LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 19/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.august19.19.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today
The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10/01-07/:”After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on August 18-19/2019
U.S. Delivers 150 New Armored Vehicles, Weapons, and Other Parts to Lebanon
Arslan Calls on Hariri to Stop Sending 'Overseas Messages'
Safieddine Says U.S. Action against Hizbullah Futile
Netanyahu Dismisses Nasrallah's Warning
Rahi calls for national dialogue
Kanaan: President Aoun will take political, economic measures to find solutions
Hariri hosts luncheon banquet for Pompeo
Arslan marking the '40-day memorial' of Salman and Abi Farraj: Reconciliation is a first step towards other steps
Bazzi calls for joining efforts to save Lebanon
Hashem: Favorable conditions for investing in positive climate prevailing after Baabda encounter
Abou Faour deems economic, financial issues 'top priority'
Army force raids AlMiqdad neighborhood in Ruwais

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 18-19/2019
Syria regime forces enter key town amid fierce clashes: monitor
Iran says US agreement for Syria safe zone is ‘provocative, worrisome’
Iranian ambassador says oil tanker expected to leave Gibraltar tonight
Grace 1 Tanker Raises Iranian Flag, Changes Name to 'Adrian Darya-1'
IRGC navy chief: Presence of America and Britain in the region means insecurity
Israel’s no-win, no-lose Gaza policy has too many layers to be scrapped in a hurry
Jordan summons Israel envoy over Jerusalem ‘violations’
Israel, Hamas Exchange Threats With No Intentions for Escalation
Turkish lawyer groups to boycott judicial ceremony over separation of powers
Dubai Receives 8.36M Visitors in First Half 2019
Yemen Huthi Rebels Appoint 'Ambassador' in Tehran
Algeria: Angry Protesters Storm Meeting of National Commission for Dialogue
Joy Turns to Horror as Bomber Kills 63 at Kabul Wedding
Hong Kong Protesters March in Show of 'Peaceful' Credentials after Chaos

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 18-19/2019
Israel’s no-win, no-lose Gaza policy has too many layers to be scrapped in a hurry/DEBKAfile/August 18/2019
The Extinction of Christians in the Middle East/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/August 18/2019
Germany Needs a Recession to Start Spending/Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/August 18/2019
Italy’s Economic Rot Is Europe’s Problem, Too/Tyler Cowen/Bloomberg/August 18/2019
Canadian Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson: After 40 years, I'm opening the closet door/Jim Watson/Ottawa Citizen/August 18, 2019
Iran thrusts Iraq into the line of fire/Baria Alamuddin//Arab News/August 18, 2019
UK must punish Iran for taking its citizens hostage/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 18, 2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on August 18-19/2019
U.S. Delivers 150 New Armored Vehicles, Weapons, and Other Parts to Lebanon
News Agencies/August/18/2019
The United States Government delivered 150 new armored vehicles, weapons, radios, spare parts, and other equipment to the Lebanese Armed Forces on August 14 and 17. These two shipments, valued at nearly $60 million, are a part of our ongoing, long-term commitment to Lebanon's security.
سلمت الولايات المتحدة الجيش اللبناني 150 آلية مدرعة جديدة، أسلحة، أجهزة اتصالات وقطع غيار ومعدات أخرى في 14 و17 آب. قيمة هتان الشحنتان تبلغ حوالي 60 مليون دولار وهي جزء من التزامنا طويل الأمد والمستمر بأمن لبنان.

Arslan Calls on Hariri to Stop Sending 'Overseas Messages'
Naharnet/August 18/2019
Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan on Sunday called on Prime Minister Saad Hariri to stop sending what he called “overseas messages.”“I call on PM Saad Hariri not to send us overseas messages, because the country can no longer bear them. Those who await overseas messages are the weak ones and not us,” Arslan said at a memorial service marking 40 days since the death of Rami Salman and Samer Abi Farraj -- two bodyguards of State Minister for Refugee Affairs Saleh al-Gharib who were killed in a clash with Progressive Socialist Party supporters in the Aley town of Qabrshmoun. Hariri, who is currently visiting the United States, had defended PSP leader Walid Jumblat upon his arrival in Washington. “Those who attack Walid Jumblat would be attacking me personally as well as Speaker (Nabih) Berri. This is something that we proved through what happened after the Qabrshmoun incident,” Hariri said. Commenting on the reconciliation meeting that was held with Jumblat at the Baabda Palace, Arslan said: “We support the reconciliation, but it is a long course and several terms are part of it.” “We consider it as a first step towards the other steps and we are only demanding justice without any bargains,” Arslan added. “I said (in Baabda) that we are ready to address the government’s situation on the basis of separating between the security, judicial and political tracks and what we reached in the Baabda meeting was a result of all the previous initiatives,” Arslan noted.
He added: “Our loss is huge and not an ordinary one and what happened with our precious minister was not minor and it was not a random incident.”“We don’t belong to the school of negotiating over blood,” he stressed.

Safieddine Says U.S. Action against Hizbullah Futile
Naharnet/August 18/2019
A senior Hizbullah official on Sunday stressed that all U.S. sanctions and actions against his group are futile. “All the U.S. talk we are hearing here and there has no value… and all their sanctions, threats and campaigns will not change any of the facts on the ground,” the head of Hizbullah’s executive council Sayyed Hashem Safieddine said. “Some Lebanese have not realized that this resistance is a blessing and that it is a strength, a guarantee and a safety net for entire Lebanon,” he added. “Some countries spend large amounts of money to gain a position in the local, regional or international equation, and the resistance has taken Lebanon to security, safety, strength, potency and a special position at the level of the entire region,” Safieddine went on to say. Addressing some Lebanese parties, the Hizbullah official added: “Why don’t you realize the importance of this position and why are some seeking to waste it. They are either ignorant or envious or they act at the instructions of their foreign handlers.”“All Lebanese must deal with this resistance as a blessing and a guarantee for their future, present and sons,” Safieddine went on to say.

Netanyahu Dismisses Nasrallah's Warning
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was "unimpressed" by a speech from Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in which the Lebanese group's leader warned of his movement's military strength. Nasrallah spoke in a TV broadcast Friday marking the anniversary of a 2006 war between Hizbullah and Israel. A month of fighting killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. Nasrallah said that the 2006 war had helped Hizbullah develop "a military system to defend our villages, towns and cities.""If (Israel) enters southern Lebanon... you will see a live broadcast of the destruction of Israeli brigades," he warned. Netanyahu responded saying, "We are not impressed by Nasrallah's threats." "He knows very well why he broadcasts them from the depths of his bunker," he said in a statement on WhatsApp. Nasrallah is rarely seen in public. In a 2014 interview with Lebanon's al-Akhbar newspaper, he said that he regularly switched sleeping places, particularly since the 2006 war, but denied that he lived in hiding. "I don't live in a bunker," he said. "The point of security measures is that movement be kept secret, but that doesn't stop me from moving around and seeing what is happening."

Rahi calls for national dialogue
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, called on all Lebanese sides to resume national dialogue to break the deadlock and solve all pending matters. Speaking during Sunday Mass in Dimane, the Patriarch pointed out that this crisis was caused by the way of governance and management in the country, criticizing high-pitched speeches in the media. Rahi said that controlling the border crossings, such as the airport, port and others, "is a fundamental commitment in the process of economic and financial recovery."In this context, he expressed hope that the government will succeed in implementing the economic and social plan, which was set last week at the Baabda meeting.

Kanaan: President Aoun will take political, economic measures to find solutions
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
MP Ibrahim Kanaan said on Sunday that President Michel Aoun will soon take political and economic measures to pave the way for solutions to the current crisis. In an interview with VDL Radio Station, Kanaan explained that "landfills are not the best solution to the waste crisis," noting that the government should implement its decisions on building factories and release overdue payments to municipalities in this respect.

Hariri hosts luncheon banquet for Pompeo
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his wife, Lara, received yesterday at their ranch near Washington DC, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife for a luncheon banquet. The luncheon was attended by the sons of Hariri, Hussam, Abdel Aziz and his daughter Lula, as well as former Minister Ghattas Khoury, his daughter Jenny and Rafik Bizri.

