LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 24.2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
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Bible Quotations For today
Ash Monday/You are dust, and to dust you shall return
Genesis 03/03/19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return
Fasting/Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
Matthew 06/1621/And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for
they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I
say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head
and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your
Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "Do
not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and
where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and
steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God
02 Corinthians 05/20-21/Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his
appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For
our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become
the righteousness of God.
02 Corinthians 06/01-07/Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to
receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, "In a favorable time I listened
to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you."Behold, now is the
favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in
anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants
of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions,
hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights,
hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love;
by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for
the right hand and for the left;
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese
Related News & Editorials published on February 23-24/2020
What is The Ash Monday/Elias Bejjani/February 24/2020
Cana Wedding Miracle/The Forgiveness (Marfaa) Sunday/Elias Bejjani/February
23/2020
U.S. Lawmaker's Aide Insists Fakhoury isn't Guilty of Murder
Reports: IMF Asks Lebanon to Peg Dollar at LBP 1,750 or 2,000
Berri Tells IMF Team Lebanon Committed to Reforms
Coronavirus 'Politicized' in Lebanon as Some Blame Iran
Hasan: 27 Have So Far Tested Negative for Coronavirus
Geagea Urges Banning Flights from Iran, China
Health Minister to NNA: We tested 27 people and found they were free of any
virus
Al-Jadaan: Saudi Arabia is in contact with other countries to coordinate any
support to Lebanon on the basis of reforms
Protest march sets out in Sidon with the participation of Nabatiyeh and
Kfarreman civil movements
Cabinet to convene in Baabda on Tuesday to discuss Corona virus issue
If Lebanon needs financial aid, France will be there, finance minister says
"Opportunity exists with the current government," says Fadlallah
Public Health Information Office issues a clarification statement
Rahi supports new government
Union of Arab Journalists decides on holding its next conference in Beirut,
denounces targeting of freedom of expression in Arab countries
Five Wounded in Tripoli Grenade Explosion
Lebanese woman denies she has coronavirus after Iran visit, vows ‘revenge’
Coronavirus politicized in Lebanon as some blame Iran
Lebanon should default on its debt right now, and here's why/Nizar Hassan/The
New Arab/February 23/2020
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
February 23-24/2020
Syrian capital rocked by explosions as Israel claims responsibility
Rockets target Israel from Gaza after border clash: Sources
Pope Francis warns against ‘unfair’ solutions to end Israel-Palestine conflict
Iran Voter Turnout Dips below 50% in a First since 1979
Iran Says Parliamentary Election Turnout was 42%
Iran's Khamenei Blames Coronavirus ‘Propaganda’ for Affecting Voter Turnout
Kuwait Bars Entry of Ships from Iran over Coronavirus Fears
Iraq Extends Ban on Border Crossings by Iranians
Iran Confirms Another Coronavirus Death as 43 are Infected
Grave of Slain Iraq Commander, a New Anti-U.S. MagnetLadder to Safety: Syrians
Eye Escape over Turkey Border
Iran's Neighbors Impose Travel Bans as Coronavirus Toll Rises
Israel Readies for Third Election in Less than a Year
Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian near Gaza Fence
Egypt’s Sisi Looks Forward to Balanced Deal on Nile Dam
Global Britain Doesn’t Need Free Trade
Trump Says He Would Sign a Peace Deal with the Taliban
Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on February 23-24/2020
Europe's New Academic Fascism/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/February
23/2020
Iran’s damaging anti-Saudi agenda/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 23/2020
Iran’s hard-liners seize control of sinking ship/Baria Alamuddin/Arab
News/February 23/2020
Democratic powers can combat ‘Westlessness’ by working together/Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab
News/February 23/2020
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published on February 23-24/2020
What is The Ash Monday
Elias Bejjani/February 24/2020
مفاهيم اثنين الرماد الإيمانية
Ash Monday is the first day of Lent and It is a moveable feast, falling on a
different date each year because it is dependent on the date of Easter. It
derives its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of
adherents as a sign of mourning and repentance to God.
On The Ash Monday the priest ceremonially marks with wet ashes on the
worshippers’ foreheads a visible cross while saying “Remember that you are dust,
and to dust you shall return (genesis03/19)”.
Worshippers are reminded of their sinfulness and mortality and thus, implicitly,
of their need to repent in time.
Ash Monday (Greek: Καθαρά Δευτέρα), is also known as Clean and Pure Monday.
The common term for this day, refers to the leaving behind of sinful attitudes
and non-fasting foods.
Our Maronite Catholic Church is notable amongst the Eastern rites employing the
use of ashes on this day.
(In the Western Catholic Churches this day falls on Wednesday and accordingly it
is called the “Ash Wednesday”)
Ash Monday is a Christian holy day of prayer, fasting, contemplating of
transgressions and repentance.
Ash Monday is a reminder that we should begin Lent with good intentions and a
desire to clean our spiritual house. It is a day of strict fasting including
abstinence not only from meat but from eggs and dairy products as well.
Liturgically, Ash Monday—and thus Lent itself—begins on the preceding (Sunday)
night, at a special service called Forgiveness Vespers, which culminates with
the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, at which all present will bow down before
one another and ask forgiveness. In this way, the faithful begin Lent with a
clean conscience, with forgiveness, and with renewed Christian love.
The entire first week of Great Lent is often referred to as “Clean Week”, and it
is customary to go to Confession during this week, and to clean the house
thoroughly.
The Holy Bible stresses the conduct of humility and not bragging for not only
during the fasting period, but evry day and around the clock.
It is worth mentioning that Ashes were used in ancient times to express grief.
When Tamar was raped by her half-brother, “she sprinkled ashes on her head, tore
her robe, and with her face buried in her hands went away crying” (2 Samuel
13:19). Examples of the Ash practices among Jews are found in several other
books of the Bible, including Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Book of Esther
4:1, and Hebrews 9:13.
Jesus is quoted as speaking of the Ash practice in Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13:
“If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
Cana Wedding Miracle/The Forgiveness
(Marfaa) Sunday
Elias Bejjani/February 23/2020
Lent period starts with the Cana Holy Wedding Miracle and ends with the Holy
Easter Day.
Lent in the Maronite Church rite starts this year on the ASH Monday, February
25/2020.
The Sunday that comes before the beginning of the lent period is called the
raising (أحد المرفع) or forgiveness Sunday (أحد الغفران)
Fasting is a battle of spiritual engagement through which we seek to imitate
Jesus Christ who fought Satan's temptations while fasting in the wilderness.
He triumphed over Satan, and we faithfully endeavour during the Lent period to
tame and defeat our earthly instincts and make our hearts, conscience and
thinking pure, immaculate and pious
The lent period is a spiritual battle that we chose to fight our own selves and
all its bodily and earthly instinctual pleasures in a bid to abstain from all
acts and thoughts of sin
Lent in principle is a Holy period that is ought to be utilized with God in
genuine contemplation, self humility, repentance, penances, forgiveness, praying
and conciliation with self and others.
Lent is a privileged time of interior pilgrimage towards Jesus Who is the
fountain of all love, forgiveness and mercy.
Lent is a pilgrimage in which Jesus Himself accompanies us through the desert of
our poverty while sustaining us on our way towards the intense joy of Easter.
We fastand trust that the Lord is our loving Shepherd.
"Psalm 23:04: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and staff comfort me."
Lent is ought to strengthen our hope and faith in a bid to fight Satan and to
keep away from his ways of sin and despair.
Praying and contemplation teaches us that Almighty God is there to guard us and
to lead our steps during the entire Lenten period.
Readind the Holy Bible and praying offers us God's Word with particular
abundance and empowers our souls and minds with His Word.
Mark 13:31: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away"
By meditating and internalizing the Word Of God we learn precious and
irreplaceable forms of prayer.
By attentively listening to God, who continues to speak to our hearts, we
nourish the itinerary of faith initiated on the day of our Baptism.
Prayers and fasting allow us to gain a new concept of time and directs our steps
towards horizons of hope and joy that have no limits
When we fast and pray, we find time for God, to understand that his words will
not pass away.
Through fasting and praying we can enter into that intimate communion with Jesus
so that no one shall take from us the faith and hope that does not disappoint.
U.S. Lawmaker's Aide Insists Fakhoury isn't Guilty of
Murder
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 23/2020
A Lebanese-American man in custody in Lebanon isn't guilty of charges brought
against him by the Lebanese government, according to a U.S. lawmaker's top aide.
Naz Durakoglu, senior foreign policy adviser to Democratic New Hampshire Sen.
Jeanne Shaheen, said in a conference call with media outlets that colleagues in
different U.S. government offices have found no evidence that Amer Fakhoury is
guilty of the murder, prison torture and other allegations levied by his native
country. Durakoglu said that in such cases there are often made-up allegations
or charges, forcing defendants to try to refute lies. She said the U.S.
government is instead focusing on the distinct lack of evidence.
"In this case we're confident that he is not who they say he is," Durakoglu
said. Fakhoury is a 57-year-old restaurant owner from Dover, New Hampshire, who
became a U.S. citizen last year. He is accused of working as a senior warden at
Khiam Prison, which was run by an Israel-backed Lebanese militia during Israel's
occupation of southern Lebanon two decades ago. The prison has been described by
human rights groups as a center for torture. He was detained in September after
he returned to his native Lebanon from the U.S., and Lebanon's intelligence
services say he confessed during questioning to being a warden. A military
investigative judge charged Fakhoury earlier this month. The accusations could
carry a death sentence.
However, Fakhoury's lawyer and family in New Hampshire say that while he was
indeed a member of the Israel-backed militia and worked at the prison, he had no
direct contact with inmates and was never involved in the interrogation or
torture of prisoners.
Durakoglu said she could only broadly speculate on the motives of the Lebanese
government but said that U.S. government officials believe Hizbullah-linked
officials may be using Fakhoury as a way to "distract" the Lebanese public from
ongoing political unrest.
Fakhoury is in poor health because of injuries suffered and left untreated after
being beaten by Lebanese security officials, Durakoglu said. He is also
undergoing cancer treatment. His proceedings have been delayed as a result and
it remains unclear if he'll be able to stand trial.
"We have a dying American citizen there," his lawyer, Celine Atallah, said
previously. "By keeping him there, it's evident they're trying to kill him."
Shaheen said she is drafting sanctions legislation against Lebanese officials in
order to push for Fakhoury's release. Details of the bill remain unclear.
Reports: IMF Asks Lebanon to Peg Dollar at LBP 1,750 or
2,000
Naharnet/February 23/2020
An International Monetary Fund delegation wraps up Sunday a three-day visit to
Lebanon during which it met with senior political and financial officials. “The
delegation stressed that the starting point for the solutions should be reforms,
topped by the electricity file,” media reports said.
“The delegation also asked Lebanese officials to unify the dollar exchange rate
and end the discrepancy between the official rate and the rate at money exchange
shops,” the reports added. “There is an inclination to agree on a rate ranging
between LBP 1,750 and 2,000, seeing as that would relieve the people,
specifically depositors,” the reports said.
Berri Tells IMF Team Lebanon Committed to Reforms
Naharnet/February 23/2020
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Sunday told an International Monetary Fund
delegation that Lebanon is “keen on being committed to the required drastic
reforms on all levels to guarantee the success of the reform process and regain
confidence in Lebanon.”The National News Agency said the meeting involved “a
lengthy and detailed discussion of the financial and economic situations” as
Berri described the talks as “good.”The meeting was also attended by Finance
Minister Ghazi Wazni and Berri’s adviser Ali Hamdan.
