LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 16.2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
If you do your best and several times to reconcile with your brother and he insists no to respond than treat his as you would a pagan or a tax collector
Matthew 18/15-17: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 15-16/2020
U.S.Department Of State/Press Statement/Anniversary of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s Assassination
Pompeo condemns Iranian interference in Iraq, Lebanon
Pompeo: Hariri’s Killers Must be Brought to Justice
Report: Washington Considering Ways to Help Lebanon Recover Stolen Funds
Report: Lebanon Must Adhere to Dissociation Policy to Get International Assistance
Protest march from Ashrafieh to downtown Beirut, passing through Hamra Street
Al-Rahi appeals to Lebanese politicians from Rome: Stay away from rivalry because we are in need of our unity and achieving the uprising demands
Wazni's Media Office: News of his wife's appointment as a paid 'media advisor' is groundless
El-Sayed: Most political forces have absolved themselves of their responsibility for the financial collapse
Parliamentary Bloc, MP Fadi Saad: There is no escape from changing the political class through institutions
Bazzi calls for settling controversy over depositors' funds
Jumblatt honors Richard, meets with ambassadors
Abdel Samad: We are here to work, TL a 'top priority'
Hezbollah ‘biggest winner’ of Lebanese collapse/Alison Tahmizian Meuse/Asia Times/February 15/2020
Diab cabinet's plan for Syrian refugee crisis reflects allies' xenophobia/Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/February 15/2020
Hariri: Aoun settlement over, will not deal with ‘shadow president/Najia Houssari/Arab News/February 15/2020
With ‘suicide drones’ and rocket attacks, Navy simulates war with Hezbollah/Judah Ari Gross/The Times Of Israel/February 15/2020
Hezbollah’s popularity seen waning as Lebanese protests continue/The Media Line/Ynetnews/February 15/2020
Houda Kassatly's Lens: Capturing Lebanon's abused heritage/Christy-Belle Geha/Annahar/February 15/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 15-16/2020
Syria Weekly: Turkey stands up to regime and Russia in Idlib
Syria’s Grey Zones
White House memo says strike on Qassem Soleimani responded to past attacks
Irked U.S. Squeezes Iraq with Cash Delays, Short Waivers
Protester Shot Dead in Iraqi Capital
Saudi Fighter Jet Crashes in Yemen
Chinese, Vatican foreign ministers hold rare highlevel meeting
S.Sudan President Offers Key Compromise for Peace
France ‘impatient’ over lack of German response to reform EU: Macron
Venezuela’s Maduro says arrest of Juan Guaido ‘will come
US, Europe Clash over Washington's Global Retreat
First coronavirus death outside China reported in France: Minister
China Reports Major Drop in New Virus Cases; 143 New Deaths

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 15-16/2020
The Terrorists Migrating into Europe/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/February 15/2020
Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia: That changing look of love/Faisal al-Yafai/Al Arabiya/Friday, 15 February 2020
Russians Pressure U.S. Forces in Northeast Syria/Eric Schmitt/The New York Times/February 15/2020
Iran's whole system is failing, not just its satellite programme/Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/February 15/2020
Court in Pakistan Validates Forced Conversion, Marriage of Christian Girl to Muslim/Morning Star/February 15/2020
Pakistan Court Validates Minor Christian Girl's Marriage With Abductor, Says She has Had Her Menstrual Cycle/News18.com/February 15/2020
Trump's 'Deal of the Century' hijacked the international order. Here's how it can fight back/Faysal and Nizar Mohamad/The New Arab/February 15/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 15-16/2020
U.S.Department Of State/Press Statement/Anniversary of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s Assassination
PRESS STATEMENT
MICHAEL R. POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE
FEBRUARY 14, 2020
Today marks the 15th anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, an act of mass murder that resulted in the deaths of 21 others and injuries of 266 victims in Beirut. Multiple Hizballah-linked individuals were indicted for their roles in this terrorist attack and must finally be brought to justice. Ending impunity is imperative to ensuring Lebanon’s security, stability, and sovereignty. We support the work of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) to hold accountable those responsible for the attack. Hizballah has demonstrated through its terrorist and illicit activities that it is more concerned with its own interests and those of its patron, Iran, than what is best for the Lebanese people. The United States continues to stand proudly with the Lebanese people in their peaceful calls for reform, transparency, and accountability.

Pompeo condemns Iranian interference in Iraq, Lebanon
Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 15 February 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday condemned Iranian interference in the affairs of Iraq and Lebanon, during a speech at the Munich Security Conference. Iran has been exploiting Lebanese and Iraqi youth for its own interest, he added. The United States will protect the Strait of Hormuz, and will ensure the Arabian Gulf region is secured, he said. The secretary of state also noted that the US has been sucessful in its mission to eradicate ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as killed in a US special forces raid in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib in October. Pompeo also hit back at German claims that Washington was retreating from the global stage, insisting that the death of the transatlantic alliance was “grossly over-exaggerated”. “Those statements don’t reflect reality,” he said, a day after German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Donald Trump’s America rejected “even the idea of an international community”. “I’m happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over-exaggerated,” Pompeo said, paraphrasing a famous Mark Twain. (With AFP)

Pompeo: Hariri’s Killers Must be Brought to Justice
Naharnet/February 15/2020
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Saturday that “Hizbullah” individuals involved in the “terrorist” assassination attack of ex-PM Rafik Hariri must be brought to justice. Pompeo issued the statement marking the 15th assassination anniversary of Hariri, saying the crime was an act of “mass murder that killed 21 individuals and injured 266 others in Beirut.”“Ending impunity is imperative to ensuring Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty,” he added, affirming “U.S. support for the work of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on this case to hold those responsible accountable.” He said that Hizbullah’s “terrorist and illegal activities” have demonstrated more care for its own interests and those of its patron, Iran, than it does for the interests of the Lebanese people.”The U.S. “proudly stands by the Lebanese people in their peaceful calls for reform, transparency and accountability,” he added. Several Hizbullah members have been indicted in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, but they were never arrested.

Report: Washington Considering Ways to Help Lebanon Recover Stolen Funds
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 15/2020
A senior U.S. State Department official confirmed in an interview with al-Arabiya net on Saturday that relations between the United States and the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab “depend on his commitment to implement reforms and to fighting endemic corruption.”
The US official spoke on condition of anonymity about U.S. assistance for the Lebanese army and America’s willingness to interfere “financially” to prevent Lebanon from total collapse. He said: “They (Lebanese officials) know how to introduce genuine reforms which, if implemented, will open the doors wide for international, US and EU investors in Lebanon.” The U.S. is providing “assistance” for Lebanon but the Lebanese government has to make some “difficult decisions,” he added. On reports that the US does not intend to interfere in Lebanon, and therefore does not support the protesters, the official said: “We have not abandoned the protesters and protected them from violence. We are in constant contact with the Lebanese army and highly praise the role of security forces in protecting demonstrators. “The protesters must keep pressuring the government peacefully until it meets their demands. Reforms are necessary and everyone in Lebanon must seek to achieve them,” he added. On the issue of amounts of money smuggled from Lebanon to Switzerland after the October 17 uprising, he explained that the economic crisis came as a result of policies pursued since the civil war in Lebanon and as a result of high-level thefts.
“Most of these stolen public funds are now abroad, some have suggested that the US administration contributes to returning them. We are cooperating with some international bodies to discuss the issue,” he emphasized.
On the US sanctions he said a long-list of new sanctions is being prepared.

Report: Lebanon Must Adhere to Dissociation Policy to Get International Assistance
Naharnet/February 15/2020
In order for crisis-hit Lebanon to get international assistance for its crippling economy, it must first kick start a series of reforms mainly committing to the dissociation policy as devised in the government’s policy statement, Asharq al-Awsat reported on Saturday.“Lebanon is not only required internationally to implement financial and economic reforms, it must mainly implement political ones. The government of PM Hassan Diab must show an ability to commit in deeds, not words, to its dissociation policy,” a parliamentary source told the daily on condition of anonymity. “Failure to adhere to the dissociation policy not only constitutes an embarrassment for the government but will also push the international community to distance itself from assisting Lebanon,” added the source. Referring to assurances that deposits of Lebanese are safe in banks, he said: “Rosy promises made on a daily basis by central bank governor Riad Salameh, head of Chairman of the Association of Banks Salim Sfeir and some statesmen have no positive effect in terms of reassuring depositors that their deposits won’t be touched. “These promises are only ink on paper as long as banks continue to violate the monetary and credit law with a cover from Salameh on one hand, and ignorance of officials on he other,” he added. Last week, Lebanon's new cabinet approved a policy statement expected to outline a broad action plan to save the protest-hit country from one of its worst economic crises in decades. Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his new government face the twin challenge of angry street protests and a collapsing economy, with Lebanon burdened by debt of nearly 90 billion dollars, or more than 150 percent of GDP. The policy statement maintained the tripartite alliance between the army, the people and the Resistance, the third term referring to Hizbullah.Hizbullah- listed as a “terrorist" group by the United States and the European Union- has been fighting alongside the troops of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a move condemned by many in Lebanon and internationally.

Protest march from Ashrafieh to downtown Beirut, passing through Hamra Street
NNA/February 15/2020
Civil movement groups marched this afternoon from Sassine Square in Ashrafieh to downtown Beirut, passing through Hamra Street, with a stop in front of the Financial Revenues Building and a number of banking centers, in condemnation of the banking policy. The participating activists confirmed, in a unified statement, their stay in the squares and their pursuit of "accountability and public pressure to ensure the fall of the system of corruption." They also accused the government of being "uninterested in a bailout plan to transform the economy from a rentier economy to a productive one," and called for a government "that stimulates small and medium-sized companies, employs thousands of Lebanese nationals and brings in investments...a government that is keen on prioritizing the interests of depositors over the interest of capital owners."Protesters also called for the "non-payment of Eurobonds at the expense of small depositors and people's money," and "working on an honest and transparent judiciary to hold accountable the corrupt and the looters and smugglers of funds."They vowed, as well, to continue to "defend the rights of the Lebanese people" and "work to monitor the government, and to topple it if it fails to fulfill the aspirations of the people."

Protesters gather in Sassine Square in Ashrafieh
NNA/February 15/2020
A number of activists started gathering in Sassine Square in Ashrafieh this afternoon, in preparation for their protest march under the headline, "You will pay the price", which is expected to set out at 3:00 p.m., NNA correspondent reported. Protesters raised banners that read: "No confidence", "No legitimacy", and "Your settlements have brought us to where we are today!"The march will head towards Parliament House in downtown Beirut, passing through the area of Bechara el-Khoury and the Building of Financial Revenues, amidst wide presence of army and security forces.

Al-Rahi appeals to Lebanese politicians from Rome: Stay away from rivalry because we are in need of our unity and achieving the uprising demands
NNA/February 15/2020
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Beshara Boutros al-Rahi, continued to participate in reciting the Rosary prayer rituals in Rome devoted to Lebanon's intention, where he appealed to Lebanese politicians this evening before the start of prayers to refrain from rivalry since the country is in need of unity and achieving the people's demands. "We pray today for the new government to be able to meet the needs of citizens for which the popular uprising erupted...rightful demands which we support," he said. "This requires the cabinet to work seriously to develop a rescue plan for an economic, financial and social renaissance, similar to what was presented and confirmed at the Cedar Conference, and according to the government plan," the Patriarch asserted. "This is the only way to meet the demands of the uprisings in the street, which are also our demands because they are the cry of a hungry people," he said. "I appeal to the political officials in Lebanon, to the heads of parties and parliamentary blocs, to move away from the atmosphere of rivalry, rhetoric, accusations and mutual complaints. We are in urgent need today for our national unity," AL-Rahi corroborated.
"This call is also a prayer for all the political forces on Lebanese grounds to work for the internal unity and aspirations of Lebanon, because the intifada was launched from all Lebanese regions and from all sects, parties and colors," he maintained. "I hope that the political officials would be advocates of unity, understanding and brotherhood for the sake of the salvation of Lebanon and its people," al-Rahi concluded.

Wazni's Media Office: News of his wife's appointment as a paid 'media advisor' is groundless
NNA/February 15/2020
Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni's Media Office issued a statement this evening, in which it categorically denied the circulated news that the minister has appointed his spouse as his media advisor with a paid allowance, deeming it as "false, fabricated and misleading news." The statement urged all sides "to verify any news before circulation, in the interest of truth and credibility."

El-Sayed: Most political forces have absolved themselves of their responsibility for the financial collapse
NNA/February 15/2020
MP Jamil El-Sayed tweeted Saturday on the financial crisis, saying: "Two days ago in the House of Parliament, most political forces disavowed their responsibility for the financial, economic, and moral collapse in the country they had ruled since 2005."He added: "Yesterday, Saad Hariri also acquitted himself and the whole era of his father, and tried to persuade us that everyone plundered his power, and that he was 'Mister Chastity'...but the fool is one who stupefies the people!"

Parliamentary Bloc, MP Fadi Saad: There is no escape from changing the political class through institutions
NNA/February 15/2020
Member of the "Strong Republic" Parliamentary Bloc, MP Fadi Saad, highlighted in a television interview today "the necessity of holding early parliamentary elections, especially after October 17," stressing that "there is no escape from changing the political class, and there is no possibility of achieving that except through institutions." He added: "The protest movement must express itself in the parliamentary elections, and we are with this matter and will present a law proposal in this regard. The people should bear their responsibility to produce a clean political class that works for the interest of Lebanon and builds a state in the fullest sense of the word." "Most of the Lebanese components have failed to manage political life and citizens' affairs, and all we want is for everyone to be aware that Lebanon is going through the worst stages of its history regarding the economy and the livelihood of its citizens," Saad corroborated. He deemed that the time has come for all parties to reassess their performance, and to acknowledge that October 17th has signaled in a new phase that calls for a careful approach and for reevaluation, both internally and externally. "We admit that we have been mistaken at times, but we do undergo self-review and recalculation to find out where we erred and where we succeeded...and each party must follow suit," Saad underscored.