Arslan marking the '40-day memorial' of Salman and Abi Farraj: Reconciliation is a first step towards other steps
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
Lebanese Democratic Party Head, Talal Arslan, stated Sunday that "the Mountain reconciliation has begun and we are not against it, but it is a long path and many components fall under it," adding, "We consider it a step towards others to follow."
"We are waiting for the military court to begin its work, and we are in a positive and cooperative spirit," he added, stressing that his Party does not descend from the "school of negotiating over blood."
"The serious and transparent security plan in the Mountain region is the responsibility of the three presidents, under the guardianship of President Aoun. We agreed with Jumblatt at the Baabda meeting that this matter is up to the state," Arslan went on. "Based on all these facts, we facilitated the convening of the government," he added.
"We did not reject any initiative offered to us...We said that we are ready to meet in Baabda, but within the required security and judicial constants," he maintained. Arslan emphasized that his Party seeks nothing but "right and justice", which are at the core of what was agreed upon during the Baabda encounter. The Party Chief's words came as he commemorated the forty-day memorial of the victims who fell in the Qabr Shmoun incident, Rami Salmen and Samer Abi Farraj, during a massive ceremony held at his Khalde residence today in the presence of a crowd of senior political officials, partisans and prominent dignitaries. Arslan asserted that "the security and judicial situation in the country should not remain subject to political whims, which is dangerous for the state and its path." He, thus, urged all political sides to assume their full responsibilities in this respect, in order to boost the state's presence and authority over all Lebanese regions. Marking the July 2006 Victory commemoration, Arslan said it must turn into a "Celebration of Liberation", adding, "This triumphant day symbolized our dignity, honor, pride and unity, by bringing us together as Lebanese in rallying around the honorable Lebanese resistance.""The July Victory should be the real compass towards the political scope that has preserved our presence and dignity in this state and nation," he corroborated.

Bazzi calls for joining efforts to save Lebanon
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
MP Ali Bazzi called Sunday for joint efforts to be exerted for the sake of rescuing the country from its stalemate situation, urging the cabinet to "meet 40 times a day to compensate for its 40-day disruption period, and to pay utmost care and attention to the sufferings of the Lebanese by addressing all pending issues."Speaking during a memorial service held in the town of Markba in the South earlier today, Bazzi emphasized the need for "concerted efforts to save Lebanon from its stifling economic crisis, and for translating what was agreed upon in Baabda and promoting the concept of citizenship and national belonging."He revealed herein that his Bloc, under the guidance of House Speaker Nabih Berri and after meeting with various parliamentary blocs and political parties, has submitted a new "vote law proposal" based on proper criteria for the correct representation of all Lebanese citizens.

Hashem: Favorable conditions for investing in positive climate prevailing after Baabda encounter
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
Member of the "Development and Liberation" Parliamentary Bloc, MP Kassem Hashem, stressed Sunday that "the conditions are favorable for investing in the positive atmosphere prevailing in the country since the meeting in Baabda, and after all the forces have expressed their readiness to respond to the nation's interests which have become more pressing, requiring a delicate approach to the critical economic situation."He added: "It is the responsibility of the government to play its role and turn into a productive cell with intensive meetings to address all economic and daily-life issues."The MP considered that the numerous dossiers at stake "call for a new type of engagement that would restore some of the confidence lost between the people and their state."Hashem's words came in a statement following his meeting with the head and members of the municipal council of the Southern town of Adaishet - al-Qusair earlier today. Marking the July 2006 Victory, the MP saluted the people of the town for their steadfastness and courage in adhering to their land and roots. He also reiterated House Speaker Berri's affirmation of remaining biased towards citizens' issues and rights, and following up on all their needs throughout the entire nation. Hashem confirmed as well that the Finance Minister is keen on ensuring that all remaining dues to municipalities are paid before the end of August, adding that his Bloc will follow-up with the concerned sides on the requirements of municipalities since they are the pathway to local development.

Abou Faour deems economic, financial issues 'top priority'
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
Minister of Industry, Wael Abou Faour, said on Sunday that economic and financial issues are now a top priority. Speaking at a meeting with the mayors of Rachaya, the Minister expected that Prime Minister Saad Hariri, upon his return from abroad, will hold successive meetings for the government to follow up on these issues.

Army force raids AlMiqdad neighborhood in Ruwais
NNA - Sun 18 Aug 2019
An Army Intelligence unit raided Sunday afternoon the neighborhood of Al-Miqdad in the area of Ruwais following a shooting at the residence of Lasa's Mayor, NNA correspondent reported, adding that a search operation is currently underway to track down the gunmen.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 18-19/2019
Syria regime forces enter key town amid fierce clashes: monitor
AFP, Beirut/Sunday, 18 August 2019
Syrian regime forces entered a key town on Sunday amid heavy fighting with militants and their rebel allies, a war monitor said. “Regime forces entered the town of Khan Sheikhun for the first since they lost control of it in 2014,” said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The latest fighting broke out overnight Saturday to Sunday and has already killed at least 45 militants and allied rebels as well as 17 members of the pro-regime forces, the Britain-based monitor said. The town of Khan Sheikhun lies on a key highway coveted by the regime. The road runs through Idlib, connecting government-held Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, which was retaken by loyalists from rebels in December 2016. Pro-regime forces are deployed around three kilometers from the road and have been advancing over the past few days in a bid to encircle Khan Sheikhun from the north and the west and seize the highway. On Sunday they retook the village of Tel al-Nar and nearby farmland northwest of Khan Sheikhun “and were moving close to the highway,” Observatory head Rahman said. But their advance from the east was being slowed down due to “a ferocious resistance” from militants and allied rebels. Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) controls most of Idlib province as well as parts of the neighboring provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia. A buffer zone deal brokered by Russia and Turkey last year was supposed to protect the Idlib region’s three million inhabitants from an all-out regime offensive, but it was never fully implemented. Regime and Russian air strikes and shelling since late April have killed more than 860 civilians, according to the Observatory, which relies on sources inside Syria for its information. On Sunday air strikes by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia killed two people, including a child, in the south of Idlib, the Observatory said. More than 1,400 insurgents and over 1,200 pro-regime forces have been killed since April, according to the monitor. The violence has displaced more than 400,000 people, the United Nations says. Khan Sheikhun was hit by a chemical attack that killed more than 80 people in April 2017, attributed to the Syrian regime by the UN and international experts. In response, US President Donald Trump ordered strikes on the regime’s key Shayrat airbase. Now almost emptied of inhabitants, Khan Sheikhun sheltered almost 100,000 people before the start of the current military escalation, the majority displaced from Hama province. “Many of these people have been displaced up to five times,” the UN’s regional spokesman for the Syria crisis, David Swanson, told AFP on Saturday. Syria’s conflict has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions at home and abroad since starting with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests in 2011.

Iran says US agreement for Syria safe zone is ‘provocative, worrisome’
Reuters/Sunday, 18 August 2019
A US agreement to set up a safe zone in northern Syria, a close ally of Iran, is “provocative and worrisome,” the Iranian foreign ministry was reported to have said by the semi-official Fars news agency. The United States and Turkey last week agreed to set up a joint operations center for a proposed zone along Syria’s northeast border.“Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi ... said the recent announcements and agreements by American officials about creating a safe zone in northern Syria are provocative and worrisome,” Fars reported.

Iranian ambassador says oil tanker expected to leave Gibraltar tonight
Reuters, Dubai/Sunday, 18 August 2019
Iran’s ambassador to Britain said the Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1, formerly known as Grace 1, caught in a stand-off between Tehran and the West is expected to leave the British territory of Gibraltar on Sunday night.
“With the arrival of two specialized engineering teams to Gibraltar ... the vessel is expected to leave tonight,” Hamid Baeidinejad said on Twitter. British Royal Marines seized the vessel in Gibraltar in July on suspicion that it was carrying oil to Syria, a close ally of Iran, in violation of European Union sanctions.

Grace 1 Tanker Raises Iranian Flag, Changes Name to 'Adrian Darya-1'
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 18 August, 2019
An Iranian tanker caught in a stand-off between Tehran and the West has raised an Iranian flag and has had a new name painted on its side, Reuters images of the stationary vessel filmed off Gibraltar showed on Sunday.
British Royal Marines seized the vessel in Gibraltar in July on suspicion that it was carrying oil to Syria, a close ally of Iran, in violation of European Union sanctions. Video footage and photographs showed the tanker flying the red, green and white flag of Iran and bearing the new name of “Adrian Darya-1” painted in white on its hull. Its previous name, “Grace 1”, had been painted over. The vessel's anchor was still down. The Grace 1 had originally flown the Panamian flag but Panama's Maritime Authority said in July that the vessel had been de-listed after an alert that indicated the ship had participated in or was linked to terrorism financing. Gibraltar lifted a detention order on the vessel on Thursday but its fate was further complicated by the United States, which made a last-ditch legal appeal to hold it. The initial impounding of the Grace 1 kicked off a sequence of events that saw Tehran seize a British-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf two weeks later, heightening tension on a vital international oil shipping route. That tanker, the Stena Impero, is still detained. The two vessels have since become pawns in a bigger game, feeding into wider hostilities since the United States last year pulled out of an international agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program, and reimposed economic sanctions.

