK’s biggest banks have come a long way since the financial crisis, when taxpayers had to rescue them to the tune of tens of billions of pounds. They’re certainly stronger, with comfortable capital buffers, as they head into what could be the worst recession in three centuries.
But with the future of the economic rebound still far from certain, they’re having to set aside huge sums of cash to cover the potential loan losses. With rock-bottom interest rates squeezing profit margins, and the terms of Brexit still not finalized, it’s little wonder investors are staying clear.
Shares in Britain’s “big four” — HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and the recently rebranded NatWest Group Plc — have all performed worse than their European peers this year. Lloyds and NatWest, the most exposed to the UK economy, have seen more than half of their market values wiped out, leaving them not far off the lows of the financial crisis. Banco Santander SA, which runs Britain's fifth-largest bank, last week wrote $7.2 billion off the value of its UK offshoot.
One reason for the investor anguish is the potential hit to lenders’ balance sheets from companies and households that won’t be able to repay their borrowings because of the Covid lockdowns. HSBC Chief Financial Officer Ewen Stevenson on Monday told Bloomberg Television that the UK is one of the weakest economies he can see globally. Analysts are expecting provisions across the four banks to total $27 billion this year, with HSBC making up more than a third of that. For perspective, they earned slightly less than $19 billion combined last year. Banks elsewhere in Europe — big lenders to small and medium-sized companies — have been making similar writedowns, but so far the UK finance industry seems to be in a worse spot.
When reporting second-quarter earnings last week, several UK lenders said the provisions reflected a slower economic rebound and higher anticipated unemployment. State-controlled NatWest now estimates that British joblessness could top 9%. That would exceed the 8.4% rate at the peak of the financial crisis. The bankers’ conservative assessments are warranted. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a think tank, unemployment will rise to almost 10% later this year once the government’s furlough scheme ends at the end of October.
UK banks are especially sensitive to the jobs market because so much of their business is consumer-based. There is a high correlation between unemployment and delinquencies across unsecured lending and credit cards, for example. Mortgages are another critical business, and analysts at Deutsche Bank AG say borrowers’ ability to repay is affected exponentially once unemployment rises past 8%. Deutsche estimates that losses at six UK lenders could reach 59 billion pounds ($77 billion) over two years if joblessness hits 10%.
The drop in interest rates will also hurt, denting revenue and margins, and putting more pressure on costs. Then there’s Brexit. The possibility of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal features in banks’ most extreme scenario planning, but it still wouldn’t be a happy event during a global pandemic. And while there was a surge in British retail sales in June, a survey of households showed consumer confidence remained weak in July even before Britain started tightening lockdowns again.
It’s a good thing capital isn’t an issue — for now. The banks expect their buffers to come under pressure, but the big four all reported an improvement in their common equity Tier 1 ratio in the second quarter, thanks in part to regulatory changes. That will help them weather the storm, but the situation is bleak.

Long Lines at Polling Places Are Deadly in a Pandemic
Faye Flam/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
In this pandemic-tainted election year, long lines at the polls have the potential to be catastrophic. The kinds of interventions used to reduce the risk of Covid-19 transmission in stores are unlikely to be helpful at polling places if people still have to wait hours to vote.
The latest studies showing how the coronavirus is transmitted put the blame on crowded, indoor environments, says Erin Bromage, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, who’s been tracking the science of the pandemic’s spread. If anyone were to catch Covid-19 from voting in November, it would most likely be picked up from waiting in a long line, indoors, with many other people.
While distance from other people matters, so does the amount of time spent in their vicinity. Asking people to stand 6 feet apart won’t help much if the wait to vote is a long one. Briefly passing someone else at a polling place is unlikely to transmit the virus, but standing in a crowded room for hours is a significant risk.There’s no way the current voting infrastructure can accommodate this pandemic, says Rebecca Mercuri, a founder of the company Notable Software and an expert on voting security. But the solution is simple: Rely on paper ballots that can be mailed in or filled out at home and delivered to designated drop-off spots. Despite President Donald Trump’s fear-mongering about mail-in ballot fraud, she says, paper ballots are less prone to tampering and malfunction than voting machines. And absentee voting and mail-in voting are the same thing, despite the president’s claims that the former is fine while the latter is vulnerable to abuse. She says the notion that absentee voting can’t be made secure is a conspiracy theory.
That doesn’t mean the system shouldn’t be made more secure. States need to work fast to ensure that paper ballots are secure and easy to obtain, fill out, and mail in or drop off.