Bazzi calls for settling controversy over depositors' funds
NNA/February 15/2020
During his meeting with popular, municipal and educational delegations who visited him at his Bint Jbeil office today, MP Ali Bazzi highlighted the need "to resolve the controversy over depositors' money and lifetime savings, liberating them from discretionary and humiliation." He also stressed that "the reduction of interest rates on deposits must be accompanied by a reduction on the interests imposed on loans and advances as well."Bazzi deemed that the current situation calls for a tranquil atmosphere, "so that the government and those concerned can take decisions and measures aimed at addressing the financial and economic crisis.""We can overcome our bad conditions through the implementation of laws, combatting corruption and demonstrating serious commitment to reforms and the independence of the judiciary," he asserted.

Jumblatt honors Richard, meets with ambassadors
NNA/February 15/2020
Progressive Socialist Party Chief, Walid Jumblatt, met at his Mukhtara Palace this morning with the United States Ambassador to Lebanon, Elizabeth Richard, Egyptian Ambassador Yasser Alawi, and the United Nations Special Coordinator, Jan Kubis, with talks centering on the prevailing situation in the country and ways of dealing with the economic crisis. Also present during the meetings were "Democratic Gathering" Chief, MP Taymour Jumblatt, Deputies Akram Shehayeb and Wael Abu Faour, Mrs. Nora Jumblatt, and Advisor to MP Jumblatt Hussam Harb, alongside a number of prominent figures.
Jumblatt kept his guests to a farewell luncheon in honor Ambassador Richard, marking the near end of her term of office in Lebanon. As a farewell token, Jumblatt presented Richard with the "Kamal Jumblatt Medal" in appreciation of her undertaken efforts.

Abdel Samad: We are here to work, TL a 'top priority'
NNA/February 15/2020
Minister of Information, Dr. Manal Abdel Samad Najd, maintained in an interview on Saturday with "Voice of Lebanon" Radio Station, that "the government's work began the moment it was formed." She added: "We are the most people facing challenges to address the problems of [Lebanon], in the hope that these efforts will lead to proposals and solutions that serve the whole society." Responding to a question on appointing an administrative board for the state-run TV Channel "Tele Liban", the Minister said: "Everyone played a role in confronting obstacles, and at certain times the rotation of governments hindered the completion of plans." Abdel Samad indicated, herein, that she has drawn-up a clear and objective plan, which she hoped would lead to removing all obstacles through strong will, and with the help of her work team. Abdel Samad also emphasized that "the issue of Lebanon TV is a priority because it needs to be addressed so that the station can rise to the ranks of high-end institutions." "Lebanon faces a difficult circumstance and major challenges, and the pursuit of objective solutions with the adoption of equality and justice in choosing people will not be opposed by anyone," the Minister asserted, adding that there is a determination from all parties to appoint the right person in the right place, away from any political interventions. Abdel Samad also explained that she was not appointed as a minister based on a political background. However, she added that "there is no problem for an individual to have political affiliation; yet, the problem occurs when politics interferes in administration and judicial work, which impedes the course of objectivity, equality and justice.""We believe that all have their eyes set on the country, and every person from his position, whether in the government or the opposition, plays a major role in reforming or criticizing the government for its decisions, and this is healthy, because it urges us to work effectively," the Minister underlined. Commenting on the declaration of funds, Abdel Samad stated: "We have passed the law of unlawful enrichment to disclose movable and immovable funds or loans belonging to us and any of our family members." Finally, the Information Minister emphasized the existence of cooperation, cohesion, and exchange of valuable and objective ideas between the members of cabinet, away from any political controversy. "Dealing with urgent dossiers is our main goal in the government, as there is no time to waste on polemic and disputes," she said, adding, "We came to work in the administration, and each cabinet member is meeting, from his position, the requirements and goals of his ministry and is establishing a strategic plan that works to achieve these goals in the service of society and its development."

Hezbollah ‘biggest winner’ of Lebanese collapse
ريا الحسن: حزب الله الرابح الأكبر من انهيار لبنان
Alison Tahmizian Meuse/Asia Times/February 15/2020

Former interior minister Raya al-Hassan speaks to Asia Times as Lebanon inches closer to the IMF to avert bankruptcy
The Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah will be the “biggest winner” of the country’s impending economic collapse, Lebanon’s former interior minister Raya al-Hassan warned this week in a wide-ranging interview with the Asia Times.
“Do you know who will be the biggest winners? Hezbollah. Because they’d be able to survive an economic collapse much more than anybody else,” said Hassan, speaking from the offices of the Western and Gulf-aligned Future Movement in downtown Beirut.
“I talk to them. They say we have our own systems, our own social safety nets. We have our own hospitals and our people can resist, in their psyche, much more than anybody else.”
Those systems have been impacted by US sanctions on Iran, but have not been broken, says Hassan, who served as Lebanon’s finance minister from 2009-2011. A Hezbollah official told Asia Times last May that the party has a “financial infrastructure that would keep it fully functional for around four to five years under sanctions on Iran.”
The US government under President Donald Trump has pursued what it calls a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, a strategy encouraged by its regional allies Saudi Arabia and Israel.
A year before Trump took office, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman canceled US$4 billion in military and security aid to Lebanon, and has not looked back since.
Hassan disputes that the US-led pressure campaign is hurting its stated target in Lebanon.
“I have a question mark, frankly, on the US strategy – undermining the banking sector to put a pressure on Hezbollah. Hezbollah doesn’t use the banking sector!” she told Asia Times.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has characterized Lebanon’s ongoing anti-corruption protests as an uprising against Hezbollah, has refrained from endorsing the new Lebanese government.
That government, composed only of Hezbollah and its allies, now risks overseeing the evaporation up of the country’s foreign-currency reserves, should it refuse to submit itself to the International Monetary Fund.
Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab reiterated his pledge on Tuesday to court the “brotherly” nations of the oil-rich Persian Gulf region for urgent aid, but he has had no success doing so since taking office.
Hopes that energy-rich Qatar or the rival United Arab Emirates would offer substantial support have not come through.
“The Europeans may have been coaxed into providing some funding, but I think the Americans are putting some pressure on them,” Hassan said.
While Lebanon’s central bank governor Riad Salameh has assured the public there remain $30 billion in foreign-currency reserves, the amount of usable reserves likely stands at roughly $10 billion.
With 6 million people, a third of those Syrian and Palestinian refugees, living within its borders, Lebanon requires some $5 billion in US dollars each year to import its most basic needs of oil and gas, medicine, and wheat.
“If no fresh money comes in, probably the foreign reserves would dry up in a year,” Hassan told Asia Times. “There is no likelihood to get money from the outside.”
With dollars running out, she concluded: “We don’t have any other option except an IMF program.”
Nabih Berri, the head of the Hezbollah-allied Amal party in control of the Finance Ministry, has signaled he will back negotiations with the IMF over Lebanon’s debt, an undertaking the Argentine president recently likened to player poker.
According to a Wednesday report in Lebanese daily Annahar, Berri told visitors Lebanon must “send a message abroad, to the Americans in particular – as they are the most influential actor in the IMF – that Lebanon needs ‘technical’ assistance from the Fund to come up with a rescue plan.”
At the same time, Berri reportedly cautioned that Lebanon must not “hand over its affairs” to the fund, as austerity measures like those placed on its Mediterranean neighbor Greece by the European Union would be crushing.
Lebanon’s ongoing protest movement was famously sparked on October 17 by a planned tax on the messaging service WhatsApp, which serves as the de facto phone plan of the poor and middle class.
Hezbollah has yet to announce its position on a potential IMF rescue plan, a spokeswoman told Asia Times on Tuesday, declining to say whether it had decided its position or not.
IMF spokesman Gerry Rice late on Wednesday indicated that the Lebanese government had sought its “technical advice.”
“Today the #Lebanese authorities requested our technical advice on the macroeconomic challenges facing the economy. IMF stands ready to assist Lebanon. Any decisions on debt are the authorities’, to be made in consultation with their own legal and financial advisors,” he tweeted.
The nationwide economic situation has meanwhile become increasingly dire, with salaries being slashed and people losing jobs.
Banks have for months enforced arbitrary, and increasingly rigid, capital controls on dollars accounts and international transfers, leaving hospitals in crisis and businesses bordering on a standstill amid rising inflation.
On Tuesday in the northern city of Tripoli, the dollar was trading for 2,200 Lebanese pounds at black-market exchange offices, marking a roughly 50% depreciation for the local currency in less than six months. The official exchange rate is 1,507.5 pounds to the dollar.
Lebanese traders are until now selling goods in local currency, exchanging those profits for USD at black market rates, and then bringing those dollars to banks to be transferred to their international suppliers. “But how long can you sustain that?” Hassan asked.
Eurobonds in flux
The question hanging over Lebanon at present is whether the central Banque du Liban will honor a $1.2 billion payment in Eurobonds, due in less than four weeks.
Lebanon has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, at more than 150%. But it has never defaulted on its debts, a point of pride for a banking sector that was once one of the most respected in the region.
Civic organization Kulluna Irada, which has been lobbying the new government against the upcoming payment, argued in a policy brief on February 4 that:
“Defaulting is not a matter of national pride. It is unwise to proceed to paying bonds at full, when the market has already written down their values by 40-50% and is expecting a restructuring of debt.
“It is a matter of time before Lebanon’s rampant socioeconomic crisis develops into a full-blown humanitarian crisis,” it said, adding: “It is inadmissible to proceed with the payment of debt principal and interest, privileging interests of few banks and investors, when the economy is not able to bear this burden.
“We call on the government to honor its responsibility towards the Lebanese people and proceed immediately to an orderly default.”
Even some of the foreign funds that hold Lebanon’s bonds are urging the beleaguered Lebanese government not to pay, sources in those funds have told Bloomberg.
Yet the new cabinet is facing “intense lobbying from some local bankers and foreign bondholders,” said Kulluna Irada’s director, Karim Bitar.
In her interview with Asia Times, Hassan said she was “of the opinion we should not pay; that we should announce a moratorium and immediately start negotiation.”
“Because if [the central bank governor] uses whatever little he has, then whatever is remaining will only probably be sufficient until maximum the end of the year to cover for fuel, wheat and for medicine.”
With the payment due March 9, however, she believes Lebanon is dangerously close to defaulting before it can come to an agreement on a moratorium and secure the legal and financial expertise to negotiate a restructuring of its obligations.
She acknowledges that there are divergent views on this issue even within her own party, however, and in the government as a whole.
The Diab cabinet, in the end, may pass the buck to the IMF and ask for its determination on whether or not Lebanon should pay up in March.
Blocking the screams
As Lebanon faces an economic and even humanitarian precipice, with half the population in danger of falling below the poverty line according to the World Bank, the protest movement has struggled to keep up momentum.
Hundreds of Lebanese protesters on Tuesday attempted to block the paths of lawmakers’ SUVs to the parliament, now surrounded by concrete barrier walls, but were unsuccessful in halting a vote of confidence.
Hassan, who held the post of interior minister from January 2019 until last month, says she fought to allow space for demonstrations to take place, even when it meant bumping heads with government rivals and putting the overstretched riot police force in a complex situation on the ground.
During the last weeks of her tenure, Lebanon saw fierce confrontations between the security forces and protesters, with a handful of people having their eye shot out at point blank range by rubber bullets.
Hassan acknowledged “grave mistakes” were made, and said internal investigations and consequences were being taken, though not publicized. She also defended the performance of the security personnel, who she says were often working 15-hour shifts and deployed between demonstrators and Hezbollah and Amal partisans attacking the sit-ins.
The protest movement, which began October 17, also interrupted a major British-led retraining of the Lebanese riot police, she said, which saw only the top class of officers graduate.
In total, Lebanon’s riot police number 1,400 nationwide, of which only 500 could be deployed to downtown Beirut at a time.
“You didn’t have the proper institutional training to accompany that kind of movement,” said the former minister, who says her worst fear was that someone would be killed.
“Thank God there were no death casualties,” she said.
Lebanon’s new interior minster, who comes from a military security background, has signaled zero tolerance for the demonstrations, expanding and fortifying a circle of concrete barriers around the parliament.
The protest movement, which began with what could have been a million people on the streets, has also seen its numbers wear thin, ground down by disillusionment, frigid weather, and the literal flight of Lebanese seeking a livelihood outside the country.
Speaking of the government’s expanded cordon, Hassan reflected: “It’s going to be like they’re in isolation.
“They will not hear people screaming and shouting any more.”
https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/02/article/hezbollah-biggest-winner-of-lebanese-collapse/