IRGC navy chief: Presence of America and Britain in the region means insecurity
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 18 August 2019
The presence of America and Britain in the Gulf region brings insecurity, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards navy, Alireza Tangsiri, was reported as saying by the ILNA news agency. The Arabian Gulf states “will not even have water to drink, if something happens to one of the nuclear warships in the [Arabian] Gulf,” Tangsiri warned. He continued: “Iran has no water problem, but the other [Arabian] Gulf states only make this region’s water drinkable through desalination. Now, if something happens to the nuclear warships [in the Arabian Gulf], the people of these countries will die of thirst.”“We have vast capacities, while our enemies have never even witnessed snow and do not even have forests.”Iran, alongside the Arabian Gulf states, is capable of providing security in the Arabian Gulf region, said Tangsiri. “Our message in the region is a message of peace and friendship,” he said. “We have put on the uniform of martyrdom to protect our interests and resources,” said Tangsiri. Tangsiri said that Iran wants peace and stability in the Gulf but appeared to issue a veiled threat by saying that if a ship that uses nuclear fuel were to be targeted in the Gulf, the countries in the south of the region will not have drinking water because of contamination, Mehr news agency reported.

Israel’s no-win, no-lose Gaza policy has too many layers to be scrapped in a hurry
DEBKAfile/August 18/2019
The “containment” policy for Gaza instated by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the previous chief of staff Gady Eisenkot, consisting of tit-for-tat for terror within bounds, has never been a workable strategy since it draws on six misconceptions: That the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian Hamas terrorist rulers can be prevented from attacking Israel by enclosing and isolating the enclave with high security barriers. That Hamas terrorists can be tamed by feeding them large sums of cash for bolstering their rule over two million inhabitants. This policy became entangled in considerations and processes with no direct bearing on Israel’s security – for instance, the Middle East peace policy pursued by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. It has never been established for sure that Kushner’s project jives fully with presidential policy. Another complicating factor was – and is – Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi’s relations in the region and the Gulf – not to mention the feud between Qatar and the Saudi-UAE alliance, and Qatar’s ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey. The Netanyahu government consistently avoided holding Hamas-Gaza responsible – or retaliating – for terrorist atrocities it staged in Judea and Samaria, pretending there was no connection. Policy-makers let Hamas’ active operational ties with Iran and Hizballah ride as of little consequence, even though its leading officials run a terrorist campaign against Israel from a war room in Beirut. The IDF conducts regular operations against foes outside its borders – covertly, by air and by missile – but not inside Gaza. There, the IDF confines itself to limited reprisals against inconsequential sites, guided by two considerations:
(a) Keeping Hamas loss of life down, especially among the members of its armed wing, Ezz e-Din al-Qassam.
(b) Minimizing the damage to Hamas’ military infrastructure
All these dos and don’ts were not set forth as a cogent program or policy but put together bit by bit as patches that were stuck on piecemeal whenever security crises sprang up and called for fast solutions to avert a major flare-up. In the past two years, such cases recurred whenever Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad decided to release massive rocket barrages against the Israeli population. Even then, both sides kept within certain red lines to avoid a major conflagration: Hamas took care to aim its rockets mainly against peripheral southern districts – not big towns – except for some isolated incidents, as insurance against painful Israeli retaliation. This standoff has had the effect of tying Israel’s hands and confining its military leeway within a kind of tacitly accepted framework called “containment,” which leaves the initiative with Hamas. This convention enables the terrorist organization to go into action in support of new demands for concessions and benefits, knowing that Israel will agree to terms in order to keep the framework intact.
On Sunday, Aug. 16, a day after the latest Hamas rocket attack drew forth no IDF response, Netanyahu said on his way to Ukraine that the IDF is dealing with the Gaza situation on purely rational and security grounds, and should a major operation become necessary it would take place irrespective of campaigning for the Sept. 17 general election. His message was mostly addressed to the rivals racing him to the ballot. Those rivals, including the generals-turned politicians who lead Blue-White, were party to that selfsame policy before they shed their uniforms. Now they accuse PM Netanyahu of weakness in combating Palestinian terror and vow to launch a large-scale military operation against Gaza as soon as they remove him from power. DEBKAfile affirms that neither Netanyahu’s remarks nor those of his rivals count for much: the situation with Hamas has sprouted too many complications to be disentangled any time soon. Israel’s political and diplomatic policies have become prisoners of this self-made “containment” framework. It would take a new and mighty force to smash this frame and unshackle Israel and its military from their no-win, no-lose posture towards radical Palestinian terrorists.

Jordan summons Israel envoy over Jerusalem ‘violations’
AFP, Amman/Sunday, 18 August 2019
Jordan summoned Israel’s ambassador on Sunday in protest over “violations” at Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the foreign ministry said. It summoned envoy Amir Weissbrod to voice its “condemnation and rejection of Israeli violations” at the highly sensitive site, where Israeli security forces clashed with Palestinian worshippers last week. Jordan, the only Arab country apart from Egypt to have a peace agreement with the Jewish state, supervises Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. Al-Aqsa mosque is located in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognized by the international community. Israel sees the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians view the eastern sector - where key holy sites for Christians, Muslims and Jews are located - as the capital of their future state.

Israel, Hamas Exchange Threats With No Intentions for Escalation
Ramallah- Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 18 August, 2019
Tensions rose to new heights at the Gaza Strip borders after Israel launched a series of counterattacks in response to an earlier hostile firing of a rocket which was intercepted by Iron Dome missiles. A series of incidents along the Gaza border have been testing a fragile truce between Hamas and Israel in recent days. In a statement posted on Twitter, the Israeli military said it targeted "armed suspects" along the barrier that separates Israel from Gaza. An Israeli army spokesman said Israeli forces launched two raids against two Hamas-linked sites, one in northern Gaza and one in the Strip’s central district. This came in response to the rocket fire from Gaza against Israeli southern settlements near the border region earlier. Israeli forces, early on Sunday, were reported to have opened fire at a group of Palestinian gunmen as they tried to cross the Gaza border, the military said and Palestinian health officials said three of the men were killed. “A short while ago, IDF (Israel Defense Forces) troops spotted a number of armed suspects adjacent to the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip. An IDF attack helicopter and a tank fired toward them,” the military said in a statement. Friday's firing of a rocket from Gaza into Israel follows the end of marches of return staged in the Strip. The Palestinian public health ministry had announced that 63 Palestinians, including 17 children and 3 girls, were injured during the marches. Victims included 32 harmed by live ammunition. Israeli counterattacks struck agricultural land nearby a site belonging to Hamas’ military wing in Al-Tuffah neighborhood. But no casualties were reported. “We will continue to work against attempts to harm Israeli civilians,” an Israeli army spokesperson said, blaming Hamas for all hostilities taking place. “The Israeli shelling of the resistance positions in Gaza is a message of escalation and aggression, aimed at diverting attention from the courageous actions taking place in the West Bank, which have confused the enemy and deepened the internal crisis in which it is located,” Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhum said.

