LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 27.2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/51-55/:”Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 26-27/2020
Maronite Blinded and Escariotic leaders With idol-Derailed Worshipers/Elias Bejjani/January 24/2020
Lebanese security forces fire water cannons, tear gas at protesters
Qaouq Says New Govt. Formation a 'Slap' to U.S. Administration
Al-Rahi Says Govt. Facing Tough Test, Salutes 'Peaceful Uprising'
Alain Aoun Suggests Early Polls if Government Fails
Mashnouq Slams Mustaqbal Supporters who Attacked al-Jadeed TV
Hariri’s Press office: Rebuttal of NTV report
Kobeissi: We are against this chaos and this policy, and against starving the Lebanese
Hoballah: It is a oneteam government, not one color
Sami Gemayel declares his Party's reservation towards tomorrow's Parliament session
Wazni denies sending budget to Parliament
No Confidence” protest march in Nabatiyeh and Kfarreman
Protest march roams the streets of Tyre
Protest march roams the streets of Tripoli
Justice Minister's Office: Imaginary Twitter account attributes false news to the Minister
Here's how the US can pressure Lebanon's new government tackle corruption/Hanin Ghaddar & Matthew Levitt/The Hill/January 26/2020
Hassan Diab’s cabinet is unable to meet protesters’ demands or confront Hezbollah/Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
Hezbollah-dominated government emerges in Lebanon for the first time/Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/January 26/2020
The tattoo spectrum in Lebanon/Salma Yassine/Annahar January 26/2020
Why is Lebanon's Gebran Bassil so controversial?/Timour Azhari/Al Jazeera/January 26/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 26-27/2020
Pope Francis praises China's efforts to contain coronavirus
Israel gives green light for visits to Saudi Arabia under limited circumstances
Israel strikes in Gaza in response to flammable balloons
Trump rejects lifting Iran sanctions to negotiate
Trump’s Middle East peace plan will be ‘historic’: Netanyahu
Palestinians threaten to quit Oslo accords over Trump peace plan
One killed in truck blast in northern Syria’s Azaz: Reports
Five rockets hit near US embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone
Iraqi cleric Sadr scraps anti-US demonstrations ‘to avoid internal strife’
Iraqi protesters defy top cleric and return to the streets
Jordanian charged with ‘terror’ over tourist stabbings
Four cargo vessels catch fire in Iranian port city
Syria regime forces on edge of key opposition-held town: Monitor
Syria Regime Forces on Edge of Key Rebel-Held Town
Kurdish authorities move 21 orphans out of Syria al-Hol camp
Turkey quake death toll rises to 31
Trump says ‘no thanks’ to Iran's FM negotiation proposal
Man whose wife was killed when Iran shot down plane flees Iran after threats
UN says ‘blatant’ violations of Libya arms embargo continue
Confession Of ISIS Mufti Shifa Al-Ni'ma: 'I Issued Fatwas Permitting Expulsion Of Christians From Mosul, Enslavement, Selling of Yazidi Women'
Former Kuwaiti Minister Ali Al-Baghli: Kuwaitis Who Convert To Judaism, Other Religions Should Not Lose Their Citizenship; Our Laws Do Not Forbid Conversion
Palestinians Threaten to Quit Oslo Accords over Trump Peace Plan
Oman Top Diplomat in Iran for Second Time within Week
China Stiffens Its Defenses against Epidemic as Death Toll Hits 56
NBA Legend Kobe Bryant Killed in Helicopter Crash

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 26-27/2020
Cruelty to Animals Gets More Media Coverage than Beheaded Christians/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/January 26/2020
New EU Report on Integration Misses the Point/Judith Bergman//Gatestone Institute/January 26/2020
New details from Trump's peace plan revealed/Itamar Eichner|/Ynetnews/January 26/2020
The lessons of the Marib massacre/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
Iranian myths exposed as Ukrainian plane shot down/Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
Libya, Erdogan and the Mercenaries/Dr. Jebril Elabidi/Asharq Al Awsat/January 26/2020
Medvedev Out: Putin Overhauls Russia's Governance System/Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/January 26/ 2020

Details Of The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorial published on January 26-27/2020
Maronite Blinded and Escariotic leaders With idol-Derailed Worshipers
Elias Bejjani/January 24/2020
Leadership wise, we, the Maronites, are currently orphans in both religious and political domains. Our childish and marginalized present leaders are totally detached from every thing that is a requirement and gifts for leadership, Lebanese identity, faith, self respect, planning, vision, conscience, principles, and self-respect. Sadly they are a bunch of greedy , self-centred, narcissistic and iscariot creatures blinded by their earthly hunger for power and money. No hopes what so ever for our people at any level in their presence and influence...replacing them is an urgent obligation and a must.

Lebanese security forces fire water cannons, tear gas at protesters
Reuters, Beirut/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Lebanese security forces on Saturday fired water cannons and tear gas at anti-government protesters trying to breach a security barricade outside government headquarters in central Beirut. Some protesters among the hundreds who had gathered for a planned march managed to open a metal gate blocking their way but were pushed back. After Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces used Twitter to warn peaceful demonstrators to leave for their own safety, riot police fanned out to disperse dozens of remaining protesters. “We want the demonstrations to be peaceful so they can prevail,” said Abdo Saadeh, criticizing a government formed this week as a “masquerade” by a political elite that protesters blame for driving the country towards collapse. The Iranian-backed group Hezbollah and its allies formed a cabinet of technocrats nominated by their parties under Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who was tapped for the job after protests forced former premier Saad Hariri to resign on October 29. “We came here today because there is no trust in this government,” Saadeh said. “They brought their cronies, their consultants.”The new government must tackle a financial emergency that has sunk the currency, pushed up prices and driven banks to impose capital controls. Security conditions have deteriorated, with hundreds injured last weekend in clashes between demonstrators and security forces. “We want a government of independents, not parties,” said demonstrator Reema Ajouz. “Independents can save the country. With the politicians we have we are headed to the precipice.”

Qaouq Says New Govt. Formation a 'Slap' to U.S. Administration
Naharnet/January 26/2020
A senior Hizbullah official announced Sunday that the formation of a new government in Lebanon delivered a “slap” to the U.S. administration. “The government’s formation was a slap to (U.S. President Donald) Trump, (Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo, (State Department Assistant Secretary David) Schenker and all the men of the U.S. administration, who bet on chaos, the besiegement of the resistance and the subjugation of the Lebanese,” Hizbullah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq said. “They were betting that the Lebanese would not be able to form a government except through U.S. dictations, desires and conditions, but a government was formed with a 100 percent Lebanese will to represent a real chance to rescue the country from collapse,” Qaouq added, noting that “the start has been encouraging and positive domestically and externally.”Reiterating that the new government is “a government for work and rescue, not confrontation,” the Hizbullah official said it will seek to “rescue what’s left of the state institutions, halt the collapse and confront the corrupts.”“Hizbullah will be at the forefront of its supporters, but at the same time, it will be at the forefront of those who monitor its performance,” Qaouq pledged.

Al-Rahi Says Govt. Facing Tough Test, Salutes 'Peaceful Uprising'
Naharnet/January 26/2020
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday said the new government is facing a “tough test” as he saluted the “peaceful uprising” of Lebanese youths. “The new government is facing a tough test, seeing as it has embarked on a difficult risk, in the name of the people and the youths who lost confidence following successive disappointments from the politicians and officials,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon. “Despite that, the government must be assisted and held accountable for the outcome of its actions… This does not stand for the end of the uprising-revolution as they think, but rather for taking a stance of monitoring and demanding,” the patriarch added. Stressing that the government must “regain the lost confidence,” al-Rahi said he salutes “the peaceful and civilized uprising of the young men and women in all Lebanese regions.”“We express our solidarity with them and appreciate their sacrifices and efforts, because they want to turn a black page of our national life and write a new history,” the patriarch went on to say.

Alain Aoun Suggests Early Polls if Government Fails
Naharnet/January 26/2020
MP Alain Aoun of the Strong Lebanon bloc has suggested going to early parliamentary elections should the new government fail to halt the economic and financial deterioration. “First, the deterioration in Lebanon should be halted and then recovery measures should begin,” Aoun said in a TV interview, warning that “the failure of the rescue process would affect entire Lebanon.” “The first phase requires foreign assistance, but we can’t go to economic conditions that would blow up the social situation,” the lawmaker added, in reference to any austerity measures that might be demanded by international financial organizations. Calling for the privatization of the electricity sector, Aoun said he has a feeling that the “invisible hand” that is impeding power generation in Lebanon is “an oil cartel.” Asked whether he might run for the presidency of the Free Patriotic Movement, the lawmaker said “everything is possible.”He also underlined that “should the current government fail, the only solution is to go to early parliamentary elections to produce a new political situation, on the condition that the people accept it.”Aoun also noted that Hassan Diab’s government is the “last chance government” prior to “elections that produce a new political class.”

Mashnouq Slams Mustaqbal Supporters who Attacked al-Jadeed TV
Naharnet/January 26/2020
Beirut MP Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Sunday blasted Mustaqbal Movement supporters who had attacked the building of al-Jadeed TV in Beirut on Friday. “I was worried for the Sunni community… and I grew more worried after I saw thugs attacking al-Jadeed TV’s building and smashing its entrance, and after thugs whose loyalty is well-known came out of our ranks to attack a media outlet, after their brilliant success outside my house,” Mashnouq, who distanced himself from al-Mustaqbal bloc after the 2018 elections, tweeted. “They were likely trained at the hands of the protectors of the Council for South,” the ex-interior minister added, referring to the AMAL Movement supporters who assaulted anti-corruption protesters in Jnah on Friday. Lashing out at the person who “sent them” and identifying him by his first name Saleh, Mashnouq thanked God that slain ex-PM Rafik Hariri is no longer among us “so that he doesn’t see what is being committed in his name.” Those who attacked the TV network on Friday were protesting an anti-corruption show that exposed properties owned by prominent political leaders. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader and ex-PM Saad Hariri was among those mentioned. Al-Jadeed said Hariri owns 71 real estate properties in Jezzine, Sidon, Aley and Beirut as well as six companies.

Hariri’s Press office: Rebuttal of NTV report
NNA/January 26/2020
In an issued statement by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Press Office on Sunday, it responded to NTV’s report on Hariri’s ownership of 71 properties in Lebanon, clarifying that "Prime Minister Hariri owns only one property, which is his residence in Beirut (Center House).”
“As for the rest of the real estate that he inherited from martyr Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, he ceded it to his siblings, by power of attorney, knowing that the vast majority of the properties owned by the martyr Prime Minister in Lebanon had been purchased before he assumed any political responsibilities,” the statement added.

Kobeissi: We are against this chaos and this policy, and against starving the Lebanese
NNA/January 26/2020
Member of the "Development and Liberation" Parliamentary Bloc, MP Hani Kobeissi, voiced Sunday rejection to the state of chaos and to starving the Lebanese people. Kobeissi considered that "whoever wishes to keep Lebanon immune must avoid the chaos." He added: "Finally, we were able to form a government, and whoever wishes to boycott it is free, but no one has the right to obstruct its work.""The upcoming Parliament session is to approve the budget first, and secondly to give confidence to the government which has many burdens and huge responsibilities awaiting it. Therefore, we all have to give it an opportunity in order to be able to solve the major problems at stake, most prominently the economic crisis," Kobeissi underscored. His words came during a memorial ceremony held in the Southern town of Ghassanieh today, where he offered condolences on behalf of House Speaker Nabih Berri.

Hoballah: It is a oneteam government, not one color
NNA/January 26/2020
Industry and Trade Minister, Imad Hoballah, described the new government as being "a government of one team, not one color.""This government, which includes specialized and distinguished figures, is the government of one team, not one color. This government came to fight corruption and the corrupt," he said. "Lebanon needs to be rescued, and this is the reason for the presence of a government of specialists at this stage," Hoballah corroborated. His words came during a reception hosted by the Southern Municipality of Kfar-Melki, in the presence of a large crowd of townsmen who gathered to welcome the new Minister. Addressing the attendees, Hoballah said he was entrusted with a huge responsibility that requires "support and embrace."At the industrial level, Hoballah pledged to back industrial production. "We will work to ensure a high quality industry..and there will be job opportunities by supporting local and small factories," he asserted.

Sami Gemayel declares his Party's reservation towards tomorrow's Parliament session
NNA/January 26/2020
Kataeb Party Chief, Sami Gemayel, announced Sunday his Party's "reservation towards the Parliament Council session scheduled for Monday to approve a budget that has been set by a fallen government, and will be defended by a government that has not yet received its votes of confidence, thus breaching the Constitution."In a press conference held earlier today at the "Kataeb House" in Saifi, Gemayel considered that "the old approach continues, and the sole solution is to resort to early parliamentary elections immediately."
Gemayel also disclosed that the MPs received a three-paper document on the state budget from the Parliament, which was said to have been sent by the new Finance Minister, explaining that the latter has no right to send anything before the government takes confidence and adopts the budget.
He added that the Finance Minister's Office later issued a statement denying that he had sent the document in question. "So, who sent these papers which adopt, in the name of the new government, the budget of its predecessor? Are there ghosts in Parliament sending papers to the deputies...and who has the right to send such documents?" questioned Gemayel sarcastically. "The state of chaos continues," he added. Gemayel also criticized the new government's adoption of a budget set by a previous failed government, after all that happened in the country, the economic collapse, the revolution and the people's uprising. "What we see today is a confirmation that there is a clear intention to pursue the same approach that was adopted, and a clear will by the ruling system to continue in the same way by voting on this budget," he said. "The most critical aspect is that we are in a state of collapse, while the authority considers that Lebanon can continue for a year without reforms, until 2021," warned Gemayel, considering this "an affirming act of fleeing responsibility." The MP stressed that in light of the absent intention to hold reforms, and since the people will not stop demanding their rights, and in an effort to yield a new Lebanon, "we must return the decision to the people by adopting a law that shortens the mandate of the parliament and holding new elections.""People are suffering and we cannot continue in this way. The country cannot afford to delay reforms for another year," concluded Gemayel.

Wazni denies sending budget to Parliament
NNA/January 26/2020
Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni denied MP Sami Gemayel's accusations during his press conference early this morning, that "he has sent a new budget to the Parliament or any other text related to the budget," stressing that it is the budget of the previous government.

No Confidence” protest march in Nabatiyeh and Kfarreman
NNA/January 26/2020
The Nabatiyeh and Kfarreman popular movements organized a march this afternoon to protest the new government under the slogan, "No confidence", which set out from outside the Nabatiyeh Serail, NNA correspondent reported. Participants carried Lebanese flags and banners denouncing the public money looters, as they marched towards the Central Bank building where protesters called for the bank’s authority to be overthrown, revolting against corruption and the corrupt. Protesters indicated that their move aims at shedding light on three main headlines, namely the deteriorating economic situation that led to a setback in the city of Nabatiyeh and its commercial market, the fuel crisis and the dollar crisis. They stressed that "there is no trust in the government as long as the crises exist and the solutions are absent," adding that their movements "will continue until the country gains its freedom from corruption."

Protest march roams the streets of Tyre
NNA/January 26/2020
A demonstration march roamed this afternoon a number of streets in the city of Tyre, starting from al-Alam Square, in which participants gathered raising the Lebanese flags, and chanted "no confidence" slogans against the new government, NNA correspondent in Tyre reported.
Protesters criticized the newly formed cabinet, denouncing the return of quotas, and condemned those responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound against the US dollar. Security measures by the army and internal security forces accompanied the demonstration march.

Protest march roams the streets of Tripoli
NNA/January 26/2020
A demonstration roamed the streets of the Northern city of Tripoli this afternoon, in which participants raised Lebanese flags and banners denouncing the "corrupt authority" and chanted slogans calling for the resignation of the government and the formation of an independent specialists' cabinet that can rescue the country, NNA correspondent in Tripoli reported.

Justice Minister's Office: Imaginary Twitter account attributes false news to the Minister
NNA/January 26/2020
The Press Office of Justice Minister Marie Claude Najm issued a statement on Sunday, in which it indicated that fabricated news is being attributed to the Minister through a false Twitter account. The statement categorically denied such news, stressing that Minister Najm has no Twitter account in her name till this moment.

Here's how the US can pressure Lebanon's new government tackle corruption
Hanin Ghaddar & Matthew Levitt/The Hill/January 26/2020
حنين غدار وماثيو لافيت/موقع الهيل: الضغوضات الأميركية المطلوبة للضغط على الحكومة اللبنانية الجديدة لمواجهة الفساد
Against the backdrop of three months of political and economic protests, Lebanese politicians appear to have reached a deal establishing a nominally technocratic government in Beirut. Still beholden to Hezbollah, the government has little Sunni or Druze support. Some protesters already call this a “Halloween government” since it gives thinly disguised cover to longtime establishment politicians. But the new government is unlikely to be able on its own to tackle the single biggest challenge it faces: the rampant corruption responsible for the country’s acute financial crisis.
The formation of a new Lebanese government has been a central demand of the international community and a necessary precondition for any international aid. But that is not enough. The government must quickly take action to fight corruption and enhance transparency. For a country that has run on corruption and political patronage, this will be a very heavy lift.
Nearly all of Lebanon’s political establishment is entangled in Beirut’s deep-rooted corruption crisis, which cuts across the sectarian divide. Lebanon ranks 138th out of 180 nations in the Corruption Perceptions Index released by the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. Meeting in December, the International Support Group for Lebanon issued a final statement in Paris urging Lebanese authorities to “take decisive action” to tackle corruption and tax evasion while improving economic governance and the country’s business environment.
At the time, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that while Lebanon must take these steps, the U.S. is ready to “do the things that the world can do to assist the Lebanese people getting their economy right and getting their government right.”
Today, the U.S. should take action that would force the new government’s hand and empower it to take on the corrupt political establishment — something no Lebanese government could otherwise do on its own: Washington should issue sanctions targeting some of the most egregious corrupt actors across the Lebanese political and sectarian spectrum under the Global Magnitsky Act. Corrupt leaders seek profit and the political power that comes with funding patronage projects. Global Magnitsky sanctions would not only name and shame Lebanon’s most corrupt actors, it would block all property and interests they hold in the United States, which are likely to be substantial.
There are other tools available to designated political corruption — such as Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2020. The State Department employed this tool earlier this month targeting Moldovan corruption, but it includes only a ban on visa to enter the United States for the designee and their family members, and it lacks the authority to block funds held in the United States. Global Magnitsky would be a better fit in the case of Lebanon.
The State Department issued anti-corruption designations under the Global Magnitsky Act targeting entities in Cambodia, Latvia and Serbia in December, and there are no shortage of strong candidates for such action among the political elite in Lebanon today. Under the umbrella of such a U.S. action, the Lebanese government could be empowered to take the kind of action necessary to clear the way for the international aid package the country desperately needs.
Such action would have broad public support. Since the Lebanese people took to the streets on Oct. 17, 2019, U.S. officials have supported protesters’ demands for anti-corruption measures and reforms. In fact, corruption is the main reason behind the economic collapse that has pushed people to the streets. They clearly oppose the new government, which provides former foreign minister Gebran Bassil, a Hezbollah ally and one of the most roundly protested political figures, with control of a third of the cabinet and, therefore, the power to block legislation not to his or Hezbollah’s liking. To be sure, demonstrators would cheer sanctions against corrupt politicians and their business-class enablers.
The most notable aspect of the Lebanese protests was its anti-sectarian rhetoric and cross-sectarian participation. People from all sects and regions of Lebanon rallied to demand the end of the sectarian system and accountability for corrupt politicians. This is not a coincidence. The link between Lebanon’s sectarian leaders and the country’s acute corruption crisis is very strong, because they use nepotism and exploit state institutions to strengthen control over their constituencies.
These sectarian leaders have been implicated in a laundry list of corrupt deals and transactions used to build their financial empires through the good offices of politically-allied corrupt businessmen. One need look no further than Lebanon’s electricity, gas and garbage sectors to see how corruption has depleted the state of its resources and led to the economic crisis.
Designating corrupt Lebanese businessmen and officials under the Global Magnitsky Act would offer a tangible response to the persistent demands of Lebanese protesters because such action would target corrupt individuals from all sects and complement the anti-sectarian rhetoric of the Lebanese street. Now that a government has been formed — one that is unlikely on its own to gain the trust of the street or the international community — this is the perfect moment to send a message of support to the Lebanese people.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedman visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
*Matthew Levitt is the institute’s Fromer-Wexler fellow and director of its Reinhard program on counterterrorism and intelligence.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/479538-heres-how-the-us-can-pressure-lebanons-new-government-tackle?fbclid=IwAR1AdG-a6XusjsjAzs9hkhMjs0VG5Q08pOsv_zSMZfJj-070pyT44x7UvnI

Hassan Diab’s cabinet is unable to meet protesters’ demands or confront Hezbollah
Makram Rabah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
مكرم رباح: حكومة حسان دياب ليس بمقدورها لا تلبية مطالب المنتفضين ولا مواجهة حزب الله
Almost a month after he was designated Lebanon’s prime minister, Hassan Diab announced the formation of his cabinet, which many Lebanese hoped would save the country from its political and economic meltdown.
For more than 100 days, millions of Lebanese have taken to the streets to demand an end to the archaic and corrupt system of governance and advocate for a cabinet of independent technocrats that would lead the country’s transition. Diab’s cabinet, unfortunately, does not fully respond to citizens’ demands.
While the group does include 20 ostensible technocrats, who are proven and capable in their respective fields, none are truly independent or capable of initiating real reforms.
Diab’s attempt to project an image of impartiality did not go over well with the public. Hundreds of people quickly took to the streets to express disapproval. The sentiment was shared by the international media, with many saying Diab’s so-called cabinet of experts was a “Hezbollah-backed government.”
While Diab claimed his cabinet was a product of the revolution, the riots and destruction caused by rebels in downtown Beirut and their clashes with Lebanese security forces showed that Diab and his government are perceived no differently from the rest of Lebanon’s political elite.
Even most pro-revolution Lebanese who do not engage in or support violence are hesitant to wager on Diab’s success. Few trust his cabinet’s ability and commitment to confront the ruling elite or Hezbollah’s hegemony over the state.
Diab’s mission is to meet the calls of the Lebanese revolution, which include serious structural reforms that allow the country’s faltering economy to rebound and for Lebanese to gain access to the savings that the banks have held hostage.
However rudimentary as these reforms might seem, they will legally end the political and economic monopoly of the ruling elite. Since Diab owes his newly acquired fame to this same junta, there is no indication he can take on the role of reformer.
Diab’s real enemy is time, a luxury neither he nor the Lebanese people have. The Lebanese economy has entered a very dangerous phase in which banks are no longer giving the public access to their accounts and have enforced unofficial capital control, limiting people to a few hundred dollars a week.
Aggravating the situation is the fact that major firms and businesses are either scaling down operations or shutting down, unleashing an unemployment crisis that Lebanon is ill-equipped to deal with.
Shortages of gasoline, medicine, medical supplies, wheat and other essential goods are looming because Lebanon relies almost exclusively on imports, which are paid for in dollars that are only found on the black market and from money exchangers, who also cater to Syria’s heavy demand on hard currency.
The Lebanese ruling establishment and its newly appointed government might assume they can ignore the rage in the streets and wrongfully dismiss protesters as being bent on vandalism and destruction but adding more cement walls and barricades to the parliament building and buying more creative and brutal anti-riot weapons will not make the revolution go away.
To exit Lebanon’s economic and political inferno, the Diab cabinet must heed the demands of its own people, demands that have been reiterated by the international community.
Adhering to diplomatic norms, the United States, France and Britain welcomed the formation of the Diab government and declared their intentions to help Lebanon, as they have over the years. Still, they were quick to remind the ruling elite that no grants or loans would come their way without proper reform and, more important, before Hezbollah and its regional excursions are curbed. Constitutionally, Diab and his band of technocrats have 30 days before they must appear before the Lebanese parliament with a plan of action and face a vote of confidence that would permit them to properly carry out their duties.
It has been 100 days since the Lebanese people first rose up and voiced rejection of the country’s corrupt leadership. They will not be fooled into supporting the same people who got them where they are now. Diab might get the vote of confidence from the 69 MPs who designated him but he has lost the support of millions of his own people.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, department of history. His forthcoming book, “Conflict on Mount Lebanon: The Druze, the Maronites and Collective Memory,” (Edinburgh University Press) covers collective identities and the Lebanese Civil War.

Hezbollah-dominated government emerges in Lebanon for the first time
Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/January 26/2020
جونيثون سباير/جيرازولم بوست: حكومة لبنانية يسيطر عليه حزب الله للمرة الأولى في لبنان
For the first time since the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 1990, the latter country has a government in which only Hezbollah and its allies are represented.
For the first time since the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005, the latter country has a government in which only Hezbollah and its allies are represented. This is likely to have a significant negative effect on Beirut’s efforts to engage international partners and donors in order to alleviate the acute financial crisis facing the country. It will also impact on Israeli strategic planning vis-à-vis Hezbollah.
The new government is the product of escalating popular protests under way since October 15. The protests are in response to Lebanon’s dire economic state. Demonstrators were demanding the formation of a government of “technocrats” qualified to address the urgent issues facing the country and untainted by contact with Lebanon’s enormously corrupt political parties.
The new government appears to be an attempt to create the superficial appearance of such an administration. Its 20 ministers were presented by Prime Minister Hassan Diab as “specialists,” nonpartisan and without loyalties to this or that political bloc.
Few Lebanese are likely to be convinced by this claim. The “specialists” in question are individuals whose names were put forward by the political parties. The composition of the new government emerged in a process of wrangling and horse trading between these parties.
But, crucially, parties and movements broadly associated with the West and with Saudi Arabia stayed out of the negotiations. Individuals linked to prominent pro-Western and anti-Iranian political trends, such as the former prime minister’s Mustaqbal (Future) Movement and the Christian Lebanese Forces, are not to be found among the new ministers. The Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt is also not represented.
The government that has emerged from this process comprises individuals linked to movements that are part of only one of the existing power structures – the one associated with Hezbollah and Iran.
The new administration is being described by Lebanese commentators as a government of “one color,” Lebanon’s first of this kind. The color is that of Hezbollah and Iran’s banners.
Hezbollah itself controls only two ministries in the new government. But the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, led by Gebran Bassil, and the Shia Amal movement, both closely associated with Hezbollah, control much of the rest. Smaller parties also associated with this bloc make up the remainder.
In this regard, Diab’s emergent government constitutes for the first time an administration that reflects the long-standing power reality in Lebanon. Hezbollah has long dominated the key nodes of power in Lebanon – in the military and intelligence fields. Its influence is also profound in the economic sector. The overt, formal political administration in the country will now reflect this.
Over the last decade and a half, Hezbollah has gradually removed all obstacles to its exercise of full-spectrum dominance in Lebanon. In a trial of strength in May-June 2008, it brushed aside an attempt by West-aligned forces to challenge its will by force. Hezbollah’s 50,000-strong armed forces obey the edict of no government in Beirut.
On October 31, 2016, long-standing Hezbollah ally Gen. Michel Aoun assumed the presidency of Lebanon.
Three of Lebanon’s four intelligence services – the General Directorate of General Security, the Military Intelligence Directorate and the State Security Directorate – are headed by individuals appointed by Aoun and approved by Hezbollah. The fourth, the Internal Security Forces, once constituted a potent Sunni-led intelligence organization, associated with anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah forces. Today, headed by Imad Othman, it no longer plays this role.
Following the elections of May 2018, Hezbollah and its allies dominated the legislature and executive. They controlled 74 seats in the 128-member parliament, and 19 of 30 cabinet portfolios. But until the resignation of prime minister Saad Hariri in October 2019, the facade of a coalition government continued. This situation was amenable to the Hezbollah-controlled deep state. It enabled normal relations with international institutions, including financial ones, and ensured the continued flow of US and European aid.
As of this week, however, the ambiguity appears to have cleared. Formal power in Lebanon now coincides with real power.
SINCE THE war of 2006, a body of opinion has emerged in Israel according to which, in the event of a future conflict ignited by Hezbollah, Israel should abandon the paradigm by which the Lebanese state is seen as a helpless but blameless hostage of the Shia terrorist group.
Representing this view, then-education minister and current Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said in May 2018, following significant electoral gains by Hezbollah and its allies, that henceforth “the State of Israel will not differentiate between the sovereign state of Lebanon and Hezbollah, and will view Lebanon as responsible for any action from within its territory.”
In 2006, the government of prime minister Fouad Siniora was orientated toward the West. Israel thus faced the difficult task of chasing Hezbollah in Lebanon, while avoiding harm to the Lebanese state infrastructure. The results were mixed. It has since become apparent that senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, including the late Gen. Qasem Soleimani, were present in Lebanon during that war, directing the campaign of their Lebanese franchise.
Given the events of this week in Lebanon, any such attempt at differentiation is unlikely to be repeated. Rather, in a future contest between Israel and Hezbollah/Iran, the state of Lebanon under its Hezbollah-dominated government will constitute the enemy. This, in turn, will enable Israel to exercise the full range of options available to it from a conventional military point of view.
It is not clear whether such a war would include a formal declaration of war between Israel and Lebanon. If it did, such a declaration would be highly misleading. A conflict of this kind would not in any meaningful sense constitute a war between two sovereign states. Rather, as recent events in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have made clear, the praxis of the IRGC is to use its franchises to construct states within states. These structures then seek to occupy the formal body of the state, turning its independence and sovereignty into a fiction. This process appears this week in Lebanon to have reached its apogee. The formal state, up to and including the highest bodies of government, is now operated solely and overtly by Iran via its franchise, with the allies and clients of that franchise. This produces clarity, with its many attendant benefits.

The tattoo spectrum in Lebanon
Salma Yassine/Annahar January 26/2020
BEIRUT: The tattoo scene in Lebanon entails a spectrum of elements that shape its multifaceted visage.
Tattoos are a keepsake of the moments, words, numbers, inanimate entities, people, pets, and a plethora of other features that weave their holders’ personas. They act as a timeline that embodies museums of self-expression, molded by raw emotions that are archived through them on permanent trajectories.
“I’ve gotten tattoos at different times in my life to either commemorate an important piece of literature or literary figure that has meant to me or immortalize a certain intellectual breakthrough. My tattoos are a part of me, they represent me, who I am, who I’ve been, and the cyclic course of existence,” Emma Harfouche noted for Annahar.
People also resort to this particular form of body art to cover certain scars. It is a remedy that allows them to regain or further boost their self-confidence. Nour El Sabeh, a tattoo artist, stated that “most people who are getting tattooed are doing so for the sole purpose of beautifying and/or gaining control over their bodies.” She further added that covering scars of tummy tuck and self-harm are very common. It documents people’s healing journey in a beautifully vulnerable way. Tattoos are identity markers, wherein they are not only eternalized scribbles on people’s flesh but are also visual aesthetic narrators unveiling their personal stories in a silent manner. “My three tattoos symbolize important things to me. I felt the need to have them as a constant reminder of the motives that linger within them,” Rawand Haress narrated her experience of getting inked.
One of the leading prominent reasons behind yearning to get inked pivots around the fact that tattoos signal belongingness to a particular ideological background or the complete rebellion against it. This notion is heavily portrayed in the religious, political, feminist, queer, and patriotic vestiges in Lebanon.
“Our eyes caress churches everywhere, we witness the crosses touch the sky and listen to the mosques pray out loud. Our country’s streets are also bombarded with religious and political flags and/or figures. Thus, what is vibrantly exposed in public tends to transcend that medium to become carved on the skin as a token of pride and belongingness reflecting certain ideologies,” Charbel Eid told Annahar.
Iconizing religious and political affiliations is a unique aspect that distinguishes and diversifies this region of the world. Sandy Akoury, a body artist, accentuated the notion that the elements of religion and politics are key components that hover upon the lives of most of the Lebanese population. She stated that cherishing their beliefs through getting inked is a common practice. Tattoos can be perceived from various angles. They can either be considered as trendy, cool and great conversation starters or be frowned upon by the masses. The latter depends on the restriction of the work field, the background of the beholder, and the oriental mentality that still dominates the angle from which the topic is approached.
Despite that, the art of getting tattooed has always been entrenched in the Arabian entourage.
“The urge of marking someone’s skin had been there since the existence of humanity, and tattooing in the region started and still happens in tribes,” El Sabeh noted. “We are intellectual beings that appreciate beauty and art. Just like people like to hang artwork in their houses and offices, people also like to adorn their bodies with timeless artwork.”These artworks often carry a rich cultural background that encompasses Arabian and specifically Lebanese features such as the renowned Fairouz and Um Kulthum songs, names of Arabian cities, authentic foods that may add an element of humor, and Arabic poetry. These elements constitute a collective heritage that brings together the entirety of the nation’s history and folds it within a single tattoo. Moreover, El Sabeh noted that Arabic calligraphy is very common for native Arabic speakers in Lebanon in comparison to Latinized lettering.
Tattooed bodies are canvasses portraying aesthetic art that also voices defiance. Tattoos often blatantly mark statements of activism and rebellion in their own way, and this notion has been recently widespread to glorify Lebanese patriotism after the October revolution sprung.

Why is Lebanon's Gebran Bassil so controversial?
Timour Azhari/Al Jazeera/January 26/2020
Bassil, 49, has seen his fortunes shift since mass protests against corruption and nepotism erupted last year.
Beirut, Lebanon - A colourful mix of insults and allegations of nepotism, racism and corruption is how an average Lebanese protester would describe the country's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Gebran Bassil.
He is not alone. Lebanon's entire ruling class has been targeted by protesters who took to the streets more than 100 days ago to demand an end to corruption and sectarian politics.
Bassil is one of the newer politicians on the bloc, having come to power after the country's 15-year civil war. But he quickly rose to be a symbol of the cynical sectarian politics and mismanagement that have dominated the post-war era, critics say. Protesters point to his last 10 years in the government where he moved through the telecommunication, energy and foreign ministries and assumed leadership of one of the country's biggest parties, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).
Lebanon has some of the highest telecommunications costs in the world, and the FPM has held the energy portfolio for a decade while the country remains without uninterrupted electricity supply. Still, Bassil enjoys unwavering support from his Christian base, who see him as a shrewd hard worker and a protector of their rights. MP Mario Aoun, a member of Bassil's FPM parliamentary bloc, told Al Jazeera that Bassil was being "targeted because of his successes".
Insults from the crowd
When the protests against Lebanon's corrupt ruling elite broke out more than three months ago, crude chants were aimed at Bassil's mother. So severe were the insults that Bassil, in his first address after more than two weeks of uncharacteristic silence, apologised to his mother.
"I'm so sorry that you were attacked because of me and it wasn't your fault. You taught me to love Lebanon," he said, addressing her in front of crowds of supporters at an organised rally on the outskirts of the capital, Beirut.
Before the protests, Bassil was widely expected to remain a top minister in government for a long time and was thought to be a serious contender for the presidency, a post currently held by his 84-year-old father-in-law, Michel Aoun. However, he was not named as a minister in Prime Minister Hassan Diab's new government announced earlier this week. He was forced to go back on his initial demand to retain a cabinet post and instead name people not directly affiliated with his party. Bassil's most recent trouble came when Lebanese people found out he had been invited to speak on a panel about the return of Arab unrest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Before the interview on Thursday, 40,000 Lebanese people signed a petition saying he no longer represents them.
CNBC reporter Hadley Gamble asked Bassil how he arrived at the forum on a ministerial salary of about $5,000. Bassil responded that it had been offered to him, rather than paid for by the Lebanese treasury.
Family rule
Bassil's political career began in earnest after he married one of Aoun's three daughters, Chantelle, in 1999. This is not unusual in a country where many politicians inherit their posts or marry into power. He first stood for elections with the FPM in 2005, failing to win a seat in his hometown of Batroun.
He lost again four years later, leading many in Lebanon to joke that he was not even welcome in his own town. But he finally managed to win a seat in his third election bid in 2018. Despite the presence of other popular figures in the FPM, Aoun had handed Bassil the party's reigns in 2015 over fears that leadership elections could sow division.
"You really feel like he's that spoilt kid, because he's the president's son-in-law," Nidal Ayoub, an activist who has led chants on the streets throughout Lebanon's uprising, told Al Jazeera. Family politics also plays a large role in the party Bassil leads. Three of the FPM bloc's 24 members - Salim, Mario and Alain - are all relatives of the president, and, by extension, Bassil.
Chamel Roukoz, one of Aoun's in-laws, is also an FPM member of parliament, though his relationship with Bassil is frayed over what Roukoz has previously put down to their "different ways of doing things".
Al Jazeera was unable to reach Bassil for comment while Roukoz and a former brother-in-law of Bassil declined to comment.
Charbel Nahhas, a two-time FPM minister who broke away from the party in 2012, told Al Jazeera that Bassil had been troubled by the impression among his peers that he was in his position because of nepotism. This, Nahhas said, translated into an overbearing approach to politics that led Bassil into chronic conflicts with other parties.
"He's a hyperactive person. He works on all the files and learns, which is a rare thing to find among politicians in Lebanon," Nahhas said. "Because he was so hyperactive, he would easily antagonise even those who are with him." Bassil has, over the years, led the FPM into public spats with most of the country's major political parties, who have accused him of engaging in corruption, monopolising top-level appointments and violating the delicate power-sharing agreement that ended the civil war in 1990.
As an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Bassil also sought to normalise ties with Damascus despite half the country's political parties opposing the move.
Rhetoric on refugees
During a portion dedicated to Syrian refugee policy at a party event in 2017, Bassil told FPM supporters that, "Yes, we are Lebanese racists, but we know how to be Arab in our belonging, global in our [diaspora] and strong in our openness". There are just less than a million Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations in Lebanon, though Lebanese officials including Bassil have said the number is much higher.
"The Syrians have one place to go: Back to their country," Bassil said during that same event. It is the rhetoric like this that has led many to accuse Bassil of incitement against refugees.
As the leader of the country's largest Christian party, Bassil has also repeatedly held up government work, including vital appointments, citing Christian representation.
This includes his years-long refusal to sign off on the appointment of forest rangers because most of them are Shia Muslims.
Is Bassil's career over? In a recent four-hour interview with Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed, Bassil said all the pressure and insults he was facing would only make his resolve stronger. There were calls to boycott the interview. The interviewers repeatedly alleged he was involved in corruption, as Bassil was forced to defend himself throughout.
It was a far cry from past white-glove treatment by local media, such as a glowing 2018 documentary by another local broadcaster about Bassil titled "The Man Who Doesn't Sleep", where he was portrayed as a hard-working family man. But it is unlikely that Bassil's career is over. He still heads the biggest party in the Parliament and, importantly, enjoys Hezbollah's backing. "I don't think those leading this campaign against him will be able to win - he's cunning and clear-headed and on a path, a struggle till the end," Mario Aoun, the MP, said.
Nahhas, however, believes Bassil will be brought down by the impending collapse of the country. Lebanon is mired in an economic and financial crisis that new Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said earlier this week was the worst in its history. "If the whole system wasn't falling then he [Bassil] could digest it - lets not forget that the logic of these Zuama (sectarian leaders') is built on constant fighting and conflict and even if there are 10,000 deaths on both sides, they can reconcile and become national heroes again," he said.
"But the system is falling apart, and this is what threatens them all."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 26-27/2020
Pope Francis praises China's efforts to contain coronavirus
Reuters/NNA/January 26/2020
Pope Francis praised China's "great commitment" to contain the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday and said he was praying for the dead, the sick, and families of victims. "I would like also to be close to and pray for the people who are sick because of the virus that has spread through China," Francis told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square for his weekly message and blessing. "May the Lord welcome the dead into his peace, comfort families and sustain the great commitment by the Chinese community that has already been put in place to combat the epidemic," he said. Relations between the Vatican and Beijing have improved since September, 2018 when the two sides signed a historic pact on the naming of bishops. Conservative Catholics have objected to the pact, accusing the Vatican of having sold out to the communist government. The ability of the new coronavirus to spread is strengthening and infections could continue to rise, China's National Health Commission said on Sunday, with nearly 2,000 people in China infected and 56 killed by the disease.

Israel gives green light for visits to Saudi Arabia under limited circumstances
Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Israel on Sunday officially gave its citizens the right to travel to Saudi Arabia for religious and business visits. Israel had never granted official approval for such travel by both Jewish and Muslim Israelis. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri “signed for the first time an order enabling an exit permit for Israelis to Saudi Arabia,” his office said. The move, coordinated with the security and diplomatic services, approves travel to the Gulf state “for religious purposes during the Hajj and the Umra (Muslim pilgrimages),” it said in a statement. It said Israel would also allow its citizens to travel to Saudi Arabia “to participate in business meetings or seek investments” for trips not exceeding 90 days. Business travelers must have “arranged their entry to Saudi Arabia and received an invitation from a governmental source,” the interior ministry said. There was no indication of a corresponding policy change from the Saudi side. Earlier Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Mohammed al-Issa, head of the Muslim World League based in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for attending commemorations in Poland this week marking 75 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. (With AFP)

Israel strikes in Gaza in response to flammable balloons
AFP/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Israel carried out air raids on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip late Saturday, in response to the launching of incendiary devices attached to balloons sent over from the Palestinian enclave, the army said. “A short while ago, combat planes hit a number of targets of the Hamas organization in the southern Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement. Among the targets was an arms factory, the army added, stressing that the air raids were in response to the launching of the incendiary balloons towards Israeli territory. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2008, and Israel holds the Islamist movement responsible for all rocket fire coming from the territory, although it has targeted other militant groups there. On Tuesday, Israeli troops shot dead three Palestinians who crossed into Israel from Gaza and hurled an explosive device at soldiers, according to the army.
Hamas has fought three wars with Israel, which maintains a crippling blockade on the impoverished territory.

Trump rejects lifting Iran sanctions to negotiate
The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
WASHINGTON - The United States will not lift sanctions on Iran in order to negotiate, US President Donald Trump tweeted late on Saturday, seemingly in response to a Der Spiegel interview with Iran's foreign minister. "Iranian Foreign Minister says Iran wants to negotiate with The United States, but wants sanctions removed. @FoxNews @OANN No Thanks!" Trump tweeted in English on Saturday and later in Farsi. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on Sunday by tweeting an excerpt from the interview with Der Spiegel published on Friday, where he said Iran is still open to negotiations with America if sanctions are lifted. "@realdonaldtrump is better advised to base his foreign policy comments & decisions on facts, rather than @FoxNews headlines or his Farsi translators," Zarif said in the tweet with the interview excerpt. Tensions between Iran and the United States have reached the highest levels in decades after the US killed top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3, prompting Iran to fire missiles days later at bases in Iraq where US troops are stationed. Tensions between the two have been increasing steadily since Trump pulled the United States out of Iran's nuclear pact with world powers in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that have driven down Iran's oil exports and hammered its economy. Iran has routinely vowed to begin enriching its stockpile of uranium to higher levels closer to weapons grade if world powers fail to negotiate new terms for the nuclear accord following the US decision to withdraw from the agreement and restore crippling sanctions. European countries opposed the US withdrawal and have repeatedly urged Iran to abide by the deal. Under the agreement, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium under the watch of UN inspectors in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Trump has maintained that the 2015 nuclear deal needs to be renegotiated because it didn't address Iran's ballistic missile program or its involvement in regional conflicts. The other signatories to the nuclear deal — Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia — have been struggling to keep it alive. Zarif did suggest Iran was also still prepared for conflict with the US, though was not specific.

Trump’s Middle East peace plan will be ‘historic’: Netanyahu
AFP/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday said he expected US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East to be “historic” ahead of a trip to Washington. “An opportunity such as this comes once in history and cannot be missed... I am full of hope that we are on the verge of a historic moment in the annals of our state,” Netanyahu, who has been invited to meet Trump at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the plan, said in a statement.

Palestinians threaten to quit Oslo accords over Trump peace plan
AFP, Ramallah/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Palestinian officials threatened Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define relations with Israel, if US President Donald Trump announces his Middle East peace plan next week. Chief Palestinian negotiation Saeb Erekat told AFP that the Palestinian Liberation Organization reserved the right “to withdraw from the interim agreement,” the concrete part of the Oslo deal, if Trump unveils his plan. The Trump initiative will turn Israel's “temporary occupation (of Palestinian territory) into a permanent occupation,” Erekat said. Trump is set to decide the fate of his administration’s Middle East peace proposal, named the “Deal of the Century”, within the coming days, according to a White House official. The official said that Trump was the one who will be making the decision and is considering the timing of the announcement as a delay will not be in the interest of the plan given the upcoming US presidential election later this year.

One killed in truck blast in northern Syria’s Azaz: Reports
Reuters/Sunday, 26 January 2020
A truck packed with explosives blew up in the city of Azaz in northern Syria on Sunday, killing one person and wounding a number of others, civil defense forces said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Turkish-backed Syrian armed factions opposed to President Bashar al-Assad control Azaz, which falls near the Turkish border. The civil defense forces said that seven had been severely wounded and were transferred to Turkey for treatment.

Five rockets hit near US embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone
Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 26 January 2020
A number of rockets hit near the US embassy in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Sunday, two security sources said, in the latest unclaimed attack on American installations in Iraq. The Green Zone houses government buildings and foreign missions. US sources revealed that rockets fell inside the embassy’s compound in Baghdad, Al Arabiya correspondent in Washington reported. Baghdad is in the throes of mass anti-government protests. AFP reporters heard loud thuds emanating from the western bank of the Tigris, where most foreign embassies are located. One security source said three Katyusha rockets hit near the high-security compound while another said as many as five struck the area. Later Iraq’s security forces said in a statement that five rockets hit the high-security Green Zone with no casualties. It did not mention the US embassy. The rocket fire comes two day after thousands massed in Baghdad in response to a call by populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a rally to demand the ouster of US troops from Iraq. America’s military presence has been a hot-button issue in Iraq since a US strike killed Iranian general Qassim Soleimani and a top Iraqi commander outside Baghdad airport on January 3.
Around 5,200 US troops are in Iraq to lead a global coalition fighting ISIS, but Iraq said the strike against Soleimani violated that mandate. Sunday’s attack was the latest in a series of rocket fire this month targeting the Green Zone, where the Iraqi parliament is also located. The parliament earlier this month urged the departure of US troops from Iraq, which has been gripped by anti-government protests since October. (With AFP)

Iraqi cleric Sadr scraps anti-US demonstrations ‘to avoid internal strife’
Reuters, Baghdad/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Populist Iraqi cleric Moqtaqa al-Sadr on Sunday called off demonstrations against the US embassy “to avoid internal strife,” his office said. Sadr had earlier called for the demonstrations to take place in Baghdad and other cities.

Iraqi protesters defy top cleric and return to the streets
The Associated Press, Baghdad/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Hundreds of anti-government protesters flooded the streets of Iraq’s capital and southern provinces on Sunday, defying a powerful Iraqi religious leader who recently withdrew his support from the popular movement. Security forces fired tear gas and live rounds to disperse the crowds from the capital’s Khilani Square, medical and security officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. At least 22 demonstrators were reported wounded by Iraqi security forces, as the street rallies continued to grow in size. The mass protests started in October over widespread government corruption and a lack of public services and jobs. They quickly grew into calls for sweeping changes to Iraq’s political system that was imposed after the 2003 US invasion. Iraqi security forces have responded harshly. At least 500 protesters have been killed since the unrest began. Iraq also has been roiled by US-Iran tensions that threatened a regional war after an American drone strike this month killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad. The US attack pushed the Shia cleric and political leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, to turn his influence toward demanding an American troop withdrawal. He also dropped his support for the anti-government movement on Friday.
Hundreds of protesters, mostly students, marched Sunday through key squares in the capital and southern Iraq to show their continued support for the anti-government movement, despite al-Sadr’s reversal of position. “The demonstrations have become stronger now because of what happened,” said Zaidoun, 26, a protest organizer in Baghdad. Many demonstrators chanted slogans against the populist preacher. The movement opposes Iraq’s sectarian system and both US and Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs. Some protesters were worried, however, that the departure of al-Sadr’s supporters and his militia members from Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the hub of the protest movement, could spark a renewed security crackdown. On Saturday, hours after al-Sadr’s supporters left protest sites in Baghdad and some southern cities, including Basra, security forces swooped in to clear areas of demonstrators and torch their sit-in tents. At least four protesters were killed in the crackdown. With al-Sadr out of the picture, protesters said the only top leader on their side was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shia cleric. Many said they were hoping his weekly Friday sermon would boost morale ahead of a major planned protest for Jan. 31. In a statement posted online, al-Sadr called on the protesters to return their movement to its “initial course,” in what many anti-government activists interpreted as a veiled threat. The statement added that al-Sadr could boost his support for the “heroic” security forces if protesters didn’t heed his calls. Al-Sadr had called on his followers to stage a rival protest targeting the US embassy on Sunday, before rescinding the order shortly after. In a statement from his office, al-Sadr asked Iraqis “who reject the American occupation” to gather at key assembly points later that evening. A spokesperson from his office later said the decision had been reversed.

Jordanian charged with ‘terror’ over tourist stabbings
AFP, Amman/Sunday, 26 January 2020
A Jordanian court on Sunday levelled “terrorism” charges against a man suspected of wounding eight people in a November knife attack at a popular tourist site. The suspect, Moustafa Abourouis, 22, faces up to 20 years in prison after the stabbing of three Mexicans, a Swiss woman, a Jordanian tour guide and a security officer at the Roman city of Jerash. At a hearing open to the press, prosecutors accused Abourouis of committing a “terrorist act” and “promoting the ideas of a terrorist group” – a reference to ISIS. Abourouis, who is of Palestinian origins and grew up in the refugee camp of Souf, was arrested immediately after the attack at Jerash, close to the camp and around 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Amman. The Jordanian prosecutor accused Abourouis of trying to join ISIS, an operative of which in Syria had “ordered him to commit attacks against foreigners”. Two alleged accomplices, also Jordanians of Palestinian origin, were charged with “terrorism” in the same case. All three pleaded not guilty. The court is scheduled to hear witnesses next Sunday, with the date for a verdict to be confirmed. It was not the first time a Jordanian tourist attraction has been attacked. In December 2016, in Karak, home to one of the region’s biggest Crusader castles, 10 people – seven police, two Jordanian civilians and a Canadian tourist – were killed in an attack that also left 30 wounded. That attack was claimed by ISIS and 10 people were later convicted of carrying out the assault, two of them sentenced to death. Tourism is a key lifeline for Jordan, a country lacking in natural resources and reliant on foreign aid. The sector accounted for 14 percent of GDP in 2019. The kingdom, bordering conflict-torn Syria and Iraq, has been working to revive its tourism industry and aims to attract seven million holidaymakers a year.

Four cargo vessels catch fire in Iranian port city
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Four cargo vessels and fishing boats have caught fire in Iran’s port city of Jask in the Arabian Gulf for unknown reasons, Iran’s semi-official YJC news agency reported. “Two of these boats have completely burned and the firefighters are extinguishing the other two,” the governor of Jask Mohammad Rahmehr told YJC. “A number of paramedics and firefighters who were working to extinguish the fire were injured in the incident,” said Radmehr, adding that “the cause of the fire and possible casualties are under investigation.”

Syria regime forces on edge of key opposition-held town: Monitor
AFP, Beirut/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Syrian regime forces have reached the outskirts of a key city on the edge of the country’s last opposition-held stronghold, a monitor and a pro-government newspaper said Sunday. The mainly deserted city of Maaret al-Numan is a strategic prize lying on the M5 linking Damascus to Syria’s second city Aleppo, a main highway coveted by the regime as it seeks to regain control of the entire country. It is one of the largest urban centers in the beleaguered northwestern province of Idlib, the last stronghold of anti-regime forces and currently home to some three million people – half of them displaced by violence in other areas. The regime and its Russian ally have escalated their bombardment against the extremist-dominated region since December, carrying out hundreds of air strikes in southern Idlib and the west of neighboring Aleppo province. Over the past 24 hours, government ground forces have seized seven villages on the outskirts of Maaret al-Numan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Sunday. They have now reached “the edges of the city and are... within gunfire range of part of the highway”, it said. Pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan reported that loyalist forces were “just around the corner” from the city, whose “doors are wide open”. Idlib and nearby areas of Hama, Aleppo and Latakiya provinces are dominated by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) extremist group, led by members of the country’s former al-Qaeda franchise. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly vowed to reassert control over the whole of Syria, despite several ceasefire agreements. An AFP correspondent says Maaret al-Numan has become a ghost town. Assad’s forces, which are also battling HTS extremists in western Aleppo province, are backed on both fronts by Syrian and Russian air strikes. The fighting has left dozens of fighters dead on both sides. Since 1 December, some 358,000 Syrians have been displaced from their homes, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the United Nations. A ceasefire announced by Moscow earlier this month was supposed to protect Idlib from further attacks, but the truce never took hold. Aid agencies and relief groups have warned that further violence could fuel what may potentially become the largest wave of displacement seen during Syria’s nine-year-old civil war. Syrian government forces now control around 70 percent of the country and Assad has repeatedly vowed to retake Idlib.

Syria Regime Forces on Edge of Key Rebel-Held Town
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 26/2020
Syrian regime forces have reached the outskirts of a key city on the edge of the country's last rebel-held stronghold, a monitor and a pro-government newspaper said Sunday. The mainly deserted city of Maaret al-Numan is a strategic prize lying on the M5 linking Damascus to Syria's second city Aleppo, a main highway coveted by the regime as it seeks to regain control of the entire country. It is one of the largest urban centers in the beleaguered northwestern province of Idlib, the last stronghold of anti-regime forces and currently home to some three million people -- half of them displaced by violence in other areas. The regime and its Russian ally have escalated their bombardment against the jihadist-dominated region since December, carrying out hundreds of air strikes in southern Idlib and the west of neighboring Aleppo province. Over the past 24 hours, government ground forces have seized seven villages on the outskirts of Maaret al-Numan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Sunday. They have now reached "the edges of the city and are... within gunfire range of part of the highway", it said. Pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan reported that loyalist forces were "just around the corner" from the city, whose "doors are wide open." Idlib and nearby areas of Hama, Aleppo and Latakiya provinces are dominated by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadist group, led by members of the country's former al-Qaida franchise. The regime of President Bashar Al-Assad has repeatedly vowed to reassert control over the whole of Syria, despite several ceasefire agreements. An AFP correspondent says Maaret al-Numan has become a ghost town. Assad's forces, which are also battling HTS jihadists in western Aleppo province, are backed on both fronts by Syrian and Russian air strikes. The fighting has left dozens of fighters dead on both sides. Since 1 December, some 358,000 Syrians have been displaced from their homes, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the United Nations. A ceasefire announced by Moscow earlier this month was supposed to protect Idlib from further attacks, but the truce never took hold. Aid agencies and relief groups have warned that further violence could fuel what may potentially become the largest wave of displacement seen during Syria’s nine-year-old civil war. Syrian government forces now control around 70 percent of the country and Assad has repeatedly vowed to retake Idlib.

Kurdish authorities move 21 orphans out of Syria al-Hol camp
AFP/Sunday, 26 January 2020
Kurdish authorities said they transferred 21 orphans from a squalid displacement camp in northeast Syria on Saturday, including two French children who are set to be repatriated. The children, including some from France, Egypt and Dagestan, were only a fraction of the 224 orphans living in al-Hol camp, home to thousands of relatives of ISIS fighters. They were transferred to the Kurdish-run settlement of Roj, also in northeast Syria, said Jaber Mustafa, an official at al-Hol. He did not say why only 21 orphans were being transferred but argued that Roj is better equipped to host orphans. “The child care centers in Al-Hol lack many basic services,” including trained specialists and educators, he said. Two French orphans are among those being transferred, said another camp official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. They will be handed to a representative of the French government who will then repatriate them, the official added, without providing a timeline. The repatriation, according to the official, is taking place at the request of Paris. Kurdish authorities say they are holding around 12,000 foreigners from countries other than Iraq, including 4,000 women and 8,000 children, in three displacement camps in northeastern Syria. The majority are being held in al-Hol.

Turkey quake death toll rises to 31
AFP, Elazig/Sunday, 26 January 2020
The death toll from a powerful earthquake which struck eastern Turkey rose to 31, officials said Sunday, as rescue efforts continued. The magnitude 6.8 quake hit on Friday evening, with its epicenter in the small lakeside town of Sivrice in Elazig province but also affected neighboring cities and countries. The Turkish government’s disaster and emergency management agency (AFAD) said 31 people died, the majority in Elazig but at least four in nearby Malatya, and 1,607 were injured. Rescuers scrambled all of Saturday and searched Sunday to rescue people alive from under the rubble. The latest number of individuals rescued was 45, according to AFAD. Nearly 80 buildings collapsed while 645 were heavily damaged in Elazig and Malatya, the agency said in a statement. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised Saturday that Turkey’s housing agency TOKI would “do whatever is necessary and make sure no one is left without a home.” He attended the funeral of a woman and her son in Elazig Saturday, later visiting Malatya after cancelling a speech in Istanbul.

Trump says ‘no thanks’ to Iran's FM negotiation proposal
Joanne Serrieh, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 26 January 2020
US President Donald Trump rejected on Sunday a negotiation proposal by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif on the condition that sanctions be lifted. “Iranian Foreign Minister says Iran wants to negotiate with The United States, but wants sanctions removed,” Trump said in a tweet. “No Thanks!”He retweeted his tweet with a Farsi translation as well. Zarif on Saturday told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that Iran is still willing to negotiate with the US even after an American drone strike killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. The foreign minister said he would “never rule out the possibility that people will change their approach and recognize the realities.” There has been growing tension between Washington and Tehran since 2018, when President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran. The US has since re-imposed tough sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.
* With AP

Man whose wife was killed when Iran shot down plane flees Iran after threats
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 26 January 2020
The husband of a woman killed when Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner earlier this month has fled the country after allegedly receiving threats from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence to stay quiet. Elnaz Nabiyi, a 31-year-old PhD student in the Department of Accounting, Operations and Information Systems in the Alberta School of Business, was killed alongside 175 other people when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down flight PS752 on January 8. Her husband, Javad Soleimani Meimandi, said he was threatened and summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence for “insulting” local IRGC commanders and representatives of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who attended Nabiyi’s funeral in her hometown Zanjan. Soleimani Meimandi called the regime officials “shameless” at the funeral and received threatening messages later that day. “On the day of the funeral, I received a message telling me to shut my mouth, and that this is my first and last warning,” he wrote in an Instagram post. Soleimani Meimandi – who is not believed to be related to the slain IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani – added that he was summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence the following day for “insulting” officials. “I was then forced to quickly leave the country so I can be a voice for the victims of this tragedy,” he said. In his latest post on Instagram on Friday, Soleimani Meimandi said that Khamenei, as the country’s highest authority, must be held accountable for the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner. He also called on the international community to pressure Iran to hand over the black boxes of the downed Ukrainian airliner. Soleimani Meimandi questioned why Iran did not halt passenger flights and shut its airspace at a time it was firing missiles and accused the Islamic Republic of using passenger planes as shields against potential US retaliation on that day. Iran carried out missile attacks against US military bases in Iraq in response to the killing of prominent military commander Qassem Soleimani hours before downing the Ukrainian airliner.

UN says ‘blatant’ violations of Libya arms embargo continue
The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
The United Nations decried “continued blatant violations” by several countries of an arms embargo on war-torn Libya, flying in the face of recent pledges made last week at an international conference in Berlin.
The UN support mission in Libya didn’t name any specific nations, but said they included “several who participated in the Berlin Conference.” Saturday’s statement said these countries were supplying advanced weapons, armoured vehicles and foreign fighters. Libya sits on Africa’s Mediterranean coast, and is divided between rival governments, each supported by various armed militias and foreign backers. It has the ninth largest known oil reserves in the world and the biggest oil reserves in Africa. The weak but UN-recognized government in the capital Tripoli is backed by Turkey, and to a lesser degree Qatar and Italy. Rival forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar receive support from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia. “Over the last ten days, numerous cargo and other flights have been observed landing at Libyan airports in the western and eastern parts of the country providing the parties with advanced weapons, armored vehicles, advisers and fighters,” the UN statement said. The UN warned that continuing to funnel arms into the conflict threatens the “fragile truce” in Tripoli. Haftar’s forces have laid siege to the capital since last April. A cease-fire was brokered earlier this month by Russia and Turkey. At the Berlin summit, many world powers with an interest in Libya pledged to halt foreign interference and honor the UN arms embargo. Among those who attended the Berlin conference were Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, French President Emmanuel Macron, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The peace push followed a surge in Haftar’s offensive against Tripoli, which threatened to plunge Libya into chaos rivaling the 2011 conflict that ousted and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gadhafi. Earlier this month, powerful tribal groups loyal to Haftar also seized several large oil export terminals along the eastern coast as well as southern oil fields. The closure of Libya’s major oil fields and production facilities has resulted in losses of more than $255 million in the six-day period ending Jan. 23, the country’s national oil company said Saturday. (AFP)

Confession Of ISIS Mufti Shifa Al-Ni'ma: 'I Issued Fatwas Permitting Expulsion Of Christians From Mosul, Enslavement, Selling of Yazidi Women'
MEMRI/January 22, 2020
On January 22, 2020, Iraq's supreme Judicial Council published a report detailing the confessions of Shifa Al-Ni'ma, a senior Islamic State (ISIS) cleric whose arrest was announced by security forces on January 16, 2020, in which he admitted to issuing multiple fatwas, including those permitting the expulsion of Christians from the city of Mosul as well as the sale and enslavement of Yazidi women.
According to the report, Al-Ni'ma stated that he graduated from Al-Madina Al-Monawarh University in Saudi Arabia in 1984, and went worked as a teacher in Al-Rashideen school in Ajman, UAE, for three months before returning to Iraq. He also admitted to taking part in fighting the Iraqi army and establishing armed factions such as Al-Mujahideen Army, The Army of Muhammad, and the Islamic Army. The report also says that A-Ni'ma issued multiple fatwas, including those permitting assassination and bombing operations against Iraqi security forces in Mosul in 2006 and 2007.
Al-Ni'ma also admitted to receiving funds for the mujahideen from a Mosul native residing in London named Abu Mustapha Al-Najmawi, and from a Saudi national named Abdallah Al-Ghonaiman. The report quotes Ni'ma saying: "In 2007, I travelled to Makkah to perform umrah [a lesser pilgrimage to Makkah undertaken at any time of year] and I met with the terrorist Abu Mustapha Al-Najmawi and he is a Mosul native who resided in London... we discussed religious topics and I explained to him the situation in Mosul and the details about the Iraqi forces and their affiliation with the Americans. We talked about the role of jihadi factions and he gave me $6,000 and asked that I spend it on armed groups. When I returned to Mosul, I met with members of armed groups and I distributed the money between them. In the same year, I went back again to Saudi Arabia to perform hajj and met with Al-Najmawi again and he introduced me to the so-called sheikh Abdallah Al-Ghonaiman who was a Saudi national who knew about me and my ideology and he gave me $4,000."
Al-Ni'ma's confession also includes founding the Abdallah Al-Ni'ma's school, where dozens of mujahideen studied, including one who would eventually become a bodyguard of the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Al-Ni'ma further confessed to urging young men to join ISIS, which he admitted to pledging fealty to in front of a senior ISIS cleric and judge, Saudi national named Al-Qahtani, repeating it in front of Abu Mu'taz Al-Afari.
Recounting his fatwas, Al-Ni'ma is quoted as saying: "I issued the fatwas that punish the citizens who don't go to mosques, a flogging fatwa for those who smoke cigarettes, and a fatwa requiring officials in the [Iraqi] security forces to obtain a repentant card and surrender their weapons. I also issued the fatwa requiring shop owners to pay zakat and the fatwa to expel Christians from Mosul and I permitted killing of Shi'ites and issued other fatwas in regard to allowing ISIS fighters to enslave Yazidi women and sell them and killing the Yazidi men. I also issued fatwas to confiscate houses of displaced people and permitted ISIS fighters to blow up mosques in Mosul which had graves of prophets and righteous people inside them, such as permitting the destruction of Mosque of Prophet Yunus in August 2014."
The report also mentions that Al-Ni'ma's sons, Abd Al-Bari and Abd Al-Hadi, were members of ISIS. The former was sentenced to death while the latter is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Al-Sulaimaniyah, Iraq.
The report concludes by quoting Al-Ni'ma saying that he was hiding at his daughter's house in the Al-Muhandiseen neighborhood for two months, and when the Iraqi forces reached the Al-Muthanna area, he began moving to different areas until he was arrested in the Al-Mansour neighborhood.
Source: Hjc.iq, January 22, 2020.

Former Kuwaiti Minister Ali Al-Baghli: Kuwaitis Who Convert To Judaism, Other Religions Should Not Lose Their Citizenship; Our Laws Do Not Forbid Conversion
MEMRI/January 26, 2020
In a December 28, 2019 interview on ATV (Kuwait), former Kuwaiti
Minister Ali Al-Baghli, who has also been a member of Kuwait's parliament, was asked regarding whether a certain Kuwaiti man who converted to Judaism should be stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship or not. Al-Baghli answered that there should be no punishment for this person because Kuwait is a country governed by laws that do not infringe upon people's personal liberty to convert to different religions. He pointed out that if it had been a Jew that converted to Islam, everybody would have applauded this man, and that Judaism has been around for longer than Islam. Al-Baghli added: "If he is wrong, Allah will punish him. Why should we, as humans, interfere?"
Interviewer: "Today, we heard of a Kuwaiti citizen who converted to Judaism, and people say that he should be stripped of his [Kuwaiti] citizenship. This conversion, alongside his statements, are not important... Do you think that revoking his citizenship is justified in this case?"
Ali Al-Baghli: "No. We are a country governed by laws. It is not a crime and there should be no punishment unless it is written in the constitution. Article 50 of the constitution specifies that... Does our country's citizenship law – which has been turned into a game – state that a person should be stripped of his citizenship if he changes his religion? No, it does not. If it was a Jew who converted to Islam, we would be applauding him. Enough with that.
"It is a matter of personal liberty. If he is wrong, Allah will punish him. Why should we, as humans, interfere? After all, this religion existed even before our religion. It existed in the days of the Prophet Muhammad and the Rightly Guided Caliphs."

Palestinians Threaten to Quit Oslo Accords over Trump Peace Plan
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 26/2020
Palestinian officials threatened Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define relations with Israel, if U.S. President Donald Trump announces his Middle East peace plan next week.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that the Palestine Liberation Organization reserved the right "to withdraw from the interim agreement" if Trump unveils his plan. The Trump initiative will turn Israel's "temporary occupation (of Palestinian territory) into a permanent occupation," Erekat said. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement, signed in Washington in 1995, sought to put into practice the first Oslo peace deal agreed two years earlier. Sometimes called Oslo II, the interim agreement set out the scope of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza.
The interim pact was only supposed to last five years while a permanent agreement was finalized but it has tacitly been rolled over for more than two decades. Erekat's comment came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was headed to Washington, where Trump was expected to release the plan before Tuesday. The Palestinian leadership was not invited and has already rejected Trump's initiative amid tense relations with the U.S. president over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital.
The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and believe Trump's plan buries the two-state solution that has been for decades the cornerstone of international Middle East diplomacy. World powers have long agreed that Jerusalem's fate should be settled through negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. "Trump's plan is the plot of the century to liquidate the Palestinian cause," the Palestinian foreign ministry said in a statement sent to AFP on Sunday.

Oman Top Diplomat in Iran for Second Time within Week
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 26/2020
Iran's top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif hosted his Omani counterpart Yusuf bin Alawi on Sunday for the second time within a week for talks on security in the sensitive Gulf. Alawi was making the visit to Tehran on the tail end of his trip to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which Zarif skipped after scheduling changes to the annual event. Zarif and Alawi discussed "bilateral cooperation regarding the Strait of Hormuz and emphasized their governments' will... to guarantee maritime and energy security for all," Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement.
It was their second meeting in the Iranian capital since Tuesday and at least their fourth encounter since late July. Zarif's withdrawal from Davos was due to "unilateral changes in mutually agreed arrangements on part of WEF", Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet. The spokesman lamented that it was a "missed opportunity for dialogue." Tensions have soared in the region and especially between Tehran and Washington since a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3. Iran retaliated five days later by launching a wave of missiles at U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. Tehran had been on high alert hours later when its air defenses mistakenly shot down a Ukraine International Airlines passenger jet, killing all 176 people on board. Oman has often acted as a mediator between Iran and its regional foes and also played a key role in facilitating talks involving the United States that lead to the 2016 nuclear deal. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and began reimposing sanctions on the Islamic republic, which retaliated by scaling back some of its nuclear commitments.

China Stiffens Its Defenses against Epidemic as Death Toll Hits 56
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 26/2020
China on Sunday expanded drastic travel restrictions to contain a viral epidemic that has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2,000, as the United States and France prepared to evacuate their citizens from a quarantined city at the outbreak's epicenter. China has locked down the hard-hit province of Hubei in the country's center in an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people to slow the spread of a respiratory illness that President Xi Jinping said posed a "grave" threat. Outside the epicenter, four cities -- including Beijing and Shanghai, and the eastern province of Shandong -- announced bans on long-distance buses from entering or leaving their borders, a move that will affect millions of people travelling over the Lunar New Year holiday. Originating in Hubei's capital of Wuhan, the virus has spread throughout China and around the world -- with cases confirmed in around a dozen countries as distant as the United States. The US State Department said Sunday it was arranging a flight from Wuhan to San Francisco for consulate staff and other Americans in the city. The flight is on Tuesday, it said in an email to Americans in China that warned of "extremely limited" capacity for private citizens. France's government and the French carmaker PSA also said they were formulating plans to evacuate staff and families, who will be quarantined in a city in a neighboring province. A Japanese official told AFP its government was exploring options for getting its nationals out, and South Korea's consulate in Wuhan said it was conducting an online poll of its citizens there to gauge demand for a chartered flight out.
Fear in Wuhan
Instead of New Year revelry, Wuhan has been seized by an eerie calm that deepened on Sunday as new restrictions banned most road traffic in the metropolis of 11 million. Loudspeakers broke the silence by offering tips slathered with bravado. "Do not believe in rumors. Do not spread rumors. If you feel unwell, go to the hospital in time," the message said. "Wuhan is a city that dares to face difficulties and keeps overcoming them," the female voice added, mentioning the deadly 2002-03 SARS epidemic and 1998 Yangtze River flooding. But some foreigners in Wuhan expressed deep concern, saying they feared going outside even though their food supplies were running low. "The bustling city looks like a ghost town from my window. The shops are all shut down," Bangladeshi doctoral candidate Israt Zahan told AFP by phone. "I am rationing the food at my home. It will last for two days, then I don't know what I will do." The health emergency has overwhelmed Wuhan's hospitals with patients, prompting authorities to send hundreds of medical reinforcements, including military doctors, and start construction on two field hospitals. Shanghai on Sunday reported its first death -- an 88-year-old man who had pre-existing health problems. The government says most deaths involved the elderly or people already suffering from other ailments. The Shanghai fatality was the first confirmed in a major Chinese city outside Wuhan. The outbreak is suspected to have originated in a Wuhan market where animals including rats, snakes and hedgehogs were reportedly sold as exotic food. China said Sunday it was banning all trade in wildlife until the emergency is over, but conservationists complain that China has previously failed to deliver on pledges to get tough.
Virus 'accelerating'
Fearing a repeat of SARS, China has dramatically scaled back celebrations and travel associated with the New Year holiday, which began Friday, while tourist sites like Beijing's Forbidden City and a section of the Great Wall have closed as a precaution. In Hong Kong, Disneyland announced Sunday it had closed as a precaution after the city declared an emergency to combat the crisis. Shanghai's Disneyland park had already closed Saturday. Xi said at a Communist Party leadership meeting on the crisis that China faced "the grave situation of an accelerating spread" of the virus, calling for stepped-up prevention. Measures have been ordered nationwide to detect and isolate people carrying the virus on planes, trains and buses.

NBA Legend Kobe Bryant Killed in Helicopter Crash
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 26/2020
NBA legend Kobe Bryant died Sunday in a helicopter crash in suburban Los Angeles, celebrity website TMZ reported, saying five people are confirmed dead in the incident. A helicopter crash in the hills near Calabasas was also confirmed by the Los Angeles Times. The incident came only hours after the former Los Angeles Lakers star, 41, was passed by current Lakers star LeBron James for third on the all-time NBA scoring list in a Saturday game at Philadelphia.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 26-27/2020
Cruelty to Animals Gets More Media Coverage than Beheaded Christians
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/January 26/2020
جوليو ميوتي/معهد جستوني: اعلامياً فإن معاملة الحيوانات بقساوة تلاقي تغطية أكبر بكثير من فضائع قطع رؤوس المسيحيين
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/82638/%d8%ac%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88-%d9%85%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%84%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%8a/
The Bishops' Conference of Nigeria described the area as "killing fields", like the ones the Khmer Rouge created in Cambodia to exterminate the population.
"We are Aramaic people and we don't have this right to have anyone protect us? Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that -- just protect us so we can stay in our land". — Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, home to many of the Christians who fled jihadis, National Catholic Register, April 7, 2017.
In an era of round-the-clock information... the abominations suffered by Christians have been left without images, while the brutality against the Chinese pig was streamed all over. Christians are an endangered species; pigs are not.
One of the last Nigerian Christians was executed by an Islamic State child soldier. Slaughterhouses' workers go on trial in France for abuses to animals. But the same France has already repatriated more than 250 ISIS fighters, the same people who turn Iraqi churches into slaughterhouses.
First there was the beheading of 11 Nigerian Christians during the recent Christmas celebration. The next day, a Catholic woman, Martha Bulus, was beheaded in the Nigerian state of Borno with her bridesmaids, five days before the wedding. Then there was a raid on the village of Gora-Gan in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, where terrorists shot anyone they met in the square where the evangelical community had gathered, killing two young Christian women. There was also a Christian student killed by Islamic extremists who recorded his execution. Then pastor Lawan Andimi, a local leader of the Christian Association of Nigeria, was beheaded.
"Every day", says Father Joseph Bature Fidelis, of the Diocese of Maiduguri, "Our brothers and sisters are slaughtered in the streets. Please help us not be silent in the face of this immense extermination that is taking place in silence".
The Bishops' Conference of Nigeria described the area as "killing fields", like the ones the Khmer Rouge created in Cambodia to exterminate the population. Most of the 4,300 Christians killed for their faith during the last year came from Nigeria. Nina Shea, an expert in Religious Freedom, recently wrote:
"An ongoing Islamic extremist project to exterminate Christians in sub-Saharan Africa is even more brutal and more consequential for the Church than it is in the Middle East, the place where Christians suffered ISIS 'genocide', as the U.S. government officially designated."
Unfortunately, the murder of these Christians during the last month has been largely ignored by the Western media. "A slow-motion war is under way in Africa's most populous country. It's a massacre of Christians, massive in scale and horrific in brutality and the world has hardly noticed", wrote the French philosopher, Bernard Henri Lévy.
While Christians were murdered in Nigeria, the global media ran a story of a pig being tied up and shoved off a bungee tower at a new theme park in China. The story went viral on BBC, The Independent, The New York Times, Sky News, Deutsche Welle and many other mainstream media outlets. The Chinese pig got more media coverage than any of these murdered Christians in Nigeria. You often have to search for these martyrs on local African sites. "Pig Bungee Jumping Stunt In China Prompts Global Outcry", wrote the Huffington Post. Where has been the global outcry for the serial butchering of Christians just because they are Christians?
The killing of a gorilla in a Cincinnati zoo, committed to save a child's life, triggered more emotion and media coverage than the beheading of 21 Christians on a beach in Libya while they invoked the name of Jesus in Arabic and whispered prayers. ABC, CBS and NBC devoted six times more coverage to the death of one gorilla than they did on the mass execution of Christians.
"The world prefers to worry about pandas rather than about us, threatened with extinction in the land where we were born", said Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul as well as a refugee in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, home to many of the Christians who fled jihadis. When the Archbishop said that four years ago, it looked as if it were just provocation to shock Western public opinion. But Archbishop Sharaf was right.
The French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf also noted "threats to pandas cause more emotion" than threats to Christians. Archbishop Sharaf gave another example:
"In Australia they take care of frogs. One of our Syriac citizens, who's a builder, bought land, took money from a bank and wanted to build houses and sell them. Then when he wanted to get a certificate to build, in the middle of the land, he came across a hole with eight frogs in it. The government of Sydney told him: 'You can't build on this land'. He said: 'But I've taken money from the bank and I must get to work' and they pushed him to build in another place, making him pay $1.4 million to build a different place for these eight frogs. And yet we are the last people who speak Jesus' language. We are Aramaic people and we don't have this right to have anyone protect us? Look upon us as frogs, we'll accept that — just protect us so we can stay in our land".
In an era of round-the-clock information on our mobile phones, computers, televisions and social media, the abominations suffered by Christians have been left without images, while the brutality against the Chinese pig was streamed all over. Christians are an endangered species; pigs are not. "The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has several categories to define the danger of extinction that various species face today", according to Benedict Kiely, the founder of Nasarean.org, which helps the Christians of the Middle East.
"Using a percentage of population decline, the categories range from 'vulnerable species' (a 30-50 per cent decline), to 'critically endangered' (80-90 per cent) and finally to extinction. The Christian population of Iraq has shrunk by 83 per cent, putting it in the category of 'critically endangered'".
If you search for a cover dedicated to this extinction you have to go on the confessional media, such as the British weekly Catholic Herald, which just noted "The end of Iraqi Christianity?" Or the French Catholic media, La Croix, telling the story of Syrian Christians:
"Before the start of the civil war in 2012, 20,000 Assyrians populated the banks of the Khabur, a river that crosses northeastern Syria and flows into the Euphrates. The occupation of part of the region by Isis in 2015 forced the majority into exile. The Khabur is today a dead valley".
One of the last Nigerian Christians was executed by an Islamic State child soldier. Slaughterhouses' workers go on trial in France for abuses to animals. But the same France has already repatriated more than 250 ISIS fighters, the same people who turn Iraqi churches into slaughterhouses.
Western media stirred global indignation about Russia's laws against "homosexual propaganda" prior to the Winter Olympics in Sochi. But the same Western media never protested the Islamist regimes that punish people with the death for converting to Christianity or countries where Christians are threatened with death if they do not convert to Islam.
Mauro Armanino, a priest of the Society for African Missions in Niger, who describes a situation of open genocide, writes:
"The repeated threats to the Christian communities in the border area with Burkina Faso have achieved the aim they set: to decapitate the communities and then fall prey to the fear of professing faith in Sunday prayers in the chapels....On Tuesday, January 14, in a village not far from Bomoanga, which, for over a year, has helplessly witnessed the kidnapping of Father Pierluigi Maccalli, a group of criminals who went to settle the scores with the chief nurse who works in a dispensary in the area, took the nephew from his home and was beheaded. In Bomoanga people no longer go to church on Sunday".
These persecuted Christians feel more and more alone in a world that sees them as intruders. They are as if suspended in a limbo, between an amnesic and weak West and a rising radical Islam. There seems to be no way to push the Western world to become aware of this tragedy that no one talks about and which could have fatal consequences for the future of our civilization.
"Out of fatigue or shame, or both, we close our eyes", writes Franz-Olivier Giesbert.
"Does the life of Christians from East, Africa or Asia count for a negligible amount? This is a question that we have the right to ask when we see the place that our dear media give to the killings and discrimination that Catholics and Protestants are subjected to on the planet: nothing or almost nothing, with a few happy exceptions. It is our hypocrisy that feeds the clash of civilizations".
So, shall we now return to our hypocritical indignation about the cruelty inflicted on Chinese pigs?
*Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
*-Picture enclosed/"The world prefers to worry about pandas rather than about us, threatened with extinction in the land where we were born", said Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf (pictured), the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul as well as a refugee in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, home to many of the Christians who fled jihadis. (Photo by Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images)

New EU Report on Integration Misses the Point
Judith Bergman//Gatestone Institute/January 26/2020
It is worth noticing that the European Commission places the responsibility for integration of third-country nationals exclusively on the shoulders of EU member states.
The most conspicuous aspect of the report is how it insists that integration of people who have come mainly from the Middle East and Africa is merely an issue of ensuring that the rights that they are entitled to under EU and national laws be fulfilled and everyone will live happily ever after. It takes a lot of denial of the facts to reach such a conclusion....
First, the report appears to operate on the premise that EU countries have unlimited resources at their disposal with which to care for third country nationals. It completely ignores, for example, that countries such as Sweden, as a result of the high number of migrants that they have taken in, are now experiencing financial hardships that make it difficult even properly to take care of their own nationals.
Second, the report completely disregards how poorly the project of multiculturalism in Europe, including the integration of people from the Middle East and Africa, has fared until now.
The Six Country Immigrant Integration Comparative Survey... conducted 9,000 telephone interviews in Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Sweden. The respondents were Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Two thirds of the Muslims interviewed said that religious rules were more important to them than the laws of the country in which they lived.
The EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights instead has chosen to ignore reality. The question is why.
A new report on the integration of refugees, by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, completely disregards how poorly the project of multiculturalism in Europe, including the integration of people from the Middle East and Africa, has fared until now. (Image source: GuentherZ/Wikimedia Commons)
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights recently published a report in which it warned Europe against creating a "lost generation" of migrants aged 16-24, who had arrived in Europe between 2015 and 2018. The report focuses particularly on the experiences of those young people who arrived in 2015-16 and looks specifically at the five EU member states with the most asylum applicants: Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. The report also includes Greece, as it is a first EU member state of arrival.
According to the report, Integration of young refugees in the EU: good practices and challenges:
"From 2015 to 2018, according to Eurostat, 1.9 million people received international protection in the EU, either as refugees or as beneficiaries of subsidiary protection, or received a humanitarian residence permit. More than 80 % were below the age of 34..."
Also, according to the report:
"In its 2016 Action Plan on the integration of third country nationals, the European Commission pointed out that failure to integrate the newly arrived people can result in 'a massive waste of resources, both for the individuals concerned themselves and more generally for our economy and society'. The legal, economic and social inclusion of recently arrived refugees in the host society depends on how the different rights they are entitled to under EU and national law can be realised in practice".
It is worth noticing that the European Commission places the responsibility for integration of third-country nationals exclusively on the shoulders of EU member states.
The report states:
"EU law defines in detail the rights and obligations of asylum applicants and international protection beneficiaries, whereas beneficiaries of humanitarian protection are generally covered by national law. If these rights are not respected, protected and fulfilled, people will face problems in successfully integrating in EU societies once they are allowed to stay and settle. Identifying challenges and gaps, but also opportunities and promising practices, provides the evidence that is necessary for the EU and its Member States to adjust their policies and actions. The young age of many newly arrived persons and their backgrounds of conflict and persecution require smart investments for successful integration. This report aims to contribute to reflection on how to achieve this, thus making sure that a whole generation will not be lost."
The following are areas that the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights urged EU countries to tackle in its report:
Allocating sufficient financial and human resources to process asylum claims more quickly.
Quick and affordable family reunification.
Passing housing policies that are able to deal with "large-scale arrivals properly".
Ensuring that refugees receive all social welfare benefits they are entitled to under EU law. They should consider providing the same entitlements to subsidiary protection status holders (persons seeking asylum who do not qualify as refugees) in need of support. EU member states should remove practical obstacles that impede access to social welfare benefits – for example, by providing information in clear, accessible and non‑bureaucratic language and offering language support, where needed. The report takes Sweden as an example:
"In Västra Götaland, the region's public housing agency (Boplats) has started to provide information in Arabic, Somali and other common languages since the arrivals of 2015. The social services have revised their written and spoken language to make it more accessible and less bureaucratic. They use a programme called Klarspråk (plain language) to adjust the texts used to explain decisions. These changes have improved the clients' ability to understand the grounds on which they have been granted or denied social support such as income support".
Swift and efficient referral to mental health treatment for traumatized migrants.
Access to education and vocational training for asylum applicants.
Providing access to core services, safe housing, employment, education opportunities and support from relevant professionals from the outset to avoid involvement in crime "as either a victim or a perpetrator".
The authors of the report interviewed 163 asylum applicants about their experiences when they arrived in one of the six mentioned EU member states. Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, and Iran were the top countries of origin and 65% of those interviewed were male. The authors also consulted "426 experts working with young refugees".
The most conspicuous aspect of the report is how it insists that integration of people who have come mainly from the Middle East and Africa is merely an issue of ensuring that the rights that they are entitled to under EU and national laws be fulfilled and everyone will live happily ever after.
It takes a lot of denial of the facts to reach such a conclusion.
First, the report appears to operate on the premise that EU countries have unlimited resources at their disposal with which to care for third country nationals. It completely ignores, for example, that countries such as Sweden, as a result of the high number of migrants that they have taken in, are now experiencing financial hardships that make it difficult even properly to take care of their own nationals. For example, every fourth municipality and every third region, according to a report by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL), had a budget deficit in 2018. At least 110 municipalities expect to run a deficit this year. Many municipalities therefore need to make severe budget cuts.
Second, the report completely disregards how poorly the project of multiculturalism in Europe, including the integration of people from the Middle East and Africa, has fared until now. It does not mention the existence of Muslim parallel societies, as documented in European TV documentaries, such as the British BBC Panorama documentary, "Secrets of Britain's Sharia Councils," which aired in 2013 or the Danish three-part television documentary, "The Mosques Behind the Veil," which aired in 2016.
The report also does not mention the findings of Dutch sociologist and professor at Berlin's Humboldt University, Ruud Koopmans, who has been researching migration and integration for over 20 years and is a member of an academic council that counsels the German immigration authorities. In 2013, as director of the research project, the Six Country Immigrant Integration Comparative Survey at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), he published a report that conducted 9,000 telephone interviews in Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Sweden. The respondents were Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Two thirds of the Muslims interviewed said that religious rules were more important to them than the laws of the country in which they lived. Three quarters of the respondents held the opinion that there is only one legitimate interpretation of the Koran.
In March 2019, on the occasion of the publication of his new book, Koopmans told Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende in an interview:
"For anyone who takes facts and data seriously, it is undeniable that integration of Muslims is worse than with other groups of immigrants. There is no doubt about that. There can also be no doubt that in most other groups of immigrants we see great progress from one generation to the next. It is not completely absent from Muslims, but the change is much slower...
"The emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the countries of origin is also a factor, partly because migrants take it with them, partly because they are influenced by the propaganda that comes from the Muslim part of the world...[it] is not that there is something immutably wrong with Islam in itself, but that there is a problem with the way many Muslims, and at a global level many Muslim countries, interpret Islam. Namely, in a way that basically claims that the Qur'an and Sunna must be taken literally, and that the way the prophet lived in the 7th century must be the yardstick for how Muslims should live in the 21st century".
The EU report also does not take into account a 2,200-page French report, "Banlieue de la République" ("Suburb of the Republic"), from 2011, commissioned by the influential French think tank Institut Montaigne -- directed by Gilles Kepel, a well-known political scientist and specialist in the Muslim world -- which concluded that Muslim immigrants in France were increasingly rejecting French values and identity, and instead immersing themselves in Islam. The report also warned that Islamic sharia law was rapidly displacing French civil law in many parts of suburban Paris.
The French report showed how radical Muslim leaders in France, who were promoting the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society ruled by sharia law, were exacerbating the problem. The report described a proliferation of mosques and prayer rooms in the suburbs.
Nor does the EU report mention the warnings of former Islamists, such as former Danish imam Ahmed Akkari. In a recent report for Danish think-tank UNITOS, "The loyalty conflict in the West – why Muslims are hard to integrate", Akkari warned that Islamism and traditionalist interpretations of Islam wield a monopoly of power over Muslims, which prevents them from integrating into Western societies, because it prevents them from thinking and acting freely concerning Islam. According to Akkari:
"The problem with the Muslim minority in the West... is that it dare not be independent, when it comes to religious issues... because the strong religious and cultural elite governs... and posits itself as self-elected representatives of Muslims".
The EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights instead has chosen to ignore reality. The question is why.
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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New details from Trump's peace plan revealed
Itamar Eichner|/Ynetnews/January 26/2020
Analysis: The so-called deal of the century apparently considers the difficulty in implementation and sets a 4-year transition period; it also suggests the construction of a tunnel connecting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
As both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue & White Chairman Benny Gantz prepare to travel to Washington to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump's peace proposal, more details emerge that shed light on the so-called deal of the century.
Apparently, the Trump administration understands the difficulty in implementing the proposal, which establishes a four-year transition period during which the Palestinians would have a chance to retract their formal refusal (after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vacates his position).
Sources also say that the Americans will not accept partial Israeli compliance and execution of the plan's provisions. They won't accept a "yes, but" from Netanyahu. The prime minister intends to accept the plan but would also like to discuss some reservations that Israel might have about the deal.
The peace plan states that during the four-year transition period, the status of all territories under the Israeli-ruled Area C will remain unchanged. This means that Israel will be able to build in areas where settlements already exist but will not be able to expand beyond its current borders. It will also ban the approval of new urban development plans for the expansion of industrial areas in the West Bank, a condition to which settlers strongly oppose. The plan allegedly allows Israel to annex 30% to 40% of Area C, while the Palestinians will have control over about 40% of Areas A and B. This leaves the status of the remaining 30% of Area C unclear. Settlers argue the Americans allowed Jordan and the Palestinians to think that these same leftover 30% will later be added to the 40% that the Palestinians already have, so the Palestinian state will cover some 70% of the West Bank. According to Israeli sources, the Americans want to wait a few weeks for the Palestinians to decide whether they accept or reject the deal before Israel starts applying sovereignty on its territories within Area C. However, Israel wouldn't be able to touch any of the territories designated for the potential Palestinian state in case the Palestinians would want to resume negotiation talks in the coming years.
President Trump meets with Mahmoud Abbas
At the end of the transition period, the Palestinians will be able to declare an independent state, but with limited powers. It will be completely demilitarized, it will have no control over its aerial space or border crossings and will not be allowed to form alliances with other countries.
The plan suggests the construction of a tunnel connecting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and will serve as a safe passage for Palestinians. This is a very sensitive issue that has not yet been examined by Israeli security authorities, which will certainly have their reservations to ensure that the tunnel will not be used to transfer weapons or individuals wanted for crimes against Israel. The plan demands the Palestinian Authority will regain full control over the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and demilitarize the militant factions in it. Israeli officials see this demand as proof that the Americans either don't understand the existing situation correctly or that they simply don't mean it seriously. The deal leaves 15 settlements in small, isolated enclaves of Israeli sovereignty and settlers fear that they will have to evacuate their homes at some point. Israel will also be required to withdraw out of 60 illegal outposts that house some 3,000 settlers. This is a section that the settlers will struggle with and also contradicts Netanyahu's past promises to the settlers to annex all settlements. Jerusalem will remain entirely under Israeli sovereignty, including the Temple Mount and other holy places that will be under the joint supervision of both Israel and the Palestinians.
Everything beyond the separation fence in Jerusalem will be transferred to the Palestinians, provided they accept the plan's full outline. The Palestinians wouldn't be able to annex territories unilaterally like Israel in Area C territories. The Palestinians will be able to set their capital anywhere they want in Jerusalem, provided it is beyond the separation fence. This means the Palestinians can continue to set their capital in the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat in Jerusalem.
The economic part
The program also offers $50 billion in funding for projects in territories designated for the Palestinian state.
Sources close to the White House claim that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and the other princes of the Persian Gulf countries have promised the Americans to donate the money in an effort to prevent the Palestinians from sabotaging the plan from behind the scenes.
The Palestinians threaten to stop security coordination if Israel applies sovereignty over all of its settlements. Jordan's King Abdullah II said last week in an interview that when examining the so-called Deal of the Century, one should look at the glass half full.
Some in Israel interpret this as tacit consent from the king to annex the Jordan Valley by Israel or, at the very least, it is indicative of full coordination between Jordan and the White House, despite threats made by different factions in Israel warning that Jordan may walk back on the peace agreement between the two countries if Israel were to annex the Jordan Valley.

The lessons of the Marib massacre
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
The massacre in Marib can be looked at from two angles. First, is the Houthis’ ability to carry out painful strikes on the Yemeni “legitimacy” camp. From this perspective, the attacks demonstrate that the Iran-backed Houthis possess significant military capabilities.
From the angle of the “legitimacy” camp, the Marib attack January 18 shows that the group needs to be reshaped and that the internationally recognised government cannot confront the Houthis, stand up to their project and limit their ambitions.
The Houthis bombed a mosque in Marib, killing about 120 Yemeni soldiers. They chose their target carefully. It was a mosque where recruits from Aden and Abyan were assembled.
Why in Marib? The answer is that Marib governorate has become a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen. Recruits from the southern governorates infiltrated by the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, which serves as a cover for the Brotherhood, are trained in Marib, one of the northern governorates.
The Houthis have demonstrated that they not only have weapons capable of inflicting heavy losses but that they possess an intelligence network that provides accurate information about opponents’ locations, whether it is in northern or southern Yemen.
It is no secret that there has been no progress towards a political solution in Yemen. UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths has not achieved a breakthrough at any level despite his frequent visits to Sana’a and indirect meetings with Houthi leader Abdelmalik al-Houthi.
The Houthis, who have benefited from Griffiths’ moves, seem comfortable with the status quo lasting indefinitely since the signing of the Stockholm Agreement in late 2018. That agreement, which served, to a large extent, the Houthis and their agenda, allowed the situation to be unchanged on the Hodeidah front at a time when regional stakeholders were concerned with containing the situation in Aden after clashes between the “legitimacy” camp and the Southern Transitional Council.
Those clashes continued until an agreement between the two sides in November. That deal, which calmed the situation in Aden, was to be a starting point for how to confront the Houthis. However, it became clear that the Houthis were nothing but a tool in the hands of Iran.
That’s why the strike against the mosque at Marib was not a coincidence. Iran wanted to remind everyone that it holds a card called Yemen and that the assassination by the Americans of Major-General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of al-Quds Force and the Iranian official in charge of the Yemeni file, would not affect Iran’s work outside its borders.
It is clear the Islamic Republic can use the Houthis to achieve certain goals, including raising morale of those who in Yemen rely on Iran.
The lesson of the Marib massacre is that the Houthis cannot be trusted. They can’t provide guarantees required of them and they can’t reach agreements with those who wish to stop their evil because they are not masters of their decisions. The master is Iran.
Who can remember any agreement the Houthis reached with their opponents that were respected by the Houthis? There are none. All those agreements remained either dried ink on paper or night chatter immediately swept away by daybreak.
Take the Peace and National Partnership Agreement signed by the Houthis with Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi shortly after they seized Sana’a on September 21, 2014. One day after signing that agreement, Hadi was placed under house arrest in Sana’a.
He was not the first victim of the Houthis’ treachery. Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh fought several wars against the Houthis since 2004. They were not about to forgo revenge, despite understandings they had reached with him. However, once their understandings with Saleh had served their purpose, the Houthis executed him in cold blood in December 2017, confirming that they have no partner in Sana’a. Since their takeover, the city has been living in a permanent nightmare.
Another lesson from the Marib massacre is that the Houthis must be defeated militarily. Without that victory, there is no hope of reaching an understanding with them. However, the “legitimate” government is incapable of defeating them.
It was not the government forces that kicked the Houthis and their cohorts out of Aden, drove them out of the port of Mocha and threatened their very existence at Hodeidah before being rescued by Griffiths for reasons that could be linked to British interests in Hodeidah.
Time has forgotten the poor Yemenis. No one is reminding the world of their sufferings. It has become almost normal to accept that Yemeni children die by the thousands. No one raises an eyebrow, not the Arab or international media. What’s more scandalous is it has become normal for the “legitimacy” camp to behave as if everything is fine. It is as if it was enough to have Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed stay in Aden to say that the capital of the south has regained its usual state and that all state departments are working normally. It is unfortunate that the world has forgotten Yemen and that it had taken a mass massacre in Marib caused by a Houthi missile to bring it back to the forefront. What is even more tragic is that the slow death of an entire country no longer matters to anyone, knowing that preventing this does not require more than a bold decision.
Bold decision-making begins with the recognition that there is a tragedy in a country of great strategic importance for the region, especially for the Arabian Peninsula, and there is no room to address this tragedy considering the “legitimacy” camp really has no legitimacy.
Pending this bold decision, other massacres will take place in Yemen whenever Iran desires it.

Iranian myths exposed as Ukrainian plane shot down
Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/January 26/2020
By refusing to release the black boxes of the Ukrainian passenger aircraft shot down by its missiles, Iran is committing yet another mistake. Worse, it is committing an outrageous humanitarian offence. In their refusal to hand over the voice and data recorders from the aircraft to countries possessing technology to decipher the flight data, Iranian authorities prolong the suffering of the families of the ill-fated civilian aircraft. There were no survivors among the 176 passengers and crew. Iran initially said it would hand over the boxes because it does not possess the technology to retrieve data from them. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested the boxes be handed to France but Iran has made no move to follow up. Information on the black boxes could help families of the victims of the downed aircraft learn more about why the plane was fired upon.
Many of the passengers were Canadians of Iranian origin, holding both Canadian and Iranian citizenship. Iran, however, does not recognise dual citizenship. Tehran, embroiled in a long-running dispute with the United States over its nuclear programme, has given mixed signals about whether it would hand over the recorders. An Iranian aviation official had said the black boxes would be sent to Ukraine only to backtrack a day later, saying they would be analysed in Iran.
Further delay in sending them abroad is likely to increase international pressure on Iran, whose military said it shot the plane down by mistake while on high alert in the tense hours after Iran fired missiles at US targets in Iraq. "If the appropriate supplies and equipment are provided, the information can be taken out and reconstructed in a short period of time," the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation said in its second preliminary report on the disaster. Even discounting human compassion, any person with an ounce of logic would be tempted to ask why Iran is doing this. Why is it so reluctant to help with closure to this tragedy? A terrible mistake was made. Why not help clear it up? The answer is simple. This is a terrible embarrassment for the Iranian leadership. It is all the more embarrassing coming while Iran is trying to show it is a country that is advanced militarily.
Shooting down a passenger plane speaks otherwise and opens questions as to how professional and well-trained Iranian officers with fingers on the trigger of the powerful weapons possessed by Tehran are.
Today, the mistake was made with a missile. Could the same mistake be made with a nuclear weapon, if Iran weaponises nuclear energy? This apparent mistake begs the question as to how stable is the country’s military arsenal if an individual can decide to shoot down a civilian aircraft.
Did whoever decided to fire the two missiles have the authority to do so or was the request sent up through the chain of command? Worrisome conclusions spring to mind either way.
How secure would nuclear-armed missiles be under the current regime? Were those missiles under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or the politically distrusted regular military?
Surely there is a cloud of fear among the Iranian leadership about what the data from the black boxes might show.
Is it fear that information would reveal the ineptitude of the IRGC, which cannot distinguish between an airliner of a scheduled flight, a US F-35 jet fighter, a missile or a bird? Does Tehran fear that myths that had surrounded the IRGC were exposed the minute the Ukrainian plane and its passengers were shot down? Despite the billions of dollars training and equipping them, the guards could not perform better than blind sentries shooting in the dark. It is not Ayatollah Ali Khameini's inappropriate words of praise on January 17 that can whitewash the bloodstained hands of the IRGC or restore a modicum of the artificially constructed illusions around them.
Iranian demonstrators have rendered their verdict. The IRGC and the clerics: Out! They are part of an obsolete past that must go. The killing of Major-General Qassem Soleimani awakened the Iranian leadership to a new reality. They realise how outperformed they are by US drone and satellite technology. They realise that their claims about technological and military prowess are bluster. Admitting their technological inferiority on top of their lost ethical compass is too heart-wrenching for the Tehran regime to endure.
Iranian clerics and the military establishment that back them might have lost more than a battle. Their compounded ineptitude and ignorance of the ways of the world indicate they might have lost the whole war.
*Claude Salhani is a regular columnist for The Arab Weekly.

Libya, Erdogan and the Mercenaries
Dr. Jebril Elabidi/Asharq Al Awsat/January 26/2020
Deporting the “mercenaries” was the pressure card that Erdogan chose to threaten Europe’s security. He had previously threatened Europe with deporting what was left of ISIS to the continent, as part a repeated attempt to blackmail them, and he had already transferred hundreds of Syrian fighters to Tripoli in Libya to save the Brotherhood Government from inevitable collapse.
The Turkish president, unfortunately, seeks to play the role of the Mediterranean pirate through a ridiculous attempt to mess with geography when he contrived that his country shares a border with Libya. While the two countries are separated by islands, countries, and thousands of kilometers, he turned Libya into the neighboring country through the bogus map drawn by Fayez al-Sarraj- the Prime Minister of the unconstitutional Accord Government.
Recruiting mercenaries is considered a crime by the UN issued International Convention against the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries, which means that Erdogan, as a recruiter, trainer, user and financer of mercenaries is subject to trial for violating international law.
Mahdi al-Harati, the Irish-Libyan former mayor of Tripoli, oversaw the training of Erdogan’s mercenaries and their transfer to Libya. His familiarity with the Syrian fighters, stemming from his fighting experience alongside them and overseeing their training, allowed him to play a central role in their recruitment.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitored the transfer of the mercenaries from Syria to Libyan territory. While the registration process continues, around 2,400 mercenaries have already arrived in Tripoli after agreeing to fight there, with each terrorist receiving 2,000 dollars. 1,700 recruits have arrived at the Turkish camps for training as recruitment from al-Mu'tasim Brigade, Sultan Murad Brigade, Northern Falcons Brigade, Hamzat, Legion of Levant, Suleiman Shah, and Samarkand Brigade continues in Afrin, the Euphrates Shield, and North-Eastern Syria.
Ahmad Kermo al-Chehabi, a high ranking official in the so-called Syrian Nation Army, loyal to Turkey, admitted to recruiting and transporting mercenaries, bragging “we are ready for Jihad anywhere; we won’t stop. We are willing to sacrifice our souls and our children for the Ottoman Caliphate”.
The agreement to gulp up the gas and wealth of the Mediterranean, plunder Libya's wealth and violate its sovereignty, and transfer hundreds of mercenaries to Libya, is equivalent to throwing firewood and gasoline on a fire to ensure that it continues to burn. It could also be considered a threat to Europe's security and its interests in Libya, since the presence of fighters of different nationalities in Tripoli, which is only 300 miles away from Southern Europe, inevitably poses a threat, whether or not Europe acknowledges it.
Libya and its war is not their final destination. From them, Libya is nothing but a transit stop that Erdogan took to help his men and those loyal to him, the Brotherhood and the Government of Reconciliation after it is about to fall. The Libyan army’s victory in the battle to liberate Tripoli from the grip of militias and mercenaries is inevitable.
During the debate over solutions to the Libyan crisis, the Libyan parties refused to sit at the same table, the crisis moved from a truce and an unwritten cease-fire in Moscow to the birth of the Military Committee (5 + 5) representing both sides to dismantle the militias in Berlin.
Meanwhile Ghassan Salameh, the international envoy, says: “I do not see blue hats in Libya anytime soon,” and concerning the Syrian mercenaries brought in by the Turkish president obsessed with a second Ottoman Caliphate, Salameh also said that: “Erdogan was invited because he is threatening to send Syrians to Libya, and he had pledged not to interfere or send mercenaries. Now, after signing of the agreement, Erdogan can be held accountable. ”
The Europeans ignoring the presence of mercenaries and Erdogan’s transport of extremists should wait the arrival of hoards of these mercenaries at their doorsteps. For most of them, Libya is nothing but a transit stop on their way to Rome and then to other Western countries.
There are no political groups in Libya, nor is there a political conflict. There is only a security crisis, with the Libyan people facing the international Brotherhood organization and its terroristic figures. The organizations brought in members from all parts of the world to help them attain victory, so they rushed to it and turned Libya into a cemetery of the multinational invaders.
Erdogan's mercenaries, whose coffins have begun returning to Idlib and Gaziantep from Tripoli, have no place in Libya, as the soil of Libya sizzles and does not accept them.

Medvedev Out: Putin Overhauls Russia's Governance System
Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/January 26/ 2020
When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a radical overhaul of Russia’s governance system this week, he also ended the Medvedev era. Dmitry Medvedev was, at least formally, Putin’s closest sidekick, the politician with whom the strongman was most willing to share formal power. Whether or not it’s time for Medvedev’s political obit, his stint near the top of Russia’s so-called power vertical will serve as an example of how the Putin system’s inertia can suffocate the best modernizing intentions.
Medvedev abruptly resigned as prime minister, without giving advance notice to members of his government, who also had to tender their resignations. “We as the government must give our country’s president the opportunity to make all the necessary decisions,” Medvedev said, though it wasn’t clear how his continued occupancy of the top cabinet post could get in the way of Putin’s reform.
Putin expressed rather tepid gratitude for the prime minister’s service. “Not everything has worked out, but then things never work out completely,” he said. Putin has always avoided firing close, trusted associates, but as prime minister since 2012, Medvedev presided over Russia’s longest run of declining real incomes during Putin’s 20-year rule. The government’s $400 billion “national projects” spending plan, designed to rectify things, hasn’t gotten off to a great start.
The new job Putin has offered Medvedev didn’t even exist before — deputy chairman of the Security Council, an advisory body that includes Russia's mighty security chiefs. It’s formally headed by Putin but run by its secretary, former secret police chief Nikolai Patrushev. The council has been described, including by Kremlin propaganda outlets, as the closest Russia has to the Soviet Union's ruling Politburo. So the newly created post, with Putin as the direct supervisor, can be enormously influential — but perhaps not when filled by Medvedev, who has never really commanded the respect of the security bosses in the way Putin does, with his KGB record and training.
Medvedev’s move means he isn’t likely to be Putin’s successor as president when the latter's term ends in 2024. Nor will he return to the prime ministerial post, now handed to a supremely skillful technocrat, former tax chief Mikhail Mishustin. His career has been launched on a downward trajectory — something he probably expected. For years, he has appeared bored and morose at official functions, time and again photographed with his eyes closed and seemingly asleep. Opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny posted one such photo taken as Putin delivered his Wednesday address, tweeting, “Only one thing in Russia is really stable and unshakable — Dmitry Medvedev, asleep during the president’s state of the nation speech.”
The visibly bored, defeated Medvedev at the end of his prime ministership was a far cry from the hopeful, cheerful modernizer who started a four-year presidency in 2008 and charmed US President Barack Obama and his aides into trying a reset of US-Russia relations. Though many Putin opponents — myself included — never believed Medvedev could pursue an independent policy, so-called system liberals, believers in changing the system from within, vested serious hopes in the younger, more polished leader. They believed he could shake off Putin's conservative influence if he ran for a second term in 2012, and that Russia would then gradually become freer both economically and politically.
Putin’s legendary personal loyalty stretched far enough not to send Medvedev, who is only 54, into retirement. But then, it was Putin himself who backpedaled in 2011 instead of letting Medvedev pursue his cautiously reformist course. It was Putin who created a system that paralyzed any kind of economic liberalization and who launched Russia on military adventures that limited its ability to develop trade. Putin, who gave Medvedev the exhilarating hope of building a more modern Russia, then quickly took it away, leaving his former successor with little except the luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by the Russian elite.
It was Putin's country to give and to take back.