Coronavirus 'Politicized' in Lebanon as Some Blame Iran
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 23/2020
Some in Lebanon are casting blame on Iran, the supporter of the country's
powerful Hizbullah group, after the country's first case of the new virus was
discovered on a flight from the Iranian city of Qom this week. Many Lebanese who
support the Hizbullah-led coalition have remained silent on the issue of the
virus, while some supporters of rival groups supported by the west blame Iran
for the introduction of the virus into the country. The first case of the new
coronavirus was reported in Lebanon when a 45-year-old woman tested positive
after flying from Qom on Thursday. The woman is in good health at Beirut's
state-run hospital, according to Health Minister Hamad Hasan. The minister
announced Saturday that all people traveling from Iran to Lebanon will now be
tested for the new virus before boarding flights to Lebanon. Hasan held a news
conference Saturday at Rafik Hariri University Hospital, which has been equipped
to deal with cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by virus. Hasan said 11
people returning from Iran who were suspected of carrying the virus tested
negative. He said two of the cases were people who came aboard the Iranian jet
that arrived Thursday from Qom."As if what Iran is sending to Lebanon and the
Lebanese is not enough so it sent us coronavirus," said an editorial on the
local MTV station. The station is a harsh critic of Iran and Hizbullah and the
comment was an apparent reference to the weapons Tehran sends to the group. The
TV station also apparently referred to this week's visit to Lebanon by Iran's
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani who said Tehran is ready to help Lebanon as it
experiences its worst economic and financial crisis in decades. "Thank you Iran
for allowing a jet carrying people infected with coronavirus to enter our
airspace. Is this the way countries cooperate and is this the help that your
promised Lebanon," the editorial said. The daily An-Nahar newspaper had a
front-page photo of three people wearing masks outside the Rafik Hariri Teaching
Hospital and a headline that reads: "Coronavirus panic in Lebanon and a scandal
of Iranian flights." An-Nahar is also a harsh critic of Hizbullah and its
Iranian backers. Information Minister Manal Abdul Samad said political divisions
should not be allowed to be used in this case.
Hasan: 27 Have So Far Tested Negative for Coronavirus
Naharnet/February 23/2020
Health Minister Hamad Hasan announced Sunday that 27 people in Lebanon have
tested negative for the novel coronavirus, three days after he announced the
country’s first case of the disease. “The health ministry is continuing its
efforts to quickly identify any case showing the symptoms of coronavirus among
the ranks of citizens coming from abroad,” Hasan told the National News Agency.
He added that at the request of the examining team, an equipped Lebanese Red
Cross ambulance has transferred the citizen A.B. from the city of Baalbek to the
Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut to conduct lab tests as a
precautionary measure. “He was among the passengers of the plane in which
Lebanon’s first coronavirus infection was detected,” the minister said. Hasan
had confirmed Lebanon’s first case of the novel coronavirus on Friday, adding
that two other suspected cases were being investigated. The COVID-19 virus was
found in a 45-year-old Lebanese woman who had traveled from Qom in Iran, he
said. The COVID-19 outbreak first appeared in Iran on Wednesday. Thousands of
Lebanese travel to Iran every year to visit Shiite holy sites in Qom and other
cities.
Geagea Urges Banning Flights from Iran, China
Naharnet/February 23/2020
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Sunday called for banning flights from
and to Iran and China as a precaution against the spread of the novel
coronavirus. “In light of Lebanon’s modest capabilities, it is better to take
extreme and not minimal measures from the very beginning,” Geagea tweeted.
“Therefore, it is better, as a first step, to ban travel from and to countries
witnessing major outbreaks of the disease, without taking into account any other
considerations or any sentiments, especially as to China and Iran,” the LF
leader added. The first case of the novel coronavirus in Lebanon was confirmed
on Friday and two other suspected cases are being investigated. The COVID-19
virus was found in a 45-year-old Lebanese woman who had traveled from Qom in
Iran. Health Minister Hamad Hasan said that all the people who were on the same
flight from Iran have been contacted by the health authorities. He said that
anyone returning from Iran would be asked to observe a two-week home quarantine.
The COVID-19 outbreak first appeared in Iran on Wednesday. Iran confirmed eight
deaths from the virus on Sunday, the highest toll of any country outside China.
The number of infections has meanwhile surged to 43. Thousands of Lebanese
travel to Iran every year to visit Shiite holy sites in Qom and other cities.
Health Minister to NNA: We tested 27 people and found they were free of any
virus
NNA/February 23/2020
Minister of Public Health, Hamad al-Hassan, confirmed to the National News
Agency's correspondent in Baalbek on Sunday, that to-date, tests have been
conducted over 27 persons suspected of having the Coronavirus, and the results
have shown that they are free of any infection. Meanwhile, the Ministry of
Health is continuing its efforts to ensure the early detection of any symptoms
of the Coronavirus, among citizens coming from abroad. Upon detection by the
examining committee, a Lebanese Red Cross equipped vehicle transported one of
the citizens in the city of Baalbek to the Rafic Hariri University Hospital in
Beirut, to perform the necessary laboratory tests to ensure that the patient is
free of corona infection within the precautionary procedures adopted. The
citizen was among the passengers on board the plane in which the first case of
corona infection was detected in Lebanon.
Al-Jadaan: Saudi Arabia is in contact with other countries
to coordinate any support to Lebanon on the basis of reforms
NNA/February 23/2020
Reuters quoted Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan as saying today, at the
conclusion of a meeting of finance officials from the Group of Twenty, that
Saudi Arabia is in contact with other countries to coordinate any support to
Lebanon on the basis of economic reforms.
He added: "The Kingdom has always been, and still remains, supportive to Lebanon
and the Lebanese people."
Protest march sets out in Sidon with the participation of
Nabatiyeh and Kfarreman civil movements
NNA/February 23/2020
The civil movement in the city of Sidon organized a demonstration March this
evening, as part of a series of protest actions "in opposition to the high cost
of living and the economic policy that rendered citizens deprived of their
decent livelihood," NNA correspondent in Sidon reported.
The evening rally began with activists gathering at the Eliya Square
intersection, raising national flags and chanting slogans denouncing sectarian,
partisan and financial policies. Then, protesters set out in a march, joined by
a group of Nabatiyeh and Kfarreman civil activists, where they roamed the
streets of the city, chanting slogans against poverty and hunger, and calling
for change and the return of looted funds. They also called on citizens to
"leave their homes and participate in the march by rejecting the current status
quo and working to achieve a better future for all."
Protesters then returned to Elia Square, amidst the presence of Lebanese army
units.
Cabinet to convene in Baabda on Tuesday to discuss Corona virus issue
NNA/February 23/2020
The Council of Ministers will hold a meeting at Baabda Presidential Palace
upcoming Tuesday at 1:00 p.m., to discuss the preventive measures and steps
adopted against the Coronavirus.
If Lebanon needs financial aid, France will be there,
finance minister says
NNA/Reuters/February 23/2020
France is ready to support Lebanon financially - bilaterally or multilaterally -
its finance minister said Sunday, warning against mixing economic recovery in
the small Mediterranean state with U.S.-led efforts to counter Iran in the
region. "France always stands ready to help Lebanon. It has always been the case
in the past and it will be the case in the future..." Bruno Le Maire told
Reuters at the end of a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 (G20)
major economies. "We know that there are ties between the two issues but we
don’t want to mix the issue of economic recovery in Lebanon, which is today the
clear emergency, and the question of Iran," he added. As Lebanon's economic
crisis deepens, Western and Sunni-led Gulf Arab states that helped in the past
have made clear that any support hinges on Beirut implementing long-delayed
reforms to address root causes such as state corruption and bad governance. Le
Maire said decisions by Lebanon's government were urgently needed to improve the
situation on the ground.
"Opportunity exists with the current government," says
Fadlallah
NNA/February 23/2020
"Lebanon was struck by a virus thirty years ago, one of theft, corruption, lack
of responsibility and chaos. There is an opportunity with the current
government, because its success or failure will be reflected on everyone, and
failure will add to the crisis...There are political forces, figures, and
parties working, betting, and trying to thwart the government's work, to prove
that it has been unable to do anything...The Lebanese want a solution to their
held deposits in banks, the high prices and scarce job opportunities in the
country," said Member of the "Loyalty to the Resistance" Parliamentary Bloc, MP
Hassan Fadlallah, on Sunday. Speaking to a popular crowd during a political
gathering organized by Hezbollah in the region of Iqlim el-Tuffah earlier today,
Fadlallah noted that "the government's success is a success for the country as a
whole, but there are obstacles that stand in the way of solutions. The
government, which is responsible for public funds, is forbidden from knowing the
Central Bank's exact holdings...whereas in no country in the world has an
official authority withheld information from the President of the Republic, the
Government, and the Parliament Council, and this requires the government to take
measures to solve this problem." "Until this moment, we have not received the
correct data about the money transfers abroad; and the judiciary can, through
its authority guaranteed by the Constitution and the law, to make an accurate
tracking of all transfers made by presidents, ministers, parliament members,
heads of security apparatuses, and senior current and former employees and
contractors in the state...It can contact external countries, inquiring about
these names and the money in their possession abroad, and conduct an
investigation to reach the end," Fadlallah went on. "Otherwise, who would take
such measures if the judiciary does not move?" he questioned. In a word on the
arising Coronavirus issue, the MP deemed that "everyone is required to cooperate
with the official authorities concerned, and deal with the matter as in all
countries that have institutions and governments."
"In the Corona file, moral and human standards must be the starting point for
all speech, but unfortunately in the past two days we have heard political and
media words that are outside all human and moral standards, and this condemns
those with sick minds whose hearts have been inflicted with an ethical corona,"
Fadlallah added regretfully.
Public Health Information Office issues a clarification
statement
NNA/February 23/2020
The Public Health Ministry Information Office clarified, in an issued statement
today, that "Rafic Hariri Governmental Hospital in Beirut will issue a daily
bulletin at 5 pm, announcing the latest developments related the Coronavirus
issue." The statement expressed its hope that "citizens and the media will be
wary of fake news and refer to the daily bulletin issued by Rafic Hariri
Hospital."
Rahi supports new government
NNA/February 23/2020
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rahi, presided over Sunday Mass
service for the launch of the Caritas fasting period. The Patriarch called on
all Lebanese officials to support the government, for the sake of people's
interests. "Growing poverty, and the stifling economic and financial crisis,
requires all of us to stand in the service of love, so that no one dies on the
road, or from hunger, or lacks the ability to buy medication," Rahi said told
believers during the Mass service.
Union of Arab Journalists decides on holding its next
conference in Beirut, denounces targeting of freedom of expression in Arab
countries
NNA /February 23/2020
The Egyptian capital, Cairo, hosted this weekend the meetings of the General
Secretariat and the Permanent Office of the General Union of Arab Journalists,
at the Union's headquarters, headed by Muayyad Al-Lami and attended by members
of the General Secretariat and the Union's Permanent Office, and the President
of the International Federation of Journalists Younis Mjahid and its Financial
Secretary Jim Bou Malha, with organizational, professional and political issues
featuring high on their work agenda. The attendees agreed, in view of the
current circumstances that the Arab nation is going through, especially with
regard to the Palestinian issue, to give the name "Palestine" to the meetings of
this session. Conferees also unanimously agreed to hold their next meeting in
the Lebanese capital, Beirut, during the first week of April 2020, and approved
the membership of the Djiboutian Journalists Syndicate and welcomed the return
of the Jordanian Journalists Syndicate to the Union. In their final statement,
the conferees denounced the attempt to undermine the freedom of expression in
Arab countries. "The difficult circumstances experienced by the Arab nation,
which are characterized by the growth of various manifestations of chaos,
dispersion, wars and the deepening of Arab-Arab conflicts, and the continued
decline in indicators of freedom of the press and expression and other
manifestations of human rights, require intensifying forms of professional
struggle to face these challenges," the statement said.