Diab cabinet's plan for Syrian refugee crisis reflects allies' xenophobia

Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/February 15/2020
Lebanese President Michel Aoun blamed Lebanon’s predicament on the refugees and conflicts in the region.
The cabinet of Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab won a vote of confidence with just 63 parliamentarians voting in favour of its platform -- a plan that promised some impossible feats, including addressing the thorny matter of the Syrian refugees.
Faced with a nose-diving economy and an even worse political crisis, Diab vowed to ensure the safe return of more than 1 million refugees to Syria, a task easier said than done.
For most of his plan, Diab adopted the same pledges of earlier cabinets to deal with the refugee crisis and, likewise, he failed to field any clear map to achieve his goal. The main feature of Diab’s refugee plan espouses -- but masks -- the xenophobia of his allies -- primarily Lebanese President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil -- who set the policy for this issue in their many statements and actions on the matter, undermining and rendering any commitment from Diab as inconsequential.
In an interview with the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles a few days before Diab and his cabinet went to parliament, Aoun blamed Lebanon’s predicament on the refugees and on conflicts in the region. Aoun continues to adopt the tactic of downplaying the political elite’s role in the crisis and instead demands that the international community aids Lebanon simply because it is the right thing to do.
If this was not enough, Aoun also requested that the countries responsible for the war in Syria pay reparations to Lebanon because of the repercussions of refugees on the Lebanese economy and infrastructure.
Coincidentally, Aoun had a number in mind -- $25 billion -- the same amount needed for Lebanon to escape its current predicament.
Obviously, Aoun did not mean his allies Iran, Russia, Qatar and the Assad regime, who are equally responsible for the mayhem and destruction of Syria. The Lebanese president was rather insinuating against and targeting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Those countries have recently been aloof towards Lebanon and, consequently, have withdrawn their political and -- more important -- financial support.
This false sense of entitlement has been a feature of cabinets since the start of the Syrian crisis. Yet this use of populism and xenophobia is not entirely the fault of the Lebanese state. It can partially be blamed on the international community that condones it.
European countries, in particular, play along and keep endorsing the Lebanese refugee plan, or lack thereof, refusing to confront Beirut over its refusal to assume responsibility and acknowledge Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian crisis. This involvement is directly responsible for many of the refugees fleeing Syria after their homes and land were occupied by Hezbollah and other Iranian militias.
Equally, Diab’s cabinet proposes to formulate a plan to ensure the safe and immediate return of the Syrian refugees to their country but not necessarily in that order. Diab consciously disregards the fact that the Assad regime does not want these people back, first because of demographic considerations. Most of the refugees are Sunnis from areas the regime wishes to populate with people loyal to them.
Second, the return of the refugees requires billions of dollars, which the Assad regime is incapable of supplying and the international community is equally unwilling to provide.
Diab met with EU ambassadors and blatantly declared that "Lebanon is in urgent need for support in all areas, including electricity, food and raw materials and medicine. Our country urges Europe to help in securing these items to protect social stability.”
Although he did not explicitly mention the issue of the refugees, Diab and the Lebanese state use the refugees as a weapon, a tactic first adopted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who constantly threatens to facilitate the exodus of these desperate refugees to Europe.
In December, Bassil, then caretaker minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, reminded his audience at the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva that, if the international community did not come to the immediate aid of Lebanon, chaos and instability would lead to the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Europe.
The refugees, he hinted, would bring crime and terrorism with them. Unfortunately, these scare tactics seem to work with the European community, which took the easy way out and, rather than risk implementing an inclusive return plan by establishing safe zones, decided to keep the refugees in Lebanon.
If one is to look beyond the populist rhetoric of Bassil and the Diab cabinet, the Syrian refugees are one of the sources of hard currency entering Lebanon, something that Lebanon is in dire need of. It is estimated that, up to 2019, Lebanon received more than $8.2 billion to support refugee and host community response plans, something which, if properly enhanced, could mean further funds for Lebanon.
The figure is, in fact, even higher because this $8 billion plays an important role in jump-starting the economy and has a tremendous trickle-down effect, something Diab and his allies refuse to publicly acknowledge.
The issue of Syrian refugees, just like the many crises facing the Diab cabinet and Lebanon, is a challenging yet surmountable one. Nevertheless, to reach this goal, the Lebanese need to realise that the refugees are in Lebanon to stay at least for a few years and thus they should not accept their state and its so-called policymakers continuing to use the same tactics and rhetoric which have failed time and again.
As it stands, Diab, just like Saad Hariri before him, is proving that the Lebanese political elite has failed to grasp that Lebanon is not as important as they think and that, until further notice, the refugees are their problem and no xenophobic rhetoric can change that.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, department of history. His forthcoming book, “Conflict on Mount Lebanon: The Druze, the Maronites and Collective Memory,” (Edinburgh University Press) covers collective identities and the Lebanese Civil War.

Hariri: Aoun settlement over, will not deal with ‘shadow president’
Najia Houssari/Arab News/February 15/2020
BEIRUT: In a speech on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of his father, Rafic Hariri, former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced that the settlement he had established with President Michel Aoun had come to an end. “The Hariri era has not ended, and I am staying in the country and in politics, and the Sunnis are staying,” he stated.
“Before the settlement, I tried to pave the way for my friend, Suleiman Franjieh, to become president, but his allies prevented him. The abolition mentality wants to abolish the Progressive Socialist Party, the Lebanese Forces and, now, Hariri,” he said.
Hariri lashed out at the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, without naming him. “President Aoun knows how much I respect him, but I arrived at a point where I have begun to deal with two presidents — I have to deal with a shadow president to protect the original one,” he said.
He was also indirectly critical of Hezbollah. “How can we strengthen tourism without the Arabs and the citizens of the Arabian Gulf region, and how do we protect the interests of the Lebanese people, who are benefitting from employment opportunities in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries when there are those who stir up trouble with these countries?” he said.
“Iran’s money solves Hezbollah’s crisis; not the crisis of a country. Parties in the state do not operate separately and individually without actual financial policies.”
Hariri strongly criticized the ongoing efforts to hold his father responsible for Lebanon’s economic collapse.
“What is most dangerous are suggestions that the countdown to the Taif Agreement has begun. People know how Lebanon was before Rafic Hariri and what he did for it. They did not offer the country anything of value. They did not even build a sewer. Instead, they fabricated files, dug graves, and made accusations. There is a political system that started discussing a non-Hariri era and holding Hariri responsible for ‘the deal of the century’ and the resettlement nightmare. We say that resettlement is not mentioned in the constitution,” he said.
“Seven years of impediment after (Rafic) Hariri’s assassination have been wasted on talks about the rights of minorities, who have been partners for 30 years and participated in all disturbances. The cost of electric power has amounted for 50 percent of public debt,” he added, highlighting that since the war ended, no Future Movement member of parliament had ever assumed the role of minister of energy.
“In the last two months, we have heard that the Future Movement has come to its end. We have also heard that Saudi Arabia, the US, China, and the world do not want Saad Hariri, but I assure you that the Future Movement, the movement of Arabism and moderation, is staying, and this house shall never close,” he added.
FASTFACT
Saad Hariri strongly criticized the ongoing efforts to hold his father responsible for Lebanon’s economic collapse.
Thousands of supporters and popular delegations carrying the Future Movement’s blue flag as well as Lebanon’s flag flocked to Hariri’s house and the streets surrounding it. They also carried banners that read, “Your martyrdom is revolution.”
The speech was attended by a delegation from the Democratic Gathering, led by Taymour Jumblatt, a parliamentary and ministerial delegation from the Lebanese Forces, and delegations from the Armenian Tashnag Party and the Phalange Party. It was also attended by the Saudi Arabian and UAE ambassadors to Lebanon.
Walid, a young man from Iklim Al-Kharoub region, told Arab News: “People are with Saad Hariri, may God give him strength.”
Nabiha from Beirut said: “We are with Saad Hariri. His allies have deceived him despite everything he did. He shall return to power.”
Farouk, also from Beirut, said: “Rafic Hariri leveraged everyone, but they removed him from power and then assassinated him. They are now trying to do the same to his son, Saad Hariri, but he is staying and will return strong. He will not lose his popularity.”
Political, religious and diplomatic figures also visited the grave of Rafic Hariri on the anniversary of his death, including Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin.
There was friction between Hariri’s supporters and protesters in Martyrs’ Square, opposite the site of Rafic Hariri’s grave.
During the commemoration of Rafic Hariri, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “The assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri is a mass killing. Many individuals linked to Hezbollah have been charged with playing roles in this terrorist attack, and they must be brought to justice in the end.”
Pompeo added that Hezbollah had proven through its terrorist and illegal activities that it cared more about its interests and the interests of its sponsor, Iran, than about the best interests of the Lebanese people.
“The US continues to proudly stand with the Lebanese people in their peaceful calls for reform, transparency, and accountability,” he added.

With ‘suicide drones’ and rocket attacks, Navy simulates war with Hezbollah
Judah Ari Gross/The Times Of Israel/February 15/2020
Times of Israel joins the 3rd Flotilla of missile ships as it holds an exercise preparing for possible conflict off the northern coast.
ABOARD THE I.N.S. KESHET — In the next conflict with the Hezbollah terror group, Israel’s Navy knows that one of its main goals will be to protect Israel’s burgeoning natural gas infrastructure and shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Hezbollah has long identified the maritime platforms as a potential target for attack, with verbal threats by the terror group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and his deputies over the years, as well as ominous videos and graphics putting the structures in cross-hairs.
Moreover, the military assumes that the terror group possesses the capabilities necessary to carry out those threats and stage potentially successful attacks not only on the gas platforms but on the commercial shipping lanes that bring in nearly all of Israel’s imported goods.
Last week, the navy’s 3rd Flotilla of missile ships — known in Hebrew by the acronym satilim — simulated such a war with a week-long exercise at sea, including deadly missile strikes on Israeli vessels, attempted suicide boat bombings and drone attacks.
“We assume [Hezbollah] will try to attack on the maritime front. They see it as a very important arena,” Lt. Col. Guy Barak, commander of the 34th Anti-Submarine Squadron, told The Times of Israel, on board the INS Keshet, a 67-meter (220-foot) Sa’ar 4.5-model “submarine hunter” missile ship, during the second day of the five-day drill.
“With an enemy like Hezbollah, a surprise can come on the tenth day of a war or within the first hour,” he said. “So we have to know how to go from zero to 60 fast.”
Barak declined to comment on the specific types of weapons that the IDF believes the Tehran-backed Hezbollah has in its arsenals, but said generally that this included shore-to-sea missiles, suicide drones, submarine capabilities and others.
“We have to think that whatever Iran has, Hezbollah — and Hamas — can also have,” he said.
Barak said the military is both directly tracking Hezbollah’s weapons development closely and also making assessments based on the “vectors” that the terror group was already on.
In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah forces fired an anti-ship missile at the INS Hanit that killed four Israeli soldiers — one of the most significant, and in Israel, infamous, events of the 34-day conflict.
The strike on the Hanit on July 14 crippled the ship but did not destroy it. It was the first direct strike on an Israeli warship in decades and Hezbollah celebrated it as among its biggest victories of the war.
Though much of the exercise was conducted virtually, one aspect that was simulated with live fire was an attack by a “suicide drone” packed with explosives, a weapon that Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militias are known to have.
A civilian company was brought in to fly a Styrofoam glider around the participating ships, as machine gunners tried to shoot them down.
On board the INS Keshet, it took 94 bullets from one of the ship’s .50-caliber machine gun to send the drone crashing into the sea.
Asked why only one drone was used in the operation, when it’s possible a swarm of them could actually be used in a future war, Barak recognized that this was true not only of drones but of all aspects of the exercise, and that the decision to only use one was something of an arbitrary one.
“It can be one suicide boat or several, one drone or several, one rocket or several,” he said.
Israel is an island
Though surrounded on three sides by land, the State of Israel effectively functions as an island economy, importing and exporting nearly all of its goods through the sea — rather than by land — making the maritime arena one of critical value to the normal functioning of the country. The recent discovery of natural gas reserves in Israel’s territorial waters and the construction of one extraction platform in easy view of northern Israeli coastal communities has only added to the importance to the sea.
To assist in defending these new resources, the Israeli military has purchased four Sa’ar 6-model missile ships to be delivered beginning next year that will come equipped with two Iron Dome air defense batteries to defend the natural gas platforms from missile and rocket attacks.
In the meantime, the Israeli Navy is protecting the extraction platforms with slightly smaller Sa’ar 5-model missile ships, also equipped with Iron Dome batteries.
In addition to their strategic importance to the State of Israel, these platforms also represent a highly visible targets for Hezbollah, which could provide it with what military officials refer to as a “victory picture,” like the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima from World War II or the Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall from the 1967 Six Day War. A massive fireball erupting out of the extraction rig less than 10 kilometers from the Israeli shore could serve a similar function for Hezbollah.
“But that’s less my concern,” Barak said. “My concern is defending national infrastructure installations — regardless of how things look.”
To accomplish this task, Israel’s missile ships are equipped with a dizzying array of sensors and detection systems — radar, sonar, electro-optical and more — active defense systems that can intercept incoming attacks, as well as ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore missiles.
While other navies around the world maintain fleets of different varieties of ships capable of performing specific tasks and mission, Barak said, “we need our missile ships to do everything.”
All of these systems are controlled from the warships’ combat information center — known in Hebrew by the acronym MIK, or Merkaz Yediyat Krav — a pitch black, cramped room in the belly of the vessel whose walls are covered in a myriad of screens and information panels.
Barak said these detection systems and weapons make the missile ships critical for defensive and offensive operations “not just on the sea, but above it and below it.”
However, he stressed, the navy cannot use these tools solely for the maritime front and must serve an integral part of the overall war effort.
Naval officials often point to the case of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which the military’s air and ground forces suffered heavy losses while the navy performed far better. Despite the navy’s significant successes on its front, the war in general is seen as having been far less than a decisive victory for Israel.
An ultra-Orthodox Israeli sailor holds a rifle during a naval exercise off Israel’s northern coast in February 2020. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)
“It’s no longer the military telling the navy, ‘Just keep the sea clean,'” he said.
Barak said the navy, especially the 3rd Flotilla and the 7th Flotilla of submarines, does have a slightly different mindset than the rest of the military, as the vessels they use are not only war machines, but also their homes, on which they can remain for extended periods of time.
“The sailors see this as their house and the other crew members as their family, so when they fight, they’re fighting for their home,” he said. “We go out to war and we come back when we’ve won. We don’t know for how long.”
Despite this singular quality, the navy works closely with the other branches of the IDF, especially the Israeli Air Force, Barak said, giving the specific example of the air force-operated Iron Dome batteries on board navy ships.
But in order to maintain the ability to fight more traditional naval warfare, last week’s exercise also included fleet-on-fleet combat.
The drill also simulated the death of the captain of the INS Romach from the direct strike of a Hezbollah rocket, fires and flooding onboard ships, emergency helicopter evacuations and other emergencies.
“The exercise took the commanders to extremes and tested their functioning under pressure,” the military said.
The 3rd Flotilla’s ship-to-shore missiles and other weaponry ensures that it will also play an active role in any future war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as it did in the 2006 Second Lebanon War and against Hamas in Gaza in the 2014 conflict there.
“Hezbollah knows that if an all-out war breaks out, the IDF will display force like never before, and that will include a ‘punch’ from the sea from the 3rd Flotilla,” Barak said.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-suicide-drones-and-rocket-attacks-navy-simulates-war-with-hezbollah/