Mercuri has long argued that machines with no paper trail can be hacked or malfunction, and that absentee forms are actually a more secure way to vote. But instead of relying on the mail, she finds out where she can turn her ballot in herself — so she’s sure it will be counted. With the pandemic, we might need more drop-off sites for these ballots, and a longer window of time for voters to submit them. We’ll also need videos and public service announcements explaining how to vote by mail, because some absentee ballots involve a complicated series of envelopes, seals and stickers to ensure nobody votes more than once, and these are not all user-friendly.
Polling places can stay open for a degree of normal, in-person voting on Election Day, as long as some creative thinking goes into avoiding indoor crowding and lines. Mask-wearing is not going to solve all the problems on its own. Masks do reduce risk, but all the same, as Bromage says, “having a snaking line through a gymnasium is a terrible idea.” Setting up outdoor tents would help prevent transmission, along with asking people to stay apart and wear masks. Polling places should also let people hand in their ballots quickly, rather than making them wait for each form to be scanned.
It will help alleviate the strain on polling places, though, if many people can vote by mail. Plus, there are lots of people who shouldn’t be going to their polling place at all, and not just because they’re older or immunocompromised. Bromage points out that many thousands of people are likely to be under quarantine on Election Day — right now, there are around 60,000 new cases a day, but provided they fall to, say, 50,000 and people observe a 14-day quarantine period, that’s 700,000 people who should not be going out to vote but who are entitled to have their votes counted. And some people will be too sick with Covid to leave the house. Which is all the more reason for every state to make paper ballots easy to get. In some states, Mercuri says, absentee voting is becoming the norm, while in others, people need a reason to obtain an absentee ballot. By now, it’s safe to say the pandemic should give us all an automatic and legitimate reason to vote remotely.What officials should be doing now is walking people through the steps of absentee or mail-in voting — not drumming up fears of fraud that will weaken the election’s legitimacy, or insisting on in-person voting that will extend the pandemic and cost more lives.

The Rich Still Want to Buy Their Ferraris
Chris Hughes/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 5 August, 2020
The business of making Ferraris is doing embarrassingly well in the pandemic.
COVID-19 has affected the production and delivery of luxury cars, but not demand from the wealthy to acquire them, as analysts have noted. The financial impact of the virus on Ferrari NV’s performance is, for now, looking like only one quarter of lost earnings. Management has handled the crisis well.
Revenue fell 42% year-on-year in the second quarter, with vehicle shipments dropping 48%, Monday’s results revealed. Production slipped after factories were closed to protect workforces, and the shuttering of dealers hampered deliveries. The company decided against taking the axe to capital expenditures and costs, choosing instead to continue paying staff and to accelerate bonuses for dealers. Hence earnings per share fell 95%, while free cash flow was negative.
Meanwhile, the order book for new cars is “as strong as ever.” The group says its customers’ morale is high. The pandemic supports private car use at all budgets, and Ferrari believes many see a purchase of one of its vehicles as a reward during a time of difficulty.
This has given Ferrari the confidence to be more precise in its guidance for the year. Underlying Ebitda, a measure of profit, is expected to be down just 13%, at around 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). Second-half Ebitda is expected to be up year-on-year, with the performance weighted toward the end of 2020.
There’s a debate about whether Ferrari’s peers are the mainstream carmakers or the luxury houses. Its strong pricing power, and skill in controlling volumes and squeezing demand to maintain cache, reinforce the argument it belongs with the latter. The second-quarter fall in sales was in line with that of Hermes International, and only slightly less severe than the drops announced by Kering SA and Richemont in their latest quarterly updates. Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy SE fared somewhat better, with a revenue drop of 38% in the second quarter.
Hence Ferrari’s luxury valuation. The company’s shares are 5% higher than when they started the year, whereas European stocks are down over 10%. On an enterprise value basis, the stock is worth 20 times next year’s estimated Ebitda. Hermes’ multiple is 25, while the rest trail on 13 at best.
Although Ferrari is demonstrating its resilience to the pandemic, it would be wrong to think the crisis brings no threats to its business. Some challenges may have yet to emerge. As governments look for ways to pay for the costs of the coronavirus, expect a raft of policies seeking to tax those who can afford a Ferrari as a pick-me-up in miserable times.