"The Union expresses its readiness to cooperate with all Arab professional and
human rights organizations that believe in the principles of defending human
rights, democracy and sovereign freedoms, and advocating the interests of the
Arab nation and the struggle to achieve the values of social justice, equality,
democracy and human rights," the statement emphasized. Conferees, thus, demanded
the "Arab governments to deal with the profession of journalism in light of the
recent developments," highlighting the need to "revise legislations that deprive
liberties and to pass legislations that give the Arab media practice a broader
range and broader horizons of freedom."
Five Wounded in Tripoli Grenade Explosion
Naharnet/February 23/2020
A man hurled a hand grenade Sunday at his brothers inside an apartment in the
northern city of Tripoli. The National News Agency said the man, M. Shahoud, and
four of his brothers were wounded in the explosion.
The apartment is located in a building on the city’s al-Thaqafeh Street. The
Lebanese Red Cross evacuated the wounded to hospitals in the city.
Lebanese woman denies she has coronavirus after Iran visit,
vows ‘revenge’
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/February 23/2020
A Lebanese woman suspected of bringing coronavirus to Lebanon from the Iranian
city of Qom said she is only suffering from a cold and criticized the Beirut
government for lying about her case, according to several Lebanese media outlets
who quoted her from audio recordings.
The woman identified by Lebanese media as 45-year-old Taghrid Ali Sakr arrived
from Qom last week and was declared Lebanon's first case of coronavirus by the
Lebanese Health Ministry on Friday. In the audio recodings, she denies she the
deadly virus and criticizes the government for allegedly lying about her. “You
all know Lebanon, the lies in Lebanon, and agents in it. My brother will come to
Lebanon and take revenge on my behalf from the General Security,” she is heard
saying in one of the recordings. Sakr’s statements were criticized by some
social media users, who asked why she was criticizing the health minister, who
was nominated by the political party of Iran-backed Hezbollah. Sakr later
backtracked on her comments, saying she did not mean to “insult her homeland”
and explaining that she had just returned from Qom after spending the past six
months in the Iranian city currently hit by the coronavirus epidemic. Lebanese
Health Minister Hamad al-Hassan released a statement on Saturday after visiting
the Nabih Berri Governmental Hospital in Nabatiyeh saying that there was “no
need to panic.” The minister said the government has found no other cases of
coronavirus after testing in several hospitals.
Coronavirus politicized in Lebanon as some blame Iran
Associated Press/February 23/2020
The TV station also apparently referred to this week’s visit to Lebanon by
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani who said Tehran is ready to help Lebanon
as it experiences its worst economic and financial crisis in decades.
BEIRUT: Some in Lebanon are casting blame on Iran, the supporter of the
country’s powerful Hezbollah group, after the country’s first case of the new
virus was discovered on a flight from the Iranian city of Qom this week.
The existence in Lebanon of the new virus that first emerged in China has been
politicized by some in Lebanon’s deeply divided population.
Many Lebanese who support an Iran-backed coalition led by Hezbollah have
remained silent on the issue of the virus, while some supporters of rival groups
supported by the west blame Iran for the introduction of the virus into the
country.
The first case of the new coronavirus was reported in Lebanon when a 45-year-old
woman tested positive after flying from Qom on Thursday. The woman is in good
health at a Beirut hospital, according to Health Minister Hamad Hassan. The
minister announced Saturday that all people traveling from Iran to Lebanon will
now be tested for the new virus before boarding flights to Lebanon. Hassan held
a news conference Saturday at Rafik Hariri University Hospital, which has been
equipped to deal with cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by virus.
Hassan said 11 people returning from Iran who were suspected of carrying the
virus tested negative. He said two of the cases were people who came aboard the
Iranian jet that arrived Thursday from Qom.
“As if what Iran is sending to Lebanon and the Lebanese is not enough so it sent
us coronavirus,” said an editorial on the local MTV station. The station is a
harsh critic of Iran and Hezbollah and the comment was an apparent reference to
the weapons Tehran sends to the group.
The TV station also apparently referred to this week’s visit to Lebanon by
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani who said Tehran is ready to help Lebanon
as it experiences its worst economic and financial crisis in decades. “Thank you
Iran for allowing a jet carrying people infected with coronavirus to enter our
airspace. Is this the way countries cooperate and is this the help that your
promised Lebanon,” the editorial said. Information Minister Manal Abdul-Samad
said political divisions should not be allowed to be used in this case.
Lebanon should default on its debt right now, and here's
why
Nizar Hassan/The New Arab/February 23/2020
The big policy question haunting Lebanon's decision makers today is whether or
not the country should pay international and local investors whose Eurobonds
mature next month, as the country faces dramatic economic, financial and fiscal
crises.
Experts and politicians are divided, with some advocating full payment, others
arguing that only the debt held by foreign actors should be paid, and perhaps
the biggest group of all arguing for an immediate default and a restructuring of
debt.
The argument for the payment of the Eurobonds in full, including those held by
Lebanese commercial banks, is very hard to defend. Indeed, very few voices seem
to be pushing for such a decision, except the bankers themselves, the experts on
their payroll, and their official lobby, the Association of Banks in Lebanon.
In the end, why would Lebanon pay back the local banks' debt in US dollars when
the country is facing a crisis of dollar shortage, and is clearly heading to a
restructuring and cancelling of a major chunk of its internal debt?
On the other hand, there is a more serious argument against defaulting on the
foreign Eurobond payment championed by the former banker and economic policy
commentator, Dan Azzi.
He explained his point of view on my podcast two weeks ago, and on this week's
episode we hosted Joane Chakar, an economist supporting the opposite view - an
immediate default. Although Azzi made his case perhaps better than anyone else
could, it is clear to me that both from a fiscal and political perspective,
defaulting is the right demand.
The case against defaulting has two main arguments, and they are connected. The
first is a question: why should Lebanon default on its foreign debt when the
amounts to be paid are minimal compared to the size of the internal debt?
In other words, the argument goes like this: Lebanon can deal with its
internally-held debt through a haircut and money-printing (as Azzi suggests),
without the need to default on foreign debt and suffering its consequences. This
is definitely the strongest argument for payment in my opinion, but it is in
fact dependent on the second argument, which is that defaulting on foreign debt
today makes it more difficult to borrow in the international markets in the near
future, for infrastructure projects and other needs.
If Lebanon can default today but borrow again in the future, both of these
arguments fall apart. The experiences of other countries with similar situations
indicate that this is indeed the realistic outcome to predict.
There is no eternal blacklisting that takes place when a sovereign default
occurs. Global capital does not hold grudges against states. Capital is
interested in constant accumulation and the mitigation of risks, not in revenge.
When default occurs, creditors will not stop lending to Lebanon forever; they
will just demand higher interest rates and better guarantees when they do. So
what is the real advantage of maintaining our record of paying foreign debt, if
the interests on internal and external is already too high to pay back, and
confidence in the Lebanese economy cannot be lower?
Let us stop the vicious cycle of borrowing and paying back, and only borrow in
the future to invest in projects that ensure the structural economic
transformation that all economists agree should happen.
If the concern of tapping international markets in the future is put on the
side, there is little need to worry about defaulting today.
But even if we took the argument that the foreign debt is too small to default
on as a standalone case, there is a serious question on whether Lebanon can in
fact pay these amounts, as its central bank suffers from a deterioration in its
foreign exchange reserve that makes it unable to control a depreciating national
currency.
Estimations of how many dollars Lebanon needs for the import of basic
necessities (fuel, medicine, wheat, raw materials) vary, but it is clear that
the reserves would be wiped out if we used them for the next two years while
paying back debt in dollars.
The most important point here is that this debate is not possible as long as
Lebanon's central bank does not publish the required data for us to know which
reserves are in fact usable, and how much they amount to.
As long as we do not have the numbers, we cannot claim that any amount in
dollars is too small to worry about. And in such a situation, the priority
should be funding people's necessities rather than the profits of international
money giants.
Moreover, there is no question among experts and stakeholders that Lebanon does
indeed need to restructure its public debt. Paying back the debt without the
cancellation and rescheduling of major portions has become impossible.
So the first argument against defaulting that questions the reasons for it can
be answered with a question as well: Why accept the debt payment when we will
default and restructure soon anyway? And how can we make sure we are not taking
money away from more important needs, if we do not know how much money we have?
Here comes a third argument related to the fact that Lebanon does not have a
solid debt restructuring plan on which to base its negotiations with
international investors. This is true, and it is the reason why the country
requested assistance from the International Monetary Fund, whose team just
arrived in the country to help figure out a plan.
The country might not have enough time left before Eurobonds' maturity, but
there is enough time to announce the default and finalise the plan for both
internal and external debt as the negotiations begin.
Beyond the technicalities of policy, there is a strong political argument for
anti-establishment and opposition movements in Lebanon to demand immediate
restructuring and stand against the payment of Eurobonds.
To begin with a strategic concern, it is very difficult in political
mobilisation to distinguish between the debt held by local and international
companies, and to call for the payment of foreign, but not local debt.
It might also be counterproductive, especially given the nationalism that it
might trigger with the support of the banks. It is much safer to stand under a
clear banner that says "no to the payment of Eurobonds, yes to immediate debt
restructuring."
A banner reading "we demand the payment of foreign-held Eurobonds but not those
owned by the local banks" is definitely less able to convey the message and
create a popular coalition supporting the drastic debt restructuring that we
urgently and desperately need. And carrying such a hybrid and less clear demand
offers the government the room it needs to pay back all due Eurobonds,
channeling hundreds of millions into the pockets of crony local bankers.
Opposing the Eurobond payments also goes well with another very important
demand, which is full transparency by the central bank. As long as the
authorities refuse to be transparent about our financial situation, we cannot by
principle give them a green light to send any dollars to bond holders.
In other words, the two demands work together, and the demand for defaulting
exerts pressure on the authorities to reveal the numbers or face even lower
public confidence. There is nothing that Lebanon needs more desperately than
dollars and confidence. As such, the government paying dollars to lenders
without improving confidence cannot be justified.
We should demand an immediate debt restructuring without further hesitation, or
else we are granting the short term profits of investors and banks a higher spot
on the list of priorities, than the livelihoods of millions in Lebanon. Like
most policy decisions, this one comes back to our moral compass, and it is about
time we put people over profit.
*Nizar Hassan is a Lebanese organiser, researcher and podcaster based in Beirut.
He is a co-founder of the progressive political movement LiHaqqi, he researches
workers rights and social movements, and co-hosts The Lebanese Politics Podcast.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News
published on February 23-24/2020
Syrian capital rocked by explosions as Israel claims responsibility
The Associated Press, AFP, Damascus, Syria/Monday, 24 February
2020
Syria’s capital Damascus was rocked by multiple explosions late on Sunday, and
the country’s air defenses fired back in the latest attack by Israel on targets
in Syria. State media said air defenses confronted a wave of “enemy rockets”
coming from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In a rare move,
the Israeli military claimed responsibility through a spokesman on Twitter,
saying it staged a series of strikes targeting the Palestinian militant group
Islamic Jihad in Syria and the Gaza Strip. Residents said multiple explosions
shook Damascus and lasted for about 15 minutes as air defenses fired back. It
was not immediately clear what targets were hit. The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, said the
explosions resulted from Israeli bombing of suspected Iranian-backed militias in
the vicinity of Damascus International Airport. The Syrian state news agency
Sana said “most of the enemy missiles were shot down before reaching their
targets,” stressing that “no airport” was struck. Since the start of the Syrian
conflict in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly
targeting government forces as well as allied Iranian forces and Hezbollah
fighters. Israel frequently strikes at targets inside Syria, but has largely
refrained from public admissions of its covert military operations there. A
missile attack blamed on Israel in mid-February killed three Syrian and four
Iranian fighters in the Damascus airport area, according to the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights. Iran is an ally of Damascus and has offered
military advisers and sent militiamen and material support to help President
Bashar Assad’s government forces in the nine-year civil war.