Turkish lawyer groups to boycott judicial ceremony over separation of powers
Reuters, Istanbul/Sunday, 18 August 2019
At least 19 bar associations representing lawyers from provinces across Turkey, including the three largest cities, have said they will boycott an annual ceremony for the judiciary because it will take place on the grounds of the presidential palace. Many said holding the ceremony in a location related to the presidency signals a lack of separation of powers. The independence of Turkey’s judiciary has been hotly debated in recent years, especially since a crackdown on the judiciary and other state bodies following the July 2016 abortive coup and after the country switched to an executive presidential system in June last year. Critics say courts are under the influence of politics. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party have repeatedly said the judiciary is independent and makes its own decisions. According to Reuters’ checks of tweets and statements by the individual bar associations and their heads, at least 19 said they would not attend the ceremony, organized by Turkey’s top appeals court, the Court of Cassation, for the start of the judicial year at the Presidential Congress and Culture Centre in Ankara on Sept. 2. The 19 bar associations boycotting the ceremony, including those for the cities of Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, represent some 77% of lawyers registered in Turkey’s 79 provincial bar associations as of Dec. 31, 2018, according to data from the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB). Mehmet Durakoglu, head of the Istanbul Bar Association, said the executive presidential system was damaging the separation of powers. “At a time when discussions [on the separation of powers] are ongoing with the utmost intensity ... the choice of location for the opening ceremony is not a simple matter,” he wrote in a letter, posted on his association’s website. “The choice is extremely important in that it states the position of... the Court of Cassation in these discussions.”The ceremony was held at the Presidential Congress and Culture Centre in 2016 and then again in 2018. The TBB, an umbrella body, said on Saturday its head, Metin Feyzioglu, will attend the ceremony and make a speech, as is customary.
State-owned Anadolu news agency quoted the presidency of the Court of Cassation on Saturday as saying that most of the bar association heads that were invited had said they will attend. Accusations that the Court of Cassation was under political influence were unjust, it said. Iran says US agreement for Syria safe zone is ‘provocative, worrisome’ Smoke billows following an airstrike by Syrian regime forces in Maar Shurin on the outskirts of Maaret al-Numan in northwest Syria. (AFP)

Dubai Receives 8.36M Visitors in First Half 2019
Dubai- Asharq Al-Awsat/August 18/2019
Dubai welcomed 8.36 million international overnight visitors during the first six months of 2019, a 3 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. The new figures reinforce the continued strength of Dubai's tourism sector as a key driver of economic diversification and a reliable catalyst for GDP acceleration through 2020, reported Emirates News Agency (WAM). Director-General of Dubai Tourism Helal al-Marri said: "Tourism is one of the cornerstones of Dubai's diversified economic growth, and we measure success based on our ability to aggressively advance towards our goal to be the number one most visited and most preferred city. “The consequent rise in value creation opportunities, and more inclusive sector participation are core priorities, as we equally strive to sustainably grow GDP contribution.”Marri announced that the first half results are a reflection of the progress towards this ambition and underline the effectiveness of the diversified market outreach through a network of global partners, industry stakeholders, and government enablers. The Department declared that India held its position with highest visitors, reaching 997,000, despite severe air traffic and seat capacity challenges due to geopolitical volatilities. Travel share of Indian families with children rose by a substantial 10 percent, from 24 to 34 percent, directly reflecting higher GDP impact due to party size and spending potential. Dubai’s second-largest feeder market once again was Saudi Arabia, with 755,000 visitors at two percent year-on-year growth over six months and a notable 4.9 percent increase over the Eid break alone. This signifies the continued stability in Dubai’s attractiveness for Saudi families and millennials. Staying firmly within Dubai’s top three traffic drivers, the UK delivered 586,000 travelers beating all odds amidst growing political and economic turbulence surrounding Brexit.
Oman came among the top five countries with a massive 28 percent growth to land 499,000 visitors to Dubai. Russia leveled to more sustainable levels thanks to the visa-on-arrival enablement, to become the country’s sixth-largest source market delivering 375,000 visitors to Dubai.
The United States followed in the seventh spot with 329,000 visitors, marginally up from 327,000 visitors in 2018, “supported by concerted marketing efforts and trade collaborations with five new trade partnerships developed in the first half of 2019, to raise awareness of the destination and promote holiday packages and deals,” according to WAM. At the eighth and ninth positions respectively came Germany with five percent growth to deliver 316,000 visitors, and Pakistan with three percent growth to yield 253,000 visitors. The Philippines jumped three ranks into the top 10 finishing a strong first half with 216,000 travelers, reflecting a 29 percent increase that made it the fastest-growing source market for Dubai in 2019. Average occupancy for the hotel sector stood at 76 percent, with establishments delivering a combined 15.71 million occupied room nights during the first six months of 2019, a five percent increase over the same period in 2018. Spread across a total of 714 establishments, Dubai’s hotel room inventory stood at 118,345 at the end of June 2019, representing a six percent increase, which showcased continued strong investor confidence in Dubai's tourism demand and market appetite.

Yemen Huthi Rebels Appoint 'Ambassador' in Tehran
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2019
Yemen's Iran-linked Huthi rebels have appointed an "ambassador" in Tehran, a step condemned by the internationally recognized government as a breach of international laws. The Islamic republic made no announcement about accepting the appointment of an ambassador for the Huthis, who control the Yemeni capital Sanaa and much of the north. The Huthi-run Al-Masirah TV said late Saturday that a "presidential decree was issued appointing Ibrahim Mohammed Mohammed al-Dailami as an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary for the republic of Yemen to the Islamic republic of Iran." Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi severed diplomatic relations with Iran in October 2015, accusing Tehran of providing military aid to the rebels. Tehran has denied the accusation but publicly offers strong political backing to the Shiite Huthis. The Yemeni government denounced the naming of an ambassador. "The exchange of diplomatic relations between Tehran regime and the Huthi militias breaches the international laws and norms and contravenes United Nations Security Council resolutions related to the Yemen crisis," the government said in a statement on Twitter. It said the step has exposed the hidden relationship between the Huthis and Iran. The announcement comes after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held talks in Tehran on Tuesday with a Huthi delegation headed by rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam. Khamenei renewed his support for the Huthis and accused Iran's foes of a "plot" to partition the country. Yemen has witnessed intense fighting between the Huthis and government forces since the rebels entered Sanaa in September 2014 and drove Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 to support the government forces. The conflict has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and displaced around 3.3 million since 2015. Two-thirds of the population -- about 20 million people -- require humanitarian support, according to the United Nations.

Algeria: Angry Protesters Storm Meeting of National Commission for Dialogue
Algiers- Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 18 August, 2019
A number of students and protesters in Algeria stormed a press conference of the National Commission for Dialogue and Mediation, demanding the committee withdraw its papers, according to German News Agency (dpa). The students protested the work of the Commission, which they said was “contrary to the legitimacy of the movement,” accusing the members of the Commission and its chairman, Karim Younis, of betraying the will of the people. The students asserted they will not proceed with the dialogue until all members of former regime had resigned, arguing that the movement has not yet achieved its objectives with the men of the outgoing president Abdulaziz Bouteflika still governing and running the country. Chairman Younis asserted that the Commission listens to all parties in the national political life in order to find a solution out of the crisis, adding that the aim is to hold the presidential elections as soon as possible.
The Algerian presidency recently announced the formation of a “six-party committee” to lead the dialogue, which created controversy in Algeria, especially after its members confirmed the approval of the interim president, Abdelkader Bensalah, on their conditions for the release of detainees in the movement. Members of the Commission said that they will hold talks with the civil society and political community on a daily basis to present a conclusion for the national dialogue.They stressed in their press conference that the priority is to hold presidential elections as soon as possible, even for one transitional period.
They noted that during the transitional period, a new constitution will be drafted and they will prepare for parliamentary elections to ensure democratic freedoms. They also stressed that the political idea must be shared by all Algerians, “because Algeria is a country of all, not for the elite.”As for the protester’s main demand, namely the departure of the President, member Amar Belhimer, said it is “irrational and contrary to the constitution.”He explained at the press conference that this demand has dire consequences, and could take the country into “a dangerous institutional vacuum.”Belhimer warned against reaching vacuum, pointing out that the Constitutional Council was clear in its verdict, asserting that the inauguration of the president was legitimate, aiming to avert the dangers that lurk in the country. He pointed out that the implementation of articles 7 and 8 only passes through the ballot box, while noting that the governors will not have any role in the upcoming elections, reiterating that the priority is to hold presidential elections as soon as possible.