Hezbollah’s popularity seen waning as Lebanese protests continue
The Media Line/Ynetnews/February 15/2020
Analysis: As new Beirut government’s biggest supporter, Iran-backed group is facing possibility of losing its legitimacy as resistance movement; according to one expert, with so much poverty, few in Lebanon mention ‘resistance’ to Israel.
Anti-government protesters continued to take to the streets of Beirut last week, declaring their lack of confidence in new prime minister Hassan Diab and his cabinet.
Meanwhile, the new government’s biggest backer, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement is seeing its popularity wane as it faces the possibility of losing its legitimacy as a resistance movement.
“The government failed before it even started,” said Ali Amin, a Lebanese analyst and journalist who writes for the London-based Al-Arab newspaper said.
He said that people were revolting against an entire political system but were given a new government with the same platform and same political powers.
“Hezbollah is a key party in forming this new government and is perhaps its primary backer, as [the government] could never have been formed without Hezbollah’s support for its leader and members,” he said.
“The ongoing battle here is between the new government and the street, which rejects it and is expressing this through protests.”
The protests have been taking place since mid-October when people rose up against a new tax on the use of internet-based communications programs like WhatsApp. The protests widened to express deep dissatisfaction with economic mismanagement, corruption, and sectarianism.
Under relentless pressure, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on October 29. But since the beginning, demonstrators have vowed not to leave the streets until there is a government of experts rather than politicians who merely represent the country’s many ethnic and religious groups.
Raneem al-Ahmar, a Lebanese political activist who is a regular participant in the anti-government demonstrations, said that Hezbollah has lost popular support.
“We don’t trust Hezbollah, as it’s a partner of the current political game,” Ahmar said. “They manipulated us.”
Asad Bishara, who served as an adviser to former justice minister Ashraf Rifi, said that Diab’s government represents the same system that brought the country to collapse, adding that this is hurting Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah sponsors the majority of the new government. Its image as a resistance movement [against Israel and Western powers] has suffered,” he said, adding, however, that the Shi’ite group also sponsored the previous cabinet.
“The formation of the new government is a sign of failure and further collapse,” Bishara said.
“The ministerial platform is broad and doesn’t include a clear economic plan, a plan to stop corruption or work on Lebanon’s regional and international relations. It is the same old approach, just with a new government.”
He said that the interests of the country’s diverse political forces conflict with the interests of Lebanon itself.
“Obviously, Hezbollah is working to thwart the revolution to protect a corrupt system,” he said.
Charles Jabour, a journalist and head of media and communications for the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party and Hezbollah foe, said that such talk would change only if the new government managed to rescue the country from its deep foreign debt.
“It can hardly achieve this,” he said. “It’s not supported by the Lebanese street.
"It faces political opposition in the country and has no support from Arab countries, which means no aid money. In addition, the international community won’t offer any help without a cohesive plan [for economic recovery].”
Regarding Hezbollah, a group that has long found support due to its resistance against Israel, Lebanon’s neighbor to the south, Jabour said that nobody talks much about resistance nowadays.
“People,” he said, “are busy facing poverty.”
*Article written by Dima Abumaria. Reprinted with permission from The Media Line

Houda Kassatly's Lens: Capturing Lebanon's abused heritage
Christy-Belle Geha/Annahar/February 15/2020
Kassatly described her photography style as simple and clean, with no photo editing or cropping. This serves to preserve the subject’s human dimension.
BEIRUT: Over the past 30 years, Houda Kassatly’s camera lens has captured Lebanon’s abused heritage and environment. 365 of these photos are currently being showcased in five different exhibitions at the Alice Mogabgab Gallery, Achrafieh.
“Why is the country slowly vanishing thirty years after the end of the Civil War? Isn’t the end of a war supposed to be a new beginning? We wanted to look closer at what led the country to hit rock bottom,” Alice Mogabgab, owner of the Alice Mogabgab Gallery, told Annahar. “We deeply reflected on how to combine art and the October 17 revolution in our gallery. Houda Kassatly’s photography is in perfect accordance with what Lebanon is currently going through, considering that she started photographing corruption, the country’s destruction, and its collective memory at a very young age. We picked her artwork for a year-long exhibition, ramified in five themes."
In the first exhibition "Dalieh, the threatened shore,” on view until March 21, hundreds of snapshots of the Raouche Rocks dominate the gallery's walls. These photos reflect the algae linked to water pollution and human destruction of natural landscapes.
“You see in Houda’s photographs the beauty of simplicity and normality. Her photographs echo children’s laughter, and women's chats,” said Mogabgab.
The Alice Mogabgab Gallery showcased the same shots in 2014, back when stacks of huge cement blocks occupied the Dalieh shore site in an attempt to privatize urban commons and hinder public access to the sea. The event led to the eviction of a number of fishermen and the closing of several restaurants.
“The Dalieh shore battle is a successful battle against corruption. We can now witness the revival of this battle in the national campaign that aims to protect the Bisri Valley,” highlighted Mogabgab.
The privatization of the city’s public maritime domain of the Dalieh affected the site’s ecological wealth, diverse topographical, and geological features.
“I started taking shots of Beirut's slow 'disappearance' until it reached ultimate absence,” Kassatly told Annahar.
As an ethnologist, Kassatly has long been interested in Lebanon’s cultural and environmental heritage.
“We cannot look at our history without examining the issue of the refugees, from Armenians, Palestinians, and Syrians. The country never managed the refugee crisis,” emphasized Kassatly, speaking about the second exhibition “Refugee’s camps, the unsustainable precariousness,” which will run between April 7 and May 23. “What is provisional for some, is permanent for others, so I thought of collecting and documenting this memory,” she said.
Mogabgab concurred, adding that many people prefer to stay blindfolded in front of the refugees’ issue.
“Some even told me they wouldn’t come to the refugees’ exhibition. See how hostile people can be? Art has to reduce hostility,” said the gallery’s owner.
The third exhibition, “Tripoli of the Orient; Plural City,” is scheduled to take place between June 9 and July 25. Kassatly explained that this exhibition reminds her of the late journalist Samir Kassir.
“Samir Kassir, my former editor at L’Orient-Express, and I had plans for a project about Tripoli. Kassir is gone, but I revived his will to highlight Tripoli’s rich heritage, which is also my will,” Kassatly told Annahar.
Kassatly described her photography style as simple and clean, with no photo editing or cropping. This serves to preserve the subject’s human dimension.
“I only use my camera, and pay meticulous attention to the natural lighting,” she said.
The cluster of shots around Tripoli’s heritage will be followed by a fourth exhibition, “Sacred Trees, Sacrificed Trees,” between September 15 and October 31. The last exhibition will take place between November 10 and December 26 and is titled “Beirut, the Iconography of an Absence.”
“Beirut remains the guideline for my work,” said Kassatly, smiling.
She added that she complements her photography work with academic publications and research.
During the opening ceremony, Kassatly launched a book titled “Of earth and human hands, the construction of a Syrian domed house,” in collaboration with Arcenciel and the British Council. The book focuses on the traditional houses in the region, their architecture, and their structure. It also allows people who read it to re-create domed houses, if they follow the technical steps included in the book.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 15-16/2020
Syria Weekly: Turkey stands up to regime and Russia in Idlib
The New Arab/February 15/2020
For the first time in several months, the skies over southern Idlib enjoyed a rare quiet after perpetual barrel bombing from Syrian regime helicopters and repeated Russian air strikes on hospitals was halted. At least 800,000 civilians have been uprooted in the regime's campaign in western Aleppo and southern Idlib, with refugee camps on the Turkey border at full capacity. Tens thousands of Syrian refugees are sleeping in the open in northwest Syria, where temperatures have dropped below zero and children have succumbed to the cold. The brief lull in bombing at the end of the week comes after Syrian rebels downed two regime helicopters, including one on Friday by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Turkey has also drawn a line and threatened to strike regime aircraft and soldiers, providing hope to millions in Idlib that the horrendous bombardment could soon end.
Offensive
Whole towns and villages in Idlib have been emptied after waves of Russian and regime bombing and shelling over the past two months, while ruthless Iranian militias and regime fighters have poured northwards and westwards. The fall of opposition areas in Idlib and Aleppo appeared imminent and the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians hung in the balance until Turkey stepped up its intervention over the past two weeks. A threat made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Turkish forces could shoot down regime aircraft flying over civilian areas in Idlib province has halted the bombing of Idlib. Turkey is also believed to have provided MAPAD anti-aircraft missiles to Syrian rebels, something that the US has refused to do and could have changed the course of the Syria war. "Some are saying that Turkey provided the rebels with MANPADs, and we have seen videos showing a missile hitting a helicopter. But we have another story with rebel fighters in the area saying that they used anti-aircraft guns to down the helicopter," said Ali Bakeer, an Ankara-based political analyst and researcher. "The Turks don't want to give any clues if they might be providing the opposition with MANPADS."Ankara gave Bashar Al-Assad until the end of the February to withdraw its forces from areas captured in Idlib province or face a Turkish offensive, something that regime troops would be unlikely to halt. Turkey has built-up a huge military force on the Idlib border, ready to cross into Syria to counter the Russian-backed regime offensive. Ankara has already "neutralised" scores of regime fighters in air strikes over the past week, after deadly strikes on Turkish observation posts. "There are many opinions regarding this, firstly that Assad would not carry out attacks on Turkish forces without an agreement or direct orders from Russia," Bakeer said. "Russia has been putting pressure on Turkey to normalise relations with Assad but Turkey has refused. This has been seen with Moscow hosting talks between Turkish and Russian intelligence chiefs." Attempts by Moscow to see Damascus and Ankara re-establish ties have so-far ended in failure. Turkey is refusing to allow the regime to recapture Idlib from the opposition or completely abandon rebel groups. It is also aware of repeated threats by Assad that it will eventually attempt to capture Turkish-controlled territories in northern Syria.
All-out war
While Turkey and Syria are close to all-out war in Idlib it has also led to the worst diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Moscow since 2015, when Turkish forces shot down a Russian jet after ferocious bombing in northern Syria.
A lack of US support for its NATO ally at the time and harsh economic sanctions on Turkey by Russia forced Ankara to directly seek a resolution to the crisis directly with Moscow. This included Turkey purchasing the Russian S-400 missile system and worsened the unity of NATO and Moscow and Ankara taking a more collaborative route to the Syria crisis.
This included the 2018 Sochi agreement, halting a previous regime assault on Idlib but its terms have been repeatedly ignored by Moscow. "The first condition of the Sochi agreement was a ceasefire, while conditions on Turkey reining in extremist agreements in Idlib were much lower. The current offensive is a major breach of Sochi," Bakeer said. This has forced Turkey to take matters into its own hands and could provide a last chance for the US to rekindle ties with its NATO ally. "The US has a direct interest in not allowing Iran - who are backing the Syrian regime - to increase their influence in Syria and this provides a golden opportunity to counter this," said Bakeer. "Turkey is willing to send thousands of troops into Idlib to do this and all the US and Europe have to do is support its NATO ally. The Syrian regime would not stand a chance against the Turkish armed forces and it would end with millions of refugees crossing the border into Turkey." Bakeer believes that the current offensive also highlights Russia's weakness, in wanting to capture Idlib before US sanctions under the Caesar Act kick-in. Washington also appears to have pressured the UAE and other states from normalising ties with the Assad regime.
"The UAE's attempts to normalise ties with Assad were blocked by the US, while there was no progress on the ground in Syria, so Russia wanted to shuffle the cards in Idlib," Bakeer added. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also stated this week the US stands by Ankara, following the attacks on Turkish troops. Washington's special envoy for Syria engagement, James Jeffrey, also signalled support for Ankara this week. "We understand that Turkey is retaliating against regime forces. We are looking to find out how we can help as a NATO ally," he said. "The people of Turkey cannot deal with this disaster alone."
Erdogan is faced with huge domestic pressure for action after the deaths of 13 Turkish soldiers in two weeks, Turkish observation posts in Idlib surrounded by Iran-backed militias, and the possibility of millions of Syrians fleeing to Turkey. Turkish-controlled territories in northern Syria would likely be the next targets of the regime and there already signs of growing collaboration between Kurdish militias and Damascus. With thousands of Turkish troops and armour massing on the Syrian border, this could be the last chance to prevent an all-out Assad victory in Syria and help shift Ankara out of Russia's sphere of influence. "How these Turkish forces will be used depends on how negotiations with Russia go and whether the US supports Ankara," Bakeer said. "But if Turkey loses this battle of interests then Syria is lost to the regime and Iran." Syria Weekly is a regular feature from The New Arab. To get Syria Weekly in your inbox each week, sign up here.
*Paul McLoughlin is a news editor at The New Arab.

