LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 15.2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11/25-30/:”‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 14-15/2020
A Revolution That Does Not Call For The Liberation Of Lebanon Is A mere Tool for the Occupier that is HezbollahظElias Bejjani/January 15/2020
Aoun’s speech addressing the diplomatic corps at Baabda Palace
Papal Ambassador meets Aoun: International community stresses need for respectful dialogue among political leaders
Lebanon protesters declare 'week of anger' amid ruling-class indifference
Lebanese protesters block roads against government inaction
Lebanese anti-government protesters block roads again
Lebanese protesters block road outside central bank
UN says Lebanon made payment to restore UN voting rights
Banking Control Committee Requests Info on Banks Transfers Abroad
Association of Banks confirms hasn’t issued statement today
Protesters Launch 'Week of Wrath', Block Roads across Lebanon
Lebanese in Angry Protests as Crisis Worsens
Report: Activists Angry with Little TV Coverage of Protests
Protesters Injured in Sidon as Scuffles Erupt on Ring Highway
Aoun Urges Competent and Trustworthy Ministers in New Govt.
Hariri Returns to Lebanon, Chairs Meeting of al-Mustaqbal Bloc
Hariri: The solution is to form a government, not to revive one that resigned at the request of the street
Future bloc: Why can't the parliamentary blocs that unanimously designated Diab reach a ministerial lineup?
Bassil after bloc meeting: We inquired Salameh about questionable transfers, urged him to disclose numbers
Bassil Pays Berri ‘Unexpected’ Visit
Bassil Denies Seeking Ministerial Seats or One-Third Veto Power

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 14-15/2020
US troops describe ‘miraculous’ escape at Iraqi base attacked by Iran
Pompeo: US to work with Iraqi leaders on US troop deployment
UN says reports of violence against Iran protesters ‘worrying’
Iran warns Europe against launching nuclear dispute mechanism
Iran deal under threat as Europeans to trigger dispute mechanism
Iran’s judiciary says around 30 arrested over plane attack protests
Iran arrests son of a Green movement opposition leader: Report
Iran makes arrests in connection to Ukrainian plane it shot down
Rouhani: Plane incident that killed 176 people was an unforgivable error
Aviation officials from Iran, Ukraine, Canada hold meeting over plane crash
Iranian students criticize regime for attacking them at vigil
France, Germany, Britain trigger Iran nuclear deal dispute mechanism: Statement
UK open to broader Iran deal that tackles destabilizing behavior: Raab
Iran floods kill at least three: Reports
Sudan closes airspace temporarily following shooting incident in capital
Turkey says will stop Syrian government violations of Idlib ceasefire
Turkish, Syrian top intelligence officials meet in first formal contact in years
Israel’s weakened left-wing parties join forces ahead of March election

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 14-15/2020
Turkey: Still among the World's Worst Jailers of Journalists/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/January 14/2020
Let us talk about the elephant in the room that everyone is avoiding/Catherine W Jude./January 14/2020
China Is Destroying Multilateralism; Trump Is Creating a New Order/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/January 14/2020
Is the regime in Tehran in danger of falling?/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/January 14/2020
We should not miss this chance to help Iran change course/Alistair Burt /Arab News/January 14/2020
The region needs a grand bargain with Iran/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/January 14/2020
Egypt needs to agree Renaissance Dam deal/Dr. Abdellatif El-Menawy/Arab News/January 14/2020
US’ lack of Middle East strategy a boon for Putin/Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/January 14/2020

Details Of The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorial published on January 14-15/2020
A Revolution That Does Not Call For The Liberation Of Lebanon Is A mere Tool for the Occupier that is Hezbollah
Elias Bejjani/January 15/2020
A revolution that flaunts, hails and turns a blind eye on the Mullahs' Iranian Hezbollah occupation, terrorism, crimes, trafficking, regional wars, and at the same time advocates for its big lie of resistance is definitely a revolution of hypocrisy. Such a revolution carries it own failure and only serves the occupier's Iranian devastating agenda.

Aoun’s speech addressing the diplomatic corps at Baabda Palace
NNA/January 14/2020
The following is President of the Republic, General Micheal Aoun’s speech addressing the diplomatic corps at Baabda Palace.
“Your Excellency Monsignor Joseph Spiteri,
Apostolic Nuncio and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps,
Your Excellencies the representatives of the diplomatic missions accredited in Lebanon,
I cherish this occasion which brings us together at the onset of every year, as per a long-standing tradition, to exchange greetings for the New Year and explore the horizons of the days to come, along with the accompanying challenges and elements of hope.
As I thank your Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio, for your kind words and for the wishes and feelings of affection and solidarity conveyed, in the name of the accredited diplomatic corps, to me personally and to the people of Lebanon, I hope that the New Year brings along peace and wellbeing to you and to your respective States, leaders and peoples.
In this context, I would like to quote the valuable message of His Holiness Pope Francis on World Peace Day. It is remarkable that the Holy Father considers that “peace is a journey of hope”, a common hope among peoples, in the face of wars, persecution and injustice; indeed, hope is at the core of our faith, as we lie in the dust, looking forward to resurrection! If peace is the hope of peoples, this means that it is the very essence of their life. I wish that those who hold the reins of world peace look up to this truth upon making decisions that may threaten peace and stability in various spots of our world.
If, as stated by His Holiness, “the world does not need empty words but rather peacemakers who are open to dialogue”, then Pope Francis is undoubtedly the first and bravest among those needed peacemakers, one who is highly appreciated and deeply loved by all the Lebanese.
Your Excellencies,
Many factors converged, some external and others internal, to generate the worst economic, financial and social crisis that has ever hit Lebanon.
Externally, the world economic crises had a negative repercussion on our economy, in addition to the wars of the neighborhood, which have besieged Lebanon and barred it – and still do – from its vital extension and export markets, significantly affecting its commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors. They also gave way to the heaviest crisis on its already weary economy, I mean the displacement crisis which has brought in as many displaced as half of its original population. And to put the cherry on the cake, the financial embargo restricted the money flow from the outside, causing great harm to the Lebanese economy and financial market.
Internally, Lebanon is paying the price of an accumulation of thirty years of wrong economic and financial policies that depended on rentier economy and indebtedness, to the detriment of production, especially in industry and agriculture, in addition to decades-long corruption and waste in the administration.
Since the beginning of this presidential term, the economic and financial situation has been THE major concern. Indeed, the adoption of the oil and gas extraction decrees was placed on the agenda of the first governmental session, a comprehensive national plan was devised and infrastructure modernization projects were adopted, to be funded by the donors of the CEDRE conference. Nevertheless, the plans remained unexecuted.
From a financial perspective, I have strongly strived to bring the public finance back under the umbrella of the Constitution and the Public accounting law. In fact, three budgets were adopted after 12 years of interruption and random unconstitutional spending.
Yes, I have exerted tremendous efforts in quest of economic solutions. Yet, these endeavors did not produce the desired results because the situation was bad and the obstacles numerous. The growing economic pressure has driven people to the streets, upholding rightful living hood demands and brandishing one request common to all the Lebanese, namely fighting corruption.
The demonstrations presented, especially at their onset, a real opportunity to achieve the desired reform, because they have shaken the confessional and political protectorates and crossed the red lines, making accountability possible, giving strong momentum to Justice which has taken many actions, and enabling the former government to adopt a paper of reforms that would have been otherwise impossible.
Yet, the attempts by some political forces to harness the popular movements dispersed some of them, drowning them into a radicalism of rejection, and jeopardizing their unanimity about the claimed change. Moreover, the rumors spread by some media and some demonstrators derailed the movement, preventing it from correctly identifying real corruption and its perpetrators. I am still relying on the good Lebanese, on the streets and in their homes, to persevere in the fight against.
In turn, the Army and the security forces have addressed this popular movement with great wisdom. Indeed, they have strived to ensure the security and safety of the demonstrators, safeguarding their freedom of speech, while preserving at the same time the freedom of the citizens and their right to move and go to work and home.
Nevertheless, this situation has aggravated the economic crisis and has had a negative impact on the security situation whereas it has led to an increase in the rate of crime of all kinds after we had achieved remarkable progress in bringing it down over the past two years.
The government was expected to see the light last week, but some obstacles have prevented it; and although we do not have the luxury of delay, the formation of this government requires the selection of qualified candidates, worthy of the confidence of both the people and the Parliament, which in turn requires time; what is needed is a government with a specific and swift program for tackling the pressing economic and financial crisis, and countering the tremendous challenges that Lebanon and the whole region are facing. We shall continue to exert all the possible efforts to form the promised government, advancing the higher national interest above any other consideration.
Your Excellencies,
In addition to all the present difficulties, the crisis of the displaced still weighs heavily at all levels, while the international community has not shouldered its responsibility effectively, neither favoring the return, nor supporting Lebanon to mitigate the impact of this displacement; except for some assistance dedicated to the displaced - from which Lebanon only received a small part - coupled with praise for the humanitarian role it is playing, along with political rhetoric about linking their return to the political solution.
We have shown understanding about the causes of displacement and we have extended all the possible cooperation and assistance throughout the years, but today we do not understand the positions pressing to hinder the return, and we have every right to draw a big question mark about this international indifference, especially that I have carried this crisis with me to all the international and Arab fora, explaining its entailed burdens and repercussions for Lebanon.
Amidst this pressing atmosphere, some positive indicators are expected in the near future, when Lebanon embarks on the exploration of its offshore natural resources in its territorial waters. In this context, we reiterate that we hold on to our right to exploit all our oil fields and reject any Israeli attempt to aggress them, as we underscore the necessity to confirm the land borders and delineate the maritime borders, in view of the benefit this has for stability and calm, and in view of safeguarding the rights of Lebanon and the required investment climate.
Your Excellencies,
Although the year 2019 has been wrapped up with a huge crisis, it has been scattered with some international milestones which are significant for Lebanon, on top of which the consecration of our nation as a space for encounter and dialogue among civilizations, religions and cultures, through the vote by the UN General
Assembly on the creation on our land of the “Academy for Human Encounters and Dialogue”.
With the upheaval that surrounds us, it is becoming all the more certain that openness, dialogue and getting to know the other are the foundations for building peace and stability and facing the ideas of extremism, isolation and seclusion.
Moreover, Lebanon has been selected to host the regional headquarters of the International Organization of the Francophonie in the Middle East, in a confirmation of our country’s role in its environment and the world. We hope that this office will be officially inaugurated and will launch its activities in Beirut during this year, in coordination with the Organization.
Your Excellencies,
Lebanon has the destiny and the vocation to be a land of peace, dialogue and tolerance. Therefore, it has been imperative to preserve stability and coexistence therein This is why we hold on to Resolution 1701, to international resolutions and to the international legitimacy based on justice, we are keen on recovering our rights and land and preventing settlement in Lebanon, and we are attached to the principle of disassociating Lebanon from the problems of the region, keeping it away from its axes and flames without relinquishing its power and right of resistance, and devising a defense strategy that would promote this opportunity based on mutual understanding among all the Lebanese.
This year, Lebanon celebrates the first centenary of the proclamation of the State of Greater Lebanon. I am confident that this centennial commemoration will constitute a suitable opportunity, despite all the factors of concern and the lack of visibility, to rediscover the role and position of Lebanon, and even more: a favorable opportunity to renew the commitment of all the Lebanese to the challenge of building a country that is worthy of human dignity, and that lives up to its God-given blessing of being a Message, a message that is fulfilled through reflection, action and the will of the sons and daughters of this nation
Happy New Year
And Long Live Lebanon”.
*Presidency Press Office