Joy Turns to Horror as Bomber Kills 63 at Kabul Wedding
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2019
Joy and celebration turned into horror and carnage when a suicide bomber targeted a packed Afghan wedding hall, killing at least 63 people in the deadliest attack to rock Kabul in months, officials and witnesses said Sunday. The blast, which took place late Saturday in west Kabul, came as Washington and the Taliban finalize a deal to reduce the US military presence in Afghanistan and hopefully build a roadmap to a ceasefire. The groom, who only gave his name as Mirwais, recalled greeting smiling guests in the afternoon, before seeing their bodies being carried out hours later. The attack "changed my happiness to sorrow", Mirwais told local TV station Tolo News. "My family, my bride are in shock, they cannot even speak. My bride keeps fainting," he said. "I lost my brother, I lost my friends, I lost my relatives. I will never see happiness in my life again."Interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said at least 63 people had been killed and 182 injured. "Among the wounded are women and children," Rahimi said. Earlier he stated that the blast was caused by a suicide bomber. Afghan weddings are epic and vibrant affairs, with hundreds or often thousands of guests celebrating for hours inside industrial-scale wedding halls where the men are usually segregated from the women and children. "The wedding guests were dancing and celebrating the party when the blast happened," recounted Munir Ahmad, 23, who was seriously injured and whose cousin was among the dead. "Following the explosion, there was total chaos. Everyone was screaming and crying for their loved ones," he told AFP from his bed in a local hospital, where he is being treated for shrapnel wounds. In the aftermath, images from inside the hall showed blood-stained bodies on the ground along with pieces of flesh and torn clothes, hats, sandals and bottles of mineral water. The wedding was believed to be a Shia gathering. Shia Muslims are frequently targeted in Sunni-majority Afghanistan, particularly by the so-called Islamic State group, which is also active in Kabul but did not immediately issue any claim of responsibility. Wedding guest Mohammad Farhag told AFP he was in the women's section when he heard a huge blast in the men's area. "Everyone ran outside shouting and crying," he said. "For about 20 minutes the hall was full of smoke. Almost everyone in the men's section is either dead or wounded."One guest who spoke to Tolo said some 1,200 people had been invited.The attack sent a wave of grief through a city grimly accustomed to atrocities. President Ashraf Ghani called the incident a "barbaric attack", while Afghanistan's chief executive Abdullah Abdullah described it as a "crime against humanity".Withdrawal deal expected
The attack underscores both the inadequacy of Afghanistan's security forces and the scale of the problem they face. While the police and army claim they prevent most bombings from ever happening, the fact remains that insurgents pull off horrific attacks with chilling regularity. On July 28, at least 20 people were killed when attackers targeted Ghani's running mate Amrullah Saleh on the first official day of campaigning for presidential elections. The incident showed how even amid tight security and known threats, insurgents can conduct brazen attacks.
The issue also goes to the heart of a prospective deal between the U.S. and the Taliban that would see America begin to draw down its troop presence. The deal relies on the Taliban providing guarantees they will stop jihadist groups such as al-Qaida and IS from using Afghanistan as a safe haven. Saturday's attack suggests any such promise would be tough to keep. The "Taliban cannot absolve themselves of blame, for they provide platform for terrorists," Ghani said. Expectations are rising for a deal in which the U.S. would start pulling its approximately 14,000 soldiers from Afghanistan, but few believe it will bring quick peace to Afghanistan. Many Afghans fear the Taliban could return to some form of power, eroding hard-won rights for women in particular and leading to a spiraling civil war. Insurgents have periodically struck Afghan weddings, which are seen as easy targets because they typically lack security precautions.