Israel considers Iran a national security threat and says it won’t tolerate
Iran’s presence on its borders.
Rockets target Israel from Gaza after border clash: Sources
The Associated Press/Sunday, 23 February 2020
Palestinian militants fired some 20 rockets toward southern Israel on Sunday,
hours after Israel said it killed a Palestinian militant who tried to place a
bomb along the Israel-Gaza barrier fence. There was no immediate claim for the
rocket fire, but it appeared to be meant to avenge the death of the militant.
Palestinians were furious over the image of the man’s lifeless body dangling off
the front of an Israeli bulldozer that had crossed into Gaza to retrieve it. It
also drew criticism for the territory’s Hamas rulers for not responding. Israel
said another Palestinian militant was shot and wounded in the clash. The Israeli
military reported air raid sirens throughout southern Israel, and said at least
20 rockets had been fired. There were no reports of damage or injuries on the
Israeli side, but it was the heaviest barrage of rocket fire in several months.
Pope Francis warns against ‘unfair’ solutions to end
Israel-Palestine conflict
The Associated Press, Rome/Sunday, 23 February 2020
Pope Francis has cautioned against “unfair” solutions aimed at ending the
conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In a speech Sunday during a visit to
the Italian southern port city of Bari to reflect on peace in countries
bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Francis lamented the many areas of war and
conflict, including in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Francis spoke of
“the still unresolved conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, with the
danger of not fair solutions, and, thus, presaging new crises.” The pope didn’t
cite any specific proposals. A new US peace plan would let Israel annex all of
its settlements along with the strategic Jordan Valley. It would give the
Palestinians limited autonomy in several chunks of territory with a capital on
the outskirts of Jerusalem, but only if they meet stringent conditions.
Iran Voter Turnout Dips below 50% in a First
since 1979
Associated Press/Naharnet/February 23/2020
Iran's interior ministry said voter turnout in recent parliamentary elections
stood at 42.57%, the first time it dipped below the 50% mark since the country's
1979 revolution that ushered in a Shiite theocratic establishment to power. The
lower turnout is widely seen as a measure of how Iranians view the country's
government, with low turnout a signal of possible widespread dissatisfaction
with Iran's clerical rulers and the system they preside over. Voters also had
limited options on Friday's ballot, as more than 7,000 potential candidates had
been disqualified, most of them reformists and moderates. Among those
disqualified were 90 sitting members of Iran's 290-seat Parliament who had
wanted to run for re-election. Iranian hardliners also won all 30 parliamentary
seats in the capital, Tehran, state TV reported on Sunday, but officials have
yet to announce the voter turnout from the nationwide elections two days ago.
State TV also said that former Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a top
contender for the post of parliamentary speaker, was the top winner in the
capital, with more that 1.2 million votes. Iran's supreme leader early Sunday
accused enemy "propaganda" of trying to dissuade people from voting by
amplifying the threat of the coronavirus. A range of crises has beset Iran in
the past year, including widespread anti-government protests in November and
U.S. sanctions piling pressure on the plunging economy. On the eve of the vote
in Iran, the Trump administration sanctioned five election officials and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the election as a "sham."In remarks from
his office in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the "negative propaganda" of
Iran's enemies for trying to discourage people from voting in Friday's
elections. "Their media did not ignore the tiniest opportunity for discouraging
people and resorting to the pretext of diseases and the virus," he said. Iran
reported its first case of the virus two days before the national polls, and
eight deaths have been reported due to the virus since then. That's the highest
death toll from the virus outside of China, where the outbreak first emerged a
couple months ago.
Iran has confirmed 43 cases in total in at least five different cities,
including the capital, Tehran, where some pharmacies have already run out of
masks and hand sanitizer. Schools were shut down in Tehran and across 10
provinces for at least two days, starting Sunday, to prevent the spread of the
virus. Authorities have also suspended football matches and stopped shows in
movie theaters and other venues. Officials across Iran had encouraged people to
vote in the days leading up to the election, even as concerns over the virus'
spread began to rise. Iraq and Pakistan, which share borders with Iran, have
taken preventive measures to limit the spread of the virus from Iranian
travellers. Infected travellers from Iran already have been discovered in
Lebanon and Canada. Saudi Arabia ordered anyone traveling from Iran to wait at
least 14 days before entering the kingdom as it seeks to prevent the spread of
the virus to the Muslim pilgrimage sites of Mecca and Medina. Meanwhile, the
official IRNA news agency said ballot counting had come to an end on Sunday,
with 201 out of 208 constituencies decided. The seven relatively smaller
constituencies will be decided in a run-off election later in April. Also on
Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif joked about shaking hands
with his visiting Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg and told
reporters: "We have to shake hands with them, don't worry I don't have
coronavirus." In his meeting with the Austrian foreign minister, President
Hassan Rouhani quipped that U.S. sanctions on Iran "are like the coronavirus"
causing more fear than the reality, the official IRNA news agency reported. He
urged Europe to resist U.S. pressure. Schallenberg is in Tehran amid efforts by
European countries to keep alive Iran's nuclear agreement with world powers.
Regional tensions have steadily risen since the U.S. withdrew from the landmark
deal.
Iran Says Parliamentary Election Turnout was 42%
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 February, 2020
Iran's interior minister said on Sunday that turnout in the country's
parliamentary election on Feb. 21 was around 42%, state TV reported, the lowest
participation since Iran's 1979 revolution that swept the clerical rulers into
power. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said more than 24 million people out of 58
million eligible voters participated in the election on Friday. A low turnout
had been widely forecast, as a conservative-dominated electoral watchdog
disqualified about half the 16,000-odd candidates, mostly moderates and
reformists. Voter apathy marked the polls, but supreme leader Ali Khamenei on
Sunday lauded the people's "huge participation" despite what he termed "this
negative propaganda". He accused foreign media of trying to use the outbreak of
the new coronavirus to sabotage the polls. It "began a few months ago and grew
larger approaching the election and in the past two days, under the pretext of
this illness," he said, according to a televised extract of his speech. The
latest three deaths Iran reported on Sunday were among 15 new confirmed cases of
the COVID-19 virus, bringing the overall number of infections to 43 and
fatalities to eight -- the highest death toll outside of China, the epicenter of
the epidemic.
Iran's Khamenei Blames Coronavirus ‘Propaganda’ for
Affecting Voter Turnout
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 February, 2020
Officials in Iran haven't announced the full results from parliamentary
elections two days ago, but on Sunday supreme leader Ali Khamenei accused enemy
“propaganda” of trying to dissuade people from voting by amplifying the threat
of the coronavirus. Authorities have also not released the all-important figure
saying how many Iranians voted in the polls. A low turnout could signal
widespread dissatisfaction with Iran's clerical rulers and the system they
preside over. A range of crises has beset Iran in the past year, including
widespread anti-government protests in November and US sanctions piling pressure
on the plunging economy. In remarks from his office in Tehran, Khamenei blamed
the “negative propaganda” of Iran's enemies for trying to discourage people from
voting in Friday's elections. “Their media did not ignore the tiniest
opportunity for discouraging people and resorting to the pretext of diseases and
the virus," he said, according to The Associated Press. Iran reported its first
case of the virus two days before the national polls, and six deaths from the
illness since then. That's the highest death toll from the virus outside of
China, where the outbreak first emerged a couple months ago.
Iran has confirmed 28 cases in total in at least four different cities,
including the capital, Tehran, where some pharmacies have already run out of
masks and hand sanitizer. Schools were shut down in Tehran and four other cities
for two days on Sunday to prevent the spread of the virus. Authorities have also
suspended football matches and stopped shows in movie theaters and other venues.
Officials across Iran encouraged people to vote in the days leading up to the
election, even as concerns over the virus' spread began to rise.Voters had
limited options on Friday's ballot, as more than 7,000 potential candidates had
been disqualified, most of them reformists and moderates. Among those
disqualified were 90 sitting members of Iran's 290-seat parliament who had
wanted to run for re-election. Iranian state TV on Saturday announced some
partial results, indicating a strong showing by hard-liners in the capital. On
the eve of the vote, the Trump administration sanctioned five election officials
and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the election as a “sham.”Meanwhile,
authorities in Iran said they would begin disinfecting Tehran's metro, which is
used by some 3 million people, to stymie the spread of the virus. The government
has also closed down schools and religious seminaries in the city of Qom, where
the virus first killed two elderly patients last week. Iraq and Pakistan, which
share borders with Iran, have taken preventive measures to limit the spread of
the virus from Iranian travelers. Infected travelers from Iran already have been
discovered in Lebanon and Canada. World Health Organization officials have said
that China’s crackdown on parts of the country bought time for the rest of the
world to prepare for the new virus. But as hot spots emerge around the globe,
including in South Korea and Iran, there has been trouble finding the first
patient who sparked each new cluster.
Kuwait Bars Entry of Ships from Iran over Coronavirus Fears
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 February, 2020
Kuwait barred “indefinitely” on Sunday the entry of ships of all kind from Iran
due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Kuwait Ports Authority said the decision
covers the ports of Shuaiba, Doha and Shuwaikh. Authority chief Sheikh Yousef
Abdullah Al-Sabah said the ban is part of precautionary measures the body is
taking to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the country. It is also in
line with the government plan aimed at fighting the virus. Kuwait Airways had on
Thursday announced that it was suspending all flights to Iran. Eight people have
died in Iran after contracting the virus and 43 cases have been detected.
Iraq Extends Ban on Border Crossings by Iranians
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 February, 2020
Iraq has extended an entry ban for any non-Iraqis coming from Iran, the prime
minister said, as authorities in Tehran announced 15 more cases of the new
coronavirus and a death toll of eight. Baghdad had banned crossings by
non-Iraqis from Iran on Thursday for three days and Prime Minister Adel Abdul
Mahdi said on Saturday night that the ban would be extended. He did not specify
until when. “The prime minister ordered the ... halting of receiving travelers
from Iran except for Iraqis,” his office said in a statement. Iraq’s health
ministry said it had detected no cases in the country.
Iraq has already suspended visas on arrival for Iranian passport holders and
direct flights between the two countries. Iran has suspended religious
pilgrimage trips to Iraq. Kuwait has imposed travel and immigration curbs on
Iran, while Oman on Sunday urged its citizens to steer clear of countries with
high infection rates and said arrivals from those nations would be quarantined.
Iran Confirms Another Coronavirus Death as 43 are Infected
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 February, 2020
Iran said on Sunday an Iranian infected by the new coronavirus died, head of the
Medical Science University in the Mazandaran province was quoted as saying,
bringing the number of deaths to eight in the country. They were the first
deaths from the disease in the Middle East. “An Iranian who traveled from Tehran
to Tonekabon has died of the new coronavirus,” Abbas Mousavi said, Iranian media
reported. A health ministry official said 43 people were infected with the
virus. Health Minister Saeed Namaki said Sunday that travel from China brought
the new virus to the Middle Eastern country, amid concerns that coronavirus
clusters in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious
new stage in its global spread. He said that one the Iranian dead from the virus
was a merchant who regularly shuttled between the two countries using indirect
flights in recent weeks, after Iran stopped direct passenger flights to China.
Namaki also defended the government's handling of the outbreak, saying it was
being “transparent.” He said it would help make face-masks and sanitizers
available for Iranians, amid concerns that stocks were running low in the
capital's pharmacies.
Authorities have ordered as a "preventive measure" the closure of schools,
universities and other educational centers in 14 provinces across the country
from Sunday. They include the city of Qom where the first cases emerged, as well
as Markazi, Gilan, Ardabil, Kermanshah, Qazvin, Zanjan, Mazandaran, Golestan,
Hamedan, Alborz, Semnan, Kurdistan and the capital, Tehran.
Namaki urged people not to visit Qom, which is a major destination for Shiite
pilgrims. Art events, concerts and film shows have been banned for a week.
Namaki said Sunday on state television that treatment of COVID-19 cases would be
free. Iran is also producing kits for diagnosis of the infection, he added. "In
every city, one hospital will be dedicated to treating coronavirus cases," he
said, adding that this number would be greater in bigger cities like the
capital. Iran has also set up 36 screening stations at different ports of entry
to the country to check for possibly infected travellers, he added.
Tehran's city hall has ordered the closure of snack shops and water fountains in
metro stations, officials said. Gholamreza Mohammadi, spokesman of Tehran
municipality, said buses and underground trains were being disinfected. Mohsen
Hashemi, head of Tehran's municipal council, said, "If the number of infections
increases in Tehran, the whole city will be quarantined." Posters were also
being put up across the sprawling city on Sunday, asking people not to shake
hands as part of a coronavirus prevention campaign. Iran's cyberpolice meanwhile
warned that anyone putting "fake clips" online related to the virus would be
punished. The World Health Organization has expressed concern over the speed at
which COVID-19 has spread in Iran, as well as it being exported from there to
other countries, including Lebanon.
Grave of Slain Iraq Commander, a New Anti-U.S. Magnet
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 23/2020
A minibus stopped outside the world's largest cemetery in the Iraqi Shiite holy
city of Najaf. Five women got out, telephone cameras filming the scene, and
dashed excitedly towards a grave. Clad in black, they joined wailing women and
men beating their chests in grief at Wadi al-Salam (valley of peace), an ever
expanding cemetery. All eyes were on the grave of Iraqi paramilitary commander
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Killed alongside top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in a
U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, Muhandis is now revered as a martyred
icon of anti-American resistance.
His grave has become a magnet for Shiites vowing vengeance against Washington.
Below a life-sized portrait of the deceased commander, a young man kneeled
before his grave, the wailing of women ringing around him. "May God avenge us
from America," the man screamed.
Located along aisle nine of Wadi al-Salam, the commander's final resting place
has gained near-holy status. It has become a stop for the thousands of Shiite
pilgrims who pass through Najaf each day to visit the tomb of Imam Ali,
son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. "It is not just a grave, it has been
transformed into a shrine," Abbas Abdul Hussein, a security official at the
cemetery, told AFP. "Men, women and children... flock from Iran, Lebanon and
Bahrain daily to visit Abu Mahdi," he said.
'Hell' to pay -
Washington's number one enemy in Iraq, Muhandis was head of the Hashed al-Shaabi,
an Iraqi military network largely incorporated into the state. He was
Soleimani's top Iraqi aide and widely seen as Tehran's man in Baghdad. The U.S.
strike that killed Muhandis and Soleimani outside Baghdad airport dealt a severe
blow to Tehran and its so-called axis of resistance that stretches across Iran,
Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. Iraq's armed factions, the most hardline of which are
financed, trained and armed by Iran, have vowed to avenge Muhandis' death.They
said America's 5,200 troops in Iraq would have "hell" to pay.
But almost two months after the assassination, there has yet to be a heavy
response, apart from Iranian missile strikes on January 8. As well as the grave
at Wadi Salam, a small altar has been erected at the site of Muhandis' death at
the entrance to Baghdad airport. Dressed in black from head-to-toe, Um Hussein
said she made a 450-kilometer (280-mile) trek from Basra in southern Iraq to pay
homage at the grave. "Every time we come to visit (the tomb of) Imam Ali, we
will make a stop to see the hero and martyr Muhandis," she said. "It is a duty."
- 'Hero' who defeated IS -
From the early hours of the day until after sunset, the entrance to the cemetery
is bustling with minibuses ferrying visitors. Standing over Muhandis' grave,
tears rolling down her cheeks, Souad said she also came from Basra to honor the
"hero" who "defeated" the Islamic State (IS) group.
"His death really affected us and the Hashed as a whole," she said. Wadi Salam
is also the final resting place of thousands of Hashed fighters killed during
the 2014-2017 battle against IS. It was on this front that Muhandis -- known for
his virulent anti-Americanism long before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq --
became a revered figure. Muhandis, accused of involvement in deadly 1983 attacks
against the French and U.S. embassies in Kuwait, oversaw the Hashed and its
integration into the state. He transformed most of his paramilitary fighters
into regulars, but some have remained outside state structures, including those
Washington accuses of attacking its personnel in Iraq. Flanked by the graves of
other Shiite commanders, Reza Abadi, an Iranian from Soleimani's hometown of
Kerman, recited a eulogy over the grave of Muhandis."We came here to show our
respect for this man who is dear to Iranians and Iraqis," he said. "The memory
of the two martyrs, Hajj Qasem and Abu Mahdi, will never be forgotten."
Ladder to Safety: Syrians Eye Escape over Turkey Border
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 23/2020
Abu Jabber has a plan to escape the Syrian regime's advance: he has built a
ladder from rusty metal for him and his 11 children to climb over the Turkish
border wall. Six months ago, the family fled deadly fighting in Idlib province
of northwest Syria, seeking shelter near the border village of Kafr Lusin, where
dozens of families live in an informal camp for the displaced. Newcomers live in
tents while others, like Abu Jabber, his children and his parents, have built
makeshift homes at the foot of a cement wall that separates Turkey from Idlib
province. Turkey, which already hosts the world's largest number of Syrian
refugees with around 3.6 million people, has placed barbed wire and watchtowers
along the wall to prevent any more crossings. Ankara fears that an offensive
launched in December by Russian-backed Syrian government forces against the last
major rebel and jihadist bastion in Syria could spark another influx. The
government has this month escalated its offensive and seized dozens of villages
and towns in Idlib and the neighboring province of Aleppo. "When I saw that the
situation was getting worse, I decided to build a ladder," said Abu Jabber,
standing outside his new home among the olive groves of Kafr Lusin.
"I did this in case the regime makes further advances," he explained, undaunted
by the formidable fortifications erected by Turkish authorities to keep his and
other displaced families at bay. "We will climb over the wall to protect the
lives of our children," he said, pointing to the do-it-yourself ladder he made
with bits of rusty metal. Abu Jabber said there was no other solution. "Either
they (regime forces) kill us all or we enter Turkey."
'I need shelter'
He and his family have been displaced several times since Syria's war erupted
almost nine years ago. Half of the three million people living in Idlib are
displaced from other regions of Syria who abandoned areas recaptured from rebels
by government forces. Abu Jabber, whose home was originally in Hama province,
said his 10-year-old son, who has an amputated hand, lost an eye in regime
bombardment. Trying to escape to Turkey also carries its risks. Turkish border
guards have sporadically opened fired on Syrian civilians attempting to cross
the border illegally. "Going to Turkey is not really a choice, but I need
security. I want to be able to sleep, I need shelter, heating and food," Abu
Jabber said. The regime offensive has displaced some 900,000 civilians since
December, and an estimated 170,000 of them are living out in the open, the
United Nations says. The U.N. and aid groups have called for ceasefire, while
the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has warned of a "bloodbath." "Our fear now
is that a full-on offensive could lead to the worst catastrophe of Syria's
brutal war, an out-and-out bloodbath for displaced civilians," NRC chief Jan
Egeland said earlier this month. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo
Grandi has urged Syria's neighbors, particularly Turkey, to take in more of the
displaced. "I am appealing for neighboring countries, including Turkey, to
broaden admissions, so that those most in danger can reach safety -- even
knowing that capacities and public support are already strained," Grandi said.
'Tear down the wall'
In Kafr Lusin, tents made of plastic sheeting are home to families of 10 people
or more. Abdel Razzak Sallat arrived at the informal camp two weeks ago from the
town of Binnish, northeast of Idlib city, along with his eight children. They
now share a tent with his sister-in-law's family -- in all, 19 people crammed
together under the canopy. Their belongings, including flimsy mattresses and
blankets, are piled up on one side, while an area has been turned into a
makeshift kitchen with a gas cooker and foodstuffs kept on shelves. By day, the
family sits around a stove to keep warm, and at night they lay out the
mattresses on the ground -- but there are not enough to go round and the space
is limited. So some of us "sleep sitting up," said Sallat. Like Abu Jabber and
others, he said he fled to Kafr Lusin for safety -- border regions are usually
spared bombardments. And like Abu Jabber, he said that if forced, he would
"enter Turkey". "Look how life is beautiful behind the wall, while here it's a
disaster," he said. "Aren't we humans too? If we have to... we will tear down
the wall."
Iran's Neighbors Impose Travel Bans as Coronavirus Toll
Rises
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 23/2020
Iran's confirmed death toll from the new coronavirus rose to eight on Sunday,
the highest outside China, sending neighboring countries scrambling to contain
the outbreak. Turkey said it would "temporarily" shut its border with Iran,
while Pakistan also said it was closing its frontier with the Islamic republic
and Afghanistan banned all ground and air travel between the two nations. The
moves come amid growing regional concerns about the spread of the virus. Lebanon
on Friday confirmed its first case -- a 45-year-old Lebanese woman who had
traveled from Qom in Iran -- and Israel on Sunday quarantined at home nearly 200
school pupils who came into contact with South Korean tourists who contracted
the virus. Iran on Sunday reported three more novel coronavirus deaths among 15
new cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total number of fatalities to eight
and infections to 43.Four new COVID-19 cases surfaced in Tehran, seven in the
holy city of Qom, two in Gilan and one each in Markazi and Tonekabon, health
ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said. Authorities have ordered the closure
of schools, universities and other educational centers in 14 provinces across
the country from Sunday as a "preventive measure."Art events, concerts and film
shows have been banned for a week. "We are on the frontlines, we need help," the
head of Qom's medical sciences university, Mohammadreza Ghadir, said on state
television.
'Major implications'
"To prevent the spread of the novel #coronavirus and protect the public,
Afghanistan suspends all passenger movement (air and ground) to and from Iran,"
the office of the National Security Council of Afghanistan said in a statement
posted on Twitter. A provincial official in Pakistan and the nation's Frontier
Corps also confirmed the country had sealed the land border with Iran. Both
Afghanistan and Pakistan share long, porous borders with Iran that are often
used by smugglers and human traffickers, while millions of Afghan refugees live
in the Islamic republic -- raising fears that the virus could easily spread over
the border. China -- the epicentre of the outbreak -- reported another 97 deaths
in its daily update Sunday, taking its total to 2,442, plus 648 new infections.
Nearly 80,000 people have been infected worldwide, the vast majority in China.
But official figures indicate the death rate is proportionately much higher in
Iran than China, standing at nearly one in five of the confirmed infections.
Iran's health minister, Saeed Namaki, said the treatment of COVID-19 cases would
be free. "In every city, one hospital will be dedicated to treating coronavirus
cases," he said, adding that this number would be greater in bigger cities like
the capital. But academics expressed concern over the ability of Iran --
currently grappling with a major economic crisis and hit by swingeing US
sanctions -- to contain the outbreak. "It is unlikely that Iran will have the
resources and facilities to adequately identify cases and adequately manage them
if case numbers are large," said Paul Hunter, a medical professor at the
University of East Anglia in Britain. He also noted that the "situation in Iran
has major implications for the Middle East," in a context where the region is
grappling with multiple conflicts."During armed conflicts borders between
countries become porous... and health care facilities are often targeted and
destroyed." Other regional countries on Sunday also took major precautionary
measures to counter the virus potentially spreading from Iran. Jordan said on
Sunday it would bar entry to citizens of China, Iran and South Korea and other
foreigners travelling from those countries. Jordan's minister of state for media
affairs, Amjad Adayleh, said the decision was part of "preemptive measures...
following the rise in cases of coronavirus" in the three countries. He said the
ban would be "temporary" and imposed on all non-Jordanians. The Kuwait Port
Authority meanwhile announced a ban on the entry of all ships from the Islamic
republic.
Israel Readies for Third Election in Less than a Year
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 23/2020
Israel is bracing for an unprecedented third election in under a year, with
voters eyeing an end to the deadlock but polls indicating another tight race
despite criminal charges against the prime minister. Two previous votes in April
and September last year failed to produce a clear winner between right-wing
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main challenger Benny Gantz, who heads
the centrist Blue and White party. Ballot-weary Israelis have shown limited
enthusiasm ahead of the March 2 election, with some grudgingly accepting the
possibility of a fourth run before the year ends. But there have been
significant developments since Israelis last went to the polls. Netanyahu,
Israel's longest serving premier, has become the first to be indicted while in
office. Charges unveiled in November and filed in court last month accuse him of
bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The prime minister denies wrongdoing in the
case that involves multiple alleged offences.The most serious allegation is that
Netanyahu offered mogul Shaul Elovitch regulatory changes worth millions of
dollars to his telecoms giant Bezeq in exchange for positive coverage on
Elovitch's Walla! news website. The trial starts on March 17.
Trump bump?
Since the last election, U.S. President Donald Trump has unveiled his
controversial plan to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump's terms have been rejected by the Palestinians as a capitulation to
Israeli objectives. Netanyahu, who was standing next to Trump at the White House
as the initiative was announced last month, cheered it as an "historic"
opportunity for the Jewish state. He has also portrayed the deal as a product of
his personal bond with Trump that can only be implemented if he is re-elected
prime minister. But neither the criminal indictments, nor the pro-Israel Trump
initiative have moved the polls. Recent surveys indicate that Netanyahu's Likud
party and Blue and White will both fall short of the 61 seats required for a
majority in parliament, the Knesset. Status quo in the polls could be good news
for the prime minister, said Gideon Rahat, a political science professor at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "He is not attracting more voters, but he is not
losing voters either," despite the indictments, Rahat told AFP. Gantz, a former
military chief, has sought to convince Israelis that the prime minister's legal
woes will distract him from governing. "Netanyahu is going to court... he won't
be able to look after the needs of Israeli citizens," he said this week.
Meanwhile, Israeli prosecutors are probing whether a cyber-security firm
formerly chaired by Gantz, Fifth Dimension, inappropriately received public
funds. But the attorney general has confirmed that Gantz is not personally
implicated in the investigation.
Last minute pitches
Netanyahu has, ahead of past elections, been accused of making last-minute
campaign pledges as a play for vital nationalist, right-wing support. In an
interview with the Jerusalem Post on Friday, he repeated his warning that Gantz
cannot form a government without support from the mainly Arab Joint List, and
its leader Ahmad Tibi. Joint List won a surprising 13 seats in the last
election, making it the third-largest bloc in parliament. "If Likud doesn't win,
there will be either a fourth election or a left-wing government headed by Gantz
and dependent on Ahmad Tibi and the Joint List," Netanyahu told the paper. The
prime minister this week also announced thousands of new Jewish settler homes in
annexed east Jerusalem, construction projects considered illegal by most of the
international community. Palestinian leaders blasted the settlement announcement
as a blatant play by Netanyahu to energize his right-wing base. Facing static
polls, both leading parties have grown increasingly concerned about turnout,
Rahat said. "Anywhere else in the world, when you have three elections really
close together you would see declining turnout" due to voter apathy, he said.
But turnout ticked up marginally in September compared with April. "In Israel,
you never know," Rahat said.
Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian near Gaza Fence
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 23/2020
Israeli forces on Sunday shot dead a Palestinian suspected of placing a bomb
near the Gaza border, before extracting his body with a bulldozer, the army
said. "Following the successful thwarting of the attack near the Gaza Strip
fence earlier this morning, an IDF (Israeli army) bulldozer extracted the body
of one of the attackers," a military spokeswoman told AFP. Earlier Sunday, the
army had said it "spotted two terrorists approaching the security fence in the
southern Gaza Strip and placing an explosive device adjacent to it". "The troops
opened fire towards them. A hit was identified," a military statement said.
Following the incident, a video from Gaza emerged on social media showing a
bulldozer approaching the body as young, apparently unarmed men, were trying to
collect it. The sound of gunfire is heard and the men ultimately run away as the
bulldozer collects the body. A tank can be seen positioned nearby.
The Gaza health ministry said that two civilians were wounded by Israeli gunfire
at the scene. Hawkish Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has pursued a
policy of retaining the bodies of militants from Gaza as bargaining chips to
pressure Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave, which
has been holding the bodies of two Israeli soldiers since 2014. The Palestinian
Islamic Jihad movement identified Sunday's fatality as Mohammed Al-Naem, 27, a
member of their armed Al-Quds Brigade forces. The Israeli army meanwhile
distributed footage of "the explosive device the terror squad placed this
morning," noting that the same Jihad "squad was involved in two previous
attempts to place IEDs (improvised explosive devices) near the fence during the
last few months."
Egypt’s Sisi Looks Forward to Balanced Deal on Nile Dam
Cairo - Mohamed Nabil Helmy/February 23/2020
Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa are preparing to sign a deal on the Grand
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) sponsored by Washington.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed commitment to the success of
negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) under Washington’s
sponsorship, a statement by the presidency read on Saturday. Sisi said that a
near agreement between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on the filling and operation of
GERD would secure a balance between all involved parties and open new aspects
for cooperation, coordination and development between them. “Such a step would
mark a new stage towards developing joint relations between the three countries…
and a positive and developmental yields on the Nile Basin area,” the statement
quoted Sisi as saying. Presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said Sisi met with the
Ethiopian prime minister's special envoy, Hailemariam Desalegn. The two
discussed the situation involving the GERD. Sisi affirmed Egypt’s fundamental
policy on the principles of mutual respect and non-interference in domestic
affairs. Desalegn delivered a message from Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed, where he
expressed his interest in boosting bilateral relations and friendship with
Egypt. Ahmed also praised Egypt’s chairmanship of the African Union in 2019,
according to the statement, which also reported that Desalegn presented updates
on GERD in light of talks between the three countries. The visit by the
Ethiopian official to Cairo comes a few days after US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said during a visit to Addis Ababa that it could take "months" to resolve
the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the dam. Earlier this month, Egypt,
Ethiopia and Sudan agreed to entrust the US and the World Bank with the
preparation of the final agreement on the filling and operation of the Ethiopian
dam.
Global Britain Doesn’t Need Free Trade
Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/February 23/2020
In late 2016, Liam Fox, then the UK’s secretary of state for international trade
— a new job created in the aftermath of the Brexit vote — declared the birth of
a “post-geography trading world.” With technology breaking down the barriers of
time and distance, there was no need to fret about the UK leaving the European
Union, the world’s biggest single market and free trade zone sitting at its
doorstep. Whatever economists assumed were the gravitational benefits of being
geographically part of Europe would be easily outshone by trade with other
continents no matter how far away.
More than three years later, with Brexit now a reality, we’re still waiting for
that post-geography, post-gravity world. A new Bloomberg Economics analysis of
trade between the UK and EU shows that the 27-country bloc was by far the Brits’
largest trading partner last year, with 436 billion pounds ($567 billion) in
flows of goods. On a single-country basis, Britain’s trade with Germany was
almost on par with its US level. An analysis of 2018 data also shows that the EU
is the top export destination for UK services. Whether because of time zones,
face-to-face meetings, or the close relationship between services and goods,
proximity still seems to matter for all trade. This suggests a big economic
incentive to keep a close post-Brexit trade relationship. Indeed, both sides
have talked up the goal of “zero-tariff, zero-quota” trade as they embark on
discussions to seal a new relationship. With less than 11 months to go to avoid
reverting to bare-bones World Trade Organization terms, why would Britain bet on
a “post-geography” world that hasn’t materialized? Boris Johnson has “got Brexit
done,” won a majority in the UK parliament, and is enjoying an economic rebound.
Sacrificing trade with the UK’s most important and closest partner looks like
self-harm, especially when his government’s own 15-year economic forecasts don’t
expect a US trade deal to offset the potential damage.
Yet UK negotiator David Frost this week painted a rather different picture of
Britain’s incentives, which seem just as influenced by “post-geography” optimism
as in 2016. He dismissed any notion that gloomy economic forecasts on post-Brexit
trading barriers were being taken seriously in Whitehall, saying that
number-crunchers had exaggerated the impact of non-tariff barriers (ie
regulation) and custom fees “by orders of magnitude.” He said economists were
predicting “implausibly large” effects on the island nation’s productivity, as a
result of false causality. And he said the future upsides of increased trading
with the rest of the world were being ignored.
The message from Frost isn’t just that old-school economists shouldn’t be
trusted. It’s that even after 47 years of beneficial free trade with the EU as a
member, the UK doesn’t seem to think the cost of reversing that is prohibitive —
even with a return to WTO terms. The target of the message is the EU’s chief
negotiator, Michel Barnier, who’s made painfully clear that if Britain wants
deep access to the EU’s markets, then it must commit to a level playing field on
environmental, labor and state aid rules. Frost signaled the UK would be
incentivized to choose a distant trade relationship in response, and finally
free itself from the regulatory alignment with the EU that Johnson once called a
“moral and intellectual humiliation.”
It’s a viewpoint that begs questioning, even if it’s one that’s calculated to
provoke. Frost may well be right that any prediction stretching out 15 years
should be taken with several pinches of salt, and that the graveyard of bad
economic forecasts is not yet full. But the determination to slay any skeptical
economic analysis with optimism is starting to strain credulity. The worldview
of “Global Britain”— the UK’s post-Brexit vision of a free-trading island — is
now that geographical trade benefits are outdated, non-tariff barriers are
manageable, and customs costs can be offset by the upside of “other factors.” It
stretches the idea of being pro-free trade. And while Frost isn’t alone in
questioning the extent to which trade intensity directly affects productivity,
his dismissive attitude is curious considering the UK’s recent state as a
productivity laggard among G7 countries. As of last year, only Italy had
delivered a worse productivity performance since the financial crisis. Johnson
may be trying to tackle this by spurring more investment, but there’s a long way
to go. “Britain is indeed an advanced economy, but it’s not at the technological
frontier,” says Jamie Rush, Bloomberg’s chief European economist. Inviting more
trade barriers seems counter-intuitive when you’ve argued so hard that going it
alone will boost your economic growth and competitiveness. There’s always a
chance that the negotiations will lead to compromise — talk is cheap and losing
trade is expensive. But there’s serious voter pressure on both sides to deliver
more than just material benefits, with the EU worrying about unfair competition
and Britain worrying about vassalage. Barnier, too, is being pushed to secure
everything from access to UK fishing waters to the return of the Elgin Marbles
to Greece, according to Bloomberg News. “We’re going to tear each other apart,”
France’s foreign minister warned this week. With trade as a share of gross
domestic product already in stagnation mode, the UK’s post-geography dream looks
far off.
Trump Says He Would Sign a Peace Deal with the Taliban
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 23/2020
U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he would sign a peace deal with the
Taliban if one were eventually reached in Afghanistan. "Yes," he told reporters
at the White House as he prepared to depart on a trip to India. "I would put my
name on it."His comments came after a partial truce took effect in Afghanistan
on Saturday, with the Taliban, U.S., and Afghan forces agreeing to a week-long
"reduction in violence." The truce was intended to set conditions for Washington
and the insurgents to sign a deal in Doha on February 29 that could ultimately
lead to a withdrawal of U.S. forces after more than 18 years.
The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on February 23-24/2020
Europe's New Academic Fascism
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/February 23/2020
Minority groups claim "safe spaces", but the ones who really need safe spaces
are those who disgree with the reigning orthodoxy.
An appeal by some French intellectuals, including many Muslim thinkers such as
Boualem Sansal and Zineb el Rhazoui, criticized this "intellectual terrorism."
Free expression is not needed for "politically correct" or sedative speech, but
it is the only protection the minority has from the tyranny of the majority.
"[T]he freedom of Speech may be taken away — and, dumb & silent we may be led,
like sheep, to the Slaughter." — US President George Washington, 1783.
The European university -- which should be the home of open pluralism, debate,
research and thought -- has instead become the paradise of intellectual
sectarianism and terror. This new radicalism will reinforce not only political
correctness, but also submission to coercion in the West.
Mohamed Sifaoui was forced to flee North Africa in 1999 after death threats from
Islamists, and now lives in France under police protection. His course on
radicalization was recently cancelled by Sorbonne University in Paris, which
Sifaoui blamed on "the pressures of Islamic associations and left-wing unions."
Western universities have become places of personal fear and intellectual
terror. Formerly sanctuaries for open inquiry, instead fierce ideological
minorities have been setting red lines of orthodoxy in the face of a silent or,
worse, compliant academy. Education -- from ex ducere, to lead out -- has been
increasingly eroded by ideological fundamentalism and an attempt to determine
not only what actions are acceptable, but even words and thoughts.
Social media has helped by officially reviving the lynch mob. We must now all
sing the praises of multiculturalism, Islam, immigration, post-colonial guilt
and racializing just about everything. In this new Inquisition, not even the
slightest doubt or dissent can be tolerated -- it must be punished!
Freedom of expression is increasingly at risk in France by effectively creating
new crimes of opinion. If your personal opinion coincides with the official one,
you have nothing to fear. If your ideas conflict with the official ones, you
risk becoming ostracized and your mere existence in the public sphere
scandalous.
"The new academic fascism," is how Natacha Polony, a television host and editor
of the French weekly Marianne, has described it. If you dissent, educators,
political leaders, the media and the mob will try to destroy you, just as they
destroyed Giordano Bruno in 1600 for saying that the universe could have many
stars.
"Small radical groups create a climate of terror to impose opinions and silence
their opponents," Polony wrote. "They enjoy infinite mercy from some political
and media circles insofar as they claim to embody the Good. Who would dare to
challenge them?"
Others -- for views regarded by some as politically incorrect, even if factually
correct -- have, in the last few years, been surgically removed from society, or
been threatened with removal:
Sylviane Agacinski. A conference with this feminist, scheduled to have been have
been held at the Montaigne University in Bordeaux, was canceled by the
organizers because "security" could not be guaranteed. Groups of leftist
students had attacked the arrival of an alleged "homophobe" and had requested
the event's cancellation. Agacinski's alleged "crime" was to have opposed a new
French law allowing lesbian couples access to medically-assisted procreation,
such as IVF and sperm donation. Le Figaro's Eugénie Bastié calls "submission of
the university to the new champions of virtue". The conference has since been
rescheduled.
Mohamed Sifaoui. Shorly after the cancellation of Agacinski's conference, the
"new fascists" took another academic scalp, this time at the famous Sorbonne
University in Paris -- that of the Franco-Algerian journalist Mohamed Sifaoui.
Sifaoui was forced to flee North Africa in 1999 after death threats from
Islamists, and now lives in France under police protection. His course on
radicalization was recently cancelled at the Sorbonne. Sifaoui accuses "the
pressures of Islamic associations and left-wing unions" for the cancellation.
His course had been intended for police officers, gendarmes and officials --
precisely those under pressure after the murder of four police employees at
Paris police headquarters by their colleague, a convert to Islam named Mickaël
Harpon.
The Sorbonne just so happens to be the same university where Hezbollah, the
Lebanese terror group, held a conference. Students, however, however recently
caused the cancellation of a tragedy by Aeschylus that was to have been
performed by actors in black masks. That, the students claimed, was "Afrophobic,
colonialist and racist".
Alain Finkielkraut. Last spring, the philosopher of "unhappy identity",
Finkielkraut, protected by the police and the DGSI, France's internal security
agency, gave a lecture at Sciences Po University in Paris. Finkielkraut is now
"afraid to leave his home". "I can no longer show my face on the street," he
said in Marianne.
Éric Zemmour. The French journalist Eric Zemmour was recently called "vile
beast", "virus" and "bastard" by an Islamist during a public rally in Paris.
Sophie Coignard. Writing in Le Point, the noted journalist Sophie Coignard has
denounced "a dreadful silence on these politically correct militias" and written
of a conformism that "trades silence for tranquility. We know where these
compromises lead".
Stéphane Charbonnier ("Charb"). The former editor at the French satirical
magazine Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val, speaks about "the territories of
expression occupied by Terror". Charb, Val's successor at the helm of Charlie
Hebdo, paid with his life. On January 7, 2015, Charb, with eleven of his
colleagues, was murdered by two brothers named Kouachi, shouting "Allahu
Akbar."["Allah is the greatest!"] . Even Charb's memory is sadly filled with
scandal: an academic event about his posthumous book, Lettre ouverte aux escrocs
de l'islamophobie qui font le jeu des racistes ("Open Letter to Islamophobic
Swindlers Playing into the Hands of Racists"), was censored at both the
University of Lille II and the University of Paris-Diderot.
Maryam Namazie. An Iranian dissident journalist who moved to England, Maryam
Namazie was prevented from speaking in some colleges, such as Goldsmiths and
Warwick, on the grounds that her defense of free speech and anti-Sharia
discourse might have offended Islamic students.
Thilo Sarrazin, a former German central banker and a critic of immigration, who
was forced to resign from a management position at Germany's central bank in
2010 after publishing his book, Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Is Doing
Away with Itself"). He is presently in court over his new book, Feindliche
Übernahme ("Hostile Takeover"), due out this summer. Sarrazin has also spoken
amid the protests of students and teachers at the University of Siegen.
Bruce Gilley, a professor at the Portland State University, has defended the
legacy of European colonialism in general and the British Empire in particular.
In London, he lectured at a private seminar for students and took part in a
panel discussion, but avoided a public event. "If I gave a public talk to a
student group entitled The case for colonialism, the result would have been a
shitstorm, and it would have served no purpose", he said. "But it would have
shown the extent to which in Britain, of all places, people have stopped
thinking about this most central of issues in British history and identity."
Nigel Biggar, a professor of moral theology at Oxford, was attacked for being
supposedly lenient towards imperialism. "If I want to hold seminars on the topic
of empire, I will do so privately," he has said. So he, too, has held a
"private" academic conference in order not to be interrupted by activists.
Meanwhile, Islamist regimes are free to continue pouring vast amounts of money
into these universities. Research by academics Jonas Bergan Draege and Martin
Lestra, published in the Middle East Law and Governance Journal, calculated that
between 1997 and 2007, Gulf entities provided at least £70 million to British
academic institutions.
An appeal by some French intellectuals, including many Muslim thinkers such as
Boualem Sansal and Zineb el Rhazoui, criticized this "intellectual terrorism."
It recalls, they wrote, "what Stalinism did to the most enlightened European
intellectuals.
"Our cultural, academic and scientific institutions are now targeted by attacks
that, under the guise of denouncing 'colonial' discrimination, seek to undermine
the principles of freedom of expression and of universality inherited from the
Enlightenment".
Defending the freedom to think and the possibility of an open conversation --
both currently mutilated in Europe -- is the foundation of Europe's civic life.
Without free expression, there can be no circulation of ideas, no increase in
knowledge, and therefore no progress. The basic principles of liberal society
are undermined.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say
it," wrote a biographer of Voltaire. Free expression is not needed for
"politically correct" or sedative speech, but it is the only protection the
minority has from the tyranny of the majority. One does not even need look, for
example, toward a country such as Pakistan, where mobs nearly murdered Asia Bibi
after she was found innocent.
The United States, upon declaring their freedom from a repressive England in
1776, understood well the primacy of freedom of speech. George Washington told
his army officers in 1783: "the freedom of Speech may be taken away — and, dumb
& silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter."
On US campuses it has become commonplace to cancel or protest invited speakers
whom a handful of activists consider intolerable. The administrators are
evidently too frightened of their own students to ask for the students'
suspension, let alone their being expelled or requesting police support. This
same type of censorship, regrettably, can now be seen throughout Europe.
Minority groups claim "safe spaces", but the ones who really need safe spaces
are those who disagree with the reigning orthodoxy.
The European university -- which should be the home of open pluralism, debate,
research and thought -- has instead become the paradise of intellectual
sectarianism and terror. This new radicalism will reinforce not only political
correctness, but also submission to coercion, "like sheep to the slaughter", in
the West.
*Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and
author.
© 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.
Iran’s damaging anti-Saudi agenda
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 23/ 2020
Iran’s state-owned news outlets have dedicated significant coverage to
highlighting anti-Saudi sentiments and spreading the regime’s propaganda against
the Kingdom. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif also played the blame
card once again last week, accusing Saudi Arabia of being the cause of
increasing tensions and instability in the region. He said at the Munich
Security Conference: “If there is a will for reducing tensions there are many
ways, but I believe that countries such as Saudi Arabia do not seek
de-escalation of tensions. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates seek
tension in our region.”
It is ironic that the Iranian leaders are pointing a finger at Saudi Arabia,
while the Tehran regime has been forcefully pursuing military adventurism in the
region and has been caught several times attempting to damage Saudi Arabia’s
national security through its hard power.
For example, the Islamic Republic continues to have its sights on Yemen in order
to threaten Saudi Arabia and export its ideology to both countries. In fact,
this mission of the regime is part of its constitution, which stipulates that
Iran’s army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “will be responsible
not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for
fulfilling the ideological mission of (Shiite) jihad in God’s way; that is,
extending the sovereignty of God’s (Shiite) law throughout the world... in the
hope that this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy
government and the downfall of all others.”
Unlike Iran, Saudi Arabia has refrained from supporting militia and terror
groups in Iran’s neighboring countries that might be willing to damage Tehran’s
national security interests.
The Iranian regime has continued to employ every political and military tactic
possible in order to fulfill its anti-Saudi objectives
But the Iranian regime has continued to employ every political and military
tactic possible in order to fulfill its anti-Saudi objectives. These acts
include funding and arming Yemen’s Houthis. Thanks to Iran, this militia, which
started as a minor group in the 1990s, is now a military force of more than
100,000. For the past few years, the Houthis, as the puppets and proxies of
Iran, have been inciting tension, apparently to ensure that the conflict in
Yemen continues until they take control of the country and advance the interests
of the Iranian government.
In addition, Iran’s foreign minister must be reminded that it was only in
September last year that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei approved attacks on Saudi
oil facilities, on the condition that his government’s engagement could be
denied, according to a US official. The targets were the world’s biggest oil
processing facility at Abqaiq and the country’s second-largest oil field at
Khurais. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted: “Tehran is behind nearly 100
attacks on Saudi Arabia while (President Hassan) Rouhani and Zarif pretend to
engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched
an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply.”
But Saudi Arabia did not try to seek revenge by launching retaliatory missile
attacks on Iran’s oil fields. This is another attempt by the Kingdom to
de-escalate tensions in the region. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has not threatened
Europe or America, as Iran’s mullahs continue to do. Saudi Arabia has also
agreed to set up a strategic partnership council with other countries including
India to work more closely together to fight terrorism. Iran and its proxies, on
the other hand, continue to demonstrate their fierce and ruthless strategy
through acts of terror.
Iran has also been acting as an occupying force in Syria and Iraq, running
Lebanon through terrorist proxy group Hezbollah, and funding Hamas in the Gaza
Strip, presumably in the hope of destroying Israel. Even more alarming by far is
that Iran is pursuing its nuclear ambitions and advancing its ballistic missile
program with no restrictions.
Iran’s modus operandi of playing the blame game and pointing fingers at everyone
— except for its own government, the IRGC, its staunchest ally Bashar Assad, and
its proxies — only feeds the violence that the international community is
attempting to overcome. Such behavior increases animosity between countries at a
time when the entire global community needs to work together to fight terrorism
and stop further bloodshed.
Iran has adopted a dangerous, expansionist ideology that needs to be taken
seriously. If it truly desires to hold talks with Riyadh, first it needs to halt
its anti-Saudi agenda, which includes putting an end to funding and arming the
Houthis, as well as stopping its promotion of anti-Saudi and sectarian
propaganda.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is an Iranian-American political scientist. He is a
leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the
International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
Iran’s hard-liners seize control of sinking ship
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/February 23/ 2020
Pity the Iranians participating in an election process so severely rigged that,
even according to the state media, 200 out of 290 Majlis seats had effectively
already been assigned. The crushing victory for the hard-liners was thus
preordained. Many new entrants into the Majlis are lightweight, inexperienced
figures whose principal common denominator is their rabidly extremist world
views.
These were elections where more than 55 percent of the 16,000 candidates were
pre-emptively disqualified by the Guardian Council. Even 90 deputies from the
current Majlis were summarily ruled as being unsuitable for public office.
Unsurprisingly, 90 percent of those who were disqualified were relative
moderates, leaving the reformist camp struggling to produce a coherent list of
candidates even in strongholds like Tehran. Indeed, reformists appear to have
been wiped out altogether in the capital, while winning only about 10 percent of
seats throughout other parts of the country.
Such grotesquely unfair procedures convinced most Iranians not to bother voting.
Participation sank to a historic low — about 20 percent in Tehran — despite
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanding that voting was a “religious and patriotic
duty.” Armed Forces commander Mohammed Bagheri demanded maximum turnout to
counter the “terrorist American regime’s axis of hostility and evil.”
In the current fraught regional climate and under intensified US sanctions,
Khamenei is remolding his administration along unmistakably confrontational
lines; preparing the ground for a monolithically radicalized administration
after Iran’s presidential election next year. Yet, by extinguishing all
nonmilitant voices, the only alternative the regime offers citizens is mass
mobilization and revolution. The ruthless suppression of continuous bouts of
uprisings has already cost hundreds of lives.
Iran is experiencing a tumultuous plunge in living standards, combined with
soaring prices for basic goods. During 2019 alone, the economy contracted by 9.5
percent, while inflation was estimated at 40 percent. This regime prefers to see
citizens starve before even considering meaningful cuts to its bankrolling of
overseas terrorism and paramilitary operations, which amount to several billion
dollars every year. Indeed, financial data quoted in the currently circulating
draft budget is widely assessed to be wholly disconnected from the unremittingly
dire state of the regime’s finances.
Widespread public disillusionment with the corrupt, incompetent leadership was
recently compounded by the regime’s botched attempt to cover up the shooting
down of a civilian plane packed with its own citizens. The regime has also
clumsily sought to cover up a major outbreak of coronavirus, which is already
causing multiple deaths, with Iran rapidly becoming the most critical vector for
the epidemic outside of China. Iran’s paranoid political culture makes
international cooperation over the pandemic particularly fraught. There was
anger in Lebanon after Hezbollah obstructed the cancelation of flights from Iran
after the first reported coronavirus case of a woman returning from Qom —
despite pilgrimage visits between Iraq and Iran being halted.
After eight years of using reformists as window dressing, Khamenei appears
resolved to reset the regime to its fundamentalist default.
More aggressive overseas policies by a radicalized regime can only be disastrous
for Lebanon and Iraq, where hard-liners have been agitating for more aggressive
crackdowns against protesters. Ali Larijani’s Beirut trip — the first
significant political visit since the formation of the Hezbollah-brokered
government — sought to consolidate Lebanon’s locus within Iran’s “Axis of
Resistance.” Larijani’s visit represented a deliberate attempt to scare off
Western and Arab funding and support, while ludicrously pledging that Tehran’s
destitute regime would help stave off bankruptcy in Beirut. Israel’s military in
recent days warned that Lebanon would pay a “devastating price” for Hezbollah
provocations.
We will see both the regime and the public contemplating ever more desperate
measures to escape the crippling burden of sanctions and international
isolation, particularly if Donald Trump remains in power beyond the 2020 US
presidential election. Some observers even worry that Tehran may calculatedly
trigger a regional war in a frantic attempt to reshuffle the regional deck of
cards. A few hard-boiled regime theorists argue that Ruhollah Khomeini’s
dictatorship prevailed only by embarking on his blood-soaked war against Saddam
Hussein’s Iraq, forcing Iranians to unite behind the flag and dispatching a
generation of troublesome, unemployed young men to be slaughtered as front-line
cannon fodder.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election victory followed on the heels of a
state-supervised purge of moderates in the 2004 Majlis elections — very similar
to the process we have just witnessed. Ahmadinejad’s belligerent regime
spearheaded campaigns of insurgency and terrorism in Iraq and other states,
while taking a highly provocative approach to foreign policy and the nuclear
file; in 2006 it pushed Hezbollah into a ruinous conflict with Israel. After
eight years of using reformists like Mohammed Javad Zarif and Hassan Rouhani as
window dressing, Khamenei appears resolved to reset the regime to its
fundamentalist default.
Iran’s radicals have long blamed the nation’s economic woes on the naivety and
weakness of the reformists, while sabotaging all attempts at engagement with the
West. However, once these extremists control all the regime’s principal power
centers, the buck will unmistakably stop with them. There will be no mistaking
the ugly, deranged face of this regime.
Over the past couple of years, there have been continuous patterns of
provocation by Iran: Attacks on Gulf shipping, oil installations, military
targets and diplomatic sites. Experienced generals like Qassem Soleimani
repeatedly took the region to the brink, only to step back and defuse tensions
at the last minute. Under a remodeled regime dominated by brainwashed,
like-minded radicals, there will be no voices of restraint.
Even though direct confrontation with Israel and the US would obviously be
catastrophic, fire-breathing radicals could easily become prisoners of their own
rhetoric and high-risk grandstanding. In an already-tense environment, a regime
where Neanderthal hard-liners hold all the levers of power might not be able to
restrain itself from plunging the region headlong into war.
For Iranians themselves, this farcical vote abandoned all pretenses of democracy
and accountability. With domestic disenchantment worsening by the day, perhaps
the radicalizing consequences of these elections represent a moment of divorce
between the regime and its citizenry, which are moving in fundamentally
different directions.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle
East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has
interviewed numerous heads of state.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not
necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view
Democratic powers can combat ‘Westlessness’ by working
together
Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/February 23/ 2020
As international leaders gathered for the 56th Munich Security Conference last
week, faced with the combined challenges of an Iran cut loose of its nuclear
agreement, the outbreak of a frightening new virus and an EU at an impasse after
the UK’s withdrawal, a sense of trepidation reflected the gathering’s theme of “Westlessness.”Defined
as a widespread feeling of unease and restlessness in the face of increasing
uncertainty about the enduring purpose of the West, the sentiment was all too
clear in Munich, as the old diplomatic platform of summitry seemed a hopelessly
ill-equipped paradigm to challenge the faceless foes of contemporary
international relations. Whereas last year the summit was overcome by the
concern of global leaders at Donald Trump’s whirlwind of arbitrary international
policy decisions and the impact they would have on longstanding alliance
systems, this year the very durability of the post-1945 status quo was brought
into question.
The myriad complex foreign policy challenges facing the West are wholly
unrecognizable from the east-west nuclear issues that governed global affairs in
the late 20th century. The attempts by political scientists at the end of the
Cold War to understand an “end of history” and “clash of civilizations” in a
US-led unipolar world have similarly been brought into question by an America
too distracted to exert influence on the world stage, as well as a Western
alliance system weakened by infighting and outmoded mechanisms for dealing with
rapidly changing threats. Put simply, though American allies may want to exert
more unity and strength on the world stage, they currently lack the vision and
consensus to do so.
The Munich summit, which is normally considered a useful barometer for the
health of the transatlantic relationship, was surprisingly well attended. The US
representation gave every impression that the White House was keen to placate
European allies. Two senior government ministers and one retired secretary of
state, senior congressmen, and other influential delegates belied a strong US
presence. At the conference, which was North Korea’s first, Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo underlined that American power wasn’t to be measured in US guns and
lives, but rather through the export of its values. Questioning the increasingly
mute voice of the West concerning the major international issues of the day, he
reminded delegates that: “The West doesn’t define a space or piece of real
estate. It’s any nation that adopts the model of respect for individual freedom,
free enterprise, national sovereignty.”
Though American allies may want to exert more unity and strength on the world
stage, they currently lack the vision and consensus to do so.
American platitudes about freedom could not, however, detract from the very
serious issue of rising autocracy in the world. The increasing impunity with
which China and Russia act on the world stage, and their clear disregard for
rules-based international relations, has had huge implications for the Western
alliance system. The unipolar US order, the Pax Americana or the world’s
American moment is looking increasingly frail amid an ever-expanding set of
threats and challenges.
In the Middle East, the reticence of several American administrations to
implement a long-term plan has led to it surrendering the strategic high ground.
The announcement of a US withdrawal from Iraq last month raised alarm bells
across the region and illustrated the extent to which Iran had displaced Iraq’s
traditional Arab allies and hollowed out the gargantuan American efforts to
rebuild Iraq and court its government. To Prince Saud bin Badr of the Saudi
delegation, one of a cadre of impressive young officials increasingly at the
forefront, the American presence in the region is critical to issues of
disarmament. “Them being at the table changes everything, especially with
regards to the enforceability of disarmament agreements and working toward a
nuclear-free Middle East,” he said.
Though the president of the summit Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the conference
with words of lamentation, warning how the current US administration “rejects
the very concept of the international community” and has become “‘great again,’
but at the expense of neighbors and partners,” the West has a real opportunity
to reconfigure the international order and no longer to see security issues
“through American eyes.” If the world’s democratic powers wish to live in a
peaceful world, they must come together to exercise strategic autonomy based on
maintaining hard power capabilities and expounding neoliberal principles of
interdependence to lessen the effects of the growth of the world’s autocracies.
*Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator, and an adviser to private clients
between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Twitter: @Moulay_Zaid