Khamenei Doesn’t Trust The Democrats
Mark Dubowitz and Alireza Nader/Radio Farda/August 05/2020
The Democratic Party’s recently released policy platform was greeted warmly by certain newspapers in Iran. Media outlets associated with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani praised the party’s rejection of “regime change” as U.S. policy. They also welcomed its proposal for a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal from which President Donald Trump withdrew in May 2018. If former Vice President Joe Biden wins in November, the Rouhani camp believes the new American administration will not only revive the nuclear deal, but also lift sanctions. This could save the Islamic Republic of Iran from economic devastation, internal rebellion, and further regional setbacks. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose hatred of America has always been bipartisan, begs to differ.
Khamenei believes the United States can never be trusted. In his eyes, Democrats who prefer “soft” power to “hard” power may be even more dangerous than hawkish Republicans. This good cop-bad cop routine fits perfectly into Khamenei’s paranoia. While Democrats preach engagement, Khamenei views American soft power as “subtle warfare” meant to undermine the “spiritual” basis of the Islamic Republic. According to a senior intelligence officer with whom we spoke and who has a long history of dealing with Iran, “Khamenei is paranoid that the ultimate American goal is to use this soft power to destroy the regime from within.” In his feverish, conspiratorial worldview, Khamenei believes that the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by “Zionists” bent on overthrowing the Islamic Republic and reversing the “victories” of the 1979 revolution.
Khamenei came to understand that further economic pain from more punishing sanctions might trigger regime-changing protests.
The more Democrats and Trump disavow regime change, the more Khamenei becomes convinced that’s exactly their goal. He understands better than American leaders the enduring appeal of America among Iran’s young and repressed population.
The supreme leader had no illusions about the 2015 nuclear deal. He did not view it as a first step in resolving more than 40 years of mutual enmity. He endorsed Rouhani’s nuclear negotiations with the Obama administration as a policy of “heroic flexibility”, which he compared to the moves of a wrestler who changes tactics “but should not forget who his rival is and what his goal is.” Following the 2009 protests, which saw millions of Iranians in the streets confronting the regime, Khamenei came to understand that further economic pain from more punishing sanctions might trigger regime-changing protests. The 2009 Green Revolution had shocked the regime and, as Khamenei acknowledged, taken it to the “edge of the cliff.” So, he compromised at the negotiating table. This flexibility was made easier by the Obama administration’s extensive nuclear concessions, which gave the Islamic Republic near-zero nuclear breakout time and easier advanced centrifuge-sneakout options, as key restrictions disappeared over time.
Today the regime’s security apparatus is better prepared for popular unrest, as demonstrated by its effective crackdowns on continual protests between 2017 and 2019. As a result of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, the Islamic Republic faces an even more severe economic crisis today than it did prior to the JCPOA. Yet Khamenei thinks his regime can survive any pressure short of American military action or a massive domestic uprising that overwhelms his security forces.
Khamenei will never trust Americans: He knows that his regime is viewed as dangerous and odious by most of the Washington political and national security establishment, with the exception of a leftist fringe. Most Democrats embrace the JCPOA not because they tolerate the regime. Instead, they believe, as former President Barack Obama said in response to the 2009 Green Revolution, in his often-repeated phrase borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr., that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” They believe more diplomatic engagement with Tehran will, over time, wear down the regime so that it must moderate or disappear. Republicans prefer greater coercion to bend the moral arc more rapidly. For Khamenei, who sees clearly through the partisan noise in Washington, American politics means he gets both devious seduction and regime-punishing pain, as successive administrations open up and crack down. The supreme leader sees both as a mortal threat.
Khamenei could have billions of dollars of Iranian oil flow freely with zero restrictions on hard currency under the Democrats for a few years.
Khamenei is in no mood for a simple “re-entry” into the JCPOA, regardless of who is elected. Under the JPCOA, a previous Democratic administration took away, at least temporarily, a chunk of his nuclear infrastructure in return for economic relief. And then Trump took away that economic relief and imposed crippling sanctions. It’s also been a horrible few years for the supreme leader: Two major internal rebellions erupted. The Israeli Mossad sabotaged key nuclear, missile, and military facilities and embarrassed Iranian security services by removing a nuclear archive from right under their noses that demonstrated the regime’s nuclear mendacity. In operations greenlighted by America and tolerated by Russia, the Israeli Air Force launched hundreds of strikes against Iranian commanders, weapons supply lines, and proxies in Syria and Iraq. And the most humiliating blow: Trump’s killing of Iran’s top battlefield commander, Qassem Soleimani, whom Khamenei considered a national hero.
And Iranian officials expect it to get worse. There’s fear of more popular insurrections like the nationwide November 2019 uprising, which shook the regime to its core. The security apparatus may be more efficient and repressive than in 2009, but a large-scale counterrevolution could overwhelm the regime’s stormtroopers. Khamenei also knows that while the Biden team has discussed a possible return to the JCPOA, meaningful sanctions relief could be ephemeral, since it will be almost unanimously opposed by Republicans. Khamenei could have billions of dollars of Iranian oil flow freely with zero restrictions on hard currency under the Democrats for a few years. That may help him avoid total economic collapse and find more money for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah, and his other murderous proxies.
Khamenei rightly fears that his regime will end up on the ash heap of history. Democrats and Republicans should be dedicated, in their own way, to helping Iranians achieve that goal.
But it’s difficult to imagine a Republican presidential candidate running in 2024 who will not support a return to a policy of maximum pressure. Many international companies and banks will be frightened to invest in Iran knowing that, four years later, a Republican president could yet again pull America out of the JCPOA and reimpose sanctions. (Ironically, since a Trump deal with Iran is more likely to be supported by Republicans and some Democrats and ratified by the Senate as a treaty, it could be more enduring than the Democratic alternative.)
Khamenei knows his days on Earth are numbered and that his legacy can be secured only by handpicking a younger, ideologically fanatical successor. Gone after 2021 will be Rouhani and possibly his mendacious but savvy foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Their successors will not be nearly as masterful at manipulating Western elites, even though some of those elites have shown a disturbing desire to be manipulated. Revealing the true face of the regime, these successors’ bellicosity and revolutionary zeal could strengthen the Washington consensus about the threat from the Islamic Republic. And the painful memories of the regime’s leadership role in the slaughter of over 500,000 people in Syria on their watch may be enough to have awakened at least some senior members of Biden’s foreign policy team to the horrendous depravity of the regime.
Khamenei rightly fears that his regime will end up on the ash heap of history. Democrats and Republicans should be dedicated, in their own way, to helping Iranians achieve that goal.
Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Alireza Nader is a senior fellow at FDD focusing on Iran and U.S. policy in the Middle East. He also researches the Islamic Republic’s systematic repression of religious freedom and currently serves on ADL’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities. Follow Mark and Alireza on Twitter @mdubowitz and @AlirezaNader.

Erdogan’s Target in Hagia Sophia Stunt was Ataturk’s Legacy
Aykan Erdemir/FDD/August 05/2020
The re-designation of this iconic building as a mosque was not just a sop to the Turkish President’s Islamist fans – but another blow at the memory of the statesman whose legacy haunts and frustrates him.
Turkey Program Senior Director
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held the first Muslim prayers since 1934 in Istanbul’s sixth-century former Byzantine church, Hagia Sophia, on July 24, marking the building’s re-conversion into a mosque.
As recently as March 2019, Turkey’s Islamist leader publicly opposed demands from his supporters to alter the status of this World Heritage Site, which Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, had transformed into a museum in 1934.
His U-turn on Hagia Sophia results in part from his need for a political stunt to boost his party’s waning popularity. More importantly, it reflects his ongoing struggle with Atatürk’s legacy, which exerts surprising influence despite Erdogan’s consolidation of power, and continues to inspire calls for a more secular and pluralistic democracy.
It is ironic that in a country of 84 million citizens, the biggest obstacle to Erdogan’s Islamist ambitions continues to come from a man who died in 1938. The enduring legacy of Atatürk, the architect of the modern secular Republic of Turkey, has so far proven unbeatable.
So much so that Erdogan, who once insulted Atatürk as a “drunk,” has since then felt the need to pay respects, albeit tactically. The ongoing battle between Turkey’s two longest-serving presidents, separated by more than seven decades, will impact not only on the prospects for secular democracy in Turkey but also in other majority Muslim polities.
For over four decades, first as a youth wing member of an Islamist party in the 1970s, then as the mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998, then as prime minister between 2003 and 2014, and finally as president since then, Erdogan has pursued his dream of dismantling Atatürk’s secular republican legacy.
On the one hand, Erdogan has overseen an ambitious social engineering project, using all instruments of the state, namely the 140,000-strong Directorate of Religious Affairs, compulsory religious education in schools, and sectarian indoctrination in state-run media, to mould what he has described as a “pious generation.”On the other hand, he has worked meticulously to erase Atatürk’s legacy, whether it is secular reforms or institutions. Erdogan has gone so far as to tear down dozens of public structures around the country, from stadiums to airports, that monumentalized Atatürk’s name.
By 2015, Erdogan’s increasing consolidation of power emboldened one of his lawmakers to declare the end of a “90-year commercial break with the 600-year [Ottoman] empire.” This was a reference to Turkey’s republican era as an interval in the Ottoman caliphate that Erdogan would presumably restore.
To the president’s disappointment, however, under his rule, the young have grown less religious and more anti-government, inflicting an embarrassing defeat on him in the 2019 municipal elections. Atatürk’s secular legacy has proven more resilient than the Islamists expected.
The transformation of Hagia Sophia into a museum in 1934 was one of the cornerstones of Atatürk’s cognitive revolution. Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II had converted what was then the world’s greatest church into a mosque after his conquest of Constantinople in 1453, as a symbol of Muslim domination of his empire. By reversing this highly symbolic act and by turning Hagia Sophia into a museum for all citizens to cherish, regardless of their faith, Atatürk challenged the sectarian hierarchies of the Ottoman era. It was also a gesture of peace and goodwill not only toward neighbouring Greece but also to other Christian nations that the Ottomans had fought for centuries.
Atatürk’s project of building a secular nation state from the ashes of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire was far from perfect. Although the principles of equal citizenship and secularism were enshrined in the constitution, ethnic and religious exclusion continued to haunt minorities.
A skewed understanding of secularism ended up guaranteeing neither freedom for nor from religion to the full extent. The Directorate of Religious Affairs, an institution devised to keep religion under government control, evolved into a sectarian instrument for not only disciplining the Sunni majority but also for dominating minorities.
For all its shortcomings, the republican modernization project set into motion colossal transformations that opened Turkey up to new ideas and practices, laying the groundwork for a robust multiparty democracy.
Despite holding its first free and fair democratic elections only in 1950 and being repeatedly haunted by coups carried out by a tutelary military that felt entitled to hold the reins, Turkey’s citizens have time and again found ways to reimpose their democratic will and take back their country. Although voters have frequently looked the other way when elected leaders trampled on fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly of the opposition and of minorities, they have continued to cherish the ballot box as the sole source of legitimacy.
Erdogan’s rise to power, despite all the challenges Turkey’s hardline secularist generals and judges hurled his way, owes much to the legacy of the parliamentary democracy that secular republican reforms set into motion.
However, the same tradition of the ballot box has since become an obstacle to his ambitions to redesign Turkey in accordance with his Islamist ambitions. The more the President’s desire to set the country on a new course meets the electorate’s pushback, the more daring some of his die-hard supporters have become.
Shortly after Hagia Sophia’s conversion into a mosque, an Islamist weekly owned by a pro-government media group called for the reinstatement of the caliphate abolished in 1924 by none other than Atatürk – reinforcing the pro-secular opposition’s accusations about Erdogan’s hidden agenda.
Although a spokesperson for the ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, was quick to deny plans to change the regime’s “democratic and secular” qualities, many saw this as one of the next steps Erdogan is poised to take, when he feels the time is right – just like his patient strategy to convert Hagia Sophia, more than 17 years into his rule.
Despite the dismal state of the Turkish economy and the waning popularity of the government, it is difficult to predict how the ongoing clash between Turkey’s pro- and anti-secular blocs will end. Although Erdogan has failed to erase Atatürk’s legacy, that legacy alone has not sufficed to articulate and build an inclusive and pluralist alternative in which all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, faith, class, gender and sexual orientation, feel at home. This was also evident in the fact that many who despise Erdogan’s Islamist designs for Turkey and the Middle East failed to articulate what was wrong from legal, political, and moral perspectives with his conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
Atatürk himself was keenly aware that he could not offer a golden age for future republicans to emulate. He warned shortly before his death: “I am leaving no sermon, no dogma, nor am I leaving as my legacy any commandment that is frozen in time or cast in stone.”
Although, from left to the right, many Turkish politicians have attempted to legitimize their positions by tracing them to the dictates of a so-called golden age, the true legacy of Atatürk has been to empower the subjects of an oppressive empire so that they can dare to challenge and hold accountable their rulers as equal citizens. This is one legacy that will prove to be the most resilient to Erdogan’s sectarian project – and has the potential to reverse his supremacist policies in future.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @aykan_erdemir.