Hong Kong Protesters March in Show of 'Peaceful' Credentials after Chaos
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2019
Tens of thousands of Hong Kong democracy activists gathered Sunday for a major rally to show the city's leaders their protest movement still attracts wide public support, despite mounting violence and increasingly stark warnings from Beijing. The financial hub has been plunged into crisis by ten weeks of demonstrations, with images of masked black-clad protesters engulfed by tear gas during street battles against riot police stunning a city once renowned for its stability. Communist-ruled mainland China has taken an increasingly hardline tone towards the protesters, decrying the "terrorist-like" actions of a violent hardcore minority among the demonstrators. Despite the near-nightly clashes with police, the movement has won few concessions from Beijing or the city's unelected leadership. On Tuesday, protesters blocked passengers from boarding flights at the city's airport and later assaulted two men they accused of being Chinese spies. The images damaged a campaign that until then had largely targeted the police or government institutions, and prompted an apology from some protest groups. Sunday's rally, which started at the city's Victoria Park, is an attempt to wrestle the narrative of the protest back.
It is a "rational, non-violent" demonstration, according to organizers the Civil Human Rights Front, the driving force behind record-breaking rallies in June and July that saw hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets. Police have given permission for the rally to go ahead but banned a proposed march. Protesters flouted that order, flooding the streets on Sunday afternoon as they marched through the heart of Hong Kong island despite driving rain. "If Beijing and Hong Kong's tactic is to wait for our movement to die, they are wrong... we will soldier on," CHRF spokeswoman Bonnie Leung told reporters. China's propaganda apparatus has seized on the weeks of violence, with state media churning out a deluge of damning articles, pictures and videos.
Blame game
State media also ran images of military personnel and armored personnel carriers across the border in Shenzhen, prompting the United States to warn Beijing against sending in troops. Analysts say any intervention by Chinese security forces would be a reputational and economic disaster for China. But Hong Kong's police force are under intense pressure, stretched by flashmob protests and criticized for perceived heavy-handed policing including the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and beating demonstrators -- incidents that have pinbaled across social media. "I think the way police have dealt with this is absolutely out of order. You can make your own judgement based on the many videos out there," protester James Leung told AFP. Others recognized the billowing violence, which has seen hardcore protesters using rocks, Molotov cocktails and slingshots against the police, has driven the pro-democracy movement into an uncomfortable direction. "There are some expressing extreme views," rally-goer Ray Cheng, 30, told AFP. "But we have tried many times with peaceful approaches... I really hope the government can listen to us."
Unprecedented crisis
The unprecedented political crisis was sparked by opposition to a plan to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland. But protests have since morphed into a wider call for democratic rights in the semi-autonomous city. Under a deal signed with Britain, authoritarian China agreed to allow Hong Kong to keep its unique freedoms when it was handed back in 1997. But many Hong Kongers feel those freedoms are being chipped away, especially since China's hardline president Xi Jinping came to power. Beyond suspending the extradition bill, Beijing and city leader Carrie Lam have shown no desire to meet key demands such as an inquiry into police violence, the complete withdrawal of the bill and an amnesty. Beijing has turned the screws on Hong Kong's businesses, pressuring them to toe the line and condemn the protesters. On Friday, Cathay Pacific announced the shock resignation of CEO Rupert Hogg after the carrier was excoriated by Beijing because some staff supported the pro-democracy protests. A day later the "Big Four" accountancy firms scrambled to distance themselves from an advert placed in a newspaper purportedly by employees saying they supported the protests.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 18-19/2019
The Extinction of Christians in the Middle East
جوليو ميوتي/معهد جيتستون: انقراض المسيحيين في الشرق الأوسط
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/August 18/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77642/%d8%ac%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%82%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%b6-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%b3%d9%8a/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14691/extinction-christians-middle-east
"I don't believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs.... Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land." — Metropolitan Nicodemus, the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, National Catholic Register.
"Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don't wake up." — Metropolitan Nicodemus.
"Threats to pandas cause more emotion" than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East. — Amin Maalouf, French-Lebanese author, Le Temps.
Most Christian churches in and around Mosul, Iraq were desecrated or destroyed by ISIS.
Convert, pay or die. Five years ago, that was the "choice" the Islamic State (ISIS) gave to Christians in Mosul, then Iraq's third-largest city: either embrace Islam, submit to a religious tax or face the sword. ISIS then marked Christian houses with the Arabic letter ن (N), the first letter of the Arabic word "Nasrani" ("Nazarene," or "Christian") . Christians could often take no more than the clothes on their back and flee a city that had been home to Christians for 1,700 years.
Two years ago, ISIS was defeated in Mosul and its Caliphate crushed. The extremists, however, had succeeded in "cleansing" the Christians. Before the rise of ISIS, there were more than 15,000 Christians there. In July 2019, the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need, disclosed that only about 40 Christians have come back. Not long ago, Mosul had "Christmas celebrations without Christians".
This cultural genocide, thanks to the indifference of Europeans and many Western Christians more worried about not appearing "Islamophobic" than defending their own brothers, sadly worked. Father Ragheed Ganni, for instance, a Catholic priest from Mosul, had just finished celebrating mass in his church when Islamists killed him. In one of his last letters, Ganni wrote: "We are on the verge of collapse". That was in 2007 -- almost ten years before ISIS eradicated the Christians of Mosul. "Has the world 'looked the other way' while Christians are killed?" the Washington Post asked. Definitely.
Traces of a lost Jewish past have also resurfaced in Mosul, where a Jewish community had also lived for thousands of years. Now, 2,000 years later, both Judaism and Christianity have effectively been annihilated there. That life is over. The newspaper La Vie collected the testimony of a Christian, Yousef (the name has been changed), who fled in the night of August 6, 2014, just before ISIS arrived. "It was a real exodus", Yousef said.
"The road was black with people, I did not see either the beginning or the end of this procession. There were children were crying, families dragging small suitcases. Old men were on the shoulders of their sons. People were thirsty, it was very hot. We have lost all that we have built for life and nobody fought for us". Some communities, such as the tiny Christian pockets in Mosul, are almost certainly lost forever", wrote two American scholars in Foreign Policy.
"We are on the precipice of catastrophe, and unless we act soon, within weeks, the tiny remnants of Christian communities in Iraq may be mostly eradicated by the genocide being committed against Christians in Iraq and Syria".
In Mosul alone, 45 churches were vandalized or destroyed. Not a single one was spared. Today there is only one church open in the city. ISIS apparently also wanted to destroy Christian history there. They targeted the monastery of Saints Behnam and Sarah, founded in the fourth century. The monastery had survived the seventh century Islamic conquest and subsequent invasions, but in 2017, crosses were destroyed, cells were looted, and statues of the Virgin Mary were beheaded. The Iraqi priest, Najeeb Michaeel, who saved 850 manuscripts from the Islamic State, was ordained last January as the new Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul.
ISIS, together with Al Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria, followed the same pattern, when its militants attacked the Christian town of Maaloula. "They scarred the faces of the saints, of the Christ, they shattered the statues", Father Toufic Eid recently told the Vatican agency, Sir.
"The altars, the iconostases and the baptismal font were torn to pieces. But the thing that struck me most was the burning of baptism registers. It is as if they wanted to erase our faith".
In the cemetery of the church of St. George in Karamlesh, a village east of Mosul, Isis dug up a body and beheaded it, apparently only because it was a Christian.
The fate of Mosul's Christians is the similar to those elsewhere in Iraq. "The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has several categories to define the danger of extinction that various species face today", writes Benedict Kiely, the founder of Nasarean.org, which helps the persecuted Christians of the Middle East. "Using a percentage of population decline, the categories range from 'vulnerable species' (a 30-50 per cent decline), to 'critically endangered' (80-90 per cent) and finally to extinction. The Christian population of Iraq has shrunk by 83 per cent, putting it in the category of 'critically endangered'".
Shamefully, the West has been and still seems to be completely indifferent to the fate of Middle Eastern Christians. As the Syriac Orthodox archbishop of Mosul, Metropolitan Nicodemus, put it:
"I don't believe in these two words [human rights], there are no human rights. But in Western countries, there are animal rights. In Australia they take care of frogs.... Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land.
"Those people are the same ones who came here many years ago. And we accepted them. We are the original people in this land. We accepted them, we opened the doors for them, and they push us to be minorities in our land, then refugees in our land. And this will be with you if you don't wake up."
"Christianity in Iraq, one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction", Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, remarked in London in May. "Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom". Warda went on to accuse Britain's leaders of "political correctness" over the issue for fear of being accused of "Islamophobia." "Will you continue to condone this never-ending, organised persecution against us?" Warda asked. "When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say 'We are all Christians?'"
These Christians seem to have gained space on our television screens and newspapers only at the cost of their blood, their disappearance, their suffering. Their tragedy illuminates our moral suicide. As the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf noted: "That is the great paradox: one accuses the Occident of wanting to impose its values, but the real tragedy is its inability to transmit them.... Sometimes we get the impression that Westerners have once and for all appropriated Christianity... and that they say to themselves: We are the Christians, and the rest is only an archaeological remainder destined to disappear. Threats to pandas cause more emotion" than threats to the extinction of the Christians in the Middle East.
*Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Germany Needs a Recession to Start Spending
Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/August 18/2019
Germany is on the brink of a recession. This isn’t happening because of any structural problems: US President Donald Trump’s trade wars are the main culprit. Still, Germany’s powerful industrial lobby now is openly questioning the government’s adherence to the famous schwarze Null, or zero budget deficit, policy.Output shrank by 0.1% in the second quarter compared with the previous three months. The contraction is a consequence of a drop in industrial production and construction that amounted to 0.6% of gross domestic product. Government spending and domestic demand, which was stronger than in the first quarter, compensated for most of this decline. “Had we seen a domestic demand in this cycle as weak as we saw it in the recovery after 2005, the German economy would already be back in a deep recession,” tweeted Sebastian Dullien, an economics professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin.
Germans haven’t felt too much pain from weakening demand for the country’s export goods, especially cars and machinery. Unemployment dropped to a record low of 3.1 percent at the end of June on the back of a healthy services sector and domestic demand.
Yet with more trade shocks possible – after all, Trump has kept threatening the European Union with tariffs – pressure is mounting on the German government to do more to boost the economy. The Greens and some Social Democrats from the party’s left flank have called for more government spending to fund a quicker green energy shift and infrastructure improvements. But more importantly, the country’s mighty industrial lobby, the Federation of German Industries (BDI), has also argued for reexamining the deficit-free policy.
In an op-ed published in the business daily Handelsblatt on Wednesday, BDI chief Joachim Lang called for investment incentives for innovation and government funding for artificial intelligence and a stronger digital infrastructure. While the government can borrow at negative rates, it should go to the financial markets and obtain “a double-digit billion amount in the medium term” for a state venture fund; it should also cut taxes for businesses by 15 to 20 billion euros ($17 billion to $22 billion) to stimulate private investment.
“Unlike the debt brake, which is enshrined in the constitution, the schwarze Null ought be reexamined given the fragile situation,” Lang wrote.
Germany’s constitution, indeed, limits the structural budget deficit to 0.35% of economic output and only allows a bigger shortfall during a slowdown if it’s repaid when growth picks up again. But Germany’s negative borrowing costs make the government’s determined stinginess rather illogical to an increasing number of political players. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union clearly won’t be penalized by its traditional support base for loosening the purse strings in such a situation. On the contrary, more generous policies can increase its support and bring back some of the voters the CDU has lost in the last two years, especially to the Greens. Merkel and her chosen successor, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, as well as Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, recently have defended the deficit-free policy. They have argued that the current budget surplus provides enough flexibility for added spending if needed, and more stimulus would come from the planned elimination of the so-called solidarity tax, meant to boost the economic development of Germany’s eastern states, in 2021. The government’s draft 2020 budget is still based on a zero deficit.
On Tuesday, though, Merkel gave the first indication that this conservative stance could be reconsidered if things get worse. “We will react according to the situation,” she said.
It’s unclear what it will take for Merkel finally to change her mind. In a way, it’s sensible for her and Scholz not to rush things. Giving up the schwarze Null would be a major turnabout, and the government needs a strong reason for it. The CDU and the Social Democrats don’t want to be seen yielding to pressure or engaging in cheap populism to win back voters. They need to decide whether a technical recession is a good enough reason to use the heavy artillery or whether it would be wiser to wait for more clarity on how Trump’s trade wars play out. Given Germany’s low unemployment, strong domestic demand and long-horizon before the next big election, Merkel can afford to ponder the right timing.