Syria’s Grey Zones

The New York Times/February 15/2020
The repeated clashes between the US and Russian troops in Northeastern Syria have muted into a permanent standoff which reflects the manifold ambiguities prevailing in Syria. The Russians are striving to achieve a complete control over the various Syrian territories, secure the regime’s effective political control and moral predominance, and impose it as the ultimate arbitrator of Syria’s open ended domestic power rivalries. By challenging the US presence, Russia wants to mark off its own political turf and dispel the uncertainties which characterized the earlier political and strategic landscape. The open challenge to the deconfliction zones conveys a clear message to the US: the time of coexistence is over and it’s about time to reckon with the facts on the ground. The paradoxical American positioning revolving around the progressive and partial withdrawal from the Northeastern battlegrounds conveys a more complicated scenario, whereby the US administration questions the Russian yearning for a stabilized hegemony, the regime’s legitimacy and ability to run Syria, and flaunts back the need for a consensual political solution based on the earlier script of the Geneva conference.
The murky situation prevailing in Northeastern Syria displays the multiple political and strategic standoffs which characterize the current the geopolitical landscape, ( Russian, Turkish, Iranian and American ), the inability of the regime to restore back its legitimacy, and proceed with the mandated reconstruction assignments of a tentative post-war era. What looms so far is a perpetuated state of geopolitical contentions and deadlocks, lingering animosities, and a context of institutional violence foreclosing the chances of normalization at both domestic and regional levels. What is mostly worrisome and symptomatic is the state of systemic incapacitation which prevents post-war reconstruction on the very basis of negotiated solutions, consensual accommodation and reconciliation politics. The management of tensions through controversial deconfliction zones and topical security arrangements are expedient stratagems that can go awry, short of being anchored in a broader political scheme of stabilization and institution building.
The interlocking and cynical power politics operating all across the Syrian political spectrum and framing the respective political agendas, are far from helping an incremental conflict resolution process and its peaceful prospects. Otherwise, the American checkmating of contending power politics in Syria offers a unique platform for reviving the Geneva process, and rekindling the dynamics of a negotiated and democratic transition in Syria. The pressure against the American presence is a bad of omen in a nihilistic prone region, where chaos scenarios and structural unraveling are likely to perpetuate, and question the transitions to Statehood, constitutional governance and developmental politics.

White House memo says strike on Qassem Soleimani responded to past attacks

Reuters, Washington/Saturday, 15 February 2020
President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed a top Iranian military commander last month in response to past attacks, the White House said in a memo released on Friday, despite previous administration assertions that it was due to an imminent threat.
As required by law, the administration sent Congress an unclassified justification for the strike on January 2 that killed Qassem Soleimani at the airport in Baghdad. The strike, and Iran’s retaliation, raised fears of wider war and frustrated some lawmakers who said Trump had given them shifting justifications for the attack. “The President directed this action in response to an escalating series of attacks in preceding months by Iran and Iran-backed militias on US forces and interests in the Middle East region,” the report to Congress said. The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee released the memo a day after the US Senate, in a rebuke to Trump, passed legislation with rare bipartisan support to limit the president’s ability to wage war against Iran. The report said the purposes of the action were to protect US personnel, deter Iran, degrade Iranian-backed militias’ ability to conduct attacks and “end Iran’s strategic escalation of attacks.”It also said the US constitution gives the president the right to direct the use of force to protect the country from an attack or threat or imminent attack. And it said an Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Congress passed in 2002, for the Iraq War, also applied. Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the memo contradicted Trump’s previous assertion that the strike prevented an imminent attack and said lawmakers needed more answers. “This spurious, after-the-fact explanation won’t do. We need answers and testimony, so I look forward to Secretary (of State Mike) Pompeo testifying before the committee at an open Feb. 28 hearing on Iran and Iraq policy, including the Soleimani strike and war powers,” Engel said in a statement. A committee aide confirmed that Pompeo had agreed to appear on Feb. 28. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Engel announced in late January that Pompeo had agreed to participate in a public hearing at a date that had not been set. Pompeo had declined two previous committee requests to discuss Iran policy in an open setting.

Irked U.S. Squeezes Iraq with Cash Delays, Short Waivers
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 15/2020
Irked by Iraq's close ties to neighbouring Iran, Washington has begun following through on threats to squeeze Baghdad's fragile economy with delays to crucial cash deliveries and slashed sanctions waivers. This week, the US granted Iraq last-minute leave to import Iranian gas for its crippled power grids, despite American sanctions on Tehran. But Washington's patience seems to be running out: the latest waiver was hacked from the usual 90 or 120 days to just 45. "This is the beginning of death by a thousand cuts," warned financial analyst Ahmed Tabaqchali, of the Iraq-based Institute of Regional and International Studies. "The shorter the waiver, the more we can't afford for things to go wrong in that time."Iraq is at a crucial crossroads. Its new premier is struggling to form a cabinet, massive anti-government protests are filling the streets and skyrocketing tensions between its two main allies, Tehran and Washington, have already spilled blood on its territory. While Iran enjoy tremendous political and military sway in Iraq, the US still holds a major trump card: the economy. Every month or so, Iraq's Central Bank flies in $1-$2 billion in cash from the Federal Reserve in New York, where all its oil revenues are kept, to pay for official and commercial transactions. But the mid-January shipment was more than a week late, a top Iraqi official and an oil industry source said, citing "political reasons" for the White House decision. "We are on a knife's edge," the Iraqi official said.
Pompeo 'yelled' at Iraq PM
It was the first sign Washington may implement a January threat to block Iraqi access to its money were Baghdad to oust the roughly 5,200 US troops stationed in Iraq. That was the Iraqi parliament's response to a US strike on its soil that killed a top Iranian commander and an Iraqi paramilitary chief.
Washington has considered blocking the funds to pressure Iraq for months, a senior US diplomat in Baghdad describing it last year as "the nuclear option". While February's dollars arrived on time, Iraqi officials said they expect Washington to start restricting how much cash Baghdad can bring in.
Losing access to its funds would have devastating ramifications for Iraq, whose economy relies almost entirely on oil exports paid with the greenback. And if the sanctions waiver expires, Iraq would have to either stop buying Iranian gas and face mass outages, or keep importing and risk US sanctions itself. Power cuts can last up to 20 hours a day. Washington has tied sanctions to other issues including the nearly 20 rocket attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad and Iraqi bases hosting American troops since October. An Iraqi official US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had "yelled" at outgoing Iraqi premier Adel Abdel Mahdi in a phone call last month. "He told him to forget talks over a waiver renewal if the attacks continue," the official told AFP.
'Weaponise these waivers'
The US is also irritated by Iraq's slow progress in signing deals with major US energy firms and weaning itself off Iran. "(Iraqis) have continuously rejected the deals with GE and Exxon," a senior administration official told AFP, weeks before the recent waiver expired. "They are choosing to be dependent on the Iranians, giving (Tehran) a chokehold on their economy and infrastructure." Iran, which has long sought to curb US influence across the region, is the second-largest exporter of goods to Iraq. But the US dwarfs it in terms of direct investment, particularly the vital oil sector and infrastructure. Sources in both Baghdad and Washington described a split in US policy, with the White House willing to ramp up pressure on Iraq while others argued for flexibility. Hardliners were becoming "dominant," they said, and one Iraqi official described them as "transactional bullies." In an interview with AFP following the waiver renewal, electricity minister Luay al-Khatteeb said Washington must not "corner Iraq." "I am confident the US will not weaponise these waivers to compromise public services," he said. Khatteeb cited signs of progress: deals already signed with Jordan and the Gulf for cross-border grids and possible gas purchases from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. And three weeks before the waiver expired, Iraq's caretaker cabinet green-lighted six gas contracts to boost power generation. "That announcement was a response to growing American pressure. You can see the Iraqi government panicked," said Tabaqchali. But the US could find itself with little leverage other than "economic-based threats", said Ramzy Mardini of the United States Institute for Peace. "That approach may work to secure US interests in the short term, but the overall bilateral relationship will remain severely impaired by distrust and animosity," he said.

Protester Shot Dead in Iraqi Capital
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 15/2020
A demonstrator was shot dead near the Iraqi capital's main protest camp by unidentified attackers using a gun silencer, medics said Saturday, as police reported a spate of activist abductions. Around 550 people have been killed since the anti-government movement erupted in October and around 30,000 more have been wounded, a vast majority of them young demonstrators.  As the movement has dwindled, some hardcore protesters have opted to remain in the streets but they have been subject to ongoing violence. Late on Friday, unidentified gunmen entered a tent near Baghdad's Tahrir Square and shot a male demonstrator inside with a silenced pistol, a medical source told AFP. It was unclear why he was targeted. Another protester who was nearby said he saw a crowd gathering around the tent and yelling before pulling the body out and taking it to a nearby hospital. The young man was already dead.
Activists have for months complained of a campaign of targeted kidnappings and even assassinations aimed at keeping them from protesting and for which no one has been held accountable. Between Friday and Saturday, at least three activists were abducted from different neighbourhoods across Baghdad, a police source told AFP. The Iraqi Human Rights Commission has documented more than 2,700 arrests since protests erupted, with more than 300 people still detained. More than 70 Iraqis are categorised as disappeared.

Saudi Fighter Jet Crashes in Yemen
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 15/2020
A Saudi fighter jet crashed in conflict-torn Yemen, the Riyadh-led military coalition said Saturday, as the Huthi rebels said they downed the plane. The Tornado aircraft came down in northern Al-Jawf province during an operation to support Yemeni government forces, the coalition said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency/February 15/2020

Chinese, Vatican foreign ministers hold rare highlevel meeting
NNA/NEWS AGENCIES/
The foreign ministers of the Vatican and China have met on Friday in what is believed to be the highest-level official encounter between the two sides in decades. The meeting between Archbishop Paul Gallagher and Wang Yi, previously unthinkable, took place on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The Vatican and China have not had diplomatic relations since the 1950s. "Today is the first meeting between the Chinese and Vatican foreign ministers," Wang said, according to the People's Daily newspaper. "This is a continuation of the exchanges between China and the Vatican for a period of time. It will open up more space for future exchanges between the two sides," he said. They discussed the landmark September 2018 deal between Rome and Beijing, which gave the Vatican final say on the appointment of bishops, a matter that had long been contentious, a Vatican statement said. It added that the two sides agreed to continue "institutional, bi-lateral dialogue" aimed at benefitting the Catholic Church and the Chinese people.

S.Sudan President Offers Key Compromise for Peace
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 15/2020
South Sudan's president said on Saturday he would return to a system of 10 states, a key opposition demand, paving the way for a unity government and an end to the country's civil war. "The compromise we have just made is in the interest of peace...I expect the opposition to reciprocate," Salva Kiir said, after a meeting of top government and military officials in the capital Juba. Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar are under increasing pressure to resolve their differences by February 22 and form a unity government as part of a peace agreement. The pair have already missed two previous deadlines to enshrine peace to end a six-year conflict that has left at least 380,000 people dead and millions in dire poverty. The number of states is contentious because the borders will determine the divisions of power in the country. When it gained independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan had 10 states, as set out in its constitution. Kiir increased that in 2015 to 28, and then later 32. But on Saturday, a presidential statement confirmed that Kiir had "resolved to return the country to 10 states and their previous counties". Kiir's had repeatedly refused to back down on the number of states but had come under intense international pressure to compromise. Kiir and Machar are old rivals who have fought and made up multiple times.

France ‘impatient’ over lack of German response to reform EU: Macron

AFP, Munich/Saturday, 15 February 2020
President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday France was growing “impatient” with the lack of German response to its push to strengthen the European Union after Brexit. Asked at the Munich Security Conference if he was frustrated by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s silence on his proposed reforms, Macron said: “I’m not frustrated, I’m impatient.”“We have a history of waiting for answers” from each other, he said. “What’s key in the coming years is to move much faster on issues of sovereignty on the European level.”

Venezuela’s Maduro says arrest of Juan Guaido ‘will come’
The Associated Press, Caracas/Saturday, 15 February 2020
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Friday that authorities haven’t detained opposition leader Juan Guaido because the courts haven’t ordered it, but he warned: “It will come.”Maduro made the remark in a meeting with the international press three days after Guaido returned from a tour to the US and Europe, in defiance of a court order prohibiting him from leaving the country. Despite the order, migration officials let Guaido into the country after he arrived on a commercial flight at Venezuela’s main international airport. Maduro said that the day Venezuela’s justice system decides Guaido should be imprisoned “for all the crimes he’s committed,” he will be jailed. “That day hasn’t come yet,” he said in response to a question from The Associated Press. “But it will come.”Analysts and opponents of Maduro say Venezuela’s judicial system cannot be seen as independent from the executive branch and that it effectively acts as an arm of state power. Guaido’s trip marked the second time he has traveled outside Venezuela despite the ban. On both occasions, he was allowed back into the country.The 36-year-old opposition leader has been in a tense power struggle with Maduro since declaring himself Venezuela’s rightful president last year. Guaido’s latest international trip was an attempt to shore up support as his anti-government movement struggles to regain momentum and Maduro consolidates his power.