Papal Ambassador meets Aoun: International community stresses need for respectful dialogue among political leaders
NNA/January 14/2020
The following is the speech of dean of the diplomatic corps, papal ambassador, Monsignor Joseph Spiteri, during his meeting with President of the Republic, Micheal Aoun, at Baabda Palace:
“Your Excellency the President of the Republic.
Allow me, at the outset, to express our sincere gratitude for kindly receiving us, Ambassadors and Representatives of International Organizations, on the occasion of the traditional exchange of greetings at the beginning of the New Year. It is an honor for me to represent my esteemed Colleagues as we address to You and to all the Lebanese People our sincere best wishes of peace and wellbeing for 2020. May this Jubilee Year be a year of renewal for Lebanon!
Your Excellency, I have had the opportunity, just like so many of the Ambassadors here present, to visit several humanitarian and charitable institutions in your beautiful country. Most of them are run by faith-based organizations and welcome everyone without any discrimination. All of them bear witness to the profound solidarity that animates Lebanese society; a solidarity that stems from the heart. We are all impressed by the generosity and the resilience of the Lebanese. Lebanon can truly be proud of its sons and daughters who strive to guarantee necessary care and assistance to children, young people, adults and the elderly, particularly those with special needs.
Most Lebanese, however, are also deeply disturbed by a certain dichotomy in their society due to the scourge of corruption, which Your Excellency has constantly denounced. Such a dichotomy, unfortunately, hinders the State from functioning in an effective manner at the service of all its citizens. Corruption impedes the Government from providing quality education, medical care and social security, water and electricity… It also limits the protection and guarantees ensured by an effective rule of law.
We were positively surprised, therefore, by the sincere call for an ethical renewal of the State made by young people during these last three months of protests throughout the whole of Lebanon. The young, joined by the older generations and animated by a fundamental spirit of solidarity, have rallied around the Lebanese flag demanding respect for their inalienable human rights. They are also requesting political, social and economic reforms. They are against corruption. They demand and deserve a better future!
Corruption annihilates solidarity. It poisons our hearts, our thoughts and our actions. It blinds us so that we no longer perceive others as equal in dignity. It induces us to consider them as disposable objects we can use and throw away. It impedes sincere dialogue and the genuine sharing of our talents.
Dialogue and sharing, in fact, are fundamental aspects of solidarity. That is why solidarity can be considered as an antidote to corruption. Dialogue is impossible if we do not consider each other as equals. This fundamental intuition lies at the heart of Your Excellency’s initiative of an Academy for encounter and dialogue, approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 16 September 2019. Please accept our sincere congratulations, Mr. President, as well as our best wishes for a rapid implementation of such a beneficial project at the service of human fraternity in Lebanon and around the world.
No human fraternity is possible without dialogue. The international community, here represented by the Heads of Mission of the Diplomatic Corps and of International Organizations, has been insisting on the need of a sincere and respectful dialogue between political leaders themselves, as well as with all those demanding real change. Dialogue cannot exclude anyone: those in favor, those against, and those who do not wish to take sides. Every citizen has the right to be heard. Any kind of violence, psychological or physical, destroys the possibility of dialogue, as does constantly blaming the other party. Sincere dialogue demands openness, good will and the desire to reach agreement by sacrificing certain positions or stances in favor of the common good. We reiterate today our fervent desire that, through dialogue and the good will of all the parties involved, a viable Cabinet be rapidly formed to implement the urgent and necessary reforms and regain the confidence of all the citizens and of all the friends of Lebanon.
Your Excellency, the celebrations for the First Centenary of Greater Lebanon seem to be overshadowed by the Lebanese “Revolution”, by the financial and economic crisis, and by the problems linked to the formation of a new government. It is not the first time that Lebanon passes through very difficult times. Every calamity seems to signal the end of an era, but it is never the end of history. Lebanese women and men will continue to write new chapters as free citizens of a free country. We are convinced that the Lebanese have the right attitude to discover new opportunities that arise from the present crisis. They are not afraid of the possible wounds that sincere human encounters might cause, because they also believe that solidarity can heal every wound. I would like to pay tribute, on this note, to the role of Lebanese women in society, in administration and especially in the present thawra, as they are not only demanding radical renewal, but are also bearing witness to effective solidarity. May their example inspire all those in authority, particularly in banking and in politics, to be always accountable and to take the right ethical decisions to serve Lebanon and its citizens, above all in this time of need.
Our sincere wishes are that this Centenary may become a privileged occasion to rediscover the fundamental intuition that inspired the foundation of the Lebanese Nation not so much as a gathering of minorities but as a community of free citizens whose inalienable dignity, equality and rights are enshrined in the Constitution.
It is not possible to conclude our address without mentioning the present situation in the Middle East. We are all culturally linked, in some way or another, to this region of the world, which continues to suffer from endless wars and faces renewed tensions. We desire stability and integral human development for all the peoples of this region. Today, we want to encourage all Lebanese to remain steadfast in their commitment to freedom, fundamental rights, democracy and solidarity so that they will continue to inspire hope in the possibility of harmonious coexistence and progress not only in the Land of the Cedars but also in neighboring countries.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the most sincere best wishes for the New Year, from all the Heads of State of the Nations we have the honor to represent before You. They renew their friendship with Lebanon and their heartfelt commitment to support your wonderful Country.
May the Almighty, in His wisdom and mercy, shower His blessings on You and on your family, as well as on all the Lebanese throughout all 2020, the centenary Year of hope.
God bless Lebanon! May God bless all of us present here.
Thank you.”-- Presidency Press Office

Lebanon protesters declare 'week of anger' amid ruling-class indifference
The NewArab/January 14/2020
The thick smoke of burning tires blanketed parts of Lebanon once again, as a second wave of mass anti-corruption protests appears to have erupted across the beleaguered country, exactly 90 days after the 17 October uprising began.
From north to the south, via the capital Beirut, fed-up Lebanese have declared a "Week of Anger" on Tuesday against their post-war ruling class, which shows no sign of interest in solving the political, economic and financial crises they are accused of inflicting during their three-decade administration of the country, following the end of the civil war in 1990.
Renewed activist momentum
Hundreds of protesters are reportedly blocking main roads and staging pickets outside government departments, banks, and money changers in Tripoli, Beirut, and Saida.Activists on uprising-aligned social media pages are calling it a second wave and celebrating the renewed momentum of their protests, promising a "Week of Anger" against politicians that would include civil disobedience, targeted sit-ins, as well as street protests and road closures. Local reports suggest the protesters are giving the ruling class 48-hours to form a new government, as the country plunges further into a confluence of a crises - sovereign debt, liquidity and economic - all compounded by deep political paralysis. While protests in Lebanon have not stopped over the past several weeks, they had appeared to die down over the holidays, with numbers dropping sharply from the tens of thousands at the peak of the uprising, in October and November. The initial wave of protests succeeded in toppling the government of Saad Al-Hariri, throwing the country into yet another political vacuum all too familiar to Lebanon. Hariri quickly took leave, "on holiday" to France, refusing to discharge his constitutional duties as caretaker prime minister. He is set to return to Beirut on Tuesday.
Ruling class remobillises
Since Hariri's departure, however, the protest movement has failed to force the other levers of power, led by Hezbollah-allied President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri, to either step down or facilitate the formation of a specialist transitional government that would oversee urgent reforms and early elections, all key demands of the protest movement.  Devoid of any semblance of electoral legitimacy or sectarian cover from Lebanon's Sunni constituencies - a must under the country's continuing sectarian power sharing system - Diab has since failed to form a government. Critics say the failure of the protest movement to produce a coherent leadership has allowed the ruling class to regroup and ignore the popular mood, returning to its old squabbles over the division of lucrative government posts, and allowing geopolitical events such as the US-Iran tensions to shape the country's domestic politics.
In the absence of an adequate response from the authorities, the financial crisis that had triggered the uprising only worsened over the subsequent weeks, accelerating a liquidity crisis in the US dollar - to which the country's currency is pegged and on which it relies for imports of basic foods, medicines, and fuel.
Enough is enough
The Lebanese pound has lost nearly two thirds of its value against the dollar in the black market, despite still being officially pegged at 1,500 to the dollar, since 1997.  Huge queues outside banks are reported daily, as most lenders restricted access to dollar banknotes and imposed informal capital controls to contain the slow-motion bank run. Dozens of small to medium businesses have meanwhile cut salaries, laid off employees, or shut down altogether, amid reports of shortages of certain basic goods and large hikes in the prices of others. The preoccupation with the fallout from this livelihood crisis brought about a lull in the protests, but now it seems the ruling class were mistaken in thinking the uprising against them was over. On Monday night, a group of left-wing protesters briefly stormed the headquarters of the Central Bank (BDL), before being pushed back by security forces. BLS offices across Lebanon have been targeted repeatedly by the protesters since 17 October. The central bank governor Riad Salameh stands accused of overseeing decades of corruption through a Ponzi-like scheme of financial engineering, which activists and experts say have enabled politically-linked private bankers to accrue billions in profits from Lebanon's sovereign debt and currency peg while gambling with ordinary people's deposits and the country's foreign reserves. Over the past several days, Salameh and other senior banking officials made media appearances promising bank deposits were safe, but said foreign help was now needed to rescue the country, hinting at debt restructuring, once a taboo proposition. These assurances were met with instant disbelief by activists, who seem to have lost all faith in the entire ruling class of politicians and bureaucrats for mismanaging the country's affairs, and demand they are replaced entirely by new, competent specialists untarnished by corruption or sectarianism.  "All of them means all of them," remains the leading slogan of the Lebanese protest movement, in reference to this class.

Lebanese protesters block roads against government inaction
Associated Press/ January 14/ 2020
The protesters returned to the streets after several weeks of relative calm, following the designation of Hassan Diab as prime minister in mid-December.
BEIRUT: Lebanese protesters blocked several roads around the capital of Beirut and in other areas of the country on Tuesday in renewed rallies against the ruling elite they say has failed to address the economy’s downward spiral. Protesters burned tires and blocked three main highways leading to the capital from the south, east and north, bringing traffic to a standstill. School and university students took part in some of the protests and hundreds marched down main highways, raising Lebanese flags and blasting rallying songs through loudspeakers. In downtown Beirut, dozens rallied outside the Central Bank, chanting against the governor and his financial policies. Security forces separated the protesters from the bank’s entrance. In the northern city of Tripoli and in Akkar province, protesters sat in the streets and blocked several roads with burning tires or bricks. In the southern city of Sidon, dozens of protesters marched down the streets, rallying outside banks and government offices.
Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with the local currency plummeting before the dollar, losing over 60% of its value over the last weeks while sources of foreign currency have dried up. Meanwhile, banks have imposed informal capital controls limiting withdrawal of dollars and foreign transfers in the country, which relies heavily on imports of basic goods. Panic has set in among residents who fear their deposits are in danger. Nationwide protests for three months have failed to pressure politicians to form a new government to institute drastic reforms. The protesters returned to the streets after several weeks of relative calm, following the designation of Hassan Diab as prime minister in mid-December. But he has so far failed to form an emergency government amid political divisions and jockeying for power. Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned in late October. “I would like to know why they (politicians) are still keeping their seats, ” Elie Zghaib, a protester said. Lately, protesters had focused their ire on banks, rallying at the premises or outside banks and demanding access to their deposits. Dozens have also taunted politicians who showed up in shopping malls or restaurants, sometimes chasing them out of public places and decrying their failure to address the economic crisis. Nationwide protests began in mid-October in Lebanon, denouncing years of government mismanagement and corruption, demanding the political elite to step down.

Lebanese anti-government protesters block roads again
Al Arabiya/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Lebanese protesters blocked several roads around the capital of Beirut and in other areas of the country on Tuesday in renewed rallies against the ruling elite they say has failed to address the economy’s downward spiral. Protesters burned tires and blocked three main highways leading to the capital from the south, east and north, bringing traffic to a standstill. School and university students took part in some of the protests and hundreds marched down main highways, raising Lebanese flags and blasting rallying songs through loudspeakers. In downtown Beirut, dozens rallied outside the Central Bank, chanting against the governor and his financial policies. Security forces separated the protesters from the bank’s entrance. In the northern city of Tripoli and in Akkar province, protesters sat in the streets and blocked several roads with burning tires or bricks. In the southern city of Sidon, dozens of protesters marched down the streets, rallying outside banks and government offices. Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with the local currency plummeting before the dollar, losing over 60 percent of its value over the last weeks while sources of foreign currency have dried up.
Meanwhile, banks have imposed informal capital controls limiting withdrawal of dollars and foreign transfers in the country, which relies heavily on imports of basic goods. Panic has set in among residents who fear their deposits are in danger. Nationwide protests for three months have failed to pressure politicians to form a new government to institute drastic reforms. The protesters returned to the streets after several weeks of relative calm, following the designation of Hassan Diab as prime minister in mid-December. But he has so far failed to form an emergency government amid political divisions and jockeying for power. Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned in late October. “I would like to know why they (politicians) are still keeping their seats,” Elie Zghaib, a protester said. Lately, protesters had focused their ire on banks, rallying at the premises or outside banks and demanding access to their deposits. Dozens have also taunted politicians who showed up in shopping malls or restaurants, sometimes chasing them out of public places and decrying their failure to address the economic crisis. Nationwide protests began in mid-October in Lebanon, denouncing years of government mismanagement and corruption, demanding the political elite to step down.

Lebanese protesters block road outside central bank
The Associated Press/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Lebanese protesters used sandbags and bricks Monday to block a main street outside the country’s central bank, protesting financial policies they say deepened a liquidity crunch. Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with the local currency losing over 60 percent of its value to the dollar over the last weeks while sources of foreign currency have dried up. Meanwhile, banks imposed informal capital controls limiting withdrawal of dollars and foreign transfers in the country that relies heavily on imports of basic goods. Panic has set in among residents who fear their deposits are in danger. Nationwide protests for three months have failed to pressure politicians to form a new government to institute drastic reforms. The incumbent prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in late October. The president after consulting parliamentary blocs designated a new prime minister in December, who has yet to form a new Cabinet amid deep political divisions. After weeks of calm, protesters threatened to launch a week of protests, culminating in civil disobedience, demanding the immediate formation of a government to deal with the severe financial crisis. Late Monday, dozens of protesters blocked a main thoroughfare in central Beirut. The brief closure ended with limited scuffles with the police. Protesters then moved to outside Banque Du Liban, installing sandbags and bricks to block the street. “Down with the bank rule,” chanted the protesters. In a video posted by the protesters, they said the roadblock is to respond to the banks blocking depositors accessing their accounts. The National News Agency reported protesters also blocked a main road in the southern city of Sidon. Nationwide protests began in mid-October denouncing years of government mismanagement and corruption, demanding the political elite to step down.

UN says Lebanon made payment to restore UN voting rights

The Associated Press, United Nations/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
The United Nations said Monday that Lebanon has paid its UN dues, restoring its voting rights in the General Assembly. The UN had announced on Friday that seven countries - including Venezuela and Lebanon - were so far behind in paying their dues that they were losing their voting privileges in the 193-member world body. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN controller reported on Monday that Lebanon has just made a payment and “Lebanon’s voting rights have been fully restored.”Lebanon is grappling with its worst economic and financial crisis in decades and has seen increased electricity cuts. Protesters took to the streets in October over proposed new taxes but are now calling for an end to the rule of the political elite that has run the country since the 1975-90 civil war ended. Dujarric said: “We fully recognize that the recent events in Lebanon have challenged the banking system, delaying part of this money.” Lebanon’s payment leaves Venezuela, Central African Republic, Gambia, Lesotho, Tonga and Yemen without voting rights. Three other countries - Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe and Somalia - are also in arrears but the General Assembly decided in October that they can retain their vote until September.

Banking Control Committee Requests Info on Banks Transfers Abroad
Naharnet/January 14/2020
The Banking Control Committee on Tuesday requested that local banks provide them with information on the volume of transfers to “Swiss banks,” amid suspicious large transfers of money abroad. The Committee said banks should provide them with said information --including the transfers to branches and other units of Lebanese banks in Switzerland-- of customer and partner deposits that originated from credit contracts starting 10/17/2019 until the current date. In December, the central bank governor Riad Salameh said he would investigate reports of large transfers of money abroad, which if confirmed, would mark a violation of banking restrictions curtailing such transactions. Salameh said that there has been a lot of talk about "politicians, senior civil servants and bank owners" involved in capital flight, adding however that a probe is necessary to identify those responsible.

 Association of Banks confirms hasn’t issued statement today
NNA/January 14/2020
The Association of Banks in Lebanon on Tuesday announced that it had not issued any press statement today.
It explained further that all the data or news that has been circulated through the social media about the formation of a government or requests of the judiciary to intervene, as well as the allusion to the closure of banks were “completely unfounded."

Protesters Launch 'Week of Wrath', Block Roads across Lebanon
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Naharnet/January 14/2020
Lebanese protesters resumed blocking major highways on Tuesday in what they said would be a "week of wrath" demanding an end to a nearly three-month political vacuum. Samer al-Khoury, a 29-year-old protester, said the protesters were giving the politicians 48 hours to form a new government. "We need solutions," he said. "The street is angry because some people are more poor than others; some people are dying in hospitals; some people don't have food on their table." Rabih al-Zein, an activist protesting in Jal el-Dib, north of Beirut, said the rallies are a reminder to the rulers that the reasons for their protests are still here. "Today we add the students to the revolution -- those who will handle the country when the current rulers will go to the dustbin of history," he said. Although protests had declined in size in recent weeks, demonstrations have been ongoing since October, increasingly targeting banks and state institutions blamed for driving the country towards collapse. The movement has been fueled by a crippling economic crisis, the worst since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. The unprecedented cross-sectarian protests led to the government stepping down in late October, but no new one has yet been formed as political parties argue over its composition. As a liquidity crisis grows and the cost of living rises, protesters have returned to the streets to urge politicians to speed up the process. On Tuesday morning, dozens of protesters blocked key highways in Beirut with overturned rubbish bins and burning tires, an AFP correspondent reported. Laila Youssef, 47, said she was taking part to call on politicians to wake up. "We've gone back to closing down roads because we can't stand it anymore," the mother of three told AFP. "What we earn today is not enough to buy the basics for home," she said. Many Lebanese have lost their jobs or seen their salaries reduced by half in recent months. Even as banks cap withdrawals, the value of the Lebanese pound to the U.S. dollar has fallen by almost 40 percent on the parallel exchange market. There were demonstrations on Tuesday in the provinces too, including second city Tripoli and the southeastern town of Hasbayya, Lebanese television channels showed. A protester in Tripoli said the situation had become "unbearable.""Prices are exorbitant, yet still they're taking their sweet time" to form a new government, he told LBCI television. In December, a new premier was tasked with forming a government but the country's rival political parties have failed to agree on names put forward for the various ministries. The protesters are demanding a new government made up solely of independent technocrats, but analysts warn this may be a tall order in a country ruled by a sectarian power-sharing system since the end of the civil war.

Lebanese in Angry Protests as Crisis Worsens
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Naharnet/January 14/2020
Hundreds of angry Lebanese protested across the country on Tuesday in renewed rallies against the ruling elite they say has failed to address the economy's downward spiral. Protesters blocked several roads and major highways starting ealry with the morning rush hour in the capital Beirut, the northern city of Tripoli, the southern city of Nabatieh and Mount Lebanon, they also denounced a class of political leaders they deem incompetent and corrupt. School and university students took part in some of the protests and hundreds marched down main highways, raising Lebanese flags and blasting rallying songs through loudspeakers. In downtown Beirut, dozens rallied outside the Central Bank, chanting against the governor and his financial policies. Security forces separated the protesters from the bank's entrance. Although protests have declined in size, demonstrations have been ongoing since October 17, increasingly targeting banks and state institutions blamed for driving the country towards collapse. The movement has been fuelled by a crippling economic crisis, the worst since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. The World Bank has warned of an impeding recession that may see the proportion of people living in poverty climb from a third to half the population. To make matters worse, a liquidity crunch has pushed Lebanese banks to limit dollar withdrawals and transfers since September. This has forced depositors to deal in the plummeting Lebanese pound, which has lost nearly two thirds of its black market value against the greenback for the first time since it was pegged at 1,500 to the dollar in 1997. Lebanon has been without a government since former Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned on October 29, bowing to popular pressure. His successor, Hassan Diab, was designated on December 19 but is yet to form a government in a delay donors say debt-saddled Lebanon can ill afford. In a statement on Friday, he said he still stands by his pledge to form a government of independent experts to rescue the country from the brink of collapse, a key demand of protesters. But he said his efforts were being challenged."The pressures, no matter how large, will not change my conviction," he said on Twitter. "I will not bow to intimidation."The delay in forming a government has drawn the ire of demonstrators. “We are tired of this skirting of responsibility," said Rolan Younan, a demonstrator. "We need to reshape the political class."

Report: Activists Angry with Little TV Coverage of Protests
Naharnet/January 14/2020
Lebanese activists express resentment at what they say is “fading media coverage” of their movements in the past few weeks, after the outbreak of mass protests on October 17 where TV live coverage largely helped its success and continuity, Asharq al-Awsat daily reported on Tuesday.
The daily said some link it to a decline in the momentum of protests as a result of weather conditions and holidays. Others see that the political elite has come to reimpose their presence on TV networks by “pumping” the funds needed to the financially-stricken stations.
“With the beginning of the year 2020, TV stations returned to host the same faces that ruled the country and led it to bankruptcy in an attempt to clear their image,” said activist Lucien Abou Rjeily to the daily. “That brings to mind what happened during the parliamentary elections when politicians monopolized the screens with their money to make false promises.”On his part, editor-in-chief of MTV news program, Walid Abboud assured that “the station is still keeping pace with events whose momentum has receded for various reasons, including weather and holidays. We are not in a position to fabricate an event, but rather cover incidents when they happen.”He said live coverage during the first two months of the uprising has largely contributed in encouraging people to join the protests. “During the first two months, live broadcast was open for 18 hours per day,” he said, noting that protests will resume their momentum and TV coverage will return despite salary deductions due to the great economic and financial crisis inflicting Lebanon’s institutions. During the past three months, the majority of local media outlets, mainly visual, laid off employees and introduced salary cuts due to a massive decline in the advertising market. “Media coverage of the popular movements retreated due to the decline in momentum and the media's pursuit of material resources in the absence of advertisements,” activist Walid al-Alami told Asharq al-Awsat. “When the revolution was the focal attention, TV stations were forced to cover it to attract viewers. It is more likely that coverage will return with the return of momentum,” he added.

Protesters Injured in Sidon as Scuffles Erupt on Ring Highway
Naharnet/January 14/2020
Scuffles erupted Monday evening on the Ring highway in central Beirut after security forces tried to reopen the road, which was blocked by anti-government protesters.Several people were meanwhile injured in scuffles between the army and protesters at Sidon's Elia square.
MTV said protesters blocked most internal roads in the city after the scuffles. Several arrests were also made during the confrontation. Many roads were meanwhile blocked in the northern city of Tripoli. Although protests have declined in size, demonstrations have been ongoing since October 17, increasingly targeting banks and state institutions blamed for driving the country towards collapse. The movement has been fueled by a crippling economic crisis, the worst since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

Aoun Urges Competent and Trustworthy Ministers in New Govt.

Naharnet/January 14/2020
President Michel Aoun on Tuesday said that the formation of the new government requires choosing “competent individuals who deserve the confidence of people and parliament.”“The government should have been formed last week, but some obstacles have prevented that,” Aoun said. “We will continue to exert all possible efforts to reach the promised government, putting the higher national interest above all else,” the president vowed. He also said that he is still “counting on the good Lebanese on the streets and in homes in the fight against corruption.”

Hariri Returns to Lebanon, Chairs Meeting of al-Mustaqbal Bloc
Naharnet/January 14/2020
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri presided over a meeting for al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after he returned to Lebanon from a vacation abroad that involved offering condolences in Oman over Sultan Qaboos’ death. A statement issued by Hariri’s office said the meeting was tackling “the latest developments and the general situations.”Hariri had visited Muscat earlier in the day where he was received by the new Sultan at al-Alam Palace. Sultan Qaboos, 79, passed away on Friday and the new royal ruler Haitham bin Tariq was selected and sworn in.

Hariri: The solution is to form a government, not to revive one that resigned at the request of the street
NNA/January 14/2020
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri said that the solution is to form a new government and not to revive a government that resigned at the request of the street. He added that he is assuming his duties as head of the caretaker government in full accordance with the constitution, but if what is required is more then there is no problem.
In a chat with reporters after heading the meeting of the Future parliamentary bloc this afternoon at the Center House, he said: “Since I submitted my resignation, I have been assuming my responsibilities as caretaker Prime Minister. I am surprised by the talk about the caretaker government because I do not see anything stalled at this level. If what is required is more, then no problem, but enough stalling, the solution is the formation of a new government. There is a Prime Minister-designate, Hassan Diab, who has the task of forming a government with those who designated him, so let him form the government with the President. If I failed somewhere in doing my job as caretaker Prime Minister, please tell me where”.
Question: But Speaker Berri is calling for a government meeting
Hariri: The caretaker government has some powers and we are using these powers. Imagine that I talk to the World Bank and agree on something, can I implement this agreement with a caretaker government? No, I cannot. A government that has the confidence of Parliament and works normally can. The solution today is to form a government. Is it required to strike the constitution? We have to solve things as they should be solved. The constitution is very clear, the prime minister resigns, then binding consultations take place, a prime minister is designated and he forms a government in agreement with the president. I am totally fulfilling my duty.
Question: Will you participate in a parliamentary session to discuss the budget or to legislate?
Hariri: I will meet with Speaker Nabih Berri and we will agree on that.
Question: Will you meet with him today?
Hariri: I do not know if I will meet him today.
Question: Are you in favor of reviving the caretaker government?
Hariri: I am with the formation of a new government, not with reviving a government that resigned at the request of the street.
Question: Can the current government take any decision on the economic level?
Hariri: We all know that anything we want to do in the economic file requires us to cooperate with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international institutions. Can a caretaker government cooperate with these institutions, or should there be a regular government that has parliamentary confidence? Otherwise, let us cancel the constitution.
Question: What do you respond to those who accuse you of obstruction?
Hariri: There are those who say that I am building a long wide Sunni dam. Those who obstruct accuse me of obstructing the formation of the government.
Question: Is there a light at the end of the black tunnel where the Lebanese live today?
Hariri: There is a country called Lebanon whose people suffered a lot. We can get out of this tunnel, on the condition that we put our differences aside and give ministerial portfolios to whoever actually knows how to manage them. Is there a country in the world other than Lebanon that appoints non-specialists in ministries?
Question: Do you consider Speaker Berri's stances towards you a prelude to bringing you back to the premiership?
Hariri: When I see Speaker Berri I will talk to him.

Future bloc: Why can't the parliamentary blocs that unanimously designated Diab reach a ministerial lineup?
NNA/January 14/2020  
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri chaired today at the Center House a meeting of the Future parliamentary bloc that focused on the latest developments.
At the end of the meeting, the bloc issued the following statement read by MP Rola Tabsh:
First - The bloc considers that the return to disputes over the powers and required criteria to form the government constitutes the highest denial of the economic and financial risks facing the country, and an insistence on applying policies of escaping the changes imposed by the popular movements in all regions.
The bloc considers that the priority should be on securing the formation of the government as soon as possible and not wasting time on ministerial shares with the consequent failures, the price of which is paid by the Lebanese citizen from his socio-economic stability.
The bloc is surprised that the parliamentary blocs that unanimously named Dr. Hassan Diab to form the government are not capable of reaching a ministerial formation that ends the series of postponements.
Hence, the bloc believes that the confusion around the birth of the government places full responsibility on the president and the Prime Minister-designate, who are constitutionally concerned with agreeing on the line-up and issuing the decrees. It is a responsibility that must be freed from the pressures of politics and parties, and in return notice the socio-economic and monetary pressures that are worsening, as well as the regional developments that put Lebanon in front of the region's flames and conflicts.
The urgent need is to form the government, and it is wrong to forever push the country and its crises towards a caretaker government, knowing that Prime Minister Saad Hariri did not and will not fail to assume his constitutional and national responsibilities in this regard. He bet on the birth of the government before the New Year according to all presidential and leadership stances who agreed unanimously on this matter.
The Future parliamentary bloc hopes the country will get out of the obstruction tunnel, and calls to stop the suspicious hands that carry the task of designating ministers, and to form, according to the norms, a government that carries its constitutional duties before Parliament, and discusses pressing issues and draft laws.
Second - The bloc expresses its satisfaction with the end of the military escalating tone in the region, and underscored that political dialogue is the only way to prevent the region from entering a new wave of disasters and wars.
The bloc reaffirms the importance of the Lebanon's commitment to the disassociation policy and stopping the policies of involvement in external conflicts and in the internal affairs of the Arab countries. It emphasizes the necessity of the commitment of the Lebanese state and the relevant ministries before all others to these obligations, and to adopting the required balance in approaching developments, so as not to condemn the attack on Iraq and abstain from condemning other attacks.
It would have been more useful in this regard if the Lebanese positions had approached the regional risks the way the Iraqi leadership approached its crises, where the President of the Republic, of the government and of the parliament, and the spiritual reference Ayatollah Sistani, all refused that Iraq becomes an arena for the American-Iranian conflict, and called to make the language of reason prevail, as well as the adherence to international pacts, and the respect of the Iraqi state and its government's decisions and assisting it to overcome this serious crisis threatening it, the region and the world with a devastating war.
Third - The bloc expresses its condolences to the brotherly Omani people and His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said for the passing of Sultan Qaboos bin Said, and hopes that the Sultanate of Oman would continue the path of development, progress and stability established by the late Sultan Qaboos who will be remembered by the Lebanese for his support for Lebanon and his contribution to the reconstruction.

Bassil after bloc meeting: We inquired Salameh about questionable transfers, urged him to disclose numbers
NNA/January 14/2020 
Change and Reform bloc Head, caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, announced after the bloc meeting held this Tuesday that he had sent a letter to Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, on the money transfers and their discretionary nature, and "demanded that he discloses the numbers," expressing "willingness to cooperate."He talked about a "discretion in dealing with citizens," deeming it unacceptable to prohibit people from making simple banking transactions while some "transfer hundreds of millions abroad."
Bassil said: "We were among those who demanded the inception of a rescue economic and financial plan. We have previously presented relevant plans, and today we also submitted a proposal to the concerned parties."
On the political reality, he said "we were meant to assert that we have never had a special [portfolio] request, except that of forming a government of salvation. And in light of the developments that took place today, we are further motivated to assume our responsibility, now more than ever."
"By virtue of our parliamentary responsibilities: we either grant confidence or withhold it, and the criterion is the ability to rescue [the country]. Neither did we previously choose [a candidate], nor will we name one today," he asserted.
Bassil stressed that "demanding the assumption of caretaking roles does not entail reviving the resigned government, nor should it delay the formation of the new government. What is required is a government that earns the confidence of the people, and we do not have the luxury of delay. Look where the people are today; every day of delay is deadly to us."
"The country cannot be reformed with the same economic and financial policy adopted over the past thirty years, and this is the priority. Words about quotas and 'blocking third' are groundless," the minister stressed.

Bassil Pays Berri ‘Unexpected’ Visit
Naharnet/January 14/2020
Caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Tuesday paid Speaker Nabih Berri a “surprise” visit in Ain el-Tineh. The head of the Free Patriotic Movement’s visit comes ahead of an expected meeting of his Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc in the afternoon.
According to reports, Bassil will discuss the formation of the government and the possibility of his not participating in the new government.

Bassil Denies Seeking Ministerial Seats or One-Third Veto Power
Naharnet/January 14/2020
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday called for the formation of a new government that would gain “the confidence of people, parliament and the international community,” stressing that the FPM is not seeking ministerial seats or a one-third veto power in Cabinet. “We were supposed to declare an advanced stance today but today's developments have pushed us to further shoulder our responsibility,” Bassil said after the weekly meeting of the Strong Lebanon bloc, referring to the renewal of massive street protests across the country. “We do not have the luxury of time and the PM-designate must perform his duties,” Bassil urged. “There are rumors about the new government and we have not changed our stance,” Bassil added. “From the very beginning, we have said that we do not have partisan requests regarding the new government,” he said. He also lamented that caretaker PM Saad Hariri and some caretaker ministers are “not performing their duties.”Bassil had met earlier in the day with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.Al-Manar TV said the meeting “has launched a new positive course in the government formation process.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 14-15/2020
US troops describe ‘miraculous’ escape at Iraqi base attacked by Iran

Reuters, Ain Al-Assad Air Base, Iraq/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Troops at the Iraqi air base that bore the brunt of Iran’s first direct missile attack against US forces said they were shocked by its intensity and grateful to emerge unscathed. The scale of the damage at the Ain al-Assad base showed Iran’s destructive capability at a time when US officials say they are still concerned that Iran-backed groups across the region could wage attacks on the United States. “It’s miraculous no one was hurt,” Lt Col Staci Coleman, the US air force officer who runs the airfield, told reporters on Monday at the vast base deep in the western Anbar desert in Iraq, where 1,500 Americans were deployed. “Who thinks they’re going to have ballistic missiles launched at them ... and suffer no casualties?”The January 8 attack came hours after US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the United States should expect retaliation over the US killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq the previous week. The killing raised fears of a new Middle East war, but the United States, Iraq, and other countries with troops at the base said no one was hurt. US military leaders have said that was thanks to commanders on the ground, not Tehran’s goodwill. At one site, a cruise missile had left a large crater and incinerated living quarters made from shipping containers. Heavy concrete blast walls were knocked over and the shipping containers were smashed and charred along with contents including bicycles, chairs and other furniture. Several soldiers said one of their number had come very close to being blown up inside a shelter behind the blast walls. Almost a dozen missiles hit the air base, where US forces carried out “scatter plans” to move soldiers and equipment to a range of fortified areas apart from one another.
The United States did not have Patriot air defenses at the base, putting the onus on local commanders to protect their troops.
“We’d got notification there could be an attack a few hours prior so had moved equipment,” said US Staff Sergeant Tommie Caldwell.  ‘It’s like terror’ Lt. Col. Coleman said that by 10pm all the staff she manages were ready to take cover. “People took this very seriously,” she said. Three-and-a-half hours later the missiles started arriving. Several soldiers said they continued for two hours. Staff Sgt Armando Martinez, who had been out in the open to watch for casualties, said he could not believe how easily one missile levelled the concrete blast walls. “When a rocket strikes that’s one thing; but a ballistic missile, it’s like terror,” he said. “You see a white light like a shooting star and then a few seconds later it lands and explodes. The other day, after the attack, one colleague saw an actual shooting star and panicked.”One missile landed on the tarmac of a parking and servicing area for Blackhawk helicopters helping to ferry equipment in the fight against ISIS insurgents. The helicopters had been moved but it destroyed two light hangars and badly damaged portacabins nearby. “We must have been in the bunkers for more than five hours, maybe seven or eight,” said Kenneth Goodwin, Master Sgt in the US Air Force. “They knew what they were aiming at by targeting the airfield and parking area.”It was the latest strike against an air base that has figured prominently in high-ranking US officials’ visits to Iraq. “After these missile attacks, when we hear of possible militia rocket attacks, we tend to think, ‘Oh only rockets ... that’s a change’,” Coleman said, describing the common feeling when the missile attacks were over as “sheer relief.”On Sunday, the Iraqi military said four people had been wounded in an attack on Balad air base in northern Iraq, which also houses US personnel. Military sources identified the wounded as Iraqi soldiers.

Pompeo: US to work with Iraqi leaders on US troop deployment

Reuters, Washington/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
The United States will work with Iraqi leaders to ‘get to the right place’ on US troop deployment in the country, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday, following a request from Baghdad last week to prepare to pull them out. “How ultimately our force posture will be resolved inside of Iraq, we will work along (with) the ... elected leaders in Iraq to get to the right place,” Pompeo said at an event at the Hoover Institution in California.

UN says reports of violence against Iran protesters ‘worrying’
Reuters, United nations/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Accusations of lethal force against protesters in Iran should be fully investigated, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday, saying reports of violence against those protesting the downing of a civilian airliner were “worrying.”“We’re obviously following very closely the demonstrations that have been taking place today and over the weekend in Iran and the Secretary-General recalls the rights to freedom of expression and association in peaceful assembly of people,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. Protesters denouncing Iran’s clerical rulers took to the streets and riot police deployed to face them on Monday, in a third day of demonstrations after authorities acknowledged accidentally shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane. Images from the previous two days of protests showed wounded people being carried and pools of blood on the ground. Gunshots could be heard, although the police denied opening fire. Dujarric said Guterres had taken note of the announcement by Iran that it had unintentionally shot down the passenger plane. “It’s very important that the authorities ensure a thorough and transparent investigation into what happened, into this tragic incident, and that the investigation ... be done in accordance with annex 13 on the Convention on International Civil Aviation, with the involvement of the relevant countries impacted,” he said.

Iran warns Europe against launching nuclear dispute mechanism
AFP, Tehran/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Iran’s foreign ministry warned on Tuesday of a “serious and strong response” to a European move toward possible sanctions as the nuclear deal they negotiated unravels. Iran warned Britain, France and Germany about “the consequences” of their decision to launch a dispute mechanism against Tehran under the 2015 nuclear deal. “Of course, if the Europeans ... seek to abuse (this process), they must also be prepared to accept the consequences,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, however, that Iran is “fully ready to answer any good will and constructive effort” that preserves the nuclear deal, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Iran deal under threat as Europeans to trigger dispute mechanism
Reuters, London/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Britain, France, and Germany will trigger the dispute resolution mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, two European diplomats said on Tuesday, the biggest step the Europeans have taken in response as Tehran has backed off nuclear commitments.
In one of the strongest calls yet from Europe for a new agreement to replace the 2015 deal that Washington abandoned two years ago, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the way forward was to agree a new “Trump deal.”Washington’s European allies have tried to keep the nuclear agreement from collapsing since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of it in 2018. Under the agreement, international sanctions against Iran were lifted in return for Tehran agreeing to curbs on its nuclear program. But Washington has reimposed sanctions, denying Iran most of the economic benefits. Iran has responded by gradually exceeding many of the limitations it had signed up to in the deal. This month it said it would abandon limits on its production of enriched uranium, a step the Europeans said was likely to force them to respond. The European diplomats said Britain, France, and Germany would notify the European Union later on Tuesday that they were triggering the dispute resolution mechanism. Under the mechanism outlined in the deal, the EU would then inform the other parties - Russia and China as well as Iran itself. There would then be 15 days to resolve the differences, a deadline which can be extended by consensus. The process can ultimately lead to a “snapback” - the reimposition of sanctions in place under previous UN resolutions.
Credibility
“At one point we have to show our credibility,” said one of the European diplomats. The second diplomat said: “Our intention is not to restore sanctions, but to resolve our differences through the very mechanism that was created in the deal.”Washington’s exit from the nuclear pact, and the severe economic distress caused by the US sanctions that followed, have fed one of the biggest escalations in hostility between the United States and Iran since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. That has accelerated sharply since January 3, when the US killed the most powerful Iranian military commander, Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Baghdad. On January 8, Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian airliner while its forces were on high alert following strikes on US targets. After days of denials, the Iranian authorities acknowledged responsibility for the crash, and have since faced days of anti-government demonstrations at home.
Trump says his aim in quitting the nuclear deal was to force Iran to sign up to a more stringent pact. Tehran says it will not renegotiate as long as US sanctions are in place. Britain’s Johnson, a conservative who has pitched himself as an ally of Trump who can help bridge the diplomatic gap between the United States and Europe, said he wanted to avoid a military conflict with Iran. “Let’s dial this thing down,” he said in an interview with the BBC. On the deal, he said: “If we’re going to get rid of it, let’s replace it and let’s replace it with the Trump deal... President Trump is a great dealmaker, by his own account. Let’s work together to replace the JCPOA and get the Trump deal instead.”

Iran’s judiciary says around 30 arrested over plane attack protests

Reuters, Dubai/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Iran’s judiciary has arrested around 30 protesters who took to the streets after authorities admitted that a Ukrainian plane that was shot down outside Tehran was accidentally hit by an Iranian missile, a spokesman said on Tuesday.“Around 30 people have been arrested for taking part in illegal gatherings ... We have tolerance towards legal rallies,” said Gholamhossein Esmaili, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Iran arrests son of a Green movement opposition leader: Report

Reuters/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
The son of a leader of Iran’s opposition Green movement was arrested on Monday, according to website Sahamnews. Hossein Karoubi was arrested two days after his father, under house arrest since 2011, called on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to step down over the handling of the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner. In a statement posted online, Mehdi Karroubi asked when Khamenei was told about the shooting down of the plane after it took off from Tehran on Wednesday, and why there had been a delay in informing the public about the real reasons for the crash.

Iran makes arrests in connection to Ukrainian plane it shot down

Reuters, Dubai/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Iran’s judiciary has arrested some people for their role in the crash of a Ukrainian plane that Tehran said was accidentally hit by an Iranian missile, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said on Tuesday. He did not give further details.

Rouhani: Plane incident that killed 176 people was an unforgivable error
Reuters/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Iran will punish all those responsible for the unintentional shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane, President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Tuesday, adding that the “tragic event” would be investigated thoroughly. “It was an unforgivable error ... one person cannot be solely responsible for the plane crash,” he said. “Iranian armed forces admitting their mistake is a good first step ... We should assure people that it will not happen again,” he said, adding that his government was “accountable to Iranian and other nations who lost lives in the plane crash.”

Aviation officials from Iran, Ukraine, Canada hold meeting over plane crash
Reuters, Tehran/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Aviation officials from Iran, Ukraine and Canada held a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday over the investigation of the crash of a Ukrainian airliner in Iran last week, Iranian state TV reported in an online post. No additional details were given on what was discussed about the crash, which killed all 176 people aboard.

Iranian students criticize regime for attacking them at vigil
Tommy Hilton, Al Arabiya English/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Iranian students criticized the regime for attacking them during a vigil held for those killed when Iran shot down a civilian airliner last week, according to video circulating on social media. In a video shared on Twitter on Tuesday, a man on a speaker addresses the crowd, reportedly at the Iran University of Science and Technology. “They have sent all of these repressive forces to a vigil. Our enemies are those who are paid to come to the street and beat students with batons, instead of going after thieves and murderers,” the man is heard saying. “Those are our enemies, as well as America’s Trump, all of them are our enemies. We have to deal with despotism inside the country and imperialism from outside,” he adds. Students at the university reportedly held a ceremony on Sunday to honor and commemorate those killed when Iran shot down a civilian airliner last week. Protests have gripped Iran since the Iranian government admitted to shooting down a civilian airliner, which it previously denied, killing all 176 people on board.

France, Germany, Britain trigger Iran nuclear deal dispute mechanism: Statement
Reuters, Paris/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
France, Britain, and Germany confirmed on Tuesday that they had triggered the dispute mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal given its ongoing violations, but said they were not joining the United States campaign to exert maximum pressure on Tehran. “We have therefore been left with no choice, given Iran’s actions, but to register today our concerns that Iran is not meeting its commitments under the JCPoA (Iran deal) and to refer this matter to the Joint Commission under the Dispute Resolution Mechanism, as set out in paragraph 36 of the JCPoA,” the three European states said in a joint statement. In one of the strongest calls yet from Europe for a new agreement to replace the 2015 deal that Washington abandoned two years ago, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the way forward was to agree a new “Trump deal.”Washington’s European allies have tried to keep the nuclear agreement from collapsing since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of it in 2018. Under the agreement, international sanctions against Iran were lifted in return for Tehran agreeing to curbs on its nuclear program. But Washington has reimposed sanctions, denying Iran most of the economic benefits. Iran has responded by gradually exceeding many of the limitations it had signed up to in the deal. This month it said it would abandon limits on its production of enriched uranium, a step the Europeans said was likely to force them to respond. Under the mechanism outlined in the deal, the EU would then inform the other parties - Russia and China as well as Iran itself. There would then be 15 days to resolve the differences, a deadline which can be extended by consensus. The process can ultimately lead to a “snapback” - the reimposition of sanctions in place under previous UN resolutions.

UK open to broader Iran deal that tackles destabilizing behavior: Raab
Reuters, London/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Britain is willing to work with the United States and European partners to build a broader initiative which would address not just Iran’s nuclear ambitions but its destabilizing activity in the region, foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Tuesday. “We believe, as of now, that the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is the best available deal for restraining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and we want Iran to come back into full compliance,” Raab told parliament. “Equally .... the prime minister, the United States, and our European partners are fully open to a broader initiative which would address not just the nuclear concerns but the broader concerns around the destabilizing activity that we’ve seen recently,” he added.

Iran floods kill at least three: Reports

AFP, Tehran/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Flooding in southern Iran has killed at least three people and left hundreds of villages cut off following days of heavy rainfall, official media reported on Tuesday. “So far three people have been confirmed dead and one has been reported missing,” Press TV, the English-language service of state television, reported on its website. Rescue teams used boats and helicopters to provide relief after floodwaters cut off road access to urban areas of Hormozgan, Kerman and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces, state news agency IRNA said. They have so far been unable to reach the town of Qasr-e Qand and 40 surrounding villages in Sistan-Baluchistan, said governor Rahimbaksh Pakandish, cited by IRNA. Five hundred villages were affected, and thousands of homes destroyed or damaged in the southeastern province, IRNA reported, adding that 285 families were given emergency shelter in Red Crescent tents.
“More than 20,000 people in villages of Sistan-Baluchistan province have lost their homes because of flooding or are surrounded by water,” Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi was quoted as saying. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps distributed 1,000 food packages to those affected, said IRNA. In Kerman province, roads were severed, and 40 villages suffered damage, while in Hormozgan province 61 people were rescued. The amount of rain that fell in the southwestern province of Hormozgan since Friday was “unprecedented”, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
Floodwaters had surrounded more than 50 villages in the Gulf province. “Unprecedented floods are ravaging #Iran’s Sistan & Baluchistan province, with significant human & material costs,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Monday night. The flood disaster is the worst in Iran since at least 70 people were killed across 20 provinces in April.

Sudan closes airspace temporarily following shooting incident in capital

Reuters, Khartoum/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
The Sudanese authorities on Tuesday closed the country’s airspace temporarily as a precautionary measure after a shooting incident at the headquarters of the general intelligence service in the capital Khartoum. Military sources told Al Arabiya that the situation around the capital has been contained without using any force. Earlier gunfire rang out at two buildings of the general intelligence service according to witnesses. The intelligence service said it had sacked some employees who were unhappy with the severance package they were offered. Security forces blocked the road leading to one of the buildings, the witness added. The district is close to the capital’s airport. Masked members of the agency dressed in military uniform set up checkpoints in one of Khartoum’s main residential streets near the building and were seen firing shots into the air, one of the witnesses said. The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), the country’s main protest group, called on state agencies to intervene immediately to stop “these irresponsible operations that are causing terror amongst citizens.”Sudan is undergoing a three-year political transition overseen by civilians and the military following the overthrow of long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir in April.

Turkey says will stop Syrian government violations of Idlib ceasefire

Reuters, Ankara/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Turkey is determined to stop Syrian government violations of a ceasefire in northwest Syria’s Idlib to prevent 400,000 people fleeing towards the Turkish border, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.Erdogan was speaking to his AK Party in parliament. Russia and its allies halted air strikes in Idlib on Sunday as a ceasefire agreed with Turkey came into force.

Turkish, Syrian top intelligence officials meet in first formal contact in years

Reuters, Ankara/Tuesday, 14 January 2020
Turkish and Syrian heads of intelligence met in Moscow on Monday, in the first official contact in years despite Ankara’s long-standing hostility to President Bashar al-Assad, a senior Turkish official and Syrian news agency SANA said. Both sides have said there have been intelligence contacts, but this is the first explicit acknowledgement of such a senior meeting.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backs opposition groups who fought to topple al-Assad during Syria’s eight-year civil war. Erdogan described al-Assad as a terrorist and called for him to be driven from power, which earlier in the war had appeared possible. But al-Assad’s allies Russia and Iran helped turn the conflict round, and with US forces now withdrawing from northeast Syria, al-Assad’s Russian-backed troops are sweeping back into the region just as Turkish troops move in from the north. Turkey’s intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, and his Syrian counterpart discussed the ceasefire in Syria’s Idlib, and possible coordination against the Kurdish presence in northern Syria. The discussions included “the possibility of working together against YPG, the terrorist organization PKK’s Syrian component, in the East of the Euphrates river,” a Turkish official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. SANA news agency said Syria’s intelligence chief called on Turkey to fully adhere to the sovereignty of Syria, its independence and territorial integrity as well as the immediate and full withdrawal from the whole Syrian territory.Last year, Turkey and Russia signed a deal, dubbed the Sochi agreement, under which Syrian and Russian forces deployed in northeast Syria to remove Kurdish YPG fighters and their weapons from the border with Turkey under a deal, which both Moscow and Ankara hailed as a triumph. Despite backing opposing sides in Syria’s conflict, Ankara and Moscow have grown closer, their ties strengthened by joint energy projects and Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defenses - to the anger of its NATO ally the United States. Turkey and Russia have cooperated more closely on Syria since agreeing two years ago to work along with al-Assad’s other main ally, Iran, to contain the fighting.

Israel’s weakened left-wing parties join forces ahead of March election

Reuters/January 14/2020
Israel’s left-wing parties said on Monday they would join forces ahead of a March 2 national election to regain dwindling influence in parliament and pose a fresh challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Labour, which dominated Israeli politics for decades and spearheaded peace efforts with the Palestinians, will join with the veteran party Meretz after seeing their combined seats in the 120-seat Knesset diminish from 29 to 11 after two inconclusive elections this year. Many of their voters have defected to the upstart centrist party Blue and White, led by former general Benny Gantz and the main challenger to Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud. After the left-wing alliance was announced, a TV poll predicted Gantz would take 34 of parliament’s 120 seats, and Netanyahu 31. But the poll, by the Israel Television News Company, saw Netanyahu coming closer to a parliamentary majority should he ally with kindred parties to control 57 seats, against a projected 56 seats under Gantz. Another 7 seats were seen going to secular-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, a coalition wildcard. The change in the political landscape coincides with a squabble among lawmakers over an immunity request submitted by Netanyahu, who is under indictment in three criminal cases. Netanyahu and Gantz failed to form governing coalitions after April and September votes, plunging the country towards an unprecedented third election in less than a year. The new left-wing alliance will be headed by Labour’s Amir Peretz, a former defense minister who called the merger “a partnership of change and hope”. Under leaders like Yitzhak Rabin, Labour was a driving force in Israel’s efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving premier, has asked parliament to protect him from prosecution on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. But without a majority of votes in parliament to get it done, he is now pushing to delay debate over his immunity request until after the election - ensuring his trial would not begin until after Israelis go to the polls and possibly grant him a new mandate. Gantz’s Blue and White is working to hold the debate as soon as possible. On Monday, a parliamentary committee voted to form a panel that could potentially reject the immunity request, over the objections of Likud lawmakers who argued the vote should have been frozen as Israel currently has only a caretaker government. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing, saying he is the victim of a witch hunt by the media and left to oust a popular right-wing leader.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 14-15/2020
Turkey: Still among the World's Worst Jailers of Journalists
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/January 14/2020
أوزاي بولوت/معهد كايتستون: تركيا هي من أسوأ البلدان في العالم في اضطهاد واعتقال الصحافيين
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/82296/%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%b2%d8%a7%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d9%88%d9%84%d9%88%d8%aa-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%aa%d8%b1%d9%83%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d9%87%d9%8a-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a3/
"Scores of journalists remain behind bars or under travel bans as a consequence of an extended, politically motivated crackdown against the media." — "Turkey's Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate", September 13, 2019.
"A subsequent wide-ranging capture of the judiciary has progressively and severely damaged the rule of law and the public's right to access information..." — "Turkey's Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate", September 13, 2019.
"Pre-trial detention for hundreds of journalists has lasted for months and sometimes years before investigations are completed and the trials can begin." — "Turkey's Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate", September 13, 2019.
According to the latest report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Turkey fell below its ranking as the world's worst jailer of journalists for the first time in four years -- dropping behind even China. That rating is not exactly indicative of an improvement in Ankara's stance towards the media. On the contrary, as CPJ revealed on December 11:
"[T]he fall to 47 journalists in jail from 68 [in 2018] reflects the successful efforts by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to stamp out independent reporting and criticism by closing down more than 100 news outlets and lodging terror-related charges against many of their staff."
CPJ also pointed out that Ankara's October 24 legislative package -- granting certain convicted journalists the right to re-appeal their cases, and others a shorter pre-trial detention period – has not alleviated the situation of the "scores of journalists in exile, jobless, or cowed into self-censorship."
In addition, CPJ exposed,
"Dozens of journalists not currently jailed in Turkey are still facing trial or appeal and could yet be sentenced to prison, while others have been sentenced in absentia and face arrest if they return to the country."
The above findings echo those of a report -- "Turkey's Journalists in the Dock: The Judicial Silencing of the Fourth Estate" -- released jointly by CPJ, the International Press Institute, ARTICLE 19, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, Reporters without Borders, the European Federation of Journalists, Norwegian PEN and PEN International.
According to that report, the fruit of a two-day fact-finding mission to Turkey in September:
"The press freedom environment in the country has not improved since the lifting of the state of emergency in July 2018. Scores of journalists remain behind bars or under travel bans as a consequence of an extended, politically motivated crackdown against the media.
"A subsequent wide-ranging capture of the judiciary has progressively and severely damaged the rule of law and the public's right to access information...
"In the months following the failed military coup of July 2016 and the launch of the state of emergency the crackdown against journalists and media was widespread and merciless. Within weeks over 160 journalists were behind bars, hundreds more facing prosecution, over 170 media had been closed and over 3,000 journalists were out of work...
"Pre-trial detention for hundreds of journalists has lasted for months and sometimes years before investigations are completed and the trials can begin. The state of emergency enabled judges to hold defendants without sufficient justification. The appeals process for individual cases has been exceedingly slow, with the Constitutional Court taking years to eventually take up and rule on individual cases...
"Anti-terrorism legislation is for the most part poorly defined, leaving room for prosecutors to conflate criticism of government with terrorist propaganda. Moreover, there is no defined threshold of evidence that needs to be obtained in order for the courts to first launch prosecutions and then for judges to assess when a terrorist act has been committed. Evidence presented in journalist cases has invariably been based on the defendants' professional work, revealing perhaps inadvertently the desire to silence journalism as the true motivation for the prosecution..."
Putting Ankara's persecution of the press in a wider context, Scott Griffen, deputy director of the International Press Institute, stated:
"The plight of Turkey's journalists is but the tip of the iceberg of a much broader issue of systemic human rights abuse. European institutions must insist on substantial reform and not allow the Turkish authorities to gloss over the abuse with promises of superficial change while hundreds continue to pay the price of this abuse with the loss of their liberty."
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Let us talk about the elephant in the room that everyone is avoiding!
Catherine W Jude./January 14/2020
Who are behind the Clintons/Obamas/Bidens/MCaines and the Democrats?
We hear rumours that Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton want to join at the last minute the Democrats Candidates... why are these two individuals not coming forward with what they stand for (lack of transparency/corruption?) ?
Why is it that Michelle Obama and Barack Obama during his 8 years of reign have not come clean with the American citizens?...Why is it that Barack Obama’s birth certificate and his real biological parents and their political stance have ever been clarified or actually discussed?...Since the Obamas are part of the deep state if not the originators have opened Pandora’s box and attacked via the media’s of course viciously Trumps family, let us do the same, see how they like it....Why is it that even if Americans know that Michelle Obama was a man (transvestite) of which Barack Obama knows when he married her but do not dare mention it publicly? Are the ashamed by this?...Where is the diversity that they love to preach about?... Is this because they are trying to hide from their children that they are both adopted?... This would explain why during those 8 years the White House Staff clandestinely did not like Michelle Obama...is it because she is a hypocrite pretending to be who she is not? This brings enormous questions...Where does Michelle Obama stand on the theft of freedoms by the transgender community on all Americans?...Where does Michelle Obama stand on the abortion issues, pro choice or pro life?... Why is it that American citizens especially the black communities are not complaining about voting in a black president and what did they get, a practicing Muslim, married to a transvestite (how authentic Muslim can that be? ; we still do not know which Muslim is he? Sunni or Shiite?)?...Who (as will be explained shortly...ObamaGate is about to hit the fans WATCH THIS SPACE - the latest on the deep state Russia Gate/Ukraine Gate/SpyGate) signed to Americas enemies with Hillary Clinton using what people call appeasement, handing over two planes to Iran (is Obama Shiite?) full of 1.59 Million US Dollars plus the go ahead to kill 600+ Americans and infrastructures, embassies and etc with the guarantee that Obama would not lift a finger to stop them (Benghazi - only ended the way it did, four people plus an ambassador dead and not all personell, because the Marines disobeyed a direct order from Obama and Hillary when asked three times to stand down and not protect the Americans they were signed in for!?!?!?!?, these marines were court marshalled, jailed and lost their income and careers because of this as a special Thank You from Obama!)...Why is it that the Pro Iranian media’s (Democrat leftist mouth piece of the deep state and stooges) have never revealed to the American citizens that Donald J Trump pardoned with no conditions 200+ American soldiers from “war crimes” (for only doing their jobs as soldiers and under his commands) so that he could once again help Americas enemies the Taliban and Al Qaeda that the Americans were abominable monsters? (Is Obama a Sunni now, amazing swingster style jumping ships from Sunni to Shiite at his affordability)!
How can Hillary Clinton even think that she would be allowed to be a candidate against Trump when...she is the heart of the deep state being investigated in criminal trials (50 plus and counting - for more information go to judicial watch podcasts and or website), where her infamous treasonous server and emails have actually helped foreign countries especially Americas enemies E.G Russia, China, Islamic Fundamentalists, Whabbis from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, The Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, BOKO Haram etc and anyone who are interested) to classified highly dangerous secretive American military and technological documents....American citizens still have no proof of her medical sound guarantees that she is not an epileptic unhealthy unsound mind capable of withstanding huge presidential pressures without epipens and what guarantee does anyone have that her state of mind is full proof from madness and insanity? (Let us not forget what happened in the 2016 campaign when in mid speech an epipen was needed before she fainted on the podium!)....How can any American citizen even contemplate electing her as a future president when she was the ultimate responsible person to hand over to Iran the ability to create nuclear weapons under the most farcical inefficient laughable Iranian deal?...Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Bidens have still not explained to the American people why under their watch the worlds worst terrorist Qassem Soleimeni (General responsible for millions of deaths and huge migrations of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen; 600+ American soldiers, contractors and embassy personnel; the master mind inventor of the worlds worst maiming torturing mutilating weapons IUD’s and molten metal projectiles which punctuates ultimate anti bomb shields used by the armies) was not eliminated efficiently with no collateral damage to anyone (except the splattering of his remains outside the Baghdad Airport when he was under their cross fire vision many times?...Why is it that it took Obama and Hillary years before they sent in the black ops to kill Osama Bin Laden (but not his son)?...How is it that they allowed American taxpayers to pay a fortune to put Saddam Hussein on trial before they executed him and yet Osama Bin Landen got an official funeral at sea with no trial?...(All this is very intriguing as Barack Obama knew of Osama Bin Ladens location in Pakistan for a long time before he actually told them to go ahead? (Perhaps it was that he had realised that he is defence record was so bad that he had to do something publicly before he left with no military legacies and only American betrayals)?...Why is it that smoke passes over that all the accusations towards Saddam Hussein (weapons of mass destruction, nuclear etc) have been proven to be false but could actually be applied thanks to Obama and Hillary to Iran (does this mean that Obama and Hillary were helping Iran to take over in the long run Iraq?)...Maybe we should be reminiscing on Saddam Hussein (everyone knew he was Americas protege even though he killed millions himself plus using gas against his own people like Assad in Syria has done) when he had Iran under his thumb to the point where Iran is not where it is today...how bad was Saddam Hussein after all?
Let us return back to the reason why this post was begun...Who is behind the Clintons/Obamas/Bidens/Soros/Celebrities and Hollywood/Democrats who are defending the indefensible (for your enjoyment and more on this please go to the Micheal Knowles Show and especially episodes 472, 473, 474)...did it start with Jimmy Carter’s fiscal incompetencies and floundering around with 52 hostage taking of the 1979 breach of Americas Tehran embassy?, showing America to be weak to her enemies?...Is it the complete amoral sexual diversions of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton defending him, their releasing Americas top defense research military network, the internet (devised to make it harder for Russia to nuke their resources to the common masses and everyone around the world, helping Alan Gore to propagate fraudulent irrational unscientific climate change hypocrisies?), furthering making America the laughing stock and obviously weak for all to see!...Is it Bill Clinton’s actions of creating competition and lunacy within Americas defence institutions (navies with planes, armies with boats, aviation with infantry troops, CIA interfering with the FBI on American soil, FBI going abroad) and the complete lunacy of various secret service bodies duplicating and competing with each other, allowing 911 and Americas enemy to occur!...Let us not forget that President Bush’s first actions was to streamline and stop the competition between secret services by creating the homeland department which centralised all terrorist issues on American soil and sacked the CIA highest official for incompetence! (Obviously Bill Clinton was just as incompetent and terrible for Americas security and defence as Obama and Hillary Clinton)!... Or is it Obamas 8 years of helping to bring America to her knees with the worst American defence record especially on War (let us not forget the 200+ soldiers accused of war crimes just because they were doing their Jobs as ordered), and actually helping everyone but America and even worse using foreign nation’s secret services to do his dirty work (what did they get out of this, that American citizens do not know about?) that enabled Islamic fundamentalists to terrorise the world for the last decade and counting?...Perhaps this goes further?...Are the Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist organisations (e.g. Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Shiite Revolutionists such as Hezbollah) only pawns to the Chinese (waging wars without directly shooting guns) and/or the Russians?
Why is it that practically the whole world are wasting their time, money, resources and breath on Stalinistic Child Abuse Climate Change irrational lunacies when REAL scientists (geologists, physicists, biologists and the original experts on climate change who was sacked because he was telling them that it was a farce and no evidence or data could help their hypothesis...for more on this follow the SKYNEWS Bolt Report the last decade either podcast or website) have not only been alerting them to their irrationalities but are ostracised and bulldozed out of free speech or even the right to earn an income so as to silence them forever (DREAM ON welcome to the most amazing birth and revival of radio shows and podcasts, a direct result of the rational common sense people who sick and tired of being manipulated into ideological lunacies with no facts and dire consequences including threats to their freedoms, values and peace of mind?)...these lunacies are blatantly obvious with the arrival of illnesses such Trump Derangement Syndrome clearly visible in leftists Democrats and other left leaning parties around the world to the point that the media’s are defending the in defendable (openly in full view to the world becoming traitors to America and supporting Americas and the worlds enemies number one - terrorists and likewise countries!); uneducated completely riddled with illnesses children confronting the commander in chief of America the worlds leading power about issues which have not been completely proven to be real?! ; Individuals of tree hugging poets and vegan anarchists accusing Australia’s prime minister for creating the bushfires and the droughts in a country where droughts, floods and bushfires have been ongoing since prehistoric times (the culprits and the cause for these catastrophic unseen before bushfires, hard to exterminate no matter what the resources are thrown at them, and those who have now to atone for the blood and destruction of wildlife, fauna and flora, peoples possessions, properties and income all gone up in smoke ARE THE SAME CLIMATE CHANGE GLOBAL WARMING CLOWNS WHO BY SUCCESSFULLY PLACING IRRATIONALLY PRESSURE ON ALL INSTITUTIONS FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL-RURAL SHIRES AS WELL AS NON PROFIT CHARITIES, ALL BUSINESSES, PRIMARY PRODUCERS AND INDIVIDUALS TO STOP MANAGING ON A DAILY BASIS FUEL LOADS OF THE BUSH AND NATIONAL PARKS CULMINATING IN THE BIGGEST BOMB FIRE ALL OVER AUSTRALIA WITH THE HELP OF GODS WRAHTH OF WINDS AND LIGHTNING STRIKES!)...Why is it that when you scratch under the surface and you find that all these good intentions, not-know-what -they-are-talking-about individuals do not care about the contents that they are screaming out and have actually acknowledged that their sole purpose is to successfully bulldoze nations and everyone with revolution?...Is this the communist stalinistic/stasi Russians or the world domination even in space megalomaniac Chinese who after their Mao founder failed miserably (starving millions and creating the worlds worst social experiment the one child fiasco which has now been removed due to its failures)? You choose...but it could even be a combination of the two working hand in hand...China buying and extorting power over any nation that is unlucky enough to need their help or their resources monopolised not for themselves but for the power hungry Chinese and be entrapped into Chinas horrendous human rights abuses and oppressions; as well as China being the hidden face and financier of all terrorism via Iran, and Russia taking over fighting in the Middle East and especially clandestinely even though publicly appearing as Turkeys enemy for Assad’s benefit helping and using Erdogan (the new modern Hitler inclusive with genocide and ethnic cleansing of all secular intellectuals and threats to his regime and deliberately using his country as a subway with the black door open for ISIS, terrorist cells hidden amongst Syrian refugees to conquer Europe on his behalf)?
Why do we know that there are hidden faces (nations, ideologies or individuals) that are behind the worlds biggest political scandal of many centuries and as a deep state?...Questions that still have to be answered...How is it possible that the Bill Clinton in the height of the Watergate scandal when everyone knew globally that he was the tip of the iceberg and a hundred percent corrupt was still elected as President?...How was it possible that Americas worst enemy an Islamic fundamentalist accomplice unheard of by anyone (Obama) managed to within weeks come to the top of the Democrat candidates with no objections from the candidates that had been campaigning a long time beforehand and had more plausibility in being selected? How is it possible that an elected president was able to boost Americas enemies (Iran nuclear deal, war crimes of Americas soldiers appeasing Taliban etc) without any objections from the republicans and/or impeachment?...How was it possible that an American Hero MCaine was not questioned by American citizens when he was supporting and backing anti American, helping Americas enemies actions by the Democrats and Hillary and Obama, as Trump rightly questioned why is he considered a hero?...Why is it that the Bush family dynasty were atypically backing the Democrats leftist extremes (an absurdity which rational minds cannot go around easily) with the excuse of Trump Derangement Syndrome and can only be highly unlikely?...Why is it that all the Democrats individuals (including Pelosi to the extent of disintegrating illness in public of disgusting power hungry visibility and looking like death warmed up; celebrities, candidates, congress personnel including the 4 women of the apocalypse - IIhan Omar and her entourage and occasional Cortez, all media anchors and editors and even anarchist activists such a Michael Moore and musical rappers) have not for the sake of their own authenticity and salvaging of their reputations and electability returned to common sense and rationality when it comes to being American, and knowing that they have become the laughing stock of the whole world are still continuing this destructive path that we see and hear daily? - this goes beyond a Trump Derangement Syndrome and can only mean that the deep state are more dangerous to all these individuals then their own survival in politics!
Why are these questions?... we are just about to be bombarded with the worlds biggest manipulative political disinformation circus that is going to hit all the news media’s and television sets around the world...the scandalous attempt of non electing 63 million voters choice of the world best effective transparent Christian valued American President that has done more for America and the world in the last 5 years despite ridicule, sabotage, impeachment with no facts, and complete irrational hatred to the point of treason and lunacy!...So as not to be swept up into the show biz theatrics it is always best to look at the reality first!!!

China Is Destroying Multilateralism; Trump Is Creating a New Order
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/January 14/2020
If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country's assault on others' technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions.... Beijing's placement of officials inside multilaterals has greatly facilitated its malign activities.
From its perch on the UN Security Council, for instance, Beijing has placed itself in a position to attack freedom and democracy. It was the force behind a just-passed, Russian-sponsored General Assembly resolution to create a new convention that, many fear, will be used to restrict online expression worldwide.
"Why is the World Bank loaning money to China?" President Trump tweeted on December 6, "Can this be possible?"
The institutions created after the Second World War, unfortunately, are not adapting well to this century. The ardent proponents of multilateralism have failed to protect global institutions. China has undermined them from the inside, and now those advocates are not dealing with Chinese predation but instead taking potshots at Trump's corrective efforts.
Trump has cooperated with international organizations when he could and has worked to replace the others. As he moves forward, he is creating a more realistic and enduring international order.
From its perch on the UN Security Council, Beijing has placed itself in a position to attack freedom and democracy. It was the force behind a just-passed, Russian-sponsored General Assembly resolution to create a new convention that, many fear, will be used to restrict online expression worldwide.
China, the world's leading cyberattacker and master intellectual property thief, in November nominated one of its nationals to head the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization. If Wang Binyang is selected in March, she will be able to bend international rules to favor her country's assault on others' technology. In any event, her nomination reveals Beijing's brazen ambition to dominate multilateral institutions.
Beijing's placement of officials inside multilateral institutions has greatly facilitated its malign activities. Take the case of Fang Liu, the secretary general of the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Last February, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported that she hindered the investigation of a November 2016 cyberattack, called the "most serious" in that institution's history. Emissary Panda, a hacker group with ties to the Chinese government, was thought to be behind assaults on the ICAO's network. Dr. Liu came to the UN's ICAO from China's aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
Liu protected, among others, James Wan, the ICAO's deputy director and head of information and communication technology, who repeatedly undermined the probe into the cyberattacks. Wan has current links to two institutions associated with a known hacker, China's People's Liberation Army.
China was not always so confident. Once, when it had withdrawn from the world, it shunned multilateral institutions. From 1967 to 1969, Beijing had only one ambassador abroad -- in Egypt -- and even he was almost recalled.
After border skirmishes with Moscow's troops in 1969, however, Mao Zedong began to build contacts with foreigners. China, for example, joined the United Nations in 1971 by taking Taiwan's seat and began cooperating with the Nixon administration. Deng Xiaoping, Mao's successor, reoriented the country by establishing relations with other nations, such as the United States in 1979, and joining multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Deng's outreach to global organizations, however, was only tentative: he feared they would restrain his regime. Now, China's audacious officials have taken a more ambitious tack. Foreign Minister Wang Yi in 2018 told the U.N. General Assembly that China remains "a champion of multilateralism." So now Chinese leaders praise multilateralism -- and undermine the multilateral agencies.
From its perch on the UN Security Council, for instance, Beijing has placed itself in a position to attack freedom and democracy. It was the force behind a just-passed, Russian-sponsored General Assembly resolution to create a new convention that, many fear, will be used to restrict online expression worldwide. One concern is that Moscow and Beijing are trying to criminalize, among other things, criticisms of governments.
Beijing has also been able to block the UN undermining its interests and punishing friends such as North Korea. Along with its hardline allies, it also controls the misnamed UN Human Rights Council. Chinese officials have used the country's growing clout to bar activists, such as a Uighur, Dolkun Isa, from UN premises. Additionally, Chinese officials have, in violation of rules, photographed and filmed critics on UN grounds, and they have, in private settings, intimidated UN staff, experts, and other officials.
Beijing's activities are so pervasive that a Human Rights Watch report states they not only call into question the UN's investigation of China's record but "pose a longer-term challenge to the integrity of the system as a whole."
Beijing's overreach is also challenging the integrity of both the World Trade Organization, where it has for two decades abused its rules and the body's dispute-resolution mechanism, and Interpol, where it suddenly "disappeared" the institution's chief, Chinese national Meng Hongwei, in September 2018.
At the World Bank, Beijing is tarring the image of development lending by misusing loans. China has, for instance, diverted sums earmarked for "vocational education" in its Xinjiang region for barbed wire, body armor, and tear gas, to help it repress minority inhabitants. Chinese officials also unsuccessfully tried to use World Bank loans to buy facial-recognition technology for use in Xinjiang.
China was even bold enough to ask for more World Bank money, and won from the Washington-based institution a five-year commitment through June 2025 to extend as much as $7.5 billion in low-interest loans.
China's malign activities at the multilateral agencies have meant that these organizations have ceased to function as they should. That fallout has produced grumbling but not effective action -- until the arrival of President Donald J. Trump.
Trump swiftly delegitimized the UN Human Rights Council by pulling out of it in June 2018, and he ended the operation of the WTO's Appellate Body, the key part of that organization, by blocking the appointment of judges. It looks as if, in addition, Trump will soon start reducing American contributions to the World Bank. Clearly, he is not happy. "Why is the World Bank loaning money to China?" the president tweeted on December 6, "Can this be possible?"
Commentators have roasted Trump. The Atlantic Council's Robert Manning, for one, in October called the president "a one-man wrecking crew, eroding the global order." He has, Manning told us, "a cynical worldview."
A more apt description is "realistic." The institutions created after the Second World War, unfortunately, are not adapting well to this century. The ardent proponents of multilateralism have failed to protect global institutions. China has undermined them from the inside, and now those advocates are not dealing with Chinese predation but instead taking potshots at Trump's corrective efforts.
Trump has cooperated with international organizations when he could and has worked to replace the others. As he moves forward, he is creating a more realistic and enduring international order.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow.
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Is the regime in Tehran in danger of falling?

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/January 14/2020
The questions raised by the latest developments in Iran largely focus on what may happen next, and the ultimate fate of the regime.
The surprise and repeated attacks on Iran’s interests in Iraq, and the killing of one of its most prominent military commanders, Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, constitute the first real test of the regime’s strength and capabilities since the end of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Its inability to adequately retaliate, together with the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane by Iranian forces and the return of protesters to the streets of Tehran demanding the resignation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have raised the stakes and now represent an accumulation of calamities for Tehran.
These events are not simply the result of bad luck at the beginning of a new year, nor are they mere coincidences, but rather natural consequences for a regime that is broken and arrogant.
This regime, which presents to the world the appearance of a roaring lion, is in fact old, tired, outdated and incapable of coping with changes in the country, the region and the world. Before the current crisis, I wrote that the true enemy of the supreme leader’s nation is not the US, Saudi Arabia or Israel, but the people it is ignoring within Iran’s own borders.
The big recurrent question now is what options does Iran have in light of the enormous and growing internal and external pressures? There are five main possibilities. The first, and easiest, for the supreme leader — but one he will not adopt — would be to quickly change his internal and external policies so that he can survive.
A second, depending on how the protests progress, may be the removal of the head of the regime, with an army chief or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general seizing power and implementing changes internally and externally.
This regime, which presents to the world the appearance of a roaring lion, is in fact old, tired, outdated and incapable of coping with changes in the country, the region and the world
A third possibility is the collapse of the regime under huge pressure from the protesters, with one of the leaders of the protest movement taking over with the support of the military establishment, marking the end of the ayatollah’s regime.
The fourth is that the protests continue and violent repression increases, with the regime managing to cling to power in a pool of blood; as happened in Syria. This would force it to make great concessions abroad. However, this outcome could not endure because Iran is a big country in deep trouble.
The fifth possibility is a sudden, full collapse of the regime, causing widespread chaos. This is desired by no one, given the danger it would pose not only to Iran, but also to the entire region.
The speculation about whether the Iranian regime can survive is not simply the result of the killing of Soleimani, and the subsequent disasters it is facing; but this is something that has been expected for a long time. And despite the 2015 nuclear agreement, endorsed by the administration of former US President Barack Obama, which no doubt provided a lifeline to Tehran when it was suffering from the effects of sanctions and international exclusion.
But instead of correcting its mistakes, the Tehran regime committed even more of them, raising the level of its disruptive influence in the region, and increasing its internal oppression. This led US President Donald Trump’s administration to withdraw from the nuclear deal, reinstate sanctions and challenge Tehran.
The regime’s thinking is old-fashioned and its service institutions have eroded. It continues to pursue its agenda using the same miserable methods and tools, like: Murders, kidnappings, proxy organizations and extremist sectarian ideology. Thus, it is not a surprise that the regime has lost control, shot down a plane by mistake and lost one of its military commanders. Moreover, its developmental capacity, which is necessary to ensure the quality of its people’s lives, has collapsed, and it is now unable to sell its oil on the global market. Despite all this, the regime still wants to challenge a huge global power such as the US, and control four Arab states.
In fact, the Tehran regime’s fierce and hostile policies are managed and dictated by a bunch of old men with limited administrative and economic expertise. Its ability to use ballistic missiles and drones to carry out attacks, such as those used on Saudi Aramco facilities last year, is mostly the fruit of the support it receives from allies such as North Korea, and others hostile to the US.
Since coming to power in 1979, the regime has failed to build a modern, industrial state. Instead, it has created a huge military and propaganda machine that attempts to delude its own people and those in other countries about its ability to remain independent, and to start and fight wars.
True, it possesses a huge military system, including formal forces, militias and reserves, which should be able to provide Tehran with immense power; but it is incapable of managing its own affairs, not even the development of the oil refineries it inherited from the shah’s regime.
• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat. Twitter: @aalrashed

We should not miss this chance to help Iran change course
Alistair Burt /Arab News/January 14/2020
I heard the news this week about the UK ambassador in Tehran being arrested with a mixture of grave concerns. Here was a friend and colleague, who had supported me well while I was the minister responsible for the Middle East, being seized, and a friend’s first instinct is for the welfare of another, while appreciating the wider circumstances.
The news took me back to November 2011, when, as a minister to then-Foreign Secretary William Hague, we had to deal with a violent attack on the British Embassy in Tehran. Once the safety of our personnel was assured, we made a quick decision to close the embassy and ask Iran’s diplomats to leave the UK.
While that marked a low in the UK’s long relationship with Iran, it did not stop communication between us entirely and efforts to restore relations, in our mutual interest and that of the region as a whole, resulted in the reopening of our embassy in 2015, shortly after the conclusion of the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The need for diplomats to carry out their business without fear or favor is obvious. They must, of course, play by local rules themselves, but that conduit of messaging is at its most important in times of difficulty and potential crisis. That is why British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s response is right, stressing the UK’s deep concern at the incident in very clear terms as a “flagrant violation of international law,” but also recognizing the possibilities of “de-escalating tensions and engaging in a diplomatic path forwards.”
Which brings us neatly to the key question: How will the UK’s policy toward Iran handle the crossroads where we seem to be and develop in the light of so many new factors on all sides?
Since that 2015 restoration of diplomatic relations, the UK has followed a policy that saw the JCPOA as a building block for the future, but never as an end in itself. Discussions never stopped with Tehran about other aspects of policy on which we and many others, especially friends in the Gulf, were concerned. Nor did we stop listening to Iran’s arguments about why others had to change their responses toward them and their analysis of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or Yemen. Understanding the other’s position never requires excusing, justifying or appeasing, and the UK has not done so in the case of Iran. We have our own analysis of these crises. We held to the nuclear deal not because we believed Iran was meeting all the other expectations, but because we had agreed a confining agreement on nuclear matters themselves, from inspection to reductions of material, which, by the endorsement of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran had been upholding. We have therefore always held that this agreement was intrinsically useful in itself, as others have done.
But everyone knew a crunch would eventually come, either through events in the region or the advent of the sunset clauses. Sooner or later, more decisions would be required.
I imagine that crunch is now with us, following the first two weeks of January, which saw the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the downing of the Ukrainian airliner, followed by the admission by Iran that it was responsible and the outpouring of public anger and protest — a scarcely predictable set of events. While many fundamentals of recent years have not altered, we all know something has changed, and what happens next is crucial.
While many fundamentals of recent years have not altered, we all know something has changed, and what happens next is crucial.
For the UK, decisions in foreign policy come at a time when it is supposed to be hamstrung between trying to please both the US and the EU simultaneously due to Brexit, which is impending. But I’m not so sure this is such a good guide. Brexit has been pending since 2016, as is painfully known, and, during this time, the same awareness might have dictated policy decisions, but I see no evidence of this. It has fought its corner with the EU stubbornly, but also taken exception to US policy on Jerusalem, West Bank settlements and the JCPOA. Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed a statement with other EU leaders urging de-escalation and a diplomatic way forward, while on Tuesday the UK joined France and Germany in triggering the JCPOA’s dispute resolution mechanism as a result of Iran’s recent noncompliance.
While I expect UK policy to remain one of engagement with Iran, its tone will get sharper, not least as a reaction to the incident with the ambassador, and a sense that, whatever else has to move in the region, it is not possible for Iran to go on as it has been with its external policy. The UK’s position will not be in response to US pressure, nor that of the EU, but a hard-headed calculation that an opportunity has presented itself through circumstances and, if we want to see security and stability in the Middle East, as the UK does, we cannot simply go on as if nothing has happened. The UK can be a bridge, mediator and instigator acting with regional players. With no illusions about the degree of difficulty or the rockiness of the road ahead, we should not let this chance pass.
*Alistair Burt is a former UK Member of Parliament who has twice held ministerial positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office — as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State from 2010 to 2013 and as Minister of State for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019. Twitter: @AlistairBurtUK

The region needs a grand bargain with Iran
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/January 14/2020
Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook last week announced that the US was ready to “embrace peace,” despite the fresh sanctions Washington imposed on the Islamic Republic. Even though the sanctions are badly hurting the Iranian economy, one should not assume that the under-pressure regime will capitulate to American demands.
A capitulation might require a war. A war with Iran would be devastating to the region and it could be bloodier and more costly to the US than even the much-loathed war with Iraq. This is why diplomacy should be relaunched in parallel to the maximum pressure campaign. The Japanese represent a good mediator: They have relatively good relations with Iran and are not a Western power with a colonial past in the region. One might argue that the previous effort made by Abe Shinzo last year was rebuffed as a Japanese tankerwas attacked while the prime minister was meeting with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, Abe went to Tehran as an emissary of US President Donald Trump. For the effort to be effective, Abe should go as an impartial mediator under the auspices of the UN.
Barack Obama and Trump have tried two different approaches. In Obama s view, offering economic incentives would ultimately push Iran to give up on its ideology and become peaceful. Trump, on the other hand, believes the opposite: He thinks coercing Iran using severe sanctions will force change. However, both approaches only look at the economic aspect; they don’t take into consideration Iran’s security or ideology. The region and the US need a grand bargain with Iran. In fact, Tehran has already expressed its openness to a wider deal. President Hassan Rouhaniexplicitly said, “If you want more you need to pay more,” while at the UN in New York last September.
The current administration is suggesting, among other conditions, that Iran needs give up its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and its regional militias in order to have the sanctions lifted. This is a nonstarter for negotiations. Those will happen simultaneously only if the regime collapses. However, regime change won’t happen peacefully. They will fight ferociously and will drag the region with them in this fight. The other option is behavioral change — this is possible if Iran is offered a deal that will allow the regime to save face and guarantee its security.
We also cannot forget that the Iranian political system is based on ideology. Supporters of the regime were told for years to offer personal sacrifices in order to achieve noble overall goals for the nation or the Ummah. The regime cannot now tell its supporters that it has given up on the revolution’s grand goal. It would lose legitimacy and that would ultimately mean the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ideology is at the helm of every policy put in place in Iran. This is why a graceful exit would require making it look like the regime had achieved its goal and the “export” phase of the revolution is complete. Since the main pillar of the export of the revolution has been the “liberation of Palestine,” a fair deal with the Palestinians based on UN resolutions and on the Arab peace initiative can offer the Iranian regime this graceful exit. This would also offer a plausible narrative for their proxies to lay down their arms and become political parties. Here, a monitoring mechanism should be put in place, as well as bilateral agreements with countries in the region, to make sure disarmament is accomplished.
The same way Iran is a threat to its neighbors, it feels threatened by them. The Iranian leadership keeps telling its people that, when Saddam Hussein disarmed, the Americans went into Iraq and took the country, and it has been chaos ever since. Even the Iranians who despise the regime believe that Iran needs and has the right to have a proper defense system. Instead of asking Iran to dismantle its arsenal, it is better to push toward confidence-building measures between Iran and its neighbors, where Iran declares its stock and allows visits to its military sites, while pre-notifying its neighbors of missile tests, and vice versa. Once all those concerns are handled, Iran should be invited to go back to the nuclear deal or a similar agreement. Maybe, as Rouhani suggested, Iran will enter a new agreement where the world pays more as a reward for its good behavior.
Instead of asking Iran to dismantle its arsenal, it is better to push toward confidence-building measures between Iran and its neighbors.
In order to clinch a deal with Iran, the US should put itself in the regime’s shoes. Tehran will not give up the leverage it has with its people and with the region unless it has guarantees that will secure its survival. A proper agreement should also streamline the points of contention Iran has with the countries in the region. This is why the Middle East needs a treaty similar to that of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in 17th century Europe. The mediator’s first step would be to push Iran and Saudi Arabia to meet and iron out their differences. At a later stage, a wider congress involving the countries of the region should be organized.
As much as the effort seems complicated, it is worth trying. It would definitely be better to start work on a treaty today, while the situation is more or less under control, rather than go through a lengthy war before ultimately signing an agreement.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of Exeter and is an affiliated scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Egypt needs to agree Renaissance Dam deal

*Dr. Abdellatif El-Menawy/Arab News/January 14/2020
There are just hours left until the results of the latest crucial round of negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project, which are taking place between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan in Washington, are announced. The round kicked off on Monday, at the invitation of the US, to discuss what was reached in the four previous rounds of negotiations, which lasted for more than a month and had the participation of representatives of the World Bank and the US, as well as the foreign and water resources ministers of the three countries concerned.
The earlier rounds of talks, despite many statements of thanks and appreciation for hospitality, failed to reach a solution. The Egyptian irrigation ministry issued a statement after the end of the last round, in which it said the three countries could not reach an agreement due to the lack of clear measures from the Ethiopian side to preserve the capacity of Egypt’s Aswan High Dam while the GERD reservoir is filled, especially in periods of drought. It also said that the negotiations showed Ethiopia is not really seeking to reach an agreement and has always threatened to unilaterally fill the reservoir — a violation of international law and something Egypt will not allow to happen in order to preserve its share of the Nile’s waters, as stipulated in previous agreements.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Water Minister Seleshi Bekele said there wasn’t an agreement because Egypt had suggested extending the period of filling the GERD’s reservoir to 21 years, when it prefers six. In a press conference after the last round, Bekele said that the Egyptian delegation attended the talks without the intention of reaching an agreement and that Ethiopia would start filling the dam in July. Bekele’s statement provoked the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, which issued a strong statement accusing the Ethiopian side of falsifying facts.
The Washington meetings might bring good news or create a new disagreement. But the scenario that is most likely to happen is to commit to article 10 of the Declaration of Principles signed in 2015 between the three countries, which gives the concerned parties the right to ask for mediation or refer the matter to their heads of states to discuss any disagreement.
Observers have previously determined the legal steps required to clinch an agreement on the GERD issue. The first step was holding talks and the second was resorting to mediators. The third step was to involve international entities, which happened recently with the US and the World Bank. The last option would be resorting to the International Court of Justice. However, some consider that a prior agreement should have been made between the three countries regarding the mechanism of the international arbitration and when it should be adopted, but these items were not included in the Declaration of Principles.
Looking to Washington might be the solution, since the US has ways of pressuring countries that can be utilized to push the three sides toward making concessions and reaching an agreement that satisfies everyone. America is expected to continue its pressure on the concerned parties to maintain peaceful negotiations and avoid further options.
The truth is that the US’ involvement in the dam issue is not new. When Ethiopia began its planning stage in 1958 — right after Egypt’s decision to establish the Aswan High Dam — the US sent a delegation from the Bureau of Reclamation to study the establishment of dams on the Blue Nile. After six whole years of study, the bureau finally published its first report. It made plans for 33 projects on the Blue Nile and its tributaries, including four big dams that would impound more than 70 billion cubic meters of water and generate 5,500 megawatts of electricity. In 1998, Ethiopia updated these projects to double the storage capacity of the dams, with its stated goal being to produce clean hydropower to be used locally and exported to neighboring countries. Will the US favor its initial studies or will it respect its very good relations with the current administration in Egypt?
In 2009, Egypt was delivered the feasibility studies of the Ethiopian dams. The plans included four dams with big reservoirs — Karadobi, Beko-Abo, Mandaya and Border— impounding more than 140 billion cubic meters and generating 7,100 megawatts of electricity. An Egyptian team reviewed the studies on these dams and found that they disregarded the dams’ potential negative impacts on Egypt. According to Cairo, if these dams were used for agriculture and power-generating purposes, its water shortage would reach 15 billion cubic meters per year and the electricity generation from the Aswan High Dam would fall by more than 50 percent. If the dams were used only to generate electricity, the water shortage would be 9 billion cubic meters yearly. Thus, Egypt managed in 2010 to prevent the implementation of the planned schemes.
The US has ways of pressuring countries that can be utilized to push the three sides toward making concessions.
However, only a few months later and just after the January 2011 revolution took place in Egypt, Ethiopia announced it would begin the implementation of its plans to establish the GERD. Since that date, the course of negotiations has been clear and public. Successive administrations have exerted a lot of efforts, but some of them dealt with the situation with more goodwill than others, leading us to the current situation.
Anybody who thinks that the GERD issue has nothing to do with the other challenges facing Egypt — notably the crisis in Libya, the Arab-Israeli conflict and many other national issues related to its economic reforms — is wrong. For Egypt, the Nile’s water is an existential issue. Therefore, it is no longer useful to recall the previous mistakes made in managing this file. What matters now is saving what can still be saved and for Egypt to wage a true battle in policy and strategy.
*Dr. Abdellatif El-Menawy is a multimedia journalist, writer and columnist who has covered war zones and conflicts worldwide. Twitter: @ALMenawy

US’ lack of Middle East strategy a boon for Putin

Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/January 14/2020
As the US and Iran recalibrate their positions following two weeks of heightened regional tensions in the wake of the killing of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad and the measured Iranian strikes against two American bases in Iraq, one player is cashing in his gains. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s long-serving president, is expanding his influence in the Middle East as the US sends erratic messages to its allies and foes alike. As he defended his decision to take out Soleimani, President Donald Trump reiterated what he had said before: The US does not need Middle East oil. He also said that the US would not leave Iraq unless Baghdad coughed up billions of dollars in compensation.
Indicating that the US was ready to decrease its presence in the region, Trump suggested that NATO should take on more responsibilities. Whether or not he will follow through on this suggestion, which goes beyond the strategic mandate of NATO, remains unclear.
Such remarks will not reassure America’s allies in the region. Experts blame the White House for failing to present a clear strategic vision for the US’ role in the Middle East. Does the US presence in the region serve a long-term geopolitical goal, or is it merely seen from a financial point of view?
The slow pivot from the region started during the final years of the Obama administration, and the Syrian crisis was a major milestone in the deliberate stepping back by the US. It was Putin’s historic decision to intervene militarily in Syria in 2015 that ushered in a new Russian era in the Middle East. Since then, Moscow has been able to foster ties with key regional players — many being traditional US allies. These include Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and Gulf countries.
From almost facing-off in Syria, Putin was able to turn Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan into an ally as he himself became the sole owner of Syria’s political fortunes, thus sidelining the US, EU and the UN. Trump’s controversial decision last year to withdraw most of his forces from Eastern Syria, while keeping some to protect the oil fields, only solidified Moscow’s exclusive grip of that country. This is underlined by the fact that Israel coordinates with Moscow whenever it carries out strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Syria.
While Iraq and the US go through a tense phase in their ties, Moscow is slowly moving in to extend its reach across the region
Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal further distanced Washington from its European allies who, along with Russia and China, continue to defend it. Economic sanctions on Iran have so far failed to subdue Tehran or force it to renegotiate a new deal, as Trump is demanding. Neither have the US sanctions degraded Iran’s nefarious roles in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
Meanwhile, Putin is slowly filling the void left by the US. On Monday, the two warring factions in Libya — the head of the UN-backed Government of National Accord, Fayez Al-Sarraj, and the chief of the so-called Libyan National Army, Gen. Khalifa Haftar — failed to complete a cease-fire agreement in Moscow to end months of hostilities. Haftar wanted more guarantees and asked for more time. Russia will continue to apply pressure ahead of a key conference on Libya to be held in Berlin on Sunday. All mediation efforts by the UN and European leaders to stop Haftar’s advance toward Tripoli, which began last April, have failed so far.
And, just as Moscow was able to sell NATO member Turkey the sophisticated S-400 air defense system last year, reports say that Iraq is now negotiating with Russia to acquire the same. While Iraq and the US go through a tense phase in their ties following the killing of Soleimani and Baghdad’s request that American troops leave the country, Moscow is slowly moving in to extend its reach across the region. Egypt has reportedly signed a $2 billion deal to buy a fleet of Russian Su-35 jets despite the threat of US sanctions.
The growing leverage of Russia in the Middle East was underlined this week by the visit of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel to Moscow. Her talks with Putin centered mainly on Iran and how to rescue the nuclear deal, but she also discussed Syria and Libya. It is ironic that the two leaders share similar views on the Middle East, in contrast to the divergent regional policies between the EU and the US.
One factor that is likely to further distance America’s regional allies from Washington is the possibility that Trump might soon unveil his “deal of the century.” There is no doubt that his approach to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been catastrophic for the Palestinian and Arab sides. The deal, which may include an American recognition of illegal Israeli settlements, paving the way for the annexation of major chunks of the West Bank, will be condemned by the Arabs and the international community. The fallout will have severe negative consequences for America’s influence in the region. It will be another free gift for Putin, whose pragmatic approach has become a counterbalance to an unpredictable White House.
*Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. Twitter: @plato010