Italy’s Economic Rot Is Europe’s Problem, Too
Tyler Cowen/Bloomberg/August 18/2019
As I am spending the week in Italy, my thoughts have naturally turned to the topic of economic growth and its benefits. One striking fact about Italy is that, over the last 20 years, growth in per capita income has been close to zero. That’s not a recession, rather it’s become the normal state of affairs. And so the question arises: What is economic growth good for, anyway?
Unfortunately, a zero-growth environment cannot be stable forever. The reasons are many; structures ossify, firms and governments become less productive and dynamic, rules become more vulnerable to gaming and rent-seeking, and interest groups increase their ability to seize parts of the pie. If the pie doesn’t grow, eventually it becomes harder to sustain productive activity and a healthy politics.
Aging is another reason economic growth is necessary. As nations grow older, they will have fewer workers and more retirees, and of course many countries (including Italy) have expensive pension systems. Someone has to pay the bill, and without innovation and economic growth, taxes will have to rise. That in turn discourages work, pushing people into untaxed black-market activity, necessitating higher tax rates, and the vicious cycle starts again.
This is hardly a hypothetical scenario for Italy, which has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe and has long had a large informal economy. The country also has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 132%, and is pushing up against EU limits on its budget deficits.
Economic growth also is needed to handle change. Population pressures will increasingly bring more and more migrants from Africa and northern Africa to Europe. Italy of course is a natural landing point, and already has received many arrivals. What should Italy do? Take them all in and help them assimilate? Erect new barriers to keep them out? Pay other countries to harbor refugees? Try to get the EU to reopen the Dublin agreement so more arrivals into Italy will be taken care of by other nations? No matter what combination of answers you favor, it will cost money — which is to say, it will require economic growth.
Decay is another problem faced by Italy, including decay of its natural and cultural heritage. The city of Venice — a wonder of mankind and also a big money-maker as a tourist destination — is threatened by rising water levels. The Roman Coliseum is endangered by traffic fumes and exhaust. Solving those problems requires (again) extra money. As it stands, Italy has some of the worst-maintained cultural heritage in the Western world, and further decay could cut into Italy’s tourist income, producing another dangerous downward spiral.
Sadly, it wasn’t that long ago that Italy was hailed as a growth miracle. Until the 1980s, its postwar performance was one of the very best in the world, for a while surpassing the UK in per capita income (much to the chagrin and disbelief of many Brits). Since then, something has gone very wrong.
The possible culprits include strong competition from Chinese firms, excess bureaucratization, too much political turnover, some bad leaders, too many people employed by Italian municipal governments in low productivity jobs, and growing regional disparities. Italy also specialized in the mid-sized family firm at a time when large global behemoths were on the rise. The euro and the 2011 eurocrisis, which hit the country with punishing deflationary pressures, didn’t help any. Some speculate that the fine quality of life in Italy — at least for many elites — contributed to the complacency and lack of will to solve these and other problems.
The latest development is a possible collapse of the current ruling coalition and the prospect that, after the next election, Italy will be ruled by one of the most populist governments in Europe. Regardless of your political views, it’s hard to argue that Italian politics is moving toward a pragmatic, problem-solving approach. Blaming immigrants and the EU is unlikely to resolve Italy’s core dilemmas. The best way to push Italy’s electoral rhetoric closer to the center may be a dose of sustained economic growth.
Slow or nonexistent economic growth may be tolerable when the surrounding world is fairly static. But when challenges increase, zero growth is a less feasible option. It’s difficult to pay all the bills, pay off debts, and address new problems without additional resources to deploy.
Throughout history, from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance and beyond, few places have done more to boost global economic growth than Italy. Italians today are undoubtedly aware of their proud heritage — and so should be most Europeans. If Europe is to remain prosperous and well-governed, it will need a flourishing Italy.

Canadian Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson: After 40 years, I'm opening the closet door
JIM WATSON/OTTAWA CITIZEN/ August 18, 2019
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/mayor-jim-watson-after-40-years-im-opening-the-closet-door
I was elected to Ottawa City Council when I was 30, and for most of my public life, my sexuality was not an issue. But in hindsight, not coming out sooner was a big mistake.
There – I said it; or rather, wrote it. Those two words took me almost four decades to utter, but as they say, “Better late than never.’’
As I look back over the years, there were some telltale signs that I wasn’t straight.
As a grade 7 student, I remember some older boys on my school bus always taunting me and calling me ‘’Jim Fairy.’’ And growing up, I was always much more attracted to male TV and movie stars, such as Rob Lowe and Brad Pitt, rather than Julia Roberts or Sharon Stone.
Mayor Watson says he’s ‘overwhelmed’ by the warm response to his coming out
Unlike today, back when I was a teenager in the 1970s there were virtually no resources to seek for guidance or help, or just to talk. No LGBTQ clubs or gay-straight alliances.
One of my challenges was that I attended four high schools in five years because of my father’s work transfers. That made making friends really tough, especially moving midway through a school year. And throughout high school, I honestly can’t recall meeting or befriending one openly gay student.
Unlike today, back when I was a teenager in the 1970s there were virtually no resources to seek for guidance or help, or just to talk.
Most residents of Ottawa reading this will find it hard to believe. But growing up, I was very shy and a bit of a loner, and very socially awkward. Even if I thought or knew that I was gay back then, making it known publicly would have been pretty daunting and lonely for a teenager in a new school.
Fast-forward to university, and the environment was much more liberal and open to those who were or thought they were gay, lesbian or transgender. Still, I was completely in the closet – too shy or reluctant to come to grips with my own sexuality.
Following graduation, I found myself thrust into my career, and for me, my job was my life.
My various jobs – both in and out of the political world – became my passion and were all-consuming.
I was elected to Ottawa City Council when I was 30, and for most of my public life, my sexuality was not an issue. It came up just once at an all-candidates meeting.
I was running for the provincial legislature in 2003 and a known homophobic activist stood up and asked me if I was gay. There were jeers and shouts, and before I could answer, my NDP opponent snapped at the questioner and told them that anyone’s sexual preference had nothing to do with being a good MPP.
To this day, I’m not sure how I would have answered that question, but I am grateful to the NDP’s Marlene Rivier for her gutsy intervention.
As I look back over my life, and in hindsight, not coming out sooner was a big mistake on my part.
Most of my friends through the years got married and had kids, and they travelled down a separate road filled with family, soccer practices and their careers. Most of my friends who are gay are quite open about it, and many are in wonderful relationships or, in several cases, married.
That leaves someone like me, who, while closeted, doesn’t fit either of these groups.
Over the years, I told only two (gay) friends that I was gay, although I suspect most of my family and friends just assumed I was, but respected my privacy and never broached the subject.
Over the last few years, I’ve struggled often about whether or not to come out.
Swirling around my mind were thoughts like how my family and friends would react. Would it affect my relationship with my constituents?
There was not really one Eureka moment when I decided to write this.
There were some great pioneers in the political world who I would consider positive role models – locally councillors such as Stéphane Émard-Chabot, Alex Munter and Catherine McKenney; provincially people such as George Smitherman, Kathleen Wynne and Glen Murray; and federally Svend Robinson, Libby Davies, Scott Brison and Rob Oliphant.
Finally, let me conclude with two events that helped convince me to write this message.
During the 2014 Olympic Games in Russia, stories emerged about the fear gay athletes and spectators felt due to the homophobic attitude of the Russian government. I tweeted that in solidarity with the LGBTQ community, and our athletes in particular, I would fly the Rainbow flag at City Hall for the duration of the Games.
I received thousands of supportive tweets, but one tweet and my response went viral.
One person wrote and said: ʺThis is a stupid waste of time. You’ve lost my vote.’’
I replied: ‘’If you have that point of view, I really don’t want your vote.’’
The second incident was two years ago when I was walking through Confederation Park after lunch and a middle-aged man approached me and said: ‘’I hope you’re not going in that fag parade,’’ meaning the upcoming Pride Parade.
I told him: ‘’I’m looking forward to marching in the Pride Parade, and I plan on doing so again, so why don’t you join me?’’
He was left speechless and quickly walked away.
I’m proud of my track record on LGBTQ issues, from voting in favour of a motion on same-sex marriage to being the first Ottawa mayor to march in the Pride Parade during my first term.
But if I can be so bold as to offer one bit of advice to those still in the closet: Don’t feel pressured or rushed to come out, but don’t wait 40 years either.
My reluctance has not allowed me to live my life as full of love and adventure as my gay friends who were bolder and braver than I ever was.
So there it is, my coming out story, 40 years in the making.
Jim Watson is the Mayor of Ottawa.