US, Europe Clash over Washington's Global Retreat
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 15/2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday traded barbs with European leaders over diminishing Western influence, rejecting as "grossly over-exaggerated" their claims that Washington had retreated from the global stage. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Pompeo sought to assuage European anxiety over the transatlantic bond under an unpredictable President Donald Trump. "The West is winning and we're winning together," Pompeo said. But he was immediately contradicted by French President Emmanuel Macron, who warned of "a weakening of the West". The annual gathering of world leaders, generals and diplomats to discuss security challenges has been dominated by fears over the West's diminishing role in the face of a more assertive China and Russia. In his opening speech a day earlier, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggested that the United States rejected "even the idea of an international community" and was acting "at the expense of neighbours and partners"."Those statements don't reflect reality," Pompeo retorted. "I'm happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over-exaggerated," he added, paraphrasing a famous Mark Twain quote. He said Washington was playing a key role in keeping Europe safe by reinforcing NATO's eastern flank on the border with Russia, as well as leading a multinational effort to defeat the Islamic State jihadist group.
"Is this an America that 'rejects the international community'?" he asked. "The free West has a brighter future than illiberal alternatives," Pompeo added, urging allies to have "confidence" in the transatlantic bond. He stressed the need to work together against threats posed by Russia's territorial ambitions, China's military build-up in the South China Sea and Iran's "campaigns of terror" through proxy conflicts in the Middle East.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who also took to the stage in Munich, joined Pompeo in voicing dismay at the gathering's pessimistic tone. "There is a competition out there in so many areas, with so many different actors, but simply lamenting that we have lost our way will not provide us with a way forward," Stoltenberg told the audience. "Europe and North America are indispensable partners." But France's Macron echoed the German concerns. The US was undergoing "a rethink of its relationship with Europe", Macron said, strengthening his belief that the continent had to take charge of its own destiny.
"We need a European strategy that renews us and turn us into a strategic political power," he added. The divisions were underlined in the growing spat over Chinese tech giant Huawei, another dominant theme in Munich. Washington has pushed hard for countries to bar Huawei from building their next generation 5G mobile networks, claiming its equipment can be used to spy for Beijing. US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Huawei was the "poster child" for China's "nefarious strategy" to infiltrate and dominate crucial western infrastructure. But key allies including Britain and France have resisted the pressure so far, agreeing to impose restrictions without going so far as to ban the company.
Russian energy reliance
Pompeo also used Munich to announce that the US would finance energy projects in eastern EU countries, as part of efforts to reduce reliance on Russian gas. "The United States –- through our International Development Finance Corporation, and with the support of the US Congress -– intends to provide up to $1 billion in financing to the Central and Eastern European countries of the Three Seas Initiative," Pompeo told the conference. "Our aim is to galvanise private sector investment in their energy sectors." The initiative is a club of 12 eastern and central EU countries who have grown increasingly concerned about the Russian giant in their backyard since Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. At a Three Seas meeting in 2017, Trump offered to supply the grouping with US liquefied natural gas so they would never be "hostage" to a single Russian supplier. Washington's offer comes amid fierce US opposition to Russia's controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, set to double the country's gas shipments to Germany. Washington believes the pipeline will give Russia too much influence over security and economic issues in western Europe.

First coronavirus death outside China reported in France: Minister
Reuters, Paris/Saturday, 15 February 2020
An elderly Chinese tourist hospitalized in France has died of the coronavirus, becoming the first fatality in Europe, French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on Saturday. France has recorded 11 cases of the virus, out of a global total of 63,851. The vast majority of those suffering from the virus are in China. The epidemic has killed almost 1,400 people.Buzyn said she was informed on Friday that the 80-year old man, who was treated at the Bichat hospital in northern Paris since Jan. 25, had died of a lung infection due to the coronavirus. Outside mainland China, there have been about 500 cases in some 24 countries and territories. Until the death in France, there had been three deaths outside China, with one in Japan, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.

China Reports Major Drop in New Virus Cases; 143 New Deaths
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 15/2020
China reported 2,641 new virus cases Saturday as it escalates measures to contain the outbreak and reassure an anxious public.
The figure is a major drop from the higher numbers in recent days since a broader diagnostic method was implemented. The number of new deaths rose slightly to 143, bringing the total fatalities in mainland China to 1,523. The number of confirmed cases in the country now stands at 66,492, according to China's National Health Commission.
COVID-19, a disease stemming from a new form of coronavirus, has spread to more than two dozen countries since December, when the first infections appeared in central China. Egypt on Friday counted the first infection on the African continent.
Saturday marks the second day the number of new cases fell since a spike Thursday, when the hardest-hit province of Hubei began including clinical diagnoses in its official count. Using the wider scope of classification, the central Chinese province reported 15,152 cases, including 13,332 that were diagnosed using doctors' analyses and lung imaging, as opposed to the prior standard of laboratory testing.
Hubei health authorities said in the notice that the new method was adopted to facilitate earlier treatment for those suspected of infection.
Further confusion surfaced around a discrepancy of more than 1,000 cases between the Thursday and Friday reports. National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said Friday that the "decrease" in numbers was due to an adjustment made in Hubei's count after repetitive counting was discovered.
The ruling Communist Party is seeking to repair public trust broken in 2002 and 2003 during the SARS epidemic, which the government covered up for months.
"The current fight against the novel coronavirus epidemic is a major test of China's system and capacity for governance," Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a Communist Party Central Committee meeting Friday, according to state media. "In response to the shortcomings and deficiencies exposed by the epidemic, (the government) should work to strengthen areas of weakness and close up loopholes," Xi said. China has imposed unprecedented measures in a sweeping campaign to contain the virus. Cities in Hubei with a combined population of more than 60 million have been placed under lockdown, with outbound transportation halted and virtually all public activities suspended.
People returning to Beijing will now have to isolate themselves either at home or in a concentrated area for medical observation, said a notice from the Chinese capital's prevention and control work group published by state media late Friday. The notice warns there will be legal consequences for those who don't comply with the 14-day quarantine. It did not elaborate on how the isolation will be enforced. While Beijing returnees were previously ordered to "self-quarantine" for two weeks, that measure allowed for occasional outings and implementation varied across neighborhoods. Chinese officials have warned that COVID-19 may spread further as migrants return to their jobs in cities or other provinces after a prolonged Lunar New Year holiday.
To accommodate the high number of confirmed and suspected cases, Hubei has constructed makeshift hospitals and reappropriated other public facilities to house patients. At a press briefing in Wuhan on Saturday, the newly appointed head of Hubei's provincial health commission, Wang Hesheng, said they aimed to ensure that zero patients went without treatment.
Last month, members of the Chinese public were outraged when residents of the virus epicenter, Wuhan, shared videos online showing overcrowded hospitals and people being turned away. Some wrote on the Twitter-like Weibo platform that their family members were exhibiting symptoms, but they couldn't get tested because hospitals were at capacity.
More than half of the confirmed cases in Hubei have been treated using traditional Chinese medicine, Wang said. The virus has taken an economic toll, as many countries have placed travel restrictions on recent visitors to China and airlines have suspended China routes due to low demand.
Alibaba, the first major Chinese company to report quarterly earnings since the emergence of the coronavirus, said Thursday that the outbreak "is having significant impact on China's economy ... potentially affecting the global economy." The overall revenue growth rate at Alibaba will be negatively affected in the quarter ending this March, said Alibaba CEO Daniel Yong Zhang.
Liang Tao, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said at a Saturday briefing that Chinese banks have provided more than 537 billion yuan ($76.9 billion) in credit support to industries such as retail, catering and tourism that have been most severely affected by the outbreak.
Earlier this week, the government reported that consumer inflation spiked to an eight-year high of 5.4% in January over a year earlier, driven by a 4.4% rise in food costs. But Fan Yifei, vice governor of the People's Bank of China, said he believes "large-scale inflation will never happen" in the country.
A team of experts led by the World Health Organization is slated to begin their mission in China alongside Chinese counterparts this weekend.
"Particular attention will be paid to understanding the transmission of the virus, the severity of the disease and the impact of ongoing response measures," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
The U.S. government was preparing to fly home Americans from aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship that's been quarantined at Yokohama in Japan, Wall Street Journal reported.
About 380 Americans and their families will be offered seats on two State Department flights, Henry Walke, director of the Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the paper. They are arriving in the U.S. as early as Sunday, he said, adding that those with a fever, cough or other symptoms won't be allowed on the flights. So far, 218 people from the ship have tested positive for the virus. Japan's Health Ministry allowed 11 passengers to disembark Friday, saying that those above 80 years of age, with underlying medical conditions as well as those staying in windowless cabins during the 14-day quarantine can stay at a designated facility on shore.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 15-16/2020
The Terrorists Migrating into Europe
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/February 15/2020
"Most migrant terrorists involved in thwarted or completed attacks were purposefully deployed to the migration flows by an organized terrorist group to conduct or support attacks in destination countries." — Todd Bensman, "What Terrorist Migration Over European Borders Can Teach About American Border Security", Center for Immigration Studies.
Bensman's report indirectly proves that the three EU countries -- Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic -- which refused to take in any of the migrants that came during the migrant crisis, citing security concerns, were right.
The leadership of the European Union, however, initiated legal proceedings at the Court of Justice of the European Union against the three countries over the issue.... A ruling on the issue by the Court is expected early next year.
In response to the Advocate General, Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller, said that "ensuring security for our citizens is the most important goal of the government's policies. Our actions were dictated by the interests of Polish citizens and the need for protection against uncontrolled migration". — Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller, Reuters, October 31, 2019.
Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, describes in a new report the extent to which terrorists disguised as migrants have entered the European Union to commit terrorist attacks.
A new report, "What Terrorist Migration Over European Borders Can Teach About American Border Security", by Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, describes the extent to which terrorists disguised as migrants have entered the European Union to commit terrorist attacks. Although the study was written primarily for an American audience to prevent the same mistakes from being made on US borders, the study is extremely relevant for the European public -- especially as Germany recently warned of a repeat migration crisis, similar to the one that occurred in 2015. According to Bensman:
"Between 2014 and 2017, 13 of the 26 member states lining the so-called Schengen Area's external land borders recorded more than 2.5 million detections of illegal border-crossings along several land and sea routes, an historic, mostly unfettered surge that came to be known as the 'migrant crisis'. The Schengen Area, which generally encompasses the European Union, consists of countries that combined immigration enforcement of a common external border of 27,000 sea miles and 5,500 land miles while removing all interior border controls to facilitate the free movement of goods and people.
"During the 2014-2018 migrant crisis, the majority of travelers who crossed the external border and were then able to move unfettered between member nations came from nations in the Middle East, such as Syria and Iraq; South Asia, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan; and Africa, such as Somalia and Eritrea. It first became known that some ISIS terrorist operatives also were in the flows after some of them committed the November 2015 Paris attacks... and then the March 2016 Brussels attacks".
According to Bensman "The totality of how migration and terrorism intertwined as a destructive force against Europe, and the continent's response, remains largely unacknowledged, undocumented, and not analyzed".
Nor does it get much -- if any -- prolonged attention in European public debates about migration.
According to Bensman:
"Between January 2014 and January 2018, at least 104 Islamist extremists entered Europe by way of migration over external sea and land borders among more than two million people who crossed external European Union borders. All 104 were killed or arrested in nine European nations after participating either in completed and thwarted attacks, or arrested for illegal involvement with designated terrorist groups...
"The majority of the 104 Islamist migrant-terrorists — 75 — were primarily affiliated with ISIS, while 13 were affiliated with Jabhat al Nusra. Others were associated with Ahrar al Sham, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al-Shabaab, and the Caucasian Emirate. Some had unknown sympathies and some shifted among several groups. Only one was a woman and their average age was 26. They were from Syria and Iraq, but also from North Africa and South Asia...
"Of the 104 migrants implicated in terrorist acts, 29 were involved in 16 completed attacks inside Europe between 2015 and 2018. These attacks killed 170 people and wounded at least 878 more, according to an analysis of media accounts...
"At least 27 were part of one large cell of operatives dispatched onto the migration trails by ISIS. Most of the 27 were involved in the two highest-casualty completed attacks: the November 2015 multi-location strikes on Paris and the March 2016 attacks in Brussels. Most of the other completed attacks were smaller in scale and sometimes involved additional deployed operatives or long-distance communications with ISIS in Syria".
One of the most noteworthy findings of Bensman's report was that, "Most migrant terrorists involved in thwarted or completed attacks were purposefully deployed to the migration flows by an organized terrorist group to conduct or support attacks in destination countries."
"Of the 65 migrant-terrorists involved in completed or thwarted attacks, at least 40 appeared to have been purposefully deployed into migrant flows toward Europe, impersonating war refugees, to conduct or support attacks in Europe. ISIS was responsible for this infiltration operation. Eleven others apparently initiated attacks or plots in small groups of relatives or associates, not coordinated by any foreign group. The balance were self-propelled lone offenders or information was insufficient to determine whether they were deployed...
"In 2016, the New York Times reported, based on French intelligence material, that a clandestine 'external operations' division of ISIS in January 2014 sent its first of 'at least' 21 well-trained operatives to Europe camouflaged among refugee and migrant flows...
"More fighters trained by ISIS in Syria traveled the migrant routes alone or in pairs at the rate of every two to three months through the balance of 2014 and early 2015, according to the Times."
In Germany, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) warned in 2016 that Islamic State fighters had come into Europe disguised as refugees and that Islamic State leaders were training the fighters on how to apply for asylum.
The risks that European leaders took by allowing the migrant flows to continue ended in tragedy, as the terrorist attacks committed by the terrorists posing as migrants claimed the lives of 170 people and wounded 878 in the 2014-2018 period, as mentioned above. Furthermore, according to Bensman:
"A majority of the 104 terrorists applied for international protections such as asylum and were able to remain in European nations for an average of 11 months before attacks or arrests for plots, demonstrating that asylum processes accommodated plot incubation".
The process of former ISIS fighters applying for asylum is still ongoing, proving that European authorities are still incapable of handling the issue. In late November, police in Switzerland reportedly arrested an alleged Islamic State fighter who had lived in the country as an asylum seeker for at least six months. Several other migrants had come forward and said that they recognized the man as a former ISIS terrorist.
Bensman's report indirectly proves that the three EU countries -- Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic -- which refused to take in any of the migrants that came during the migrant crisis, citing security concerns, were right. The leadership of the European Union, however, initiated legal proceedings at the Court of Justice of the European Union against the three countries over the issue. In October, the Advocate General, legal advisor to the Court, said that EU law must be followed and that the EU's principle of solidarity "necessarily sometimes implies accepting burden-sharing".
A ruling on the issue by the Court is expected early next year. If the Court follows the advice of the Advocate General, it will rule that the three countries were in breach of EU law when they refused to take in their appointed quota of migrants. In response to the Advocate General, Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller, said, "ensuring security for our citizens is the most important goal of the government's policies. Our actions were dictated by the interests of Polish citizens and the need for protection against uncontrolled migration".
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 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.

Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia: That changing look of love
Faisal al-Yafai/Al Arabiya/Friday, 15 February 2020
A short message to Saudis in love. If you’re reading this on Friday morning and don’t have anything planned for Valentine’s Day, be warned: You have no excuses anymore.
For the past three years, the celebration has been coming out of the shadows in the Kingdom, with shops openly selling Valentine’s Day gifts and restaurants less reluctant to hold celebratory dinners. But this is the first year that there have been no religious injunctions against the day, marking a moment of change.
It will also, no doubt, mark a lunchtime of frenzied shopping, as Saudis who thought they could get away with a modest dinner or a single rose begin to waver as lavish Instagram posts pile up.
Young Saudis now have the freedom so many have long craved – to convey the inexpressible love between two people through the medium of mass-produced Chinese products. And of course, to then argue about it throughout the weekend when it turns out
Ameerah’s husband surprised her with a trip to the Maldives.
On social media, the run-up to the day was dominated by users lamenting or sarcastically celebrating their single status. Some shared photos of solitary dinners with only a mirror as their date.
Given the nature of the medium, Instagram was more aspirational, with images of “perfect” (usually expensive) Valentine’s gifts. Only regular followers will know whether the reality of today will match their expectations.
Welcome, then, Saudi millennials to late-stage capitalism, where business competes to commodify the last scraps of emotion, scraped from the bones of human interaction.
It is place where a single rose can cost more than 200 Saudi riyals, or around $53. Where an adult can, without irony, gift another adult a teddy bear in a faux wicker basket. And where supermarkets can slap a red heart on their usual products and mark them up 20 percent. That’s why they say freedom isn’t free.
Saudis aren’t alone in enjoying a blossoming of Valentine’s Day merchandise. The whole of the Gulf is awash in similar offerings and sentiments. In other parts of the Gulf, Valentine’s Day was a concession to the large expat populations and was gradually co-opted by everyone. There’s been a process of change, even in ultra-connected expat hubs like Dubai. What was once seen as vaguely foreign and not quite in tune with Gulf values has been accepted as just another fun day to celebrate.
But Saudi Arabia is unique in that Valentine’s Day celebrations were officially banned in the Kingdom because of the association with the historical Christian saint. Although shops still sold Valentine’s Day merchandise, they often did so under the counter. The real shift began two years ago, when the former head of the religious police said the day wasn’t a religious issue and instead celebrated human values.
The current overt commercialization of Valentine’s Day in the Kingdom reflects a profound social shift.
Just a few years ago, unmarried couples on February 14 would have attracted the attention of the religious police, or mutawwa. That the mutawwa has been defanged and gender mixing become more common marks a profound shift in how Saudi society interacts. The cards and hearts of Valentine’s Day are just the most visible part.
It should be no surprise that it is Saudi millennials who were pushing for the change and who are embracing it most fervently. They are not embracing the trappings of a kitsch holiday; they are embracing what it means to pull away from the expectations of conservative traditions.
Everywhere that Valentine’s Day is celebrated there is criticism of the commercialization of the holiday; everywhere the pressure to publicly celebrate relationships is lamented.
But there’s something else going on in Saudi Arabia.
For too many years, an extraordinarily connected generation experienced few limits online and too many in real life. The way young people met and married, how they socialized and worked seemed to be different in Saudi Arabia to many other places in the world – different even to their neighbors in the Gulf. Now that those limits are being expanded, young people are grasping all it entails.
Just as the Valentine’s Day gift is only an imperfect reflection of what is in the hearts of a couple, the celebrations in the shops are just a shimmering reflection of what is changing below the surface.
*Faisal al-Yafai is an award-winning journalist, essayist and playwright. He has been an investigative journalist for The Guardian in London and a documentary journalist for the BBC. @FaisalAlYafai

Russians Pressure U.S. Forces in Northeast Syria
Eric Schmitt/The New York Times/February 15/2020
Russian troops are engaging in standoffs with U.S. troops guarding oil fields and fighting remnants of the Islamic State.
WASHINGTON — Russia is intensifying a pressure campaign on U.S. military forces in northeastern Syria following the American withdrawal from much of that area ahead of a Turkish cross-border offensive last fall, American military and diplomatic officials say.
Russian military personnel have increasingly had run-ins with U.S. troops on highways in the region, breaking agreements between the two countries to steer clear of each other. Russian helicopters are flying closer to American troops. And on Wednesday, a U.S.-led convoy returned fire after it came under attack near a checkpoint manned by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who are backed by Russia.
American officials say these actions by Russian personnel and their Syrian allies are devised to present a constant set of challenges, probes and encroachments to slowly create new facts on the ground and make the U.S. military presence there more tenuous. About 500 American troops remain deployed in Syria with a mission to protect oil fields and help fight remnants of the Islamic State.
“These are not daily occurrences but they have been increasing in number, and thus is troubling,” James F. Jeffrey, the top American diplomat overseeing Syria issues, told reporters last week.
The confrontations risk escalating to a significant hostile encounter between Washington and Moscow in the country’s northeast, even as Russian-backed Syrian government troops have stepped up an offensive against rebel enclaves in Idlib in Syria’s northwest.
“We know they’re pressing,” Vice Adm. Tim Szymanski, a Navy SEAL who is deputy head of the military’s Special Operations Command, said in an interview. He echoed the assessment of other government and independent analysts who say the Russians will continue to seek an advantage in the northeast, even in areas patrolled by U.S. and Syrian Kurdish allies and where Russian personnel are not supposed to go.
On Wednesday, a convoy led by U.S. Army soldiers was stopped at a Syrian army checkpoint east of the city of Qamishli. Photographs and video from the scene circulating on social media, and later confirmed by the Pentagon, showed armored vehicles with U.S., Russian and Syrian flags next to one another. Some residents pelted the American vehicles with stones. Another resident dumped a bucket of dirt on the back of one vehicle. Another tried to light some of the vehicles on fire, according to a Defense Department official.
A brief firefight broke out, with one Syrian man killed. No Americans were killed, but one was slightly injured after receiving hand lacerations in the ensuing chaos, the official said.
“After coalition troops issued a series of warnings and de-escalation attempts, the patrol came under small-arms fire from unknown individuals,” said Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad that oversees operation in northeastern Syria. “In self-defense, coalition troops returned fire.”A Russian defense ministry official said the arrival of Russian troops at the scene made it “possible to prevent further escalation of the conflict,” according to the Tass news agency, a claim that American officials later dismissed.
The encounter drew sharp criticism from Brett McGurk, President Trump’s former special envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State.
“We have American soldiers with an ill-defined mission in Syria (‘protect the oil’) after abandoning ¾ of once stable territory on Trump’s orders, now forced to navigate roads controlled by Russian and Syrian regime forces,” Mr. McGurk said on Twitter. “Too much to ask of our brave warriors.”
Last October, Mr. Trump abruptly ordered a complete withdrawal of the 1,000 American troops helping Syrian Kurdish forces combat pockets of Islamic State fighters, opening the way to a bloody Turkish cross-border offensive. Mr. Trump then, just as abruptly, reversed himself and allowed about 500 troops to remain in a much smaller operating zone.
Ever since then, American military officials say, Russia and its Syrian allies have been pushing the boundaries of agreements that Russia and the United States reached on whose armies would patrol which territory. The two sides established special communications channels to avoid clashing with each other on the ground, a process the Pentagon calls deconfliction.
But Mr. Trump has signaled very clearly his skepticism about the Syria mission, and Moscow perceives that as an invaluable opportunity, analysts say.
“A full-on Russian confrontation with American troops would risk encouraging Trump to lash out and double-down, but if Russia and its local allies can sustain a constant, low-level campaign of challenges in which dynamics are manipulated and red lines blurred, then who knows what might happen,” said Charles R. Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
“A few random, unpredictable clashes or run-ins, like the one near Qamishli, could easily get onto Trump’s radar and pave a path towards a full American withdrawal,” Mr. Lister said.
American military officers and diplomats point to an array of troubling developments in recent weeks. The Russians have swamped the deconfliction channel, set up for direct communications between American and Russian forces to avoid confrontations, with requests to operate in American-patrolled areas; the Russians then ignored American objections and traveled there anyway. American patrols have then blockaded roads, forcing these Russian patrols to turn around. The Russians have also conducted ground patrols on their own when they were supposed to do joint Russian-Turkish patrols in areas Turkey controlled after its incursion.
The prevalence of Syrian and Russian forces is an issue not just on the ground, but also in the air, where the large number of reconnaissance drones and other aircraft has eroded American air superiority, one American defense official said.
American officials voice fears that these run-ins could escalate after the Idlib campaign is over, and Russia and Mr. Assad’s government turn their full attention to the northeast.
American officials had predicted these potentially dangerous standoffs with the Russians and their Syrian allies would escalate. In an interview last November, soon after the Turkish incursion, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, the head of the military’s Central Command, said that protecting the oil fields might ultimately draw a larger challenge from Syrian Army troops than from the Islamic State.
“I’d expect at some point the regime will come forward to that ground,” General McKenzie said.
The last time pro-Syrian government forces and allied Russian mercenaries threatened American troops near the oil fields, in February 2018, the United States unleashed an artillery and aerial bombardment that left 200 to 300 of the attacking fighters dead.
After American and Russian commanders agreed in late 2017 to fly on opposite sides of a 45-mile stretch of the Euphrates to prevent accidents in eastern Syria’s increasingly congested skies, Russian warplanes violated that deal half a dozen times a day, American commanders said.
The Americans said it was an effort by Moscow to test the United States’ resolve, bait U.S. Air Force pilots into reacting rashly, and help the Syrian army solidify territorial gains ahead of any diplomatic talks aimed at resolving the country’s civil war.
*Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting.

Iran's whole system is failing, not just its satellite programme
Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/February 15/2020
Does Iran qualify as a failed state? Technically, perhaps not quite yet but it is certainly a failing state considering its misguided policies and self-destructive decisions.
If Tehran continues its current policies, it will only be a matter of time before it falls into the failed state category or before the government is forcefully removed by a popular uprising, very similar to the one that put the current regime to power.
The Fragile States Index, published by the Fund for Peace think-tank and Foreign Policy magazine, ranked Iran 57th among 178 countries in 2007, in which the lower the ranking number, the more fragile the state is considered. Its ranking reached 32nd by 2010 and in 2019 Iran was in 52nd place.
With every cycle of anti-government protests that has erupted in Iran in the past several decades since the mullahs overthrew the monarchy and turned Iran into an Islamic republic, there has been a gradual increase in the level of violence the government is willing to go to maintain its hold on power.
History has shown that escalation of violence by any government never solves its problems but encourages protesters to also step up their actions and can lead that government to its own demise.
Its tattered economy, soaring cost of living, rising unemployment, dissatisfied youth, merchants who own the shops and stalls in the bazaar representing the lifeline of Iran’s economy, provide indicators of the worsening political situation in Tehran. That, combined with US- and UN-imposed economic sanctions and the country’s failure in foreign diplomacy and disastrous neighbourhood relations, only increase Iran’s trend towards becoming a failed state.
A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point that basic conditions and responsibilities of a government no longer function properly. Among the factors that contribute to a failed state is an inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.
The banking systems of such states also start to fail. When the economy is in such shambles that businesses find it difficult to operate, that is failure. Such states are also unable to provide adequate security for residents.
A country cannot be run on negative energy alone, which is what the Iranians are trying to do. A good example is a factory near Tehran that produces US flags to sell to people who burn them while chanting “Death to America.” Since the Islamic revolution, there has been no shortage of anti-Western demonstrations, so business is good for that factory.
However, there have also been no shortages of failures in foreign policy or domestic policies, although those failures have not prevented the Iranian leadership from claiming victory when there has only been defeat.
Iran said recently it had "successfully" launched a satellite, except that that satellite failed to reach orbit. This was a major blow to Tehran’s space programme, one the United States claims is a cover for its military missile programme.
The attempted launch of the Zafar -- "Victory" in Farsi -- satellite was a few days before the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and crucial parliamentary elections in Iran. With such hollow claims to "victory," Iran is catapulting itself to utter catastrophe.
Washington raised concerns in the past about Tehran's satellite programme, saying the launch of a carrier rocket in January 2019 amounted to a violation of limits on its ballistic missiles. Iranians insist that they have no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, maintaining that their aerospace activities are limited to peaceful needs and comply with UN Security Council resolutions.
“But we're UNSTOPPABLE! We have more Upcoming Great Iranian Satellites!” Information and Communications Technology Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi posted on Twitter in English. He added to his tweet an emoji depicting a satellite.
He later tweeted in Farsi that “sometimes life does not go the way we like it to go.” He added: “Please do not pay attention to fake news.” His quick rise through the Islamic Republic’s carefully managed political system is generating speculation he could be a candidate for Iran’s 2021 presidential campaign.
Jahromi acknowledged the unsuccessful launch in a tweet shortly after the news broke on state TV, comparing it to a “few samples" of US launch failures.
Iran is a rich country, rich in natural resources, rich in history and culture. It does not need to resort to terror tactics nor risk becoming a failed state to satisfy the egos of a handful of old men pushing outdated ideas.
Tehran needs to refocus its objectives. It needs to move away from its failed foreign policies. It should concentrate not on aggressive regional designs but on changing lives of its citizens for the better.

Court in Pakistan Validates Forced Conversion, Marriage of Christian Girl to Muslim
Morning Star News Pakistan Correspondent | Morning Star News | Wednesday, February 15/2020
اضطهاد واذلال للمسيحيين في باكستان والمحاكم تشرعن زواج مسيحية عمرها 14 سنة من خاطفها وتغيير دينها بالقوة

A high court ruling in Pakistan validating the marriage and forced conversion to Islam of a 14-year-old Christian girl has heightened fears that it will encourage others to commit such crimes, sources said.
The High Court in Sindh Province on Feb. 3 dismissed a petition to have the marriage and forced conversion of a Catholic girl overturned, ruling that both were valid since a girl under sharia (Islamic law) can marry after her first menstrual cycle.
Huma Younus was taken from her home in Karachi’s Zia Colony on Oct. 10 while her parents were away and was forced to marry the man who abducted her, identified as Abdul Jabbar of Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab Province, her attorney said.
“The hearing on Feb. 3 lasted only five minutes,” the family’s attorney, Tabassum Yousaf, told Morning Star News. “The court, in just a few words citing the sharia, has justified the violation of the girl’s body since she has already had her first period.”
Yousaf added that the family was prohibited from seeing Huma because police said her life would be at risk if she was brought to the courtroom.
He said the family challenged Huma’s marriage and forced conversion under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, which declares marrying a person under 18 years old an offense punishable by up to three years in prison.
Although the Sindh government takes credit for becoming Pakistan’s first elected assembly to pass a bill on child marriage in April 2014, the law is still poorly implemented, sources said.
Yousaf said he submitted Huma’s baptismal and school documents in court that proved she was 14 years old, but nevertheless Sindh High Court judges Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Irshad Ali Shah ruled that the marriage was valid based on her menstrual cycle.
The legal battle has been going on for months with constant delays and excuses cited so as not to present the underage girl in court, sources said.
The family has filed an appeal to the Court of Justice in Sindh Province, and Yousaf said a hearing is scheduled for March 4. Police will thus have more time for medical tests to determine Huma’s age, he said.
GUARDIAN CONSENT NEEDED
The girl’s parents were informed via text message that Huma had converted to Islam and had married Jabbar “of her free will,” sources said.
Since forced conversions are not illegal in Pakistan, her attorney said he believed the case hinged on Huma’s age.
Prominent Supreme Court Advocate Saiful Malook told Morning Star News that even though sharia allows marriage of a minor girl if she has her first period, the marriage has to be validated by the girl’s guardian.
“In no way can any court of law endorse an underage marriage unless it is supported by the girl’s guardian,” Malook said. “Marriage is governed by the Contract Act, wherein no minor can enter into a contract or agreement without the explicit approval of her guardian. In this particular case, the court must take into account whether the girl’s legal guardian has consented to her marriage even if it’s judging the act under the sharia.”
He added that a 14-year-old minor cannot be deemed mature enough to change her religion by her own will, considering the fact that she could have been coerced or blackmailed into renouncing her faith. Huma reportedly filed an affidavit declaring that she married of her own free will, but Yousaf has said that such an affidavit can't be filed legally until she obtains an identity card at age 18.
The high court must order Huma to record a statement in the courtroom, Malook said.
“If the police are not producing the girl before the court on various pretenses, the court should be wise enough to see through the police’s mala fide and hand the custody of the minor back to her parents,” he said.
Malook, who represented Pakistan’s most high-profile blasphemy convict, Aasiya Noreen, better known as Asia Bibi, before the Supreme Court and won her freedom, said that abducting for the purpose of forced conversion and underage marriage is a major problem in Pakistan. He added that legislation effective in curbing the practice is long overdue.
Christian rights activists believe that the ruling of the Sindh High Court will encourage more perpetrators of such crimes to hide behind sharia. Pakistan Center of Law of Justice Executive Director Napoleon Qayyum told Morning Star News that the high court’s ruling would result in a surge in cases of forced conversion and underage marriages of Christian girls.
“Another Christian girl aged 14 was recently abducted and gang-raped by some Muslim youths in Bihar Colony area of Lahore,” Qayyum said. “The victim is a student of grade nine and was abducted by four or five boys on her way to a local tuition center on Jan. 16, 2020. The abductors not only raped her but also obtained her signatures and thumb impressions on some papers.”
Police were able to recover her on Jan. 19, but Qayyum said he fears the suspects will use her signed documents to produce a fake marriage certificate and religion conversion letter in a bid to escape abduction and rape charges.
“This is common modus operandi of Muslims to confuse the court and avoid justice,” he said.
In nearly all such cases, he said, the rapists threaten to harm the girls’ families if they reveal the truth.
“Moreover, the girls are also forced to give false statements in court that they have changed their religion of free will and had married of their own choice,” Qayyum said. “Girls belonging to minority communities often succumb to pressure and consideration for their family’s security, which has further emboldened the men belonging to the majority faith.”
Most victims of forced conversion and marriage in Pakistan are reportedly Christian and Hindu girls and women forced to marry Muslim men who are much older than them. According to the Centre for Social Justice, at least 159 such cases were reported between 2013 and 2019.
The Sindh legislature in 2016 passed a law outlawing forcible conversions and conversions before the age of 18 but, under pressure from Islamic extremist groups, the governor declined to sign it. Each year about 1,000 Christian and Hindu women in Pakistan are forcibly converted to Islam and then married off to their abductors or rapists, according to the National Commission of Justice and Peace and the Pakistan Hindu Council.
Pakistan ranked fifth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2020 World Watch list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, and on Nov. 28, 2018, the United States added Pakistan to its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom.
https://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/court-in-pakistan-validates-forced-conversion-marriage-of-christian-girl-to-muslim.html

Pakistan Court Validates Minor Christian Girl's Marriage With Abductor, Says She has Had Her Menstrual Cycle

News18.com/February 15/2020
The girl was 14 when she was abducted in October last year and forced to marry her abductor Abdul Jabbar after being converted to Islam, according to her parents.
Karachi The parents of a 14-year-old Pakistani Christian girl, who was abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to her abductor, will approach the Supreme Court after a lower court ruled that marriage with an underage girl is valid as per the Sharia law if she has had her first menstrual cycle. Huma was 14 when she was abducted in October last year and forced to marry her abductor Abdul Jabbar after being converted to Islam, according to her parents Younis and Nagheena Masih.
Their counsel Tabassum Yousuf on Friday said they would seek justice from the Supreme Court after the Sindh High Court, as per the Sharia law, said earlier this week that even if the girl, Huma, was found to be underage, the marriage between her and her alleged abductor, Jabbar, would be valid as she has already had her first menstrual cycle. After they approached the Sindh High Court to see their daughter, the court, in a hearing on February 3, ordered the police to oversee the tests to confirm her age. However, Judges Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Irshad Ali observed that under the Sharia law, the marriage would be valid even if Huma was underage. Tabbasum said that the ruling was not in accordance with the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act passed in 2014 which outlawed marriages of girls under 18 years, in a bid to stop forced marriages of minors in the province, primarily of Hindu and Christian community. "The girl's parents were convinced that the police investigating officer was supporting Abdul Jabbar and his family. They also fear that the test results of Huma's age could be falsified and she might be sent with her husband," the lawyer said. The parents had requested to keep Huma at a women's shelter away from her alleged husband until her age was determined. Tabassum said the parents produced documents including church, school documents confirming Huma's age to be 14. On the website of the Independent Catholic News, the girl's mother has appealed to the international community to support them. The latest case has emerged amidst an increasing number of forcible conversions of girls belonging to the minority communities in Muslim-majority Pakistan. In the last one month, at least two cases of forced conversion and marriage of Hindu girls after abduction have emerged in the province.
https://www.news18.com/news/world/pakistan-court-validates-minor-christian-girls-marriage-with-abductor-says-she-has-had-her-menstrual-cycle-2492433.html

Trump's 'Deal of the Century' hijacked the international order. Here's how it can fight back

Faysal and Nizar Mohamad/The New Arab/February 15/2020
Comment: The PA and EU have a chance to reclaim an international order hijacked by Israeli obstructionism and American unpredictability, write Faysal and Nizar Mohamad.Tags:Trump, Israel, Deal of the Century, Palestine, resistance, intifada, PA, EU
On 27 January, President Donald Trump announced his 'Deal of the Century', ostensibly aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In flagrant defiance of the international consensus on Palestinian statehood, the "peace plan" - a misnomer of the highest degree - showcased an attempt to formally legitimise Israel's occupation over Palestinian territories. It is a 'take-it-or-leave-it' deal that fundamentally denies Palestinians their right enshrined in international law, to self-determination and a state of their own.
Moreover, it reflects an architecture of exclusion cynically laid out by Jared Kushner, the Zionist presidential son-in-law and White House senior advisor, and designed to indefinitely subject Palestinians to the mercy of their oppressors.
But now that Israeli and American unilateralism has culminated in a plan void of all legality, this underlines the urgent need for the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the European Union (EU) to pursue alternative options. So, what options lay at their disposal?
In essence, the PA can pursue two courses of action. The first is to reinvigorate their struggle for international recognition. This begins with pivoting away from negotiating directly with Israel within the parameters of the long-deceased Oslo Accords, and towards a more assertive fight for their rights on the global stage, starting with a revitalised bid for statehood at the UN.
Against this backdrop, the PA should simultaneously bring forward legal cases against Israel at both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
As a first step, the EU must pressure Israel into accepting its responsibilities as an occupying power
There is a precedent for successful mobilisation in this domain. In 2004, the ICJ issued an opinio juris (advisory opinion) declaring the illegality of Israel's Separation Wall by citing the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Moreover, in 2015, Palestine was admitted to the ICC (Israel, revealingly, is not a member), and through the organisation has managed to open a probe into war crimes committed in the 2014 Gaza war and its aftermath.
Declaring a Palestinian state is consistent with multiple UN resolutions. From the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine, also known as General Assembly (GA) Resolution 181, to the Security Council (SC) Resolution 2334, which passed in 2016, contemporary support for Palestinian self-determination does indeed exist. In context and provisions, the international community has long expressed its commitment - at least in theory - to the establishment of a viable and independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
So the Palestinians can legitimately argue that declaring statehood is 73 years overdue. Once a state is declared, it is expected to satisfy the two-thirds majority vote needed in the GA to refer it to the SC, where its rejection by an American veto is practically a forgone conclusion.
Even in the midst of a US veto, majority recognition could potentially empower the Palestinian leadership to make a case seeking protection from the UN - possibly bolstering its former calls for the deployment of an international peace keeping force. They could also push to displace American 'mediation' by seeking support from a joint coalition that includes Russia, China and the EU. However, this is predicated on the political will of these players to stand up to the US and to pressure Israel into compliance.
The second option is to facilitate a third intifada (uprising) against the Israeli occupation, an act of resistance legally afforded to occupied peoples under the Geneva Conventions. Currently, the PA, given its legacy of capitulation to Israeli diktat, is far from prepared for a durable confrontation with Israel, whose historic "special relationship" with the US has been heavily buttressed in light of the Trump administration's own unique sense of rejectionism.
But a third intifada would offer the Palestinian people a way to dismantle the current status quo by putting a price on Israel's intransigence. Additionally, support for such an action could help the PA mitigate the prospects of its perilous and repressive governance becoming a target of the movement.
Dissolving security coordination with Israel in favour of supporting a large-scale peaceful protest movement could also help the PA save face with the Palestinian street, while challenging the current cost-free system of Israel's occupation - a system in which Israel subcontracts repression to the PA's security forces, who effectively remove that burden from Israeli leadership.
Trump's tenure has made the EU much more vulnerable to American unilateralism
Given Israel's repressive practices, the road will be neither short nor bloodless. However, if the Palestinian citizens of Israel join the intifada, sustained pressure in the form of organised civil disobedience on both sides of the wall could mitigate Israel's recourse to extreme lethality. At the very least, such disruptions may finally compel the Israelis to return to the negotiating table, as it offers a vehicle through which Palestinians can raise the stakes for Israel's current sense of impunity.
The international community will also find it increasingly difficult to acquiesce under circumstances that may further ignite a region already steeped in instability. In the case that Israel's actions elicit a large-scale eruption on the Arab street, such a scenario could harm European interests in the region.
Should the EU decide to act, it in principle possesses the leverage needed to incentivise Israel to comply with international law. At US $40 billion, the EU is Israel's largest trading partner. Thirty-four percent of all Israeli exports go to Europe, and 40 percent of Israeli imports come from Europe. The EU can apply economic and political pressure on Israel until it abides by all relevant UN resolutions, and ceases all actions that undermine the establishment of a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian state.
As a first step, the EU must pressure Israel into accepting its responsibilities as an occupying power. These responsibilities are clearly defined by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which has been adopted by 196 nations around the world.
Among other things, the Convention calls for the protection of civilians in war zones and the prohibition of unlawful appropriation of land and property by an occupying power, as is the case with Israel's settlements.
The European Court of Justice has already reaffirmed its opposition to Israeli settlements as well as the illegality of all Israeli economic activity occurring on occupied Palestinian land.
On Wednesday, the UN human rights office listed 112 firms linked to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, some of which are domiciled in Europe. Applying punitive measures against these firms, which included corporate giants like Expedia, Airbnb, and Motorola, is one such route to apply pressure.
Should the EU decide to act, it in principle possesses the leverage needed to incentivise Israel to comply with international law
The EU can also choose to suspend its policing mission in the occupied Palestinian territories, also known as the EU Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support, or EUPOL COPPS. Focused on police and justice sector reform, EUPOL COPPS has, since it was launched in 2006 under the Bush administration's Roadmap initiative, allocated millions annually towards building the institutions meant to belong to a future Palestinian state.
Israel, which wishes to see a cohesive police and security apparatus in the PA-administered areas of the West Bank capable of maintaining "calm" and "order", views these programes favourably.
Europe's historic relationship with the US is undergoing its most trying test yet. Trump's tenure has made the EU much more vulnerable to American unilateralism.
Since his election, Trump has openly ridiculed his European counterparts and suggested withdrawing troops from NATO.
Moreover, he has reneged on the Iran Nuclear Deal, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, and declared Israel's settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as legal - all on the advice of the Israeli prime minister, who has also consistently campaigned on the rejection of Palestinian statehood, even demanding that the US sanction the ICC.
The Palestinian case offers the EU a chance to hedge its bets and reclaim an international order hijacked by Israeli obstructionism and American unpredictability, particularly in the era of Trump.
The leaders of the EU have multiple vehicles at their disposal should they decide to effect positive change. Whether or not the political will exists, however, is yet to be seen.
*Nizar Mohamad is an MA student at the University of Waterloo where his research focuses on geopolitical trends in the Middle East's evolving security landscape. His thesis examines the mobilization of pro-government militias in Syria and Iraq, and he is currently co-authoring a chapter on Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East.