Iran thrusts Iraq into the line of fire
بارعة علم الدين: إيران تدفع العراق إلى خط النار
Baria Alamuddin//Arab News/August 18, 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77652/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b9%d8%a9-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%aa%d8%af%d9%81%d8%b9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%82-%d8%a5%d9%84%d9%89-%d8%ae/
For the first time since a 1981 airstrike destroyed Saddam Hussein’s clandestine nuclear capabilities, Iraqis find themselves under attack from Israel. Bases belonging to Iran-backed elements of Iraq’s paramilitary movement, Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, have been rocked by a succession of mysterious explosions, the latest at a weapons depot in Baghdad last week. As if there was any doubt, media and military sources in Tel Aviv concur that these blasts were indeed Israeli strikes.
Substantial arsenals of rockets — including Zelzal and Fateh-110 missiles with ranges of up to 700 kilometers — have been smuggled to Al-Hashd bases throughout Iraq. Al-Hashd militants even fired missiles at Saudi oil installations.
Did Tehran seriously believe that all-seeing, all-knowing Israel would not notice or act against these mushrooming missile stockpiles? Israelis claim that US President Donald Trump gave a tacit green light when he said: “We give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And they’re doing very well defending themselves.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had hurriedly visited Baghdad, apparently to show Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi images of rockets being amassed under his nose — warning that Israeli retaliation was imminent. Abdul-Mahdi rushed to Tehran on July 22, immediately after the initial Israeli strike, perhaps in a panicked attempt to forestall escalation.
Sanctions-wracked Tehran has been struggling to sustain its paramilitary posture in Syria. Even Hezbollah has seen its funding slashed. Russian President Vladimir Putin has furthermore made a show of keeping his promise to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of reining in the Iranian proxies. The strategic shift to Iraq was Tehran’s countermove.
While Tel Aviv could rain hell down upon Iranian assets parked just north of Israel’s borders, comprehensive strikes against Iraq are logistically a different story; not least because Israeli F-35 warplanes cannot reach Iraq without refueling in mid-air (US military assets in Syria may have facilitated the recent strikes). Meanwhile, because Al-Hashd militants are on the Iraqi state payroll, cash-strapped Iran is in the enviable position of boasting a standing army that it doesn’t have to pay for.
Who runs Iraq? In response to US demands for Baghdad to commercially disentangle itself from Tehran, an Al-Hashd commander retorted: mericans know that if any Iraqi government takes a step against Iran, it will be toppled in a few ‎weeks.” Yet parliamentarians were mystified at the Abdul-Mahdi government’s refusal to condemn missile strikes against Iraqi territory. As the Haaretz newspaper asked: “Is Iraq a new Israeli front in its war against the Iranian threat… Or is Iraq a hidden ally, which, even if it won’t participate in the war on Iran, also won’t interfere with foreign efforts — Israeli, American or Saudi — to fight Iran on its territory?”
Iraq’s ambassador to Washington controversially declared that “there are objective reasons that may call for normalizing relations with Israel.” Ongoing Iraqi-Israeli communications are a badly-kept secret; yet do these aspire to neutralize Iranian meddling? Or do these contacts enjoy Tehran’s blessing as a means of carving out zones of influence across the Arab world?
Parliamentarians were mystified at the Abdul-Mahdi government’s refusal to condemn missile strikes against Iraqi territory.
As of 2011, any renewed Israel-Hezbollah war would have been fought along a narrow stretch of the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah and its allies’ move into the Syrian Golan Heights widened the scope for conflict, encircling Israel to the northeast. The Iraq front now potentially drags in the entire region, particularly given Iran’s attacks against Gulf shipping and Israel’s mooted inclusion in a US-led protection force. Recent setbacks in Yemen are an additional factor that diminishes the pressure on Iranian-backed Houthis, who have become adept at firing showers of rockets toward civilian targets deep inside Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, Daesh is re-emerging. Just as Bashar Assad and Ali Khamenei acted as midwives for the birth of the Syrian branch of Daesh in 2012, when they released detained extremists en masse and enriched them with revenues from captured oil-fields, we should question whether Daesh’s current return to strength is a natural phenomenon. Its resurgence is occurring in areas of Iraq and eastern Syria under Al-Hashd control. Just as Daesh offered Assad the pretense of being a bulwark against extremism, the group’s continued existence removes pressure for Al-Hashd to disarm and demobilize.
Under Abdul-Mahdi’s recent decree, Al-Hashd had until the end of July to regularize its status as part of the armed forces. Yet militia commanders clamor that additional months are required. When Abdul-Mahdi ordered the withdrawal of the ill-reputed Al-Hashd 30th Brigade from Nineveh province, paramilitaries staged demonstrations to obstruct this withdrawal. Most experts see the decree as a dead letter that Al-Hashd will exploit as an opportunity to consolidate its status, while ignoring the decree’s objectives.
For the time being, the US has been doing a commendable job of piling pressure on the ayatollahs, including sanctions against numerous proxy entities. However, this is compelling Tehran to aggressively reinforce its bellicose regional posture. In this context, European attempts at appeasement are ill-advised. US National Security Adviser John Bolton has been making last-ditch attempts to block the release of an Iranian tanker detained by British authorities for allegedly smuggling oil to Syria. Such concessions simply convince the ayatollahs that dialing up the aggression is cost-free.
Iran has acted against Britain, Japan and other states as a cowardly means of flexing its muscles, while stopping short of attacks against US personnel that could trigger a devastating response. Trump and Bolton may similarly be using Israel as their attack dog, allowing them to claim that their hands are clean and they don’t desire war.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami boasts that Hezbollah alone possesses the firepower to “wipe the Zionist regime off the map.” Trump previously threatened that war with Iran would cause “obliteration like you’ve never seen before.” With such trigger-happy, unpredictable leaders on both sides, the decision-makers in Baghdad would be well advised to act decisively — both against Iranian rockets and against reckless, traitorous figures who have thrust Iraq into the line of fire.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

UK must punish Iran for taking its citizens hostage
د. مجيد زافيزادا: مطلوب من بريطانيا معاقبة إيران لأخذ مواطنيها رهائن
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 18, 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77648/%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%b2%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7-%d9%85%d8%b7%d9%84%d9%88%d8%a8-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b7%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d9%85%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%82/
Another British citizen has reportedly been arrested in Tehran by the Iranian security forces. Kameel Ahmady, a British-Iranian anthropologist, is originally from the Kurdistan region of Iran. The timing of this arrest is interesting, as it came after tensions between the UK and Iran reached a new high due to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) retaliatory seizure of a British-flagged oil tanker and its crew last month.
As is true for many Iranian court cases, the authorities are not required to and did not offer any reason for Ahmady’s arrest. According to his wife, Shafaq Rahmani, security agents raided the couple’s house and “took away documents, including his ID card.” She added that the authorities gave him an order for a one-month temporary detention without providing “any information about the reason for the arrest or the charges against Kameel.” In Iran, foreign prisoners are generally arrested on ambiguous charges such as harming national security, corruption on earth, or espionage.
Another British dual national who is currently in custody in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The British mother, along with her helpless then-22-month-old daughter, traveled to Iran in 2016 to visit her family on Nowruz, the Iranian new year, after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was reached and sanctions against the Islamic Republic were lifted. With the change in the political climate, Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was employed as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, assumed she and her family would be safe. But, just as she was about to board a plane to return home, she was surrounded by IRGC officials and arrested.
The Labour MP for Hampstead, Tulip Siddiq, in January urged the British government to act and help Zaghari-Ratcliffe because her treatment was “becoming a matter of life and death.” However, Iran is ignoring ongoing requests and warnings from the British government.
Even people who are linked to British institutions are being targeted by the Iranian authorities. For example, UK-based British Council employee Aras Amiri, who is an Iranian citizen, was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The UK must not submit to Iran’s pressure, blackmail and its political game of using British citizens as hostages.
The British detainees are generally kept in Iran’s most notorious and brutal prison, Evin, which has been described by inmates as “hell on earth.”
The UK has unfortunately failed to obtain the release of the detainees. Even then-Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted in May that, “despite the UK providing repeated opportunities to resolve this issue, the Iranian regime’s conduct has worsened. Having exhausted all other options, I must now advise all British-Iranian dual nationals against traveling to Iran.” He also warned: “Dual nationals face an intolerable risk of mistreatment if they visit Iran. The dangers they face include arbitrary detention and lack of access to basic legal rights, as we have seen in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been separated from her family since 2016.”
It might appear ironic that the Iranian authorities are targeting British citizens while the UK is siding with the Islamic Republic, rather than the US, when it comes to the nuclear deal. Iran’s leaders evidently feel no obligation to return the favor. Instead, they continue to target innocent citizens of the UK — under fabricated charges — presumably in the hope of ransom money or possibly more geopolitical leverage.
By detaining British citizens, the Iranian regime is also attempting to pressure the UK into leaving the US-led coalition that aims to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic has frequently utilized hostages as political pawns and used them as leverage against other governments. This has been the modus operandi of the theocratic establishment since the revolution in 1979, starting with the takeover that year of the US Embassy in Tehran, which led to 52 Americans being held hostage for 444 days. The regime released them only after it had achieved its political, economic and ideological objectives.
The UK must not submit to Iran’s pressure, blackmail and its political game of using British citizens as hostages. The UK must hold accountable those Iranian institutions that are the main culprits: The judiciary, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the IRGC. If the UK submits to Tehran’s hostage-taking game and accepts Iran’s terms, it will only embolden and empower the regime. The British government should also level appropriate economic and political sanctions against Iran to pressure it into agreeing to stop all human rights abuses, and also to release the British citizens. It must be made clear to Iran that, apart from its unacceptable nuclear and ballistic missile build-up, the UK — and every country — will also not stand for the capture, torture and imprisonment of innocent dual citizens.
If the British government implements actions against Iran’s hostage-taking, perhaps these British captives, who most likely endure unspeakable hardship, could be free to resume their lives once again.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh