English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For July 03/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him
Acts of the Apostles 10/23b/27:34-43/:”So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging. The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him. The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshipped him. But Peter made him get up, saying, ‘Stand up; I am only a mortal.’ And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 02-03/2020
Ministry of Health announces 8 new infections
Health Minister tours Hotel Dieu de France departments
UNIFIL head stresses tripartite efforts to preserve stability along Blue Line
LAF: Lebanese side has warned of Israel's decision to start oil exploration during tripartite meeting in Ras Naqoura
Berri receives phone call from his Jordanian counterpart, meets Bassil, parliamentary delegation
Diplomatic fears over Lebanon's stability; Government shakeup being eyed
Ferzli visits Hariri: Reconsidering government composition has become necessary
Black market dollar trading forces Lebanese shops to close
Diab Criticizes Recent Activity of Ambassadors
Rampling in Talks with Najm: Independence of the Judiciary is Essential
Report: France Fears Violence in Lebanon over Crisis
Franjieh Warns of 'Civil War' during Upcoming Period of 'Hunger'
Jumblatt: Government has lost touch with reality
ISF Arrests Counterfeit Money Gang
UNIFIL Head Stresses Tripartite Efforts to Preserve Stability along Blue Line
Diab Criticizes Recent Activity of Ambassadors
Sfeir Meets Saudi Envoy, Says Lebanese to Get Dollar 'through Banks'
U.S. Says to Work with France for Better Future for Lebanon
Wahhab Urges Diab to Quit, Says There are 'Negotiations on New Govt.'
Hariri Says Has 'Conditions' to Return as Premier
Top Lebanon Retailers on Strike as Currency Plummets
Cabinet Meeting Kicks Off at Grand Serail
Rampling in Talks with Najm: Independence of the Judiciary is Essential
Lebanese cabinet member: ‘international community closed to us’
Autopsy of a Collapse/Michael Young/Carnegie MEC/July 02/2020
Rescue talks with the IMF 'hit the rocks' as Lebanese suffer/Samia Nakhoul/Reuters/July 02/2020
At this rate, Lebanon may not survive to see its 100th birthday/Michael Young/The National/July 02/2020
The Organization For The Liberation Of Argentina (OLA) – Building Support For The Iranian Regime And Hizbullah/MEMRI/July 02/2020
CORRUPTION, CRISIS, CORONAVIRUS: THE LEBANESE “TRIPLE C”/Euromed Rights/July 02/2020
Diab: Internal and external parties dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts
Diab meets Chinese Ambassador
Qabalan calls Justice Minister, Judicial Council to reject Judge Mazeh's resignation
Hariri: The key word is reform and my conditions to return to the premiership are well know

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 02-03/2020
Explosion at Iran nuclear site hit new centrifuge plant: US-based analysts
Iran Reports Accident at 'Inactive' Nuclear Site, No Casualties
France refutes Turkey's 'inaccurate and bias' claims on Libya.
Palestinian Rivals Fatah, Hamas Pledge Unity against Israeli AnnexationsIncident
Incident at Iranian Nuclear Facility Damages Construction
France latest side to condemn talks of coverting Hagia Sophia back into a mosque
Fatah, Hamas Pledge Unity against Israeli Annexations
Saudi Arabia Asks Int’l Community Not to Ignore Iran’s Threat
Erdogan’s Spies Track Regime Opponents on German Soil
Turkey Prepares to Set Up Base in Misrata
World Bank Warns Against Slow Implementation of Virus Containment Strategies
Iran reports ‘accident’ in construction near Iran’s Natanz nuclear site
Vatican informs US, Israel of Holy See’s concern over West Bank annexation plans
Turkey wants France to apologize over ‘false’ Mediterranean Libya war ship claims

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 02-03/2020
Politics, Lies and Gaddafi Tapes: The plots uncovered by Libyan intelligence leaks/Tommy Hilton/Al Arabiya English/Thursday 02 July 2020
Turkey and Qatar: Love in Bloom/Burak Bekdil/BESA Center Perspectives/July 02/2020
The FDA Wants a Covid-19 Vaccine That Really Works/Max Nisen/Bloomberg/ July 02/2020
‘Smart Lockdowns’ Are the Future in Europe/Ferdinando Giugliano/Bloomberg/ July 02/2020
How Schools Will Reopen Safely This Fall/Faye Flam/Bloomberg/ July 02/2020
Black Lives Matter: "We Are Trained Marxists" - Part I/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/July 02/2020
US Needs to Review its IRF Report on India/Jagdish N. Singh/Gatestone Institute/July 02/2020
Time for France’s Emmanuel Macron to prove he is a different kind of president/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/July 02/2020
Iran must be held to account for global espionage, assassinations and terrorism plots/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/July 02/2020
Time for France’s Emmanuel Macron to prove he is a different kind of president/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/July 02/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 02-03/2020
Ministry of Health announces 8 new infections
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
The Ministry of Public Health on Thursday announced 8 new coronavirus infection cases, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 1796.

Health Minister tours Hotel Dieu de France departments
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
Minister of Public Health, Hamad Hassan, on Thursday visited the Ashrafieh-based Hotel Dieu de France Hospital, where he was received by Rector of Saint Joseph University Salim Daccache. During his tour in the various departments, Hassan commended the advanced level of healthcare provided by the hospital, heaping special praise on the facility's efforts in receiving and treating Covid-19 patients.Moreover, Hassan maintained that the Ministry of Public Health was keen on the reputation of all of Lebanon's hospitals, whether state-owned or private.

UNIFIL head stresses tripartite efforts to preserve stability along Blue Line
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Stefano Del Col today chaired a second special Tripartite meeting since the COVID-19 outbreak at a UN position in Ras Al Naqoura. In a press release by UNIFIL, it said: "Discussions focused on the situation along the Blue Line, air and ground violations as well as other issues within the scope of UNIFIL's mandate under UN Security Council resolution 1701. Major General Del Col called on the parties to fully utilize UNIFIL's liaison and coordination channels to notify about any activities they plan close to the Blue Line, so that UNIFIL could undertake the necessary coordination to prevent potential misunderstandings. "I ask you to continue to focus your efforts at maintaining stability," he said. "You have the ability and responsibility to prevent unwanted escalations in tension along the Blue Line." He underlined UNIFIL's confidence-building and conflict mitigation efforts and asked that the parties fully avail of "the opportunities to deconflict and enhance stability along the Blue Line." To this end, he called on the parties to "avoid activities that could be deemed provocative by the other side, or that otherwise have the potential to escalate with uncontrollable consequences."Tripartite meetings have been held regularly under the auspices of UNIFIL since the end of the 2006 war in south Lebanon as an essential conflict management and confidence building mechanism."

LAF: Lebanese side has warned of Israel's decision to start oil exploration during tripartite meeting in Ras Naqoura
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
The Lebanese army indicated on Thursday that the Lebanese side partaking in the UNIFIL-chaired tripartite meeting had warned against the Israeli enemy decision to start gas and oil explorations off Lebanon's maritime borders. "An extraordinary tripartite meeting was held today in Ras Naqoura under the chairmanship of UNIFIL General Commander, Major General Stefano Del Col, in presence of a delegation of officers of the Lebanese Armed Forces," the LAF said in a statement. "The meeting tackled the latest events that took place along the Blue Line, in addition to the maritime and air violations," it indicated. "The Lebanese side has reiterated its commitment to resolution 1701 in all its provisions," it added. "It also highlighted the obligation that Israeli enemy troops withdraw from all the occupied lands," the statement continued. "The Lebanese side expressed its holding onto its maritime rights, and warned against the dangers of the Israeli exploration decision," it concluded.

Berri receives phone call from his Jordanian counterpart, meets Bassil, parliamentary delegation
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Thursday received at his Ain el-Tineh residence a parliamentary delegation of Bekaa-Baalbek Hermel MPs, with whom he discussed the country's general situation and relevant developmental affairs, in particular Beirut-Bekaa tunnel project and Arab Highway rehabilitation. The delegation comprised MPs Ghazi Zeaiter, Cesar Maalouf, al-Walid Sukkarieh, Abdel Rahim Mrad, Mohammad al-Karaawi and Salim Aoun. Speaking in the name of the delegation on emerging, MP Zeaiter said that talks also dwelt on the Lebanese-Syrian relations, whereby he indicated that coordination and opening borders with Syria is a mutual interest for the two countries.  Speaker Berri also met with Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Head, MP Gibran Bassil, with whom he discussed the general situation, in particular the economic and financial conditions.
Following the meeting which lasted more than one hour and a half, MP Bassil left Ain el-Tineh without giving any statement. On another level, Berri received a phone call from his Jordanian counterpart, President of the Arab Parliamentary Union, Atef Al Tarawneh, with whom he discussed the situation on the regional scene in light of the Israeli plan to annex parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

Diplomatic fears over Lebanon's stability; Government shakeup being eyed
Joseph Haboush/Al Arabiya English/Thursday 02 July 2020
Diplomats fear the worst is yet to come in Lebanon as the financial and economic situations spiral out of control, and residents face difficulty obtaining their most basic needs, including bread. Lebanese officials are also raising the possibility of a government shakeup as Prime Minister Hassan Diab has failed to put an end to the deteriorating socio-economic situation. The national currency - pegged to the US dollar since 1997 at 1,507 pounds - has continued to tumble daily, reaching 9,400 on Thursday. Earlier in the week, the government raised the price of a 900-gram loaf of partially subsidized bread to 2,000 pounds from 1,500 pounds. This was the first price change in eight years. “The political class … is running this place into the ground,” a Western diplomat based in Beirut told Al Arabiya English. Prices of other necessities and commodities have skyrocketed, including the cost of milk, diapers and meat and poultry. With the depreciation of the local currency, nationwide anti-government protests since last October and the recent coronavirus pandemic, the country’s central bank has started printing local currency to pay public employees.Banks have also imposed capital controls on depositors due to a shortage of US dollars in the market. Today depositors cannot access their US dollars and must take local currency based at an exchange rate of 3,850 per dollar. “There is a storm coming economically,” the Western diplomat said.
Hassan Diab’s government
Meanwhile Diab’s government made up of Hezbollah and its allies, formed in January, has failed to implement reforms promised and called for by the international community. With more than $11 billion in soft loans and grants pledged by the international community at the CEDRE conference in 2018, no Lebanese government could carry out the reforms needed to unlock these funds. Diab vowed that his government would tackle the electricity sector - a sector that drains nearly $2 billion per year from the state treasury. A senior French official has also spoken of his concerns about Lebanon and the lack of government progress on reforms. “The worsening social crisis ... risks increasing the risk of violence,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday. “The situation is alarming, with an economic, financial, social and humanitarian crisis now reinforced by the risks of the coronavirus,” Le Drian he said. On Thursday, Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker called for Diab to step down. “I personally believe, with all due respect to the current government … that reconsidering the government composition has become necessary,” Elie Ferzli said after meeting with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Hariri, an opposition figure to the current government, is seen as the leading Sunni figure in the country. In a veiled message of hoping to see Hariri back at the government seat, Ferzli said: “We all agree that Prime Minister Saad Hariri is one of the main entries, and even the main entry, to reunite the Lebanese.” “I call upon his Excellency PM Diab to work to make it easier to find an alternative government that can help find solutions in the Lebanese society,” Ferzli said.
In addition to empty promises, Beirut’s negotiations have reportedly failed to convince the International Monetary Fund to intervene. Lebanon asked for $10 billion, but conditions imposed by the IMF have not been met. Earlier in the week, the Lebanese Army announced that it would stop providing meat to soldiers on duty, due to the economic crisis. The average rank-and-file soldier is paid around 1 million pounds per month. On the official exchange rate, that would amount to around $660. Today, a soldier’s salary is worth a little over $100. With purchasing power decreasing and prices increasing, local officials are also concerned. “We are heading towards a disaster,” a senior political source within the Lebanese government told Al Arabiya English. But despite the talk of a new government, the senior political source said that there “is no alternative government ready right now, so they [current ministers] will stay.”
The source added: “It’s bigger than Saad [Hariri] right now.”
International aid
And while Lebanon needs political and financial support from abroad, Diab took a swipe at Washington on Thursday. “We have been silent a lot about diplomatic practices entailing major violations of international norms and diplomacy, for the sake of preserving brotherly relations,” Diab said at the beginning of a cabinet meeting. "Some practices are blatantly interfering in Lebanon’s affairs,” in an apparent reference to US Ambassador Dorothy Shea’s interview last week where she criticized Hezbollah for destabilizing Lebanon. Shea said the US was still evaluating whether Diab and his government were truly independent and "not beholden to Hezbollah."There is also little Arab or Gulf support for Diab. On June 25, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the deterioration of Lebanon’s relations with the Arab and Gulf states led to the country’s current economic crisis.
“Lebanon is partly paying the price for that right now,” he said.

Ferzli visits Hariri: Reconsidering government composition has become necessary
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri received today at the Center House the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Elie Ferzli, who said after the meeting: “The current situation is not reassuring, especially on the socio-economic levels. It will probably deteriorate and there are no positive signs. I think, in my capacity as deputy in the Lebanese parliament, that the necessary steps must be carried out, in order to think of the means of salvation, or at least put the country on the path of salvation. The main way to do this is to contact the political leaders who represent the real and true components of the Lebanese society. We all agree that Prime Minister Saad Hariri is one of the main entries, and even the main entry, to reunite the Lebanese. This house only thinks about ways to help reunite the Lebanese, in order to save the country and end the deterioration that we live on the economic and monetary levels, and on the level of the divisions that are increasing day by day in the Lebanese arena. This my personal conviction, and I will spread this culture”
Question: Isn’t it time to change the government?
Ferzli: I personally believe, with all due respect to the current government, with its members and president, that reconsidering the government composition has become necessary. I call upon his Excellency PM Diab to work in order to make it easier to find an alternative government that can help find solutions in the Lebanese society.
At the end of the meeting, Ferzli presented to Hariri a copy of his book entitled: "The most beautiful history was tomorrow."
Hariri also received the Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Lebanon Ashraf Dabbour in the presence of Hariri’s adviser for diplomatic affairs, Dr. Basem Shabb.
The meeting focused on the situation in Lebanon and the region, especially what is happening in occupied Palestine and the relations between the two countries. --Hariri Press office

Black market dollar trading forces Lebanese shops to close
AFPT/hursday 02 July 2020
A string of top retail shops in Lebanon announced temporary closures on Thursday after the country's currency lost five-sixths of its value, triggering sharp price hikes. In a series of posts on social media, the popular stores said they would temporarily halt sales as the Lebanese pound reached more than 9,000 to the dollar on the black market. Although the currency is officially pegged at 1,507 pounds to the greenback, a shortage of hard currency has seen its street value plummet to record lows since October. That has left retailers have struggling to price their wares. "We'd rather shut down than significantly increase our prices and lose your trust," said the Lebanon franchise of Korean lifestyle brand Mumuso, which is headquartered in China. MikeSport also closed its doors, saying it did not want to "get involved in the game of buying and selling the dollar" on the black market. Several supermarkets, retail stores and butcher shops have closed in recent days because of the currency crisis. "The retail industry is going in the direction of a total shutdown or a temporary closure until things become clearer in terms of (the) exchange rate," said Nabil Gebrael, head of the Calia Group, which operates more than 20 retail stores in the country. Some of the brands' managers protested Thursday in a central Beirut square that was the epicenter of anti-government protests last year. Lebanon, burdened by sovereign debt equivalent to 170 percent of its GDP, defaulted in March for the first time in its history. The economic crunch has sparked months of unprecedented protests against official corruption and the banking sector. Beirut is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund over a potential bailout but negotiations are floundering.

Diab Criticizes Recent Activity of Ambassadors
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab criticized what he said are “currency manipulation” driving the uncontrolled devaluing of the Lebanese pound, and indirectly lashed out at recent diplomatic activity of foreign ambassadors in Lebanon.
“For the sake of friendships and (good) relations, we maintained silence on a lot of diplomatic practices largely breaching international norms, but this behavior surpassed fraternal and diplomatic relations,” said Diab at the beginning of the Cabinet meeting at the Grand Serail. “Some local and foreign sides want to besiege the Lebanese and involve Lebanon in the regional conflicts,” he added. Criticizing the rising rate of the dollar to the Lebanese pound, he said: “The dollar game is exposed now, they demand us to enforce reforms but in turn provide cover for the corrupt and prevent us from having access to the files of stolen funds.”

Rampling in Talks with Najm: Independence of the Judiciary is Essential
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm held talks on Thursday with UK Ambassador to Lebanon Chris Rampling in her office at the ministry, the National News Agency reported. Rampling emphasized during his talks with the Minister on “the independence of the Lebanese judiciary, mainly in the current circumstances the country is passing through.”Discussions also highlighted the existing cooperation between the Ministry of Justice and the British Embassy in Lebanon, said NNA. Rampling confirmed the embassy’s support for the Ministry’s projects, especially those related to judicial reform and the status of Lebanese prisons.

Report: France Fears Violence in Lebanon over Crisis
Naharnet/July 02/2020
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned that the worsening humanitarian and economic crisis in Lebanon increases the risk of escalation in violence, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday. Le Drian told a parliamentary hearing that Lebanon’s crisis accompanied by an accelerating collapse in the value of the Lebanese pound and the inability of depositors to access their money in banks is worrisome, added the daily. Referring to recent protests and inter-religious violence that broke out in several areas mainly in the capital Beirut, Le Drian said: “The worsening social crisis threatens an increase of violence.”The Minister said the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab must carry out the necessary reforms in order for international financial institutions to help Lebanon and that he would visit Beirut soon to relay that to Lebanese authorities.

Franjieh Warns of 'Civil War' during Upcoming Period of 'Hunger'
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh on Wednesday warned officials of the potential for violence when “hunger” increases in the coming period. “Our main concern is not to reach a civil war, seeing as we will enter a dangerous phase characterized by hunger, and we have to overcome it without giving up our principles,” said Franjieh during an interview with al-Mayadeen TV. “Officials must show great awareness and national responsibility to avoid the threat of internal strife,” he added. Noting that foreign pressures “target and starve peoples” without managing to “topple regimes,” Franjieh said Lebanon’s current crisis is the result of “long years of a rentier system and accumulations of the economic policies that have been in place since decades, especially amid the siege that is imposed on the countries of the Axis of Defiance.”Separately, Franjieh said he wants Lebanon’s next presidents to be “an ally of the Axis of Resistance,” noting that “circumstances will dictate the president’s name.”“My deep-rooted convictions as part of the Axis of Resistance do not contradict with being open and consensual. We are advocates of dialogue and we oppose the elimination of any group or sect,” he added. “I will not abandon my allies, even if I pay the price of that,” he said. Franjieh added: “My name is Suleiman Franjieh, and the same as I will not change my name, I will also not change my political stances. My stance is firm alongside the Axis of Resistance, but I reject that my current actions be dictated on me.”

Jumblatt: Government has lost touch with reality
NNA/July 02/2020
Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, took to Twitter Thursday to accuse the government of losing touch with reality.
It seems that this government and its guardian angels have lost all touch with the tragic reality as well as with the current deterioration, and [they] are living is another world and imagining fictional conspiracies," Jumblatt tweeted. "This is the government of nothingness, nihility and bankruptcy," he wrote.

ISF Arrests Counterfeit Money Gang
Naharnet/July 02/2020
The Internal Security Forces arrested three suspects accused of distributing “large” amounts of counterfeit dollar banknotes and Lebanese pounds, the ISF said in a statement on Thursday. ISF said it arrested two suspects, a Syrian and Lebanese, on June 24 respectively in the Beirut neighborhoods of Tariq al-Jadideh and Qasqas. Police confiscated $31,700 in counterfeit money and fake cheque books in their possession, added the statement. The two admitted to distributing large amounts of fake dollars and Lebanese pounds, and to having a suitcase with fake notes hidden with another suspect, Syrian, residing in Beit Mery. Police arrested the suspect in relation and found $9,900 and L.L.550,000 in his possession at his residence in Beit Mery. The suspects were charged with possessing forged bank notes and police efforts are ongoing to find other members related to the gang.

UNIFIL Head Stresses Tripartite Efforts to Preserve Stability along Blue Line
Naharnet/July 02/2020
UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Stefano Del Col on Thursday chaired a second special Tripartite meeting since the COVID-19 outbreak with senior officers from the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israeli army at a U.N. position in Ras al-Naqoura, UNIFIL said. Discussions focused on the situation along the Blue Line, air and ground violations as well as other issues within the scope of UNIFIL’s mandate under U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, UNIFIL said in a statement. Del Col called on the parties to fully utilize UNIFIL’s liaison and coordination channels to notify about any activities they plan close to the Blue Line, so that UNIFIL could "undertake the necessary coordination to prevent potential misunderstandings," UNIFIL added. “I ask you to continue to focus your efforts at maintaining stability,” Del Col said. “You have the ability and responsibility to prevent unwanted escalations in tension along the Blue Line.”Del Col also underlined UNIFIL’s "confidence-building and conflict mitigation efforts" and asked that the parties fully avail of “the opportunities to deconflict and enhance stability along the Blue Line.” To this end, he called on the parties to “avoid activities that could be deemed provocative by the other side, or that otherwise have the potential to escalate with uncontrollable consequences.”Tripartite meetings have been held regularly under the auspices of UNIFIL since the end of the 2006 war in south Lebanon as "an essential conflict management and confidence building mechanism," UNIFIL said.

Diab Criticizes Recent Activity of Ambassadors

Naharnet/July 02/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab criticized what he said are “currency manipulation” driving the uncontrolled devaluing of the Lebanese pound, and indirectly lashed out at recent diplomatic activity of foreign ambassadors in Lebanon. “For the sake of friendships and (good) relations, we maintained silence on a lot of diplomatic practices largely breaching international norms, but this behavior surpassed fraternal and diplomatic relations,” said Diab at the beginning of the Cabinet meeting at the Grand Serail. “Some local and foreign sides want to besiege the Lebanese and involve Lebanon in the regional conflicts,” he added. Criticizing the rising rate of the dollar to the Lebanese pound, he said: “The dollar game is exposed now, they demand us to enforce reforms but in turn provide cover for the corrupt and prevent us from having access to the files of stolen funds.”

Sfeir Meets Saudi Envoy, Says Lebanese to Get Dollar 'through Banks'
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Association of Banks chief Salim Sfeir on Thursday announced that dollar transactions will soon be carried out “through banks” and not through money exchange shops or the black market. Sfeir voiced his surprising remarks after meeting Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari at the latter’s residence in Yarze. “We miss seeing Saudi brothers and Lebanon has not forgotten the kingdom’s generosity,” Sfeir said. “Our main goal is the return of economic life to normal and dollars will be provided through banks with the help of the central bank,” Sfeir added. He said he has visited the Saudi ambassador to “put him in the picture of the economic situation that Lebanon is going through and to stress that Lebanon cannot forget Saudi Arabia’s generosity.”Referring to his participation in Cabinet’s session earlier in the day, Sfeir said the conferees “discussed means to control the exchange rate,” adding that “dollars will be provided through banks with help from the central bank.”

U.S. Says to Work with France for Better Future for Lebanon
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Lebanese leaders must take tough decisions and the U.S. will work with France and others for a better future for Lebanon, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said on Thursday. In an interview with al-Hurra TV, Ortagus added that Washington still sees Hizbullah as a destabilizing force in Lebanon. The Spokesperson however added that the U.S. will continue to help Lebanon diplomatically, economically and politically.

Wahhab Urges Diab to Quit, Says There are 'Negotiations on New Govt.'
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Arab Tawhid Party leader ex-minister Wiam Wahhab on Thursday called on Prime Minister Hassan Diab to resign before being “ousted.”“I call on PM Diab to resign before they oust him through street action, because there are negotiations behind the scenes on forming a government and the disagreement is only over some details,” Wahhab tweeted. “My call for him is from a position of admiration because he is a respectable man,” Wahhab added. Wahhab's statement comes a few hours after Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli visited ex-PM Saad Hariri and called for the formation of a new government.

Hariri Says Has 'Conditions' to Return as Premier
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri on Thursday announced that he has his conditions to return as premier, while noting that he is “not negotiating with anyone” over such a move. “I’m not pushing to become premier, I’m not thinking of becoming premier, I have not talked to anyone and no one is negotiating with me,” Hariri said in a chat with reporters, pointing out that he did not discuss such a possibility with Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli who visited him earlier in the day. “I don’t consider myself a savior of Lebanon, seeing as you cannot clap with one hand, and I had offered concessions for three years at the expense of my popular base in order to rescue the country,” Hariri added. “I did not do that for the premiership post, and the proof is that I responded to people’s demand and resigned, unlike others who are clinging to their posts,” the ex-PM went on to say. Hariri explained that his conditions to return to the post are related to the country’s situation and what is needed in order to “rescue” it from its economic and financial crises. “There needs to be a totally different way of action,” he said. Asked about the possibility of naming Mohammed Baasiri to the post, Hariri said: “My conditions are clear and I will not offer a cover to someone close to me if they act on their own.”“A political camp is in charge of this government and if they decide to leave it they are free. The issue of who the next PM will be is not related to the current government,” Hariri said. The former premier also noted that the International Monetary Fund is ready to offer assistance to Lebanon “but it requires reforms that have not been implemented until the moment.”“We have an economic crisis and reform is needed, while PM (Hassan) Diab did not talk today about electricity or reforms but rather attacked the diplomatic corps of whom we are seeking to borrow funds,” Hariri lamented.

Top Lebanon Retailers on Strike as Currency Plummets

Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Naharnet/July 02/2020
A string of top retail shops in Lebanon announced temporary closures on Thursday after the country's currency lost five sixths of its value, triggering sharp price hikes. In a series of posts on social media, the popular stores said they would temporarily halt sales as the Lebanese pound reached more than 9,000 to the dollar on the black market. Although the currency is officially pegged at 1,507 pounds to the greenback, a shortage of hard currency has seen its street value plummet to record lows since October. That has left retailers have struggling to price their wares. "We'd rather shut down than significantly increase our prices and lose your trust," said the Lebanon franchise of Korean lifestyle brand Mumuso, which is headquartered in China. MikeSport also closed its doors, saying it did not want to "get involved in the game of buying and selling the dollar" on the black market. Several supermarkets, retail stores and butcher shops have closed in recent days because of the currency crisis. "The retail industry is going in the direction of a total shutdown or a temporary closure until things become clearer in terms of (the) exchange rate," said Nabil Gebrael, head of the Calia Group which operates more than 20 retail stores in the country. Some of the brands' managers protested Thursday in a central Beirut square that was the epicenter of anti-government protests last year. "The company is losing and ... (the customers) think we are robbing them," Samir Saliba, owner of sportswear retailer MikeSport, told The Associated Press. "We want a clear economic policy to know how to move forward and not buy our dollars from the black market and be humiliated with the brokers and money changers."The protesters called on the government to resign and urged other stores to join their protest shutdown. Lebanon, burdened by sovereign debt equivalent to 170 percent of its GDP, defaulted in March for the first time in its history. The economic crunch has sparked months of unprecedented protests against official corruption and the banking sector. Lebanon is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund over a potential bail out but negotiations are floundering.

Cabinet Meeting Kicks Off at Grand Serail
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab chaired the Cabinet meeting at the Grand Serail on Thursday in the presence of Central Bank governor Riad Salameh and Head of the Association of Banks in Lebanon Salim Sfeir, the National News agency reported. Al-Jadeed TV station reporter said Salameh and Sfeir’s participation could be attributed to Lebanon’s bailout negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Reports said IMF talks have hit “rock bottom,” and IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva said earlier that talks with Lebanon have been "difficult".Before joining the Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said it is “unlikely for the Cabinet to decide today on the recent resignation of Alain Bifani.”Bifani, a senior member of Lebanon's finance ministry who is part of a government team negotiating with the International Monetary Fund, is the second member of said team to quit this month over the handling of the crisis by Lebanese officials.Earlier this month Henri Chaoul, an advisor to the finance ministry in talks with the IMF, also stepped down. On Lebanon’s fuel crisis threatening to plunge the country into darkness, Energy Minister Raymond Ghajar said: “Power rationing is caused by lack of fuel, and the reason behind that is judicial after the seizure of two fuel oil vessels,” by bondholders.

Rampling in Talks with Najm: Independence of the Judiciary is Essential
Naharnet/July 02/2020
Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm held talks on Thursday with UK Ambassador to Lebanon Chris Rampling in her office at the ministry, the National News Agency reported. Rampling emphasized during his talks with the Minister on “the independence of the Lebanese judiciary, mainly in the current circumstances the country is passing through.”Discussions also highlighted the existing cooperation between the Ministry of Justice and the British Embassy in Lebanon, said NNA. Rampling confirmed the embassy’s support for the Ministry’s projects, especially those related to judicial reform and the status of Lebanese prisons.

Lebanese cabinet member: ‘international community closed to us’
The Arab Weekly/July 02/2020
Unclear if statement reflects government intent to resign.
BEIRUT – For the first time since the formation of the current government in Lebanon, a prominent member of Hassan Diab’s cabinet has publicly admitted that “the international community is closed to us.”
The statement was made in an interview with journalists by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Zeina Akar Adra (an Orthodox Christian married to a Sunni).
Adra spends most of her time at the government palace where the prime minister is, and that led political sources to consider that her words reflected the state of confusion in which the current government, founded five months ago and controlled by Hezbollah, evolves, lacking coordination and cohesion.
Adra also admitted that the international community’s reluctance to deal with Lebanon was a “political decision," noting that external powers invoked the question of absence of “reforms” to justify their ban on foreign aid to Lebanon.
Lebanese political sources could not determine whether or not the deputy prime minister's declarations indicated the possibility of the current government being pushed to resign. They pointed out, however, that the real problem facing President Michel Aoun and Hezbollah at the same time is former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s refusal to form a new government except under certain non-negotiable conditions.
The sources indicated that these conditions are not acceptable, at least not yet, for Aoun and his son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, and especially for Hezbollah, which is adamant on having representation in any Lebanese government.
Meanwhile, the French minister of foreign affairs expressed on Wednesday his country's concern about the crisis in Lebanon and said that social discontent could lead to an escalation of violence.
“The situation is alarming in light of the existence of an economic, financial, social and humanitarian crisis, which is now exacerbated by the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jean-Yves Le Drian during a French Parliament session.
Le Drian called on the Lebanese government to start implementing needed reforms so that the international community can extend a helping hand to Lebanon, indicating that he will visit Lebanon soon to clearly inform the authorities of this.
American pressure on the political class in Lebanon also increased in the context of a plan to screen between genuine Hezbollah supporters on the one hand and those who are participating in the current Hezbollah government to serve particular interests on the other, especially since the continued control of the pro-Iranian party over Lebanese institutions will double US sanctions on the country.
The recent controversy over statements made by US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea revealed that the Lebanese decision has become hostage to Hezbollah, and this would reinforce the American administration's tendency to increase pressure on the country already experiencing an unprecedented economic and financial crisis.
Observers point out that the “solidarity” that the current poles of power are keen on highlighting at every successive meeting between them, and their statements that tend to absolve the government of any wrongdoing and accuse foreign powers of aggravating the situation, are nothing more than tranquillisers meant to sedate regular Lebanese citizen who find themselves facing imminent hunger in light of soaring prices of basic commodities.
Talking to reporters, Adra insisted that the current government was not put in place simply to buy extra time, stressing at the same time the need for all Lebanese to “join hands to succeed, and if we all come together as one team, we can raise Lebanon up without waiting for foreign aid.”
Adra stressed that the government, despite all the talk about resignations, “continues to work and produce and there are no splits within it.” “When I get to a point where I can't work anymore, I will quit. We came to work and persist in working,” she said.

Autopsy of a Collapse
Michael Young/Carnegie MEC/July 02/2020
In an interview, Mike Azar discusses Lebanon’s ongoing difficulties in reaching a consensus on a financial revival plan.
Mike Azar is a debt finance advisor and former professorial lecturer of international economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He comments on Lebanon’s financial crisis under the Twitter handle @AzarsTweets. Diwan interviewed Azar in late June to get his perspective on Lebanon’s deteriorating economic situation, and on the ongoing negotiations between its government and the International Monetary Fund.
Michael Young: How inevitable is hyperinflation in Lebanon, and what would cause this?
Mike Azar: Nothing is inevitable. Hyperinflation is a psychological phenomenon. When businesses expect prices to rise rapidly, they preemptively increase their prices and consumers spend their money more quickly, expecting it to lose value if they wait. This becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that is difficult to break. In many cases, countries that experience hyperinflation have had to undertake what is called “currency reform,” whereby the old currency is removed from circulation and a completely new one is introduced. Once confidence is completely lost in a currency, it is difficult to reestablish.
Prices are increasing today because of the shortage of U.S. dollars, the rapid increase in the supply of Lebanese pounds, and the declining confidence in the Lebanese economy and the pound. People are withdrawing pounds—including from their U.S. dollar accounts at an exchange rate higher than the official rate—and using them to purchase U.S. dollars to preserve the purchasing power of their wealth. This is causing the supply of dollars in the market to fall while the supply of pound banknotes is increasing rapidly.
There is another source of demand for dollars. Many businesses are no longer accepting checks or credit cards because they prefer to receive U.S. dollars or Lebanese pounds, which can be exchanged for dollars at exchange shops. Given that Lebanon imports as much as it does, most businesses need dollars to pay for their imports. Thus, as the demand for dollars increases relative to the available supply in the market, the pound’s value is falling. This pushes up the price of imports and, by extension, consumer prices. The falling value of the pound and the declining confidence in the currency create incentives for people to spend their money quickly. This results in more pounds chasing fewer goods, which, again, generates more price inflation.
MY: Can you explain what the disagreement is between the government and the central bank over Lebanon’s financial losses? Why is it important?
MA: Lebanon’s central bank, or Banque du Liban (BDL), has accrued more than $45 billion in unfunded liabilities in U.S. dollars to the banking sector. That means it owes the banks $45 billion more in dollars than it has in dollar assets to pay them over time. The central bank’s position is that these unfunded liabilities, or losses, can be made up over time using its future seignorage profits. Seignorage profits are typically defined as the profits a central bank earns from the printing of banknotes—the difference between the face value of the bills and the printing costs. However, BDL obviously cannot print dollars. Its definition of seignorage is, therefore, unusual. From BDL’s perspective, it can create “local dollars,” which are essentially digital dollars stuck in the Lebanese banking system. They can be spent domestically using checks or credit cards, but cannot be transferred abroad or withdrawn as dollar banknotes. However, they can be withdrawn as Lebanese pound banknotes. In effect, the central bank’s view is that it can repay the banks what it owes them in the form of these “digital” local dollars which it creates through seignorage. These local dollars are, from an economic perspective, the same as pounds.
The government’s position is that a large portion of these unfunded liabilities must be written off because making up losses of this scale, which represent more than 100 percent of GDP, using seignorage profits will have a disastrous impact on the money supply, the exchange rate, and inflation. The position of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is consistent with this view.
MY: On June 29, the director general of the Finance Ministry, Alain Bifani, resigned from his post. How do you interpret his resignation?
MA: There is clearly a lot of frustration from individuals in the government over its failure to implement reforms quickly enough, though Bifani was witness to 20 years of such failure during his long tenure at the ministry. He was also a key architect of the government’s Financial Recovery Plan released last April 30. The plan is on its last legs because of its poor roll out, and the government’s incredibly weak communications strategy and lack of engagement with stakeholders. There is also opposition to it from powerful groups in the country whose personal interests it threatens. If the government appears unable to implement any reforms at this critical juncture and is unable to defend its own financial rescue plan, it is easy to see why Bifani resigned. However, I can’t tell you why he resigned now rather than at any other point during the last 20 years.
MY: At some point the government will have to act to stop the monetary collapse. When might it do so and what does it need to do?
MA: I cannot predict when the government and monetary authorities will act. What the government needs to do has been repeated ad nauseum. For example, it must restore confidence in the economy to encourage people to want to hold pounds and increase the flow of U.S. dollars into the country. Finalizing an IMF program will unlock dollar funding and provide credibility to the government’s reform program. Recapitalizing the central bank and the banking sector by dealing with the unfunded liabilities and losses in the system will allow us to control the growth in the money supply and restart the financial intermediation needed to grow the economy. Political reforms will demonstrate a genuine willingness to address the root cause of these economic challenges, which is, at the heart, political dysfunction and corruption. In the end, real and inclusive economic growth is the goal, but it cannot be achieved without moving on all of these fronts.
In the very short term, the policies needed to limit price inflation will be painful. For example, the monetary authorities may need to limit the expansion of the money supply—for example, by setting stricter pound withdrawal limits or not allowing withdrawals from U.S. dollar accounts in pounds at higher exchange rates. This needs to be done very carefully because doing so will push people further into poverty by curtailing their spending. Having delayed so long before beginning to face the country’s economic challenges, we are now in the unfortunate position of having to consider such difficult choices.
MY: What are you hearing about Lebanon’s talks with the IMF?
MA: The IMF has indicated that the talks are progressing slowly because of disagreements among the various Lebanese stakeholders. This internal dysfunction, along with no demonstrated will from the government to implement reform, is seriously undermining the IMF negotiations. There is much that the government could have done to better prepare for such negotiations and to show a good-faith willingness to implement reforms. We do not need to wait for an IMF program to start. If we continue like this, the talks will collapse. The window is rapidly closing before us.
MY: Can one seriously expect the politicians to block an IMF bailout, given that this would bring the entire edifice of power they created to come crashing down?
MA: One could argue that it is precisely an IMF program, the associated reforms, and the required financial audits that could weaken Lebanon’s existing power structure.

Rescue talks with the IMF 'hit the rocks' as Lebanese suffer
Samia Nakhoul/Reuters/July 02/2020
As accelerating poverty fuels anger, despair and fear of a social explosion, efforts by Lebanon's ruling elite to salvage the country from a financial meltdown with IMF help seem to be going in reverse.
A country known across the Middle East for its glamorous lifestyle and commercial savoir faire now projects images of people begging on the streets, scavenging in the garbage for something to eat or trading furniture for food.
Several current and former Lebanese officials, diplomats, international officials, economists and analysts agreed that talks with the IMF to rescue Lebanon from an economic crisis are going nowhere. Meanwhile, time is running out.
“This (IMF talks) is hitting the rocks” says Nasser Saidi, a former economy minister and central banker.
Most of the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity say the political class grouped around sectarian, dynastic rulers, far from agreeing a joint approach, is still arguing for their own interests – and even whether Lebanon is really bankrupt.
Two members of Lebanon's negotiating team have quit in a month, both over what they described as attempts to massage huge financial losses set out in the government plan. “They are not negotiating a (IMF) programme”, says one senior source privy to the talks. “There’s no (Lebanese) consensus on the diagnosis so what can they possibly negotiate?”
Lebanon, with a population of 6 million, is fast running out of dollars. The state, its revenues collapsing, is printing local currency to pay public employees – an estimated 800,000-strong state payroll padded by politicians.
"There is a real risk of explosion," says one top Western diplomat, adding that a third of a million people had lost their jobs since October, when mass protests against the entrenched political class forced the government to resign.
DEADLOCK OVER NUMBERS AND REFORM
As a lockdown imposed to fight COVID-19 unwinds, outrage that fuelled last autumn's protests is resurging, angrier now and with fire-bomb attacks on banks – the biggest target of popular ire after the political elites with which they are closely entwined.
A new government finally took its place early this year. Although it was billed as technocratic, its members are all nominees of the sectarian power-brokers.
Alongside technocrats are party placemen, and critics say Prime Minister Hassan Diab is beholden to his patrons, foremost among them the powerful Iran-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah, its Christian allies headed by President Michel Aoun, and the Shi'ite Amal party of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Diab has repeatedly denied his government favours political interests. His office did not respond to questions from Reuters.
Ultimately, the country is bankrupt, and is not going to be able to service all of its vast debt, much of which is held by its central bank and local lenders. But no one has come up with an agreed strategy to share out the losses among bank depositors, shareholders, foreign bondholders and the state.
The first challenge is accepting the size of the losses. The IMF has endorsed government figures that suggest a shortfall of more than $90 billion. But the banks, the central bank and members of parliament representing powerful political factions say it is only around half as big. Critics call that an accounting trick, based on a dubious exchange rate.
Diab, the prime minister, said in a statement on Tuesday that the government was committed to the figures in its plan. But political factions have lined up behind an effort to demand it lower its estimate of losses, in line with figures put forward by the central bank and banks.
Several sources said the IMF had tried to persuade the central bank to accept the higher numbers, but bank governor Riad Salameh was digging in his heels. Salameh declined to comment and said he wasn't aware of such criticism.
A parliamentary fact-finding committee said on Wednesday it had calculated overall losses in the system at 60 trillion-122 trillion Lebanese pounds, a range between a quarter and half the amount recognised by the government and accepted by the IMF.
"It's a big difference," said its chair, Ibrahim Kanaan of President Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, flanked by MPs from all of the other main political parties. "These are the options which I hope the government will study ... so we can go into the next phase, the negotiation phase, with one delegation and one vision."
The IMF declined to comment on its discussions with Lebanese delegations, but referred Reuters to earlier remarks, including that the government's original figures are "broadly in the right order of magnitude".
“It is incredible that a bunch of parliamentarians in a failed state are trying to question the expertise of the IMF," Saidi, the ex-minister, said. "There is no way the IMF is going to accept it.”
Nor will accepting the numbers be enough. Lebanon must also tackle the cause of the problem: unsustainable government spending handed out by politicians to reward their supporters.
The inflated public payroll and its costly pensions will have to be cut. First on almost everyone’s list is Electricite du Liban (EdL), the state power utility, which loses about $2bn a year.
To even start an IMF negotiation, the government will need to make "anchor" reforms that it has so far ignored. Customs, now under party fiefdom, must be placed under regulatory authority; a single treasury account must be set up for expenditures and revenues at the finance ministry; exchange rates must be unified.
NOT RISING TO THE CRISIS
Since October, depositors have been largely denied access to their dollar accounts. About three quarters of all deposits are in dollars and the central bank and successive governments have used the banking system to finance the state, in what critics say is a national equivalent to a Ponzi scheme.
The pound has lost 80% of its value since mass protests against the sectarian ruling oligarchy erupted last October. The social consequences have been terrible.
Lebanon’s middle class is sinking. The World Bank estimated in 2019 that some 48% of Lebanese lived below the poverty line.
Food prices have doubled and unemployment has forced many onto charity and food banks. And if the state runs out of the dollars it has been spending to subsidise bread, medicine and fuel – as it must sooner or later without foreign aid – Lebanon could face mass hunger.
For decades, foreign donors led by France, the United States and Britain with periodic injections from Gulf Arab states, have kept Lebanon afloat. But they are no longer willing to bail it out without reform. If the IMF walks away, Beirut should not expect a rescue from countries that have helped in the past.
“If this road (IMF) is closed all other roads will be shut”, says the Western diplomat. “They need to have real, verifiable reforms as required by the IMF, even if they are not perfect."
"No European or Gulf Arab country, much less America is coming to save Lebanon; Lebanese leaders should muster the will to rescue their country."
(Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

At this rate, Lebanon may not survive to see its 100th birthday
Michael Young/The National/July 02/2020
The country is rapidly running out of foreign currency reserves, which are essential given that Lebanon imports the vast majority of what it consumes
On June 29, the director general of Lebanon’s Finance Ministry, Alain Bifani, resigned from his position. He is the second official involved in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to resign in less than two weeks, amid signs that the government’s talks with the organisation are stalling.
Mr Bifani is the man who has estimated Lebanon’s losses on behalf of the government, but his figures are seen as too high by the central bank and by a parliamentary committee looking at the figure. Most disheartening is the fact that this sterile debate is wasting valuable time as Lebanon sinks deeper into a very serious economic crisis, with the national currency in freefall.
The political class, like the ineffective government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab, is to blame for this situation. Last week, President Michel Aoun convened a national dialogue session that was a flop, as many key political representatives boycotted the event. Yet if Lebanon is to reach a deal with the IMF, a similar format will be needed to bring the politicians and parties together so that they can arrive at a consensus on reform needed to progress on a bailout.
Mr Aoun’s dialogue did not directly address economic issues, only “social peace.” With Lebanon on the threshold of hyperinflation, such an agenda made no sense. Indeed, the president has been largely absent as a national leader. The post-1989 constitution does not leave presidents with many prerogatives, but it does ordain them as “symbols of the nation’s unity.” Therefore, Mr Aoun is ideally placed, in principle at least, to help steer the politicians towards a compromise on reform.
Mr Bifani told a television station that his resignation came because he disagreed with the way the authorities were managing the economic crisis. If Lebanon fails to reach a deal with the IMF, the consequences would not only be catastrophic for the country, they would have existential repercussions, as Lebanon is rapidly running out of foreign currency reserves. These are absolutely essential for a country that imports the vast majority of what it consumes.
The ineffectiveness of the Diab government and of the political leadership in general has been breathtaking. The Lebanese pound has been collapsing in recent weeks, even as the government has printed more money. This suggests we are heading into hyperinflation territory. Economic reform will require that the politicians and parties surrender part of their corruption networks so that a deal can be agreed with the IMF. However, for now none of them want to give anything up before securing political concessions in exchange.
Lebanon could disappear as a country on its hundredth anniversary If reforms are blocked and an IMF deal isn’t agreed. This should not come as a surprise. Lebanese politics has largely become a game of destructive brinkmanship of late. The prevailing wisdom is that the politicians and parties do not want to adopt the reforms necessary for an IMF deal. It is easy to assume the worst about them, but such a radical judgment is not necessarily true for a number of reasons. First, the entire system would collapse if no accord is reached, meaning not only would their corruption networks dry up, but so too would many of these leaders’ power base in the political order. Moreover, Hezbollah, the main player in the political system, has shown a desire to preserve Lebanon as an entity that can protect the party from its enemies. That is why it was so keen to safeguard the political class and the sectarian structure when protests began last October, and that is why it is bolstering the Diab government today. Lebanon’s disintegration, which the absence of an IMF deal would ensure, would not only lead to geographic and institutional fragmentation, it would remove the covering of the state that had served Hezbollah well.
People queue to buy bread at a local bakery in Beirut, Lebanon on June 27. Lebanese officials announced more measures to stabilise the nation’s plunging local currency and rein in soaring food prices that have triggered nationwide protests. Hasan Shaaban/Bloomberg
So while Hezbollah would probably emerge stronger than other groups in Lebanon, it would also have to manage an increasingly unviable situation, while having to answer to over a million of its impoverished Shiite brethren. Unless an IMF bailout is forthcoming, this is a burden the paramilitary organisation could soon find overwhelming — regardless of its illicit financing networks. Moreover, this catastrophic situation would be open-ended without the introduction of reforms.
Therefore, given the starkness of the choice, the only option at this stage is for the sectarian political leaders to discuss a package deal that would allow Lebanon to move forward with the IMF. This can only take place in a closed forum portrayed as an emergency national summit on the economic situation. The politicians and parties would have to use this venue to come to a broad agreement over what they are willing to concede in order to begin implementing a reform project. The equation is simple: if reforms are blocked and an IMF deal isn’t agreed, Lebanon could disappear as a country on its hundredth anniversary. It will become a Hobbesian environment – without food, fuel, medicine and all the things that a normal country takes for granted. The cartel in power would salvage little from the wreckage. That is why its members must negotiate an agreement among themselves. Mr Aoun has not achieved much, but at least he can offer the country a road map and save some shards from his shattered mandate.
*Michael Young is editor of Diwan, the blog of the Carnegie Middle East programme, in Beirut

The Organization For The Liberation Of Argentina (OLA) – Building Support For The Iranian Regime And Hizbullah
MEMRI/July 02/2020
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Note to media and government: For a full copy of this report, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to media@memri.org. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email.
Ever since the founding of the Ayatollah regime in Iran, the country has invested significantly in the export of the principles of the revolution to the world at large, in establishing local support bases in other countries, and in undermining local governments abroad. One of its most prominent measures to achieve these aims is by means of proxies which receive financial, political, propaganda and organizational assistance in the guise of armed militias which gradually infiltrate local politics, such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Shi'ite militias in Iraq, and the Shi'ite clerics in Nigeria. In addition, the Iranian regime and its protégé, Hizbullah, operate various types of media, including social media accounts which address local audiences in their own languages. Thus, in an attempt to reach a Spanish-speaking audience, Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, has both a website and a Twitter account in Spanish.[1] Furthermore, in 2001 the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting set up a Spanish-language television channel called HispanTV.
The Organization for the Liberation of Argentina (OLA), a political organization headed by Argentine-born Shi'ites, appears to support Iranian regime flagship objectives to export the Iranian Islamic revolution's principles and values and to build support for the Iranian regime and for Hizbullah in Latin America.
Known in Argentina by its Spanish name, Organización para la Liberación Argentina,OLA was established in 2012 by a member of an Islamic Center in Argentina and a well-known local political activist. He heads the organization with his wife, a fellow activist, and with the organization's National Director.
The OLA leadership comprises active members of the Shi'ite community in Argentina and maintains ties to local Shi'ite institutions and religious leaders, most notably to the Al-Tawhid mosque in Buenos Aires, where prominent cleric Mohsen Rabbani was a key suspect in the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the AMIA[2] building in Argentina in 1992 and 1994.
Since its establishment in 2012, OLA has openly supported Iran's proxy organization, Hizbullah, and continues to do so despite Argentina's official designation of Hizbullah as a terrorist organization in July 2019[3] – a decision which OLA criticizes. OLA also supports the Iranian Islamic Revolution and its leaders and fully incorporates its principles, motives and terminology into the OLA political platform, which is critical of the government's neoliberal economic measures and of American influence in the country. In this way, the organization, which aims to address the general local population and not necessarily the local Shi'ite community, introduces the ideology of the Shi'ite Islamic revolution into the largely Catholic population.
OLA appears to be gaining support, and one of its candidates have been elected to local office. The organization and its leaders have social media accounts, primarily on Facebook (with more than 3,000 followers) and on Twitter, where they post and share the speeches and images of Iranian officials and the "Axis of the Resistance" as well as videos produced by official Hizbullah sources and other media outlets based in Iran which promote jihad and martyrdom and have been translated into Spanish.
Though no formal ties have been identified between OLA and high-ranking Iranian officials or government institutions, its highly-indoctrinated leadership constitutes a potential support base which Iran and Hizbullah could utilize in the future to garner political backing, and for the recruitment of local operatives.
This report provides an overview of the ways in which OLA portrays Hizbullah and the Iranian regime to its local audience, primarily as seen through its Facebook page and the Facebook accounts of its leaders.
Overview Of OLA
OLA was established by its leader in 2012, when Argentina was in the throes of a dire economic situation. The country's economy has suffered from high inflation rates and crippling external debt and in recent years these problems have worsened,[4] resulting in an unprecedented number of layoffs in the public and private sectors. The situation has directly impacted Argentina's lower and middle classes, and helped social-justice organizations like OLA to gain traction.
OLA regularly organizes conferences and demonstrations and broadcasts a bi-weekly radio program with a local news agency. The leader also presides over The Academy for Strategic Thinking, which appears to be an additional platform for spreading OLA ideology. In early 2018, the leader and several others were arrested on charges of attacking the authorities during a mass demonstration against the government, and were released one week later.
Some members of OLA have run for local office, and at least one of its leaders was elected in 2019 to the City Council of a northeastern Argentinian province capital. In 2019, the leader's wife also ran for the position of national deputy to represent the same province as part of a list presented by the largest party in the Argentinian Congress since 1987.[5] Another OLA member also ran in local elections for the City Council of Salta.
Ideology
The OLA ideology focuses on two main issues: the loss of Argentinian economic sovereignty and the loss of its military independence, and blames the United States for both. With respect to economic independence, OLA argues that since the U.S. is Argentina's largest creditor and beneficiary of a large portion of its total export revenue, it is primarily responsible for Argentina's economic woes. OLA claims that along with a number of international organizations, American companies have destroyed the Argentinian economy by "pillaging" much of the country's resources.
To resist the pull of what it refers to as the "new world order," OLA calls for the implementation of "Import Substitution Industrialization" to recover Argentina's economic sovereignty. The organization further argues that since Argentina's territorial sovereignty is currently also being "violated" by NATO powers, Argentina cannot recover its economic sovereignty without strengthening its armed forces.
OLA seeks to expand the independence and reach of Argentina's security apparatuses. According to OLA, the U.S. not only controls Argentina's economy, but also its security system, which OLA claims is evidenced by the fact that "NATO" is currently "occupying" Argentina's Falkland Islands (represented by the UK). As a result, and in order to "liberate" the Falklands and recover Argentina's territorial sovereignty, OLA calls for the "re-nationalization" and strengthening of Argentina's armed forces, declaring that these must be at the forefront of its national development project. It also maintains that if Argentina wants to resist the global economic hegemony led by the U.S., it must strengthen its army's technological, industrial and scientific capabilities.
As stated, OLA's leadership, which is mostly Shi'ite, sees a clear connection between what it views as Argentina's necessary struggle for economic and national independence from American hegemony, and the struggle of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the "axis of resistance" against U.S. hegemony. This is evident from a 2015 Facebook post in which the leader refers to the connection between his being a Shia Muslim, his organization's agenda, and Iran and Hizbullah's struggle: "As a Muslim it is impossible for me to consider myself outside the logic of the struggles against oppression that are taking place everywhere in the world and in particular in the Middle East and Asia. Being a Shi'ite I find that the role of Hizbullah and Iran is fundamental. Together with Syria, the Lebanese Shi'ite organization [i.e Hizbullah] and the Islamic Republic are fundamental to the Palestinian resistance and sustain the balance of forces in the Middle East. As an international analyst and political activist, I cannot fail to see and analyze the tactics used by the axis of resistance, and cannot... forget the breaches of sovereignty perpetrated by the main world powers, nor the collusion and betrayal of a dozen of the Arab countries, nor the restraint of some leaders in the face of the brutality of their enemies; brutality which is present in all geographies with manifest cruelty. In this sense, the Western project of global apartheid promoted by the Zionist-American axis is a reality beyond our noses. The struggle against them cannot depend exclusively on the will of the states and governments, hence the importance of Hizbullah. Hizbullah's influence on the regional scene – where spirituality is inextricably linked to the political project – is not subject to idealizations of any kind, but to the objective limitations that the arrogant powers have for their plans."
In another post the leader wrote: "In view of the extent of the danger of the enemy [the U.S], whose civilizational proposal has generated an unprecedented crisis..., we said back in December 2012 that our struggle was inextricably linked to the destiny of all the peoples of the world. Therefore, it is our strategic duty to build ties of friendship, integration and mutual assistance with all those organizations [i.e Hizbullah], and governments [i.e Iran] that resist the imperialist arrogance in every corner of the planet [and whose] intrinsically-transcendent, cultural, and civilizational proposals counter the decadence of today's world, and whose spiritual traditions are fundamental for the harmonious coexistence of all communities because they seek to construct true solidarity and a self-aware, free and fully-spiritual humanity." The preceding argument is the basis for OLA's incorporation of the Iranian Islamic Revolution's ideals into its own agenda and political platform.
Hizbullah And Iranian Leadership As Role Models
OLA's leadership views Hizbullah and the Iranian leadership in the same way as it views national and regional revolutionary heroes such as José de San Martín, Juan Perón, Simón Bolivar, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. The leadership portrays Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Islamic Revolution founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Hizbullah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani as role models who – alongside famous Latin American revolutionary figures – must be emulated in their "struggle against oppression." It often praises them and regularly mentions them in statements critical of the current Argentinian government and of the United States.
For instance, shortly after Soleimani's assassination in an American air strike on January 3, 2020, OLA's leader quoted Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei saying: "We must know the enemy. The enemy is the United States, the Zionist regime and the system of arrogance. The arrogance apparatus is not just the United States and [its allied] governments, but a group of companies and looters from all over the world that oppose any center that resists [their] oppression and looting."
The organization also frequently quotes Iranian regime officials on issues of global relevance such as the Coronavirus and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On January 30, 2020, the OLA Secretary-General shared a poster of Khamenei labelled: "Don't say that the destruction of the Zionist regime is impossible; nothing is impossible in this world." Pictured behind Khamenei were Qassem Soleimani and Hassan Nasrallah.
IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani As A Role Model
Soleimani's death only increased OLA admiration for the Qods Force Commander, as the organization began to refer to him as "the glorious commander" of Islam and to describe him as "the general of hearts," whose strategic operations were decisive for the defeat of ISIS, and whose example should be emulated by "all patriots, revolutionaries and anti-imperialists of the world."
OLA's leader also replaced his profile picture with a photograph of Soleimani, and the organization announced the mass production of shirts with his image. The text on the tee shirt depicting Soleimani reads: "With the blessing of his pure blood."
In the photograph on the right OLA's leader is shown wearing the tee-shirt featuring Soleimani. Soleimani was even portrayed by members of the organization as fighting for the same cause as famous Latin American revolutionary figures such as Simón Bolivar, Hugo Chavez, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.
Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah As A Role Model
The organization also portrays Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as a role model, frequently posting videos of Nasrallah with Spanish translation, while senior OLA members often upload pictures of him to their personal Facebook accounts along with excerpts from his speeches.
For example, in a post from April 27, 2020, the leader features Nasrallah and describes him as "an Inspiration for all those who fight for the independence and sovereignty of their nations against the arrogant powers." He also wrote: "Hizbullah leader Sayed Hasan Nasrallah has become a 'symbol' of the resistance against imperialist assaults ... not only for Lebanon, but for all the Arabs and peoples of the world. The resistance which sprouted in Southern Lebanon against the Zionist aggression backed by the decaying empire of the United States is a solid example of a spirituality of sacrifice that refuses to be absorbed by the modern West and its civilizational model."
OLA portrays Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as a role model, frequently posting videos of Nasrallah with Spanish translation.
Similarly, on April 8, 2020, OLA posted a video featuring Nasrallah criticizing the West's management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The accompanying text reads: "Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah with clear details on the path, values and virtues of the peoples and nations of the world, vis-à-vis the dangers that a rickety and sickly minority of the world population promotes."
Adopting The Terminology Of Iran's Islamic Revolution: The U.S. Is The "Great Satan"
In addition to viewing the Iranian regime's leaders as role models, OLA has also adopted the terminology of the regime and absorbed it into its propaganda. In Iranian fashion, OLA labels the United States the "Great Satan," and describes international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank as part of a "system of hegemonic arrogance" which seeks to oppress all the nations of the world through their neo-liberal policies. It also echoes the threats of the Iranian regime and Hizbullah against the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East, mainly Israel and Saudi Arabia.
OLA regularly refers to the U.S. as a terrorist state, describing it as a villain. For instance, in a post from January 22, 2020, OLA's leader depicts the U.S. as about to devour Latin America which is represented by a soup that the U.S. seasons with "coups," "fake news," "hatred" and "violence." The image is accompanied by text in which he instructs his followers about the necessity to learn from nations and leaders such as the Islamic Republic of Iran which, (quoting Soleimani) are "ready to sacrifice the lives of its people" [for the anti-imperialist cause]."
Shortly after Iran issued threats to the U.S. in the wake of Soleimani's death, the leader posted an article about the American decision to evacuate one of its military bases in the Syrian Hasaka Province. His comment on the article read: "Satan is leaving with his tail between his legs."
OLA's leader comments: "Satan [the U.S.] is leaving with his tail between his legs."
In another post, the leader echoes the Iranian threat by quoting the Iranian Revolutionary Guard: "Any other aggression or move by the oppressive and hegemonic regime of the Great Satan will receive even a more painful and smashing response from Iran."
On the day of Soleimani's death, the leader shared a video translated into Spanish featuring a religious Iranian singer leading a large crowd of Iranians in the following chant: "We can hear the satanic voices of the Jewish imperialists coming out of the throats of the Saudis (...) all are tricks of the Great Shaytan (USA)... Our swords will respond in battles [and] our missiles target Tel Aviv." The leader's comment on the video read, "The arrogant powers generate acts of war, soon they will hear the Huseynis [the Shi'ites]. Qassem Soleimani, example of the struggle against the powerful and corrupt of the world, was martyred. "
On the day of Soleimani's death, the leader shared a video of a large crowd of Iranians chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans.
Glorifying Jihad And Martyrdom
OLA promotes the ideology of jihad and martyrdom which is vehemently advocated by the Iranian regime. For example, its leader endorses and propagates the Islamic Revolution's narrative about the heroic death of the Imam Hussein – the Shi'ite prototype of the perfect martyr. He even specifies that the Battle of Karbala – the event which in Shi'ite Islam signals the beginning of the veneration of martyrs – was the inspiration for his own political movement. Furthermore, the organization and its leaders frequently post videos which glorify jihad and martyrdom. Shortly after Qassem Soleimani's death, OLA shared a video on its Facebook page compiling some of the Qods Force commander's statements about death: "What is better for a person than choosing a great, voluntary death, a death of his own free will? If that Friend (Allah) allows my blood to be shed, I am gladly willing to give up my life for Him... Brave men are the ones who dance on their own blood, because they are free of themselves (the Nafs), they clap their hands..."
OLA shared a video on its Facebook page with a compilation of quotes glorifying death from the Qods Force commander.
Commenting on the video, the organization writes: "The friends of God guide us with their words, they beautify us with their steadfastness, and they calm us with their patience [...] they strengthen our spirit with their actions, make us lose all fear of our enemies."
Similarly, on January 24, 2020, OLA's National Director posted a video on his Facebook page entitled "We are Jihad." The video is a eulogy for Jihad Imad Mughniyeh, the son of Hizbullah's Chief of Staff Imad Mughniya – who is believed to have been the mastermind of many terrorist attacks, including those in Argentina. The last scene of the video features a picture of the White House with the lyrics, "Red-stained earth will remain as long as the white castle exists."
Commemorating Al-Qods Day
On May 22, 2020, the last Friday of Ramadan, OLA held a conference on the occasion of "Al-Qods Day," the date chosen by Islamic Revolution founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to commemorate the Palestinian resistance. During the event the organization expressed solidarity with Iran's and Hizbullah's goals in the region and screened a video in which Hizbullah flags are prominently displayed, American and Israeli flags are burned, and the Iranian leadership is shown entering the Temple Mount as Jerusalem goes up in flames in the background. In the days preceding the event the organization posted pictures of Khamenei praying at the Temple Mount, and prepared a large flag depicting Qassem Soleimani to be used as a backdrop for the OLA broadcast of the event.
On the occasion of "Al-Qods Day to commemorate the Palestinian resistance, OLA expressed solidarity with Iran's and Hizbullah's goals in the region.
Conspiracy Theories
OLA also promotes the Iranian narratives about the 1994 AMIA attack in Buenos Aires. It accuses the CIA and Israeli intelligence of arranging the AMIA attacks as a "cover-up" for their sinister plans to take control of Argentina's security establishment, while blaming Hizbullah for the attacks. OLA also frequently posts photographs which purportedly show Netanyahu manipulating Argentinian politicians.
OLA frequently posts photographs implying that Netanyahu manipulates Argentinian politicians.
OLA blames the U.S. and Israel for the creation of ISIS, and more recently has accused the U.S. of covertly bringing the Coronavirus to China in order to blame the Asian country for its propagation across the globe.
As described above, a central means by which the principles and ideology of the Iranian Islamic Revolution are introduced to the local population in Argentina is through the dissemination of videos from official Hizbullah sources and other media outlets based in Iran. One news outlet, based in Qom, the Iranian city which is considered holy by Shia Muslims, describes itself as "an independent digital media project not affiliated with any organization, government or country" whose mission is to "strengthen and serve the Islamic Leadership (Wilayah)" and to export Iran's Islamic Revolution. The videos which are produced and distributed by the outlet are translated into Spanish and posted on Facebook by a mutual friend of OLA's leaders.
Though the man translating the videos into Spanish currently lives in Southern Lebanon, he regularly posts highly-radicalized content on Facebook in Spanish under a pseudonym. This account is exclusively dedicated to publicizing the views of Nasrallah and Hizbullah and explaining their relevance to Argentinian politics. He also uses it to communicate with members of the Shi'ite community in Argentina, which includes leaders of OLA, who regularly share his posts. The translator's personal accounts in Arabic also reveal that he has family connections in Paraguay and Brazil, where he has lived in the past. He also follows many Hizbullah accounts on Facebook, some of which appear to have links to Brazil, and his children were "Scouts of the Imam Mahdi," a youth movement established by Hizbullah in Lebanon. The translator's Arabic and Spanish-language accounts have been shut down in the past for violating Facebook's community standards, but new accounts were opened in their place which blur Nasrallah's face and use the acronym "SHN" instead of Nasrallah's full name, to avoid being closed down again.
After its accounts were shut down for violating Facebook's community standards, the translator's new accounts make sure to blur Nasrallah's face and not to refer to him by name.
Relationships With Sheikhs Connected To Iran Who Support Hizbullah
The social media accounts of the senior OLA members indicate that they are connected to, and derive inspiration from, sheiks with direct connections to Iran, who support Hizbullah. For instance, OLA maintains a close relationship with the sheikh who is Mohsen Rabbani's successor at the At-Tawhid mosque. Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman singled out the former director of the At-Tawhid Mosque as the mastermind behind the 1994 AMIA bombings in Argentina, and described the mosque as the place where Iranian officials plotted the attack, in conjunction with Hizbullah. Today Rabbani's indoctrinated[6] and appointed successor maintains a close relationship with OLA. He was one of the main speakers at the conference hosted by OLA on "Qods Day," participating in the event via video-call from Iran.
Social media accounts of senior OLA members indicate that they derive inspiration from sheiks with direct connections to Iran, who support Hizbullah.
The sheikh and OLA's leader are also friends on Facebook, and regularly interact through Facebook posts. Both the leader and the translator liked a post in which the sheikh comments on the sudden upsurge of COVID-19 infections in the United States, and refers to it as "compelling punishment." On another post where OLA's leader calls Israel "the Synagogue of Satan" for retaliating against rockets from Gaza, the sheikh comments sarcastically: "This is the 'thou shalt not kill' of the Zionist 'Jews'." The sheikh also shares the translator's posts and makes sporadic references to Hizbullah.
Another sheikh with whom the leader regularly interacts is also a disciple of Mohsen Rabbani's. He currently serves as the director of the House for the Dissemination of Islam (Casa para la Difusión del Islam) in Buenos Aires, which is situated on a property that is owned by Rabbani. He is widely known as an outspoken supporter of Hizbullah. The relationship between this sheikh and OLA's leader is also seen clearly in a post shared by the leader on May 17, 2020, which promotes the sheikh's radio program.
OLA's leader is also connected to additional sheikhs, as may be observed in a post from January 9, 2020. In this post, a Colombian sheikh tags several Argentinian sheikhs, as well as a sheikh who lives in Qom, Iran. OLA's leader, who is friends on Facebook with all of these sheikhs, shares the post.
[1] Spanish.khamenei.ir/; Twitter.com/es_Khamenei.
[2] Argentine Israelite Mutual Aid Association (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina).
[3] The New York Times, July 18, 2019. The Argentinian government's decision to designate Hizbullah as a terrorist organization is still maintained by the newly elected president Alberto Fernandez despite initial fears that he would derogate the decree. Perfil.com, January 24, 2020, Infobae.com, November 20, 2019.
[4] Since 2015, Argentina's external debt has increased by 60%; its inflation rate has increased from 20% to 50% since 2012; and its unemployment rate increased by 3% between 2015 and 2019. Fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10991.pdf, January 28, 2020. Bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-new-economy-drivers-and-disrupters/argentina.html, November 19, 2019. Clarín (Argentina), June 19, 2019.
[5] Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez, as well as many former presidents, belonged to this party, which in 2019 was part of a larger coalition known as "Frente de Todos."
[6] Books.google.com/books?id=oqDYBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=santiago+paz+bullrich+iran&source= bl&ots =k7Z qs7-hpq&sig=
k3Lmr-dp8oNd _3_A_eqXk hXsDRk&hl=en&s a=X&ei=AN3YVKD SNs_5yQSP6o Ew&ved=0CEM Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q
=santiago%20paz%20bullrich%20iran&f=false.

CORRUPTION, CRISIS, CORONAVIRUS: THE LEBANESE “TRIPLE C”

Euromed Rights/July 02/2020
Will the Lebanese political system succumb to coronavirus? While the multiple social movements started in autumn 2019 were paused to tackle the pandemic, the embers of protest are slowly reigniting.
The pandemic exacerbates the economic inequalities that are already unbearable for the vast majority of the population. No economic reforms were carried out since the end of the civil war, debt should reach 160% of GDP at the end of 2020 (it reached 155% at the end of 2019), the financial mechanisms put in place did not prevent a default payment last March and the devaluation of the Lebanese pound continues, triggering a rapid inflation. The governor of the Central Bank and the government blame each other in a country ranked 137th (out of 180) in Transparency International’s corruption ranking.
The Lebanese people are at the heart of the storm, in a boat without a rudder: poverty should soon hit 60% of the population; banks freeze assets, emphasising the feeling of dispossession felt by many small investors; the most marginalised groups, such as migrant domestic workers, face an alarming situation. Many of these workers saw their financial means suddenly vanish and while they arrived under the Kafala system, linking their residence permit to a contract with their employer, they are now without a job, resources or papers (as those are often seized by their employer). An estimated one million and a half Syrian refugees also live in Lebanon. Any worsening of the economic and/or sanitary situation would have dramatic consequences. Faced with the urge to eat, wearing a mask soon becomes secondary, therefore fuelling the risk of a second wave. As dictated by necessity, the Lebanese people return to the streets and to social media to denounce – often in a creative manner – financial mismanagement and corruption. To answer these movements, the government has so far decided to use force. Since the beginning of the protests, the police have made violent and arbitrary arrests denounced by human rights organisations. The authorities use the security apparatus, juggling between the different bodies of a complex confessional system, to silence human rights demands. Can the responses from the authorities in the next few weeks appease the situation? The first measures do not seem to take this route.

Diab: Internal and external parties dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab told the Cabinet on Thursday that there "are internal parties that do not care about the future of the country, and are only seeking personal interests, which are covered in political and sectarian calculations."
Following is Diab's full address during the Cabinet session:
"When we formed this Cabinet, we named it "Facing Challenges" Government, because we knew that we would face major accumulations and huge crises. We were not afraid to fight this battle to save the country. We also knew that the sacrifices would be great, and that we would lose a lot. Of course, each of us has his own loss scale. Nevertheless, we were not reluctant and we were convinced that we were carrying out a national rescue mission for the country, the people, and the future of our children.
From the outset, we have said that we will move away from politics. We have no political ambition. We have no electoral desires. We have practiced self-effacement and drowned ourselves in work. A series of workshops. A series of crises. A long series of problems accumulating over decades has exploded all at once, with emerging crises.
Still, we decided to move forward. We will take on these challenges and try to reduce the speed of the collapse and the scale of the shock and damage that will hit the country.
Today we have reached the point of collision. However, unfortunately, over the past weeks, and until now, there are local and external parties that have worked and are working to cause a resounding collision, with a resulting great crash and huge losses.
Unfortunately, there are internal parties that do not care about the future of the country, and are only seeking personal interests, which are covered in political and sectarian calculations. These parties are either external tools used to drag Lebanon into the region's conflicts and turn it into a negotiating card, or are enticing external parties and encouraging them to take hold of the country and negotiate over it at the table of international and regional interests.
All of this raises a set of questions:
Are we unable to deal with the challenges?
Did we lose the confrontation?
Has the government's role ended?
For me, the picture is clear, and so are the answers.
A basic question is addressed to each one of you: Did anyone think that his entry to the government was a "prestige", and that he did not expect to face difficult challenges?
Of course, I am confident that each of you knew where he was heading to, and knew the challenges awaiting us.
We chose to meet the challenges. We will continue to face them. We know very well that there is a big decision to besiege the country. They are preventing any assistance to Lebanon. A political and financial blockade is imposed to starve the Lebanese, and at the same time, they claim that they want to help the Lebanese people.
They ask for reforms, and in return they protect corruption, provide immunity to corrupt people, and prevent us from seizing financial files to recover the stolen monies.
They are playing the game of raising the price of the US dollar, speculating on the Lebanese pound, and trying to disrupt the government's measures to tackle the dollar price's surge.
The dollar game has become exposed and visible.
They demand financial measures, smuggle money abroad, prevent incoming transfers, and block the opening of credits for fuel, diesel, medicine and flour, to cut off electricity to the Lebanese, starve them, and let them die without medicines. Moreover, they claim that they are keen on preserving Lebanon and on providing assistance to the Lebanese people.
We have been silent a lot about diplomatic practices entailing major violations of international norms and diplomacy, for the sake of preserving brotherly relations, belonging, identity and friendships; but this behavior exceeded all familiar brotherly or diplomatic relations.
More seriously, some practices are blatantly interfering in Lebanon's affairs; there have been secret and public meetings; letters written with secret ink; encrypted messages; "WhatsApp" messages; plans and operations order to block roads and cause trouble.
How does the government deal with these plans and projects?
Do we give up? Do we announce our failure? Do we run away to be relieved from this burden and say that the believers are spared from fighting? Do we leave the coast clear? Do we choose confrontation?
Here is the biggest challenge facing us today as a government.
The answer will not be delivered today, but there will certainly be a clear, frank and transparent response, in addition to a definition of responsibilities. We will not overreact. This battle is ours. This country is ours. These people are ours.
We are keen on maintaining brotherly and friendship relations.
But of course, we have many options, and many papers on which to write our letters, but not encoded ones. Our letters are written in clear ink, in a simple and frank language. We will not accept that the country and the Lebanese people be an internal mailbox serving external interests, negotiations and settlement of accounts.
We will not accept besieging and starving the Lebanese.
As for road cuts, those who are really hungry are not the ones who are necessarily blocking roads. Road blocking is against people, not against the government.
Blocking roads increases pressure on people, and increases their hardship.
Burning tires will not burn the government, it will burn the remaining oxygen in the country. Road blocking comes against a clearly political backdrop, by a decision issued by an exposed operations room in terms of identity and control.
The situation is very difficult. True.
The social, living and economic crisis is huge. True.
Therefore, the government is working to break the link between the dollar price and the cost of living. We are in the final stage of accomplishing this task.
The government is not stalling, and road blocking will not prevent it from securing the basic life necessities for the Lebanese.
We will continue to disburse financial aid to families every month. We are gradually increasing the number of beneficiary families.
There is an ongoing plan to support industry, agriculture, as well as public and private schools. Thus, we will have reduced the bill of the food basket, consumer goods, as well as other burdens on citizens.
We will face the attempt to starve the Lebanese with graduated measures and procedures in all fields." ----Grand Serail Press Office

Diab meets Chinese Ambassador
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020 
Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, received today the Chinese Ambassador to Lebanon, Wang Kejian, heading a Chinese delegation, in the presence of Ministers of Environment Demianos Kattar, Industry Imad Hoballah, Public Works and Transport Michel Najjar, Energy and Water Raymond Ghajar, and Tourism Ramzi Moucharrafieh. The meeting discussed strengthening cooperation at all levels. The Chinese delegation also expressed its willingness to activate the partnership with Lebanon. Prime Minister Diab has entrusted the Minister of Industry to follow up on possible means of cooperation. ---Grand Serail's Press Office

Qabalan calls Justice Minister, Judicial Council to reject Judge Mazeh's resignation
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
President of the Supreme Islamic Shia Council, Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan, on Thursday called the Minister of Justice and the Higher Judicial Council to reject the resignation of Judge Mohammad Mazeh, which he submitted after he was referred to the judicial inspection authority over his decision to ban media from interviewing US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea. Qabalan praised Judge Mazeh for his "courage" and "keenness on curbing strife."

Hariri: The key word is reform and my conditions to return to the premiership are well know
NNA/Thursday 02 July 2020
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri expressed his surprise that Prime Minister Hassan Diab describes the current crisis as a conspiracy, does not mention the issue of reforms, electricity, communications or even fuel, and attacks the diplomatic community while he seeks to borrow from its states. Hariri added that the key word to salvation is reform, reform and reform. He denied that anyone approached him with the issue of forming a new government, stressing that his conditions are known and have not changed, and they are not the conditions of Saad Hariri but rather what the country needs to get out of the current crisis. In a chat with reporters this afternoon at the Center House, he warned against the mandate or the government sacking the Governor of the Central Bank Riad Salame, adding that the Future Movement will have a very harsh position in this case.
Question: There is talk today about a government change. Could you return to the premiership?
Hariri: There is a team responsible for this government, and if this team decides to abandon it, then it is its business. I said that I have conditions to return, and they know them. These conditions have not and will not change. They are not the conditions of Saad Hariri, but what the country needs to be saved. There has to be a very different way of working. If we do not go out of all these things, nothing will change.
Question: Who do you think is besieging this government and Lebanon, after PM Hassan Diab’s talk about besieging Lebanon?
Hariri: How can the outside besiege us through the dollar? There is an economic crisis and what is needed is reform. I heard what PM Diab said today, so did he talk about electricity? Reforms? He only attacks the diplomatic corps while we seek to borrow from its states. Once we gather this diplomatic corps and talk to them about Lebanon's situation and its suffering, and another time, we turn around and attack them. I did not see any judge react when the Syrian Ambassador attacked Speaker Nabih Berri a few months ago.
Question: Where do you think the main problem is today?
Hariri: Either we look at this crisis in a negative way, or we try to find a certain positive way out of this crisis. There is no doubt that this crisis created an economic meltdown in Lebanon, but somewhere, the International Monetary Fund says it is ready to help. Reforms are needed and changing the way of work by quotas. There is a so-called Low hanging fruit, and so far we haven't made any of it. I am really shocked when I hear a prime minister not mention electricity, communications, transportation, or the fuel oil problem that we suffer from, and only see a conspiracy. We have to do our homework. If the Lebanese want the others to help him, he must help himself first. The government should help itself.
Question: But the current government bears responsibility for the previous governments. Do you consider yourself today responsible?
Hariri: I kept silent for the first hundred days of the life of this government and did not deny that I bear responsibility, and the proof that I bear responsibility is that I resigned. Didn't the people ask me to resign and I did? I did what people wanted, and certainly I bear responsibility, but others bear a much greater responsibility. What did they accomplish with these ministries? We agonize to make the easiest reforms and do not make them. So why not do these reforms? Is it because someone wants this person and this party wants this or that? Are we going to keep going this way? Is this the cry of the people on October 17? What did the people say then? They said that there are neither Muslims nor Christians, "leave" and the country should not managed this way.
Question: Minister Bassil’s sources are trying to market former vice-Governor of the Central Bank, Mohamed Baasiri, as a substitute for PM Hassan Diab. Would you agree with this proposal?
Hariri: I do not cover anyone close to me. My conditions are clear, whether it is I or someone else.
Question: Is this condition that Gibran Bassil is not represented in this government?
Hariri: They know my conditions.
Question: It is said that the United States are asking Lebanon for a government in which Hezbollah is not represented. Are you ready to head such a government?
Hariri: Where was that said? There is no evidence about this. But certainly there is a political problem in the country in this regard, and we cannot understand how a government demands the Gulf to provide money to Lebanon while in this government there are those who clap when a Houthi missile hits Riyadh or any region in Saudi Arabia. The disassociation policy was put in the statement of the previous government and was not respected.
Question: What is the Saudi embassy in Lebanon seeking through the receptions that the Saudi ambassador is hosting?
Hariri: You should ask the ambassador.
Question: Where do you think we are heading on the issue of heading east?
Hariri: First, I do not think that any government in the past had a problem with the East, or even with the West, perhaps only some of them, but most governments had good relations with the East and with the West. Rafic Hariri visited China and Japan, and I went to China, Russia, Europe and America. But the problem with this issue is that they believe this is the solution, as if China will come and put its money in Lebanon. Any country that would invests in Lebanon will demand reforms. If it were to participate in a tender for electricity, for example, it would request that this tender be clear, transparent and organized on international basis. Let no one say that we refuse to engage with the East. Not at all. The Music Institute, which is located in Dbayeh, who made donations for its establishment? Isn’t it China during my government? We also worked with Huawei, which developed the 5G towers. No one has a problem with the East. They demand the government to go east as if someone is preventing them from doing so. But as far as Lebanon's national interest is concerned, we must always have a balance. When you consider the interest of the Lebanese, you must take into consideration that he is able to go east as much as he is able to go west.
Question: Has the Lebanon which was built according to the vision of martyr Prime Minister Rafic Hariri come to an end?
Hariri: No, I think we have an opportunity today. Before the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the country was being built despite all the obstacles put in the way of Rafic Hariri, but after the martyrdom in 2005, an unacceptable and unnatural way of work and quotas started.
Question: But you were accepting these things?
Hariri: I was prime minister three times, but during these 15 years, there were 7 years lost in a vacuum, only negotiations for this or that seat, and this vacuum was devastating for us.
The opportunity is that we have to think that the way of working that prevailed over the past 15 years is no longer permissible. Therefore, we must press the reset button, and this collapse that afflicts us in Lebanon is part of this button. When we make an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, all the reforms that we have to implement must be complete, and all quotas have to stop then. And if we want to fight corruption, the most important way to do this is through an e-government, when the citizen does not have to go from one formality to another. The same applies to the social security number. Where has this number become, given that we have begun work to accomplish it in the previous government? Hence, we must return to the fundamentals, and this country must rise again based on them and not on the distortion that existed.
Question: But the people want immediate solutions in light of the deterioration taking place, so why don't you interfere and conduct an external tour in an effort to bring support to Lebanon?
Hariri: Where is the reform that we have done? If we could not appoint a board of directors for Electricite du Liban. And now, in the telecommunications sector, we have two companies that were managing the sector, we took it from them and brought it back to the public sector, as if the public sector is very efficient.
Question: But this is for one month only, until the conditions book is completed?
Hariri: Do you believe that? The book of conditions is ready.
Question: Didn't you say that political disturbance stalled the electricity plan that was approved in 2010? Is this still your opinion?
Hariri: The problem is in the way they deal with people. In the government, there is a movement that wants to quarrel with everyone at the cabinet table, whether Amal, Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt or the Lebanese forces, so how will the government work?
We had a golden opportunity when we went to CEDRE, and we were supposed to finish the parliamentary elections, form a government within three days and start working and making reforms. If that had happened, we wouldn't be here today. Why did it take six months to form a government? Because someone wants it. I do not want to go back, but today, if we want to restore confidence and gradually reduce the dollar, reforms must be undertaken and the world must see that there is a method that is really changing in the country.
Question: Has anyone started negotiating with you to return to the government?
Hariri: No, no, I do not want anyone to negotiate with me. From now I say that I do not wish to be prime minister, I do not like it and am not thinking about it.
Question: Why did you meet with Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli today? Didn't you talk about a new government?
Hariri: No, we did not talk about this issue at all.
Question: Do you accept to return to the government if there is an international decision to stand with Lebanon?
Hariri: What matters to me is the way to deal with things in the future and how we will work to overcome all the problems that brought us to this situation.
Question: How will you help solve this crisis, with your relationships and internal and external weight? Can you be the solution and savior of the country?
Hariri: I do not consider myself as a savior. We are all saviors. A hand alone cannot clap in this country. But I ask: Who made all the concessions in the past three years? And on whose account? Didn’t I do that at the expense of my public? And why? In order to allow the country to work. I compromised on the issue of the presidency and on the issue of the electoral law. Could we work? No, we had to stay at odds. Therefore, what I am saying today is that those who should make sacrifices are the ones in the government today, and you know who they are. They have to be humble for the Lebanese citizen in order to allow the country to breathe.
Question: Are you calling for the resignation of the current government?
Hariri: I made all the concessions that I could make. Why? Is it to be prime minister? When the problem occurred and when people asked me to resign, I immediately resigned. Unlike others who are holding on to the chair to the end.
Question: Are you with the current forensic scrutiny of the central bank?
Hariri: Let them do what they want, what do they fear? We Lebanese have nothing to hide.
Question: But it exposes the country to the outside?
Hariri: As if the country is not exposed.
Question: Where are we headed in this economic situation?
Hariri: We are going downhill. Reform is the keyword that can save Lebanon. Reform reform reform.
Question: What is the priority, a political or an economic reform?
Hariri: Political reform must take place by stopping the quotas.
Question: There are those who are calling for something like a "shut down" for all of Lebanon, and there are those who say that companies that want to build power plants require Lebanon to sign with the World Bank to start its work in order to be under its guarantee. Is the government facing conditions from all over the world?
Hariri: What we must do is to rebuild our economy. We are not bankrupt, but if we do not make all the necessary reforms quickly we will reach bankruptcy. For example, economically, the dollar exchange rate should not be 10 thousand LBP, but between 4 and 5 thousand LBP. Why does it reach 10 thousand? Because of the black market.
Question: Does the governor of the Central Bank Riad Salame bear the responsibility?
Hariri: The state borrowed 90 billion dollars, and therefore we have to find a scapegoat, who is Riad Salame.
But I will tell you one thing: any government that will do anything or think about the issue of Riad Salame will face a strict stance from the Future Movement. Not for the sake of Riad Salame, but in order to maintain stability. If the mandate or the PM think that everything will be solved if Riad Salame is sacked, then I say from now: any governor who is present in such a crisis, Riyad Salame or anyone else, must remain until we reach safety.
Question: Is the relationship completely over with the President of the Republic?
Hariri: The dispute is not with the President of the Republic, but with another person.
Question: Why didn’t you go to the dialogue table?
Hariri: Because the title was fundamentally wrong. President Michel Suleiman participated and said what he said and expressed reservations about the statement. They made a statement and wanted to release it.
Question: What are your conditions to return?
Hariri: They know them.
Question: But Gebran Bassil insists, you either come bacl back together or leave together?
Hariri: Be it. I am not in a hurry to be a prime minister. The difference between others and me is that I am not running after a chair.
Question: Do you see any seriousness from the government in dealing with the issue of the International Monetary Fund?
Hariri: No. The government put out a plan and came up with numbers. People from the same team came and suggested that the numbers be reexamined, as they might not be correct. It turned out that the numbers are lower, but the government is still insisting on its numbers. There are those who wanted to help the government and show it that its numbers are incorrect.
Question: But you praised the effort of MP Ibrahim Kanaan?
Hariri: The Finance Committee headed by MP Kanaan did the right thing. Had it not been for Speaker Berri and his obstinacy to study this issue in parliament, we would not have reached correct numbers. What Speaker Berri did was the right thing to do.
Question: Did anyone discuss with you your return to the presidency of the government?
Hariri: No one spoke to me.-- Hariri Press Office

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 02-03/2020
Explosion at Iran nuclear site hit new centrifuge plant: US-based analysts
The Associated Press/Thursday 02 July 2020
A fire and an explosion struck a building above Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility early on Thursday, a site that US-based analysts identified as a new centrifuge production plant.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran sought to downplay the fire, calling it an “incident” that only affected an under-construction “industrial shed,” spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said. However, both Kamalvandi and Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi rushed after the fire to Natanz, which has been targeted in sabotage campaigns in the past. Kamalvandi did not identify what damaged the building, though Natanz governor Ramazanali Ferdowsi said a “fire” had struck the site, according to a report by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. Authorities offered no cause for the blaze, though Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency published a commentary addressing the possibility of sabotage by enemy nations such as Israel and the US following other recent explosions in the country. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far has tried to prevent intensifying crises and the formation of unpredictable conditions and situations,” the commentary said. But "the crossing of red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile countries, especially the Zionist regime and the US, means that strategy ... should be revised.”A photograph later released by the atomic energy agency and state TV video showed a brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed. Debris on the ground and a door that looked blown off its hinges suggested an explosion accompanied the blaze. Data collected by a US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite suggested the fire broke out around 2 AM local time in the northwest corner of the Natanz compound. Flames from the blaze were bright enough to be detected by the satellite from space.
“There are physical and financial damages and we are investigating to assess,” Kamalvandi told Iranian state television. “Furthermore, there has been no interruption in the work of the enrichment site. Thank God, the site is continuing its work as before.”The site of the fire corresponds to a newly opened centrifuge production facility, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. He said he relied on satellite images and a state TV program on the facility to locate the building, which sits in Natanz’s northwest corner.
David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security similarly said the fire struck the production facility. His institute previously wrote a report on the new plant, identifying it from satellite pictures while it was under construction and later built. Iranian nuclear officials did not respond to a request for comment about the analysts’ comments. However, any damage to the facility would be a major setback, said Hinz, who called the fire “very, very suspicious.”“It would delay the advancement of the centrifuge technology quite a bit at Natanz,” Hinz said. “Once you have done your research and development, you can’t undo that research and development. Targeting them would be very useful” for Iran’s adversaries. There was no previously announced construction work at Natanz, a uranium enrichment center some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz includes underground facilities buried under some 7.6 meters (25 feet) of concrete, offering protection from airstrikes. Natanz, also known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, is among the sites now monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency after Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
The IAEA said in a statement it was aware of reports of the fire. “We currently anticipate no impact on the IAEA’s safeguards verification activities,” the Vienna-based agency said. Located in Iran’s central Isfahan province, Natanz hosts the country’s main uranium enrichment facility. There, centrifuges rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium. Currently, the IAEA says Iran enriches uranium to about 4.5 percent purity, above the terms of the nuclear deal, but far below weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. It also has conducted tests on advanced centrifuges, according to the IAEA.
Natanz also remains of particular concern to Tehran as it has been targeted for sabotage before. The Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be an American and Israeli creation, disrupted and destroyed centrifuges at Natanz amid the height of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Iran Reports Accident at 'Inactive' Nuclear Site, No Casualties
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 02/2020
Iran's nuclear body said an accident had taken place on Thursday at a construction site in a nuclear complex without causing casualties, state news agency IRNA reported. "An accident occurred on Thursday morning and damaged a warehouse under construction in open space at the Natanz site" in central Iran, said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the country's Atomic Energy Organisation. Kamalvandi was further quoted as saying that the complex is currently inactive and there is no risk of radioactive pollution. The accident did not result in casualties, he added, noting that the cause was under investigation. He did not give any details on the nature of the reported accident. Tehran announced in May last year that it was suspending certain commitments under a multilateral nuclear deal unilaterally abandoned by the United States in 2018. The 2015 accord promised Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limiting its nuclear programme. US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the deal was followed by Washington reimposing biting unilateral sanctions. The Natanz facility is one of Iran's main uranium enrichment plants.

France refutes Turkey's 'inaccurate and bias' claims on Libya.
Reuters/Thursday 02 July 2020
France’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it had spoken to Turkey’s envoy to refute “inaccurate and bias” claims he made during a hearing with French senators on Wednesday. In the hearing ambassador Ismail Hakki Musa accused France of favoring eastern Libyan General Khalifa Haftar and said
French warships had been aggressive during an incident with Turkish warships on the Mediterranean last month. “We wanted to make the necessary clarifications with him regarding the reality of the facts, omissions and inaccurate and biased information that he brought up during this hearing” Foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said in a statement. She added that the envoy had been reminded of “the unacceptable character of Turkish behavior.”

Palestinian Rivals Fatah, Hamas Pledge Unity against Israeli Annexations
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 02/2020
Palestinians rivals Fatah and Hamas pledged a united campaign against Israel's prospective plans to annex territory in the occupied West Bank, in a rare joint press conference on Thursday. "We will put in place all necessary measures to ensure national unity" in efforts against annexation, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajub said in Ramallah at the press conference, also addressed by Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri by video-link from Beirut. "Today, we want to speak in a single voice," Rajub affirmed.

Incident at Iranian Nuclear Facility Damages Construction
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 July, 2020
An incident damaged an under-construction building Thursday near Iran's underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, a spokesman said. The affected building was above ground and not part of the enrichment facility itself, said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. The state-run IRNA news agency quoted Kamalvandi as saying there was “no need for concern” over the incident. "There is no concern about the possibility of contamination as one of the sheds which was inactive and under construction was damaged and not the facility itself," Kamalvandi told state news agency IRNA. Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of most international sanctions in a deal reached between Tehran and six world powers in 2015. But Tehran has gradually reduced its commitments to the accord since US President Donald Trump's administration withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed and intensified sanctions against it.

France latest side to condemn talks of coverting Hagia Sophia back into a mosque
Reuters/Thursday 02 July 2020
France's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the sixth-century Hagia Sophia museum originally built as a Christian cathedral in Istanbul must remain open to all. A Turkish court on Thursday heard a petition seeking to convert the Hagia Sophia, one of Turkey's most visited and beloved tourist sites, back into a mosque. "A symbol of tolerance and diversity, this place must remain open to all," a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said. France's appeal comes after the spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians warned that converting Istanbul’s sixth century Hagia Sophia back into a mosque would sow division. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The Hagia Sophia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was at the core of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires, and is today one of Turkey's most visited monuments

Fatah, Hamas Pledge Unity against Israeli Annexations

Asharq Al-Awsat/July 02/2020
Fatah and Hamas movements pledged a united campaign against Israel's prospective plans to annex territory in the occupied West Bank, in a rare joint press conference on Thursday. "We will put in place all necessary measures to ensure national unity" in efforts against annexation, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajub said in Ramallah at the news conference, also addressed by Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri by video-link from Beirut. "Today, we want to speak in a single voice," Rajub said. Fatah, which controls the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, and Hamas that runs the Gaza Strip have been plagued by divisions for more than a decade. The joint press conference was spurred by their common opposition to US President Donald Trump's Middle East plan dubbed the Deal of the Century. The plan paves the way for Israel to annex roughly 30 percent of the occupied West Bank, including Jewish settlements in the territory considered illegal under international law. For former PA official and Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib, Thursday's show of unity was unlikely to spark wider co-operation between the two Palestinian groups."I doubt the annexation challenge will help these two factions to end their split and unify again. I don't think this is going to happen," Khatib told AFP. "They'll appear together and they'll agree about the significance and the importance of the annexation and the need to try to coordinate their efforts but I don't think they'll go beyond that," he added.

Saudi Arabia Asks Int’l Community Not to Ignore Iran’s Threat

New York - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 July, 2020
Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Abdallah Al-Mouallimi has told the Security Council that it expects it to extend an arms embargo on Iran over its regime’s role in destabilizing the region. In a videoconference in New York, he called for “not giving Iran the chance to have a more destructive behavior.” The diplomat said Wednesday there are ongoing contacts with Russia and China, which have rejected a resolution drafted by the United States to extend the arms embargo that is set to expire on October 18. He hoped that both Moscow and Beijing would change their positions for the sake of regional and international stability. The Saudi Foreign Ministry welcomed on Tuesday a report submitted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the Security Council in which he confirmed Iran’s direct complicity and responsibility in sabotage attacks that targeted Aramco’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities last year. Al-Mouallimi warned that if the arms embargo expired, then Iran would improve its weapons exports to its proxies in the region. “Iran does not only constitute a threat to regional stability, but international stability as well,” he said. Saudi Arabia is working with its international partners to end Iran’s threat to the international community, he added.

Erdogan’s Spies Track Regime Opponents on German Soil

Berlin- Raghida Bahnam/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 July, 2020
Hussein Demir, a former law professor at the University of Ankara, sat inside a Turkish cafe in the Spandau district of Berlin, with his friend Omar, a Turkish businessman, drinking coffee and whispering.
As I joined them, the conversation moved from Turkish to English. The two men seemed more comfortable talking in a language that the cafe owners could not understand. They told me that they avoid speaking aloud in Turkish when they are in places frequented by Turks. Even when they speak English, they are always wary of what they say. Hussein and Omar, who declined to have their real names published, are political exiles who arrived in Germany in 2017, less than a year after the failed coup attempt in Turkey. Hussein was dismissed from his job following the coup and decided to leave the country, fleeing the wave of arrests that targeted judges, professors, and public sector employees. The academic does not hide that he belongs to the Fatah Allah Gulen movement, the Turkish cleric who lives in exile in the United States and who is accused by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt. But he says, his affiliation with Gulen has nothing to do with politics, stressing that the movement is religious and social. The coup attempt occurred on the night of August 15, 2016. Two weeks later, Hussein was on his way to Georgia, after he used his brother’s ID card to flee the country.
“My brother told me you must leave because they may torture you and they will not allow you to see a lawyer for 30 days, which is the period of pre-trial detention,” he recounts. He moved from Georgia to East Africa, from where he sought asylum in Germany in October 2017, after his passport was about to expire. As for Omar, he also left Turkey after the arrest of his father, who assumed a senior position in the country. But he was more fortunate than others, because he managed to enter Europe without much difficulty as he was married to a European.
But the two men’s concerns did not end with leaving Turkey. They are always worried about being chased.
In 2017, when Hussein arrived in Germany, the German Ministry of Immigration and Refugees was struggling to maintain its credibility, following the scandal of the expulsion of more than 15 Turkish translators who were working for it. Those turned to be spies in Ankara, conveying confidential information to the Turkish embassy in Berlin about asylum-seekers. However, the Immigration Service confirms that it has since become vigilant about this matter. In a written response to Asharq Al-Awsat, a spokesman for the department said that the applicant “has the right to report any information in this regard to the security services so that appropriate steps can be taken, and he can also request a different interpreter if he has a valid reason.”
These concerns have prompted Hussein Demir to refuse to be interviewed in the Turkish language, and asked to speak in English instead. “I asked to have my interview done in English because I was afraid of the translator,” he said. “They understood my concerns and I felt safer to speak through an English rather than a Turkish translator.”Expert in Turkish intelligence affairs Eric Schmidt-Eenboom told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Immigration and Refugee Service was one of the places where Ankara was targeting to recruit agents. He added that Turkey uses the information leaked about the refugees, not only to chase the families of those who remain in the country, but also to refute the reasons that prompted them to seek asylum.
In 2014 and 2015, Turkish refugees in Germany accounted for 1,800 asylum seekers, most of them Kurds, according to official figures obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat from the Immigration Department. Those numbers have increased significantly to reach 5,700 applicants in 2016 and 15,000 last year.
As the number of refugees increased, so did that of Turkish agents spying on opponents. Schmidt-Eenboom, who has written a book on Turkish intelligence work in Europe, estimates that there are more than 8,000 Turkish agents in Germany, in addition to hundreds of spies directly affiliated with Turkish intelligence, who recruit agents on German soil. “There is an unknown number of Turkish intelligence elements, many of whom reside in Germany, who work through the Turkish embassy,” he says.
Indeed, the Turkish authorities arrested a number of citizens who hold dual German-Turkish citizenship upon their return to Ankara, which caused in the past a lot of tension between the two countries. Turkey has asked Germany to hand over a number of wanted persons it considers as “terrorists”. During a visit to Berlin in 2018, Erdogan handed the list again to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But Berlin has rejected these requests. Instead, the German police moved to warn the people whose names are on the list against returning to Turkey because they might get arrested. If Turkish translators play a role in spying on opponents, the imams assume a bigger and more important task in these operations.
According to Schmidt-Eenboom, nearly 700 Turkish imams who are deployed in more than 900 mosques of what is known as the DITIB - the Islamic Union for Religious Affairs in Germany - play an important role in identifying agents to recruit them.
“These imams exchange information with the Turkish circles and they mediate between Turkish informants in Germany and Erdogan’s government in Ankara,” he says. The German authorities are aware of the work assumed by those imams.
In 2017, Berlin tried to open an investigation against 19 Turkish imams on suspicion of spying on opponents. But the story sparked a lot of political controversy, and before the prosecution could issue arrest warrants, Ankara had withdrawn the imams and returned them to Turkey. In an attempt to address this matter, Germany is seeking to introduce laws that prevent the arrival of imams from abroad, but instead, training clerics in Germany to preach sermons in German, not Turkish.
The Ministry of Interior also tried to implement a “tax” on mosques, similar to that collected from Christians to finance churches, in an attempt to reduce Turkish influence and funding. But the proposal was rejected by the Muslim community in Germany and was put on hold.
In 2017, the Hamburg Supreme Court sentenced a 32-year-old man to two years in prison for spying on Kurdish opponents in favor of Turkish intelligence. Initially, the charges also included planning to kill a Turkish dissident, but the prosecution was unable to prove this claim.
However, Turkish intelligence has considered resorting to kidnappings and murders of its opponents in Germany, according to German expert Schmidt-Eenboom.
Although Germany does not take political measures to put pressure on Turkey in order to avoid escalating tensions, especially with Erdogan's continued threat to send a new wave of refugees to Europe, it may consider a different strategy now after it assumed the rotating European Union presidency.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, member of the German Parliament Frank Schwabe said that his country could resort to threatening to expel Turkey from the European Council if it refuses to submit to the decisions of the Human Rights Council in Strasbourg, which is currently listening to a range of issues related to the prosecution of Turks only because they are opposed to the regime in Ankara.
It would not be in Turkey’s interest to exit the European Council, Schwabe noted, adding that he believed that such threats would push Ankara to stop chasing its opponents abroad.
Turkey joined the European Council in the 1950s shortly after its founding, and its expulsion from it may have major repercussions in terms of its relationship with the European Union.

Turkey Prepares to Set Up Base in Misrata
Ankara - Saeed Abdul Razzak/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 July, 2020
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is conducting talks with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) for the possible use of the Misrata naval base and Al-Watiya airbase. Turkish Naval Forces Commander Adm. Adnan Ozbal paid a visit to Libya and met Libyan Army's Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Mohammed Al-Sharif. They discussed the latest developments in Libya and the possibility of using Al-Watiya airbase and in addition to inaugurating a naval base in Misrata. On November 27, Ankara and GNA signed two separate pacts, one that encompasses military cooperation and the other maritime boundaries of the two countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. A Turkish business delegation is set to visit Libya within two weeks to assess how Turkey’s companies and banks can help rebuild the war-torn country and secure its energy needs, sources told Reuters. Politicians could join the upcoming trip by what they called a “committee” of business representatives. They will craft a business plan and initially focus on meeting Libya’s energy needs and re-building and renewing its infrastructure, sources added. Earlier, a senior Turkish delegation visited the GNA on June 18 to discuss the Libyan updates and the return of Turkish firms in Libya as well as energy and reconstruction projects. Also, Erdogan expressed support to the "legitimate government" in Libya that is seeking the country’s unity. The president was speaking to the members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) via videoconference. He added that Turkey will not leave the fate of the Libyan people at the mercy of putschists and will continue to act in line with international law.

World Bank Warns Against Slow Implementation of Virus Containment Strategies

Riyadh- Fatehelrahman Yousif/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 2 July, 2020
The World Bank warned against the difficulty in holding back the coronavirus pandemic and a slowdown in implementing containment strategy for the global economy. It stressed the need for Gulf governments to accelerate the pace of reforms, in order to achieve a green and diversified economy, largely dependent on digital technology, and increase the proportion of women participating in economic activities. World Bank’s Country Director of the GCC Countries Issam Abousleiman told Asharq Al-Awsat that the pandemic has upped the competition and reduced the number of regional markets. COVID-19, according to Abousleiman, also reinforced the risks faced by global supply chains posed by high costs and lack of innovation. He reaffirmed that it was hard to create a balance among less risk supply chains and sufficient competition and innovation. Abousleiman pointed out that the low levels of public debt for some Gulf countries would be beneficial in absorbing the rapid growth in public debt seen around the world. The banking sector in Gulf countries enjoys a great flow of liquidity and strong capital, Abousleiman said, but pointed out that in time decision-makers will have to face the issue of bailing-out companies.
“Bankruptcy will be the inevitable outcome of the process of moving capital between deteriorating and expanding sectors,” he said, stressing the importance of enabling the emerging sectors. According to Abousleiman, the World Bank called for initiatives with Gulf Cooperation Council member states to support and facilitate international trade during this pandemic, including the suspension of customs duties on basic medical and food supplies. It also called for adopting special measures to facilitate safe cross-border trade and support better use of risk management. When asked about how the coronavirus pandemic affected GCC economies, Abousleiman quoted World Bank estimates which predict an average loss of 6 percentage points of GDP based on 2019 levels. This is equivalent to $ 103 billion. “We assume that the major event that caused the change in our expectations over the past months is the pandemic,” Abousleiman told Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the pandemic affected the global demand for energy, which in turn affected GCC countries given that they are a primary producer of oil and gas. “Observations spot particularly large impacts on UAE and Oman, due to the non-hydrocarbon sectors' reliance on tourism and trade, while Kuwait has a significant drop in crude oil production, but the shortage in other sectors contributes to the recession,” Abousleiman said. On recommendations and advice offered by the World Bank to GCC economies to face the coronavirus pandemic, Abousleiman said: “As the coronavirus pandemic crisis persists, it is too early to know all the elements of the economic situation.” “At this stage, it can be said that the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council have benefited from the low levels of public debt in general, "with the exception of Oman and Bahrain", which allows absorbing the rapid growth in public debt that we see in different parts of the world,” he added. Abousleiman also revealed that the strong liquidity and capital in the GCC banking sectors help through the turbulences faced by the private sector.

Iran reports ‘accident’ in construction near Iran’s Natanz nuclear site
The Associated Press, Tehran Thursday 02 July 2020
Iran’s nuclear body said an accident had taken place on Thursday at a construction site in a nuclear complex without causing casualties, state news agency IRNA reported. “An accident occurred on Thursday morning and damaged a warehouse under construction in open space at the Natanz site” in central Iran, said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation. Kamalvandi was further quoted as saying that the complex is currently inactive and there is no risk of radioactive pollution. The accident did not result in casualties, he added, noting that the cause was under investigation. He did not give any details on the nature of the reported accident. Tehran announced in May last year that it was suspending certain commitments under a multilateral nuclear deal unilaterally abandoned by the United States in 2018. The 2015 accord promised Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limiting its nuclear program. US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the deal was followed by Washington reimposing biting unilateral sanctions. The Natanz facility is one of Iran’s main uranium enrichment plants.

Vatican informs US, Israel of Holy See’s concern over West Bank annexation plans
Reuters/Wednesday 01 July 2020
The Vatican, in a highly unusual move, summoned both the US and Israeli ambassadors to express the Holy See's concern about Israel's moves to extend its sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.
A Vatican statement on Wednesday said meetings with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, and US Ambassador Callista Gingrich and Israeli Ambassador Oren David, took place on Tuesday.
A senior diplomatic source told Reuters that Parolin met the two envoys separately, a detail which was not clear in the Vatican statement. It said Parolin, the Vatican's top diplomat, expressed "the concern of the Holy See regarding possible unilateral actions that may further jeopardize the search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the delicate situation in the Middle East." Israeli leaders decided in May that cabinet and parliamentary deliberations on extending Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, in coordination with Washington, could begin as of July 1.
But with no agreement with Washington yet on the modalities of the move under a peace proposal announced by US President Donald Trump in January, and talks with the White House still underway, no cabinet session was scheduled for Wednesday.
The Vatican statement reiterated its position in support of a two state solution, saying "Israel and the State of Palestine have the right to exist and to live in peace and security, within internationally recognized borders."The Vatican appealed to Israelis and Palestinians to do everything possible to reopen the process of direct negotiations on the basis of UN resolutions. Palestinians seek the West Bank for a future state. In a show of Palestinian unity, some 3,000 people in the Gaza Strip, including members of the mainstream Fatah party and the rival Hamas group that runs the enclave, protested against annexation.

Turkey wants France to apologize over ‘false’ Mediterranean Libya war ship claims
AFP/Thursday 02 July 2020
Turkey’s foreign minister said on Thursday that France should apologize for making “false claims” about a naval incident in the Mediterranean that has added to growing tensions between the NATO allies. “When France makes false claims and works against Turkey, that should not be accepted,” Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Berlin. “We expect France to apologize unconditionally,” he said, after Paris last month denounced an “extremely aggressive” intervention by Turkish ships against a French navy vessel participating in a NATO Mediterranean maritime security operation.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 02-03/2020
Politics, Lies and Gaddafi Tapes: The plots uncovered by Libyan intelligence leaks
Tommy Hilton/Al Arabiya English/Thursday 02 July 2020
A recent flurry of audio recordings leaked by a Qatari opposition activist has again drawn attention to Qatar’s controversial foreign policy positions and ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The series of audio clips add further insights into some of the political conversations that Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi (r. 1969-2011) had with Qatar’s former Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (r. 1995-2013), Qatar’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, and Kuwaiti MPs with links to the Brotherhood.
A previous leak from 2017 had captured Gaddafi with the former Emir and Prime Minister plotting against Saudi Arabia and discussing plans to create chaos in Arab countries.
At the time, Qatar dismissed the recording, saying that the Qatari royals had been humoring Gaddafi, who was known for his erratic speeches.
But at the end of May this year, Qatari opposition activist Khalid al-Hail released the first of a new set of recordings that have recast the spotlight on Qatar’s foreign policy, including its links with Muslim Brotherhood activists, who also feature in the new leaks.
The first leak captured Qatar’s former Emir Sheikh Hamad seemingly calling former US President Barack Obama a “slave,” the first in a series of explosive revelations to be caught on audio.
Throughout June, al-Hail released further leaks that have brought renewed attention to the allegations made against Qatar by the Arab Quartet of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt, who have been boycotting the small Gulf state since 2017.
These accusations include Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its use of the Doha-based Al Jazeera network to undermine governments in neighboring countries, especially Saudi Arabia.
Now, al-Hail says that he is still planning to release more leaks that would be “nothing in comparison” to what he leaked so far – despite receiving death threats.
Here is everything you need to know about the leaks, and their potential consequences for the region.
Who is publishing the Gaddafi-Qatar leaks?
Qatari opposition activist Khalid al-Hail has published the leaks in Arabic periodically on his Twitter page.
Al-Hail is one of the most prominent Qatari critics of the royal family, especially the former Emir Sheikh Hamad, and has been described as “the leader of the Qatari opposition.”
He was imprisoned by the Qatari regime in 2010 and 2014, he told the New York Times, saying he had been tortured and electrocuted.
Now in exile in London, al-Hail heads the Qatar National Democratic Party, which calls for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Qatar. He frequently appears on media channels criticizing the ruling al-Thani family.
What is the source of the Gaddafi-Qatar leaks?
Al-Hail did not reveal the source of the audio files when asked by Al Arabiya, and Al Arabiya English has been unable to access the originals for verification.
“A person would have reservations revealing their source but myself like many others who received information, the space is open, but I mean the leaks I posted are all exclusive and I am sure as I transcribed them myself, especially the ones I published myself,” he said in an interview this week.
Many of the leaks feature the voice of the Libyan dictator Gaddafi, who promoted a revolutionary ideology that advocated overthrowing other Arab leaders while he ruled Libya from 1969 until his death in 2011.
Some of the leaks also refer to the US invasion of Iraq, placing them between 2003 and 2011.
Others refer to a peace treaty between Sudan and a rebel group signed in 2006. One source, who asked to remain anonymous, said that some of the conversations might have taken place in Doha in 2009, when Gaddafi famously stormed out of the Arab summit after insulting Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.
One possibility is that the audio recordings come from the records of Gaddafi’s regime, many of which fell into the hands of a range of groups following the bloody coup that overthrew the dictator in 2011.
“Gaddafi was known to record conversations so it is plausible that this has come from his mukhabarat [secret police],” said Tim Eaton, a Libya expert and senior research fellow with Chatham House’s MENA Program.
Eaton also suggested that as Qatar currently backs Islamist groups in Libya’s ongoing war, it might make sense for people opposed to the Islamists to release leaks about Doha.
Many of the leaks also appear to have some redacted elements when Gaddafi is talking, potentially adding more evidence that they were conversations that took place in either Qatar or Libya that were recorded by Libyan intelligence services.
Have the leaks been acknowledged?
None of the individuals in the videos have denied their authenticity, and Qatar acknowledged the first set of recordings when they came out in 2017.
In an appearance on Qatari television, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim dismissed the conversations as Qatari officials merely humoring Gaddafi.
“[Gaddafi] asked for Al Jazeera to be part of it. He gave us tapes and everything and asked us to release them against Saudi Arabia. We didn’t release anything. After that, he said he’s preparing a conspiracy to change the rulers of Saudi Arabia. We used to laugh at him,” said Sheikh Hamad.
One of the Kuwaiti former MPs in the recordings, Mubarak al-Duwailah, tacitly acknowledged their authenticity by tweeting that he had received permission to meet with Gaddafi from the Kuwaiti government – which the government later denied.
Despite this, his brother Nasser denied the recordings authenticity on Twitter, describing a “story of fabrications, incomplete records, edited image and clips.” In response, al-Hail pointed out that both Mubarak and the Kuwaiti government had acknowledged the recordings, and Kuwait’s government has launched an official investigation into al-Duwailah’s appearance in the leaks.
Al-Hail told Al Arabiya that he had received death threats from people who did not want him to release the audio files.
“If it was matter of selling yourself like a mercenary ... and a lot of offer actually came, but the story is not just about the monetary offers but there’s been a lot of threats, telling me I will be assassinated or killed, basically acts of intimidation, etc,” he said.
What are they key takeaways from the leaks?
The leaks have attracted attention to Doha’s links with Gaddafi and other regimes, including that of Bashar al-Assad.
In one recording, the former emir can be heard saying: “As a small country we used to be ostracized by the big countries. But thank God there [are countries] like Libya standing with us, Oman, Syria recently.”
A theme that runs throughout the recordings is Gaddafi’s plan to destabilize other Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, to which the Qataris appear to assent.
On more than one occasion, the conversation centers on how to overthrow the Al Saud family and carve Saudi Arabia into different states.
Saad al-Faqih, a London-based Saudi Arabian opposition dissident, is mentioned on several occasions as a tool for the conspiracy.
In the 2017 recordings, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim and Gaddafi building a network agents in Europe, as well as the need to build ties with the US and Israel to reduce pressure from the US, which they suggest is linked to Saudi Arabian lobbying against Qatar.
According to the Saudi Arabian commentator Ali Shihabi, the leaks “confirm Qatar’s active efforts to subvert the Kingdom, which is the main issue at dispute here.”
“Let them stop that and relations can revert to normal. After all, Doha lives in the same neighborhood, and a fire it starts in Riyadh will inevitably burn Doha down too. Time to stop this nonsense and move forward as a unified GCC that faces identical threats,” he told Al Arabiya English.
The recordings also touch upon several of the points of contention between Doha and the Arab Quartet that have contributed to the ongoing boycott.
The Quartet accuses Doha of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE and Egypt have designated as a terrorist organization.
According to commentators, the fact that Gaddafi was having similar conversations with Qatari rulers and Kuwaiti MPs with links to the Brotherhood is evidence for Doha’s complicity in a regional conspiracy.
“[The recordings have] exposed the extent of the conspiracy plotted by the Muslim Brotherhood members, under Qatar’s guidance, as they seek to ruin their countries and spread “constructive chaos” in Arab countries, specifically the Gulf,” wrote journalist Salman al-Dossary in Asharq al-Awsat.
They also bring into question Al Jazeera’s editorial independence from Doha, with the leaks appearing to suggest that the station’s coverage was at least influenced by the former Qatar emir.
Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said that this was not the first time such allegations had emerged.
“There should be no doubt that Al Jazeera is far from independent in its coverage, especially since the Arab Spring,” she added.
Who are the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood affiliated members in the leaks?
The most recent audio leaks feature three Kuwaiti former MPs.
Hakem al-Mutairi
The first is Hakem al-Mutairi, a known extremist preacher now living in exile in Turkey.
Al-Mutairi was designated as a terrorist by the Arab Quartet, which called on Doha to sever its ties with him in 2017.
In Kuwait, he had previously founded the Ummah Party, an unrecognized political party that promoted alleged extremist views. Beforehand, he was a member of the Kuwaiti Salafi Movement and a frequent critic of Saudi Arabia.
The preacher is active on Twitter, where he has both Arabic and Turkish accounts, and frequently tweets criticizing the US and Israel.
In the most recent recording, al-Mutairi is heard plotting against the Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti governments.
Sources at Kuwait University, where al-Mutairi was a Sharia professor, revealed that Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior had launched an investigation into al-Mutairi based on the recording.
Al-Mutairi was reached for comment but did not respond in time for publication.
Mubarak al-Duwailah
Mubarak al-Duwailah is a Kuwaiti former MP who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood until the 1990s, and now heads the Islamic Constitutional Movement, an organization that shares a similar ideology.
Born in 1954, al-Duwailah studied engineering in the US before entering politics and becoming an MP in Kuwait in 1985.
He was a member of the Brotherhood until the first Gulf War, after which he left the organization due to its support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, according to the Erem news channel.
Al-Duwailah attracted controversy for criticizing the leaders of regional countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In 2015, he was convicted to five years in prison in abstention for insulting Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.
Audio released on Sunday reportedly captured al-Duwailah meeting with Gaddafi, in which he responds to the Libyan leader’s speech about the imminent fall of Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al Saud family.
“We hear from the guys there that their situation is not good, even amongst themselves they have many issues,” he says, in response to Gaddafi’s claims.
Al-Duwailah tacitly acknowledged the recording’s veracity by responding to it in a tweet, in which he claimed he had briefed the Kuwaiti Emir about his meeting with Gaddafi.
However, Kuwait’s Amiri Diwan – the name for the Emir’s royal palace – rejected al-Duwailah’s claims and launched an investigation into his conduct.
“Kuwait’s Amiri Diwan Sunday termed as ‘totally untrue and fabrications’ the remarks made Mubarak Al-Duwailah that he briefed His Highness the Amir about details of his meeting with ex-president Muammar Gaddafi,” said a statement posted on the official Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).
Al-Duwailah was reached for comment but did not respond in time for publication.
Fayez Hamed al-Baghili al-Rashidi
The third figure is the less well-known Fayez Hamed al-Baghili al-Rashidi, also a former Kuwaiti MP.
Al-Baghili is heard praising Gaddafi for his peacekeeping efforts in Sudan, where Gaddafi apparently helped broker a ceasefire between the Sudanese government and the Rashaida Free Lions, an armed group based in eastern Sudan.
Al-Duwailah claimed on Twitter that he and al-Baghili had been in Libya to help the negotiations. Both are reportedly members of the Kuwaiti branch of the Rashaida tribe.
According to al-Hail on Twitter, al-Baghili and al-Duwailah had previously claimed that Gaddafi had not been involved in the ceasefire negotiations and that the Kuwaitis had brokered them themselves.
In the recording, al-Baghili refers to the Rashaida people and praises Gaddafi, describing him as “brother leader” and praising his apparent peacekeeping efforts in Sudan.
This would place the recording after 2006, when the Free Lions signed a peace treaty with the Khartoum government.
What do the recordings tell us about the Muslim Brotherhood?
Commentators have said that the recordings give further evidence to the links between Doha and the Muslim Brotherhood across the region.
Support for the Brotherhood, which the UAE and Egypt have designated as a terrorist organization, is one of the demands of the Arab Quartet for it to restore relations with Qatar.
“Such revelations only come to underline the historic decision taken by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to boycott Qatar in June 2017 and designate the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist. Meanwhile, Mutairi is an extremist who was included in the terrorism list announced by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain in 2017. It goes without saying that he is one of the main recipients of Doha’s financial and media support,” wrote journalist Salman al-Dossary in Asharq al-Awsat.
For al-Hail, the recordings expose the Kuwaitis as “political beggars” who went to Gaddafi for support, which al-Hail says helps expose the Muslim Brotherhood and its “climbers and fawners.”
“In the end, I think that the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait in particular will fall and fall strongly because what we have on them, whether documents or file or even recordings or others, all these are documented,” said al-Hail.
“Even Hakim al-Mutairi, he deceived his country, he deceived many people in the Arab Gulf region. You only heard a part of the leaks, but you don’t know the rest of it. He created a system that exists even in Saudi Arabia and even in people who are now imprisoned on terror charges who were also complicit,” he added.
What is the role of Al Jazeera?
The new leaks have also attracted scrutiny to the Doha-based Al Jazeera network.
In two of the leaks, Sheikh Hamad and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim appear to discuss Al Jazeera coverage with Gaddafi.
In one, the former prime minister appears to tell Gaddafi that the network will not host guests who are critical of Gaddafi.
“Give us names ... if you give us the people that you don’t want to come out on Al Jazeera. The person that coordinates between us and you ... [inaudible] ... Abdulla,” Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim seems to be heard telling Gaddafi.
The late Libyan leader then replies: “The agreement is that anyone who attacks Libya, they’re not allowed.”
In the second, the former emir appears to tell Gaddafi that Al Jazeera has not stopped its negative coverage of Saudi Arabia.
“Al Jazeera stopped [negative coverage] of Saudi Arabia,” Gaddafi says, to which Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa replies: “No, no, no. The stop that you’re referring to did not happen.”
After Gaddafi says that Qatar’s other television channels now have the same coverage of Saudi Arabia as Al Jazeera, seemingly implying the need for a change in the coverage, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim interrupts, and says he agrees with the Libyan leader.
Another section of the leaks also seemed to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood runs Al Jazeera, with Hamad bin Jassim appearing to respond to Gaddafi’s claims that Brotherhood members run programs on the station by saying “I agree with you, I am telling you this is true.”
Al Jazeera’s coverage has also been a cause of disagreement between the Arab Quartet and Doha. The Quartet accuses Qatar of using Al Jazeera to undermine the governments of neighboring countries and destabilize the region, while Qatar insists that the station’s coverage is independent.
“This would not be the first time such allegations emerged. Leaked diplomatic cables (through WikiLeaks) showed Qatari officials boasting about changing Al Jazeera’s coverage as well. There should be no doubt that Al Jazeera is far from independent in its coverage, especially since the Arab Spring,” said the FDD’s Koduvayur.
Will there be more leaks?
Al-Hail has said that there will be more revealing leaks on the way, despite receiving death threats.
“Unfortunately, what I saw and heard, is something abnormal. What I leaked is nothing in comparison,” he said.

Turkey and Qatar: Love in Bloom
Burak Bekdil/BESA Center Perspectives/July 02/2020
Qatari Emir Tamim bin-Hamad al-Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan share a tender moment.
Few Qataris who fought the Ottoman colonialists to gain their independence in 1915 and end the 44-year-long Turkish rule in the peninsula would ever have imagined that their grandchildren would become Turkey's closest strategic allies.
Qatar, a tiny but extremely wealthy sheikdom, has a constitution based on sharia (Islamic religious law), while Turkey's constitution is strictly secular (officially, if not in practice). In Qatar, flogging and stoning—unthinkable in Turkey—are legal forms of punishment. In Qatar, apostasy is a crime punishable by death, while in Turkey it is not a criminal offense.
But the ideological kinship between the two Sunni Muslim countries, which is based on passionate political support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (and a religious hatred of Israel), seems to have produced a bond that threatens Western interests.
In 2014 Turkey and Qatar signed a strategic security agreement that gave Ankara a military base in the Gulf state, which is already home to the largest US air base in the Middle East (al-Udeid). Turkey stationed some 3,000 ground troops at its Qatari base in addition to air and naval units, military trainers, and special operations forces.
In 2017, in a Sunni vs. Sunni drama in the Gulf, a Saudi-led coalition imposed a blockade on Qatar accusing it of supporting terrorism and fostering ties with the rival Shiite force, Iran. Turkey immediately rushed to Qatar's aid, sending cargo ships and hundreds of planes loaded with food and essential supplies to break the blockade. Ankara also deployed more troops at its military base in Qatar in a gesture suggesting that it would assist in protecting the country militarily.
2018 was payback time for the sheikdom. Doha pledged $15 billion in investment in Turkish banks and financial markets when Turkey's national currency lost 40% of its value against major Western currencies in the face of US sanctions. In other words, one US ally in the Middle East was financially helping another US ally evade US sanctions.
The Qatari favor to the Turkish nation was followed by a massive gift to its leader when Qatar's emir, Tamim bin-Hamad al-Thani, gave Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a Boeing 747-8 aircraft, the world's largest and most expensive private jet, priced at around $400 million.
Qataris own a 49% stake in BMC, one of the largest military vehicle manufacturers in Turkey.
The Turkish-Qatari love affair had its tender moments in defense industry cooperation too. A Qatari investment fund bought a 49% stake in BMC, a Turkish armored vehicles manufacturer, whose Turkish partners are notorious Erdoğan cronies. In a bidding result that surprised no one, BMC won the serial production contract for the Altay, the indigenous, next-generation Turkish main battle tank in the making. Under the multi-billion-dollar deal, BMC will eventually produce more than 1,000 Altays. (In a controversial move, Erdoğan's government also allocated a military-run tank facility to BMC.) In one of several defense industry deals, Havelsan, a state-controlled military software company in Ankara, signed a partnership agreement with Al Mesned Holdings in Qatar for a joint venture that will specialize in cyber-security solutions for the sheikdom.
So far so good. But Turkey's fundamental economic imbalances persist and are likely to worsen in the post-pandemic era. The unemployment rate, officially 13.6% in February, is forecast to reach 17.2% by the end of the year. The national currency has depreciated as sharply as it did during the 2018 crisis: One US dollar was traded at 7.26 Turkish liras in mid-May 2020 versus 3 liras in September 2016. Following a 20% rise within a year, Turkey's gross foreign currency liabilities have reached $300 billion (net foreign liabilities are at $175 billion). Mismanagement and palliative efforts to keep the lira afloat has caused the Turkish Central Bank to burn through $65 billion in reserves since January 2019.
In order to stop the lira's slide and provide Turkish banks with the foreign liquidity they need, the Central Bank has been desperately but unsuccessfully seeking currency swap agreements* with the world's major economies, including with the Federal Reserve Bank, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of England.
All this financial misfortune comes at a time when the Turkish economy is poised to deteriorate further due to potential US sanctions. Washington has warned of sanctioning Turkey as part of the Countering Adversaries of America Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for having acquired the Russian-made S-400 long-range air and anti-missile defense system. The sanctions will go into effect if Ankara activates the Russian system. Additionally, a US court has threatened to sanction, at the magnitude of billions of dollars, a Turkish government lender, Halkbank, for evading US sanctions on Iran. If those sanctions go into effect, Turkey's economic troubles could turn into an existential financial/political crisis that would threaten Erdoğan.
Erdoğan knew where to turn for help. On May 20 the Turkish Central Bank announced that it had tripled its currency swap agreement with Qatar,* meaning it had secured much-needed foreign currency funding. The deal raised the 2018 swap agreement's $5 billion limit to $15 billion and immediately boosted the lira.
Once again, US ally Qatar has rushed to offer financial aid to US ally Turkey to help it withstand US sanctions. Just as it did in 2018, Qatar has at least partially thwarted US sanctions.
Ally cohesion? Not really.
*Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based political analyst and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The FDA Wants a Covid-19 Vaccine That Really Works
Max Nisen/Bloomberg/ July 02/2020
As the entire world awaits a vaccine against Covid-19, the US Food and Drug Administration is explicitly rejecting one of the fastest possible paths to releasing one. That’s a good thing.
On Tuesday, the agency issued guidance on the standards it will use in evaluating and approving a vaccine. Its benchmarks are nonbinding, but have teeth nonetheless. The FDA has let vaccine developers know that it won’t be enough to show evidence that their candidate can merely provoke an immune response in a blood test — the kind of data that could be available relatively quickly. Vaccine hopefuls will have to demonstrate real-world safety and effectiveness in large trials.
The agency also set an explicit threshold for success: Candidates should perform at least 50% better than a placebo in blunting the risk of infection or illness.
The guidance suggests that approval may take longer than some hope. However, demanding real data and setting a transparent standard is the best way to ensure that we get an effective vaccine.
The FDA often approves drugs based on so-called surrogate endpoints. These are measures of the effect of a treatment that probably correlate to, but don't guarantee, favorable clinical outcomes. Such metrics can be well-validated, and using them gets medicines to needy patients faster. The process is imperfect, however, and has in the past led to the approval of drugs that, on further examination, turned out to be ineffective. Such an outcome would be more likely — and particularly catastrophic — in the case of a Covid-19 vaccine, because scientists are only beginning to understand immunity to the novel coronavirus and how potential vaccines might work. The FDA cites this uncertainty to explain its recommendation that drug makers focus on real-world performance. If using a surrogate endpoint led the FDA to approve an ineffective shot, it could not only put inoculated people at risk of contracting Covid-19 but also weaken public trust in the process, reducing the acceptance of future vaccines.
The FDA has made it clear that even emergency approval will be granted only after it sees data from extensive studies that show a reasonable degree of effectiveness.
The new guidance sets out a broad set of potential trial goals, ranging from preventing severe disease to stopping infection outright. This could mean that the agency initially approves a vaccine that provides imperfect protection — and that Covid-19 will plague the world for longer than hoped. But the targets give drug makers reason to run robust trials. The path the FDA outlines is a long one. It’s going to take a while to recruit and enroll 30,000 people in a trial and give half of them two shots in the arm — as Moderna Therapeutics Inc. intends to do to test its candidate. And until a sufficient number of subjects in the placebo arm of such a trial contract Covid-19, there won’t be any firm results. Any number of variables could cause further delays: bad luck, a poor vaccine performance, or slowing case growth. The FDA is by no means ignoring the urgency of the moment. Its guidance includes a variety of concessions on safety data and other issues that are meant to speed the process. But the world can be grateful the agency is willing to bend only so far.

‘Smart Lockdowns’ Are the Future in Europe
Ferdinando Giugliano/Bloomberg/ July 02/2020
European Union countries are experimenting with new ways of dealing with the coronavirus. Germany, Portugal and Italy have all enforced selective or “smart” lockdowns, shutting down smaller regions in response to new outbreaks as opposed to bringing their entire countries to a halt.
This approach is the only hope of returning to a more normal life as we wait for a vaccine. However, it also puts a much larger onus on the public sector compared to generalized lockdowns. Health officials have to ensure small outbreaks do not get out of control and force the need for harsher measures.
Germany has seen a number of outbreaks in abattoirs, leading local governments to declare new lockdowns, such as in the municipality of Guetersloh, and enforce partial lockdowns, such as in the nearby town of Warendorf. Over the past few months, Italy has managed to contain some small flare-ups, including one in the tiny region of Molise and one in Rome, without having to impose additional restrictions. But the southern region of Calabria has recently imposed quarantine on an area of the seaside town of Palmi, after a handful of cases were reported. And after a worrying new spike in cases, Portugal has ordered stores in parts of the Lisbon region to shut down early, among other restrictions.
Some of these cases show striking similarities. For example, many of these new outbreaks originated in migrant communities facing overcrowded living quarters or unsafe working conditions. This was true of one meat processing plant owned by the Toennies Group in Germany, where more than a thousand employees, most of them migrants from Eastern Europe, came down with Covid-19. This was also the case of the much smaller outbreak in Italy’s central region of Marche. It was similar in Portugal: At the end of May, an outbreak emerged in Lisbon’s Jamaica neighborhood, which was already struggling with a housing crisis. Health-care facilities are another potential source of contagion, as was the case for the recent flare-up in Rome.
So far, the authorities have managed to contain these outbreaks. In Italy, the number of new infections has been stable in the low hundreds for the past few weeks, despite a substantial reopening of the economy. In Germany, the reproduction rate “R” of the coronavirus, which measures how many people a virus carrier infects on average, shot up to nearly three last weekend — well above the level of one needed to believe the outbreak is under control. Fortunately, this factor has begun to decline. According to the country’s Robert Koch Institute, it also does not appear to be too alarming since the overall number of cases remains relatively low. This tailored approach to lockdowns is in no way a repudiation of the more draconian measures most European countries enforced earlier. In fact, the current strategy can only work because Europe has largely brought new infections under control. It doesn’t look as feasible for countries such as the US and Brazil, where new infections are still on the rise in many areas. Smart lockdowns require the collaboration of citizens: Wearing masks and maintaining social distancing are two ways to reduce the risk of a new surge in cases. However, much of the burden falls on governments. They have to identify new cases early through rapid testing and contact tracing in order to circumscribe contagion. Getting more people to download contact-tracing apps would help on this front (not enough have done so in France and Italy), but the authorities will also have to ensure local health-care systems have enough staff to trace infections effectively. Finally, they’ll need to manage the process of reopening borders carefully, especially when it comes to countries that have not yet kept the virus in check.
Of course, all of this may not be enough. A few “superspreader events” or even individual “superspreaders” could prove particularly challenging to manage. But if Europe is successful in this new phase of its fight against the pandemic, the economic and social benefits could be huge. Only a vaccine or a benign mutation will ensure that the Covid-19 threat is over. Until then, smart lockdowns are the best hope we have.

How Schools Will Reopen Safely This Fall
Faye Flam/Bloomberg/ July 02/2020
For children, keeping schools closed in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic amounts to a cure that’s worse than the disease. Children are much less likely than adults to suffer any severe consequences of the virus, and they are at risk of suffering academically and emotionally if they miss more months of school.
That’s one reason it’s good news that K-12 schools are gearing up to reopen in the fall.
“We know that in all kids, active engagement in learning is important for their development,” says Yale University infectious disease expert Albert Ko. There will be changes, however, that will make the school year far from normal.
As with everything else associated with this pandemic, safety measures will vary from place to place, as there’s not yet a scientifically agreed-upon standard for protecting students from Sars-CoV-2. Scientists are still trying to figure it out, and everyone is learning as they go along. Masks will undoubtedly be required for some students, though there’s still disagreement over whether they should be worn all the time by very young kids. The experts say they may end up touching their faces to fiddle with masks, thus increasing their odds of becoming infected.
If there’s any consensus, it’s that getting kids back into the classroom is worth the risks. “There’s accumulating evidence that even two months of schools closing in the spring did significant damage to the educational process in children,” says Colorado pediatrician Sean O’Leary, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics who has been helping put together a set of safety guidelines for restarting schools.
This is a big change from March, when scientists thought this disease might act like influenza pandemics, whose spread can be fueled by school outbreaks, and which can be deadly to children.
With the flu, the youngest and oldest members of the population are the most adversely affected, says Vineet Menachery, an immunologist at University of Texas Medical Branch. Coronaviruses, including those causing the previous SARS and MERS epidemics, don’t seem to have the same pattern. Kids and teens are much less likely than adults to get severe cases or die.
Still, a few children have been hospitalized with a severe inflammatory syndrome, which affects their blood vessels, skin and organs. “It’s driven by something the virus is doing that we don’t understand,” says Menachery. They still don’t have reliable statistics on the risk, he says, except that so far it appears to be rare. O’Leary, the Colorado pediatrician, says more kids die and are hospitalized for complications of flu and other respiratory infections, which aren’t deemed dangerous enough to close schools.
Another concern is that the virus will have a chance to spread in schools and spark outbreaks in communities. But the good news is that kids may be less likely to transmit the disease than adults. A study in Iceland that used a random sample of people revealed that children and teenagers were about half as likely to test positive for the virus as adults. By reading slight genetic differences from one virus to the next, they could track how the disease spread from person to person, and determined that within families, there were only two cases where kids gave the virus to an adult.
O’Leary says it’s also reassuring to see that while thousands of day care centers have been running for children of essential workers, only a couple of cases have been documented in the adults who work there. And another study from France showed schoolchildren were unlikely to spread the disease to parents, teachers or each other.
Many decisions are being left up to individual schools, says Sharon Nachman, Chief of Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook University. Younger kids will be encouraged to wash their hands more often, hand sanitizers will be ubiquitous, and masks will be common. She says she it may be difficult to expect younger children to wear masks all day long. In some places it might be required, while others will focus on getting kids to mask up when they’re on the bus or walking through the hallways.
Different schools will also find ways to limit the number of children in a classroom — whether it’s having an early and late shift, or having half the kids attend every other week on Zoom, though remote learning will be complicated by parents’ return to work. One thing every school should do is make sure sick kids don’t come to class.
The new guidelines are flexible, says O’Leary, because measures such as spreading kids out in classrooms will be easier for some schools than others. And some remote learning may remain necessary in situations where a particular child’s health problems or those of a family member make classroom learning too dangerous. There’s also a risk that severe outbreaks force some schools to close again.
All these changes will have unintended consequences. Will students be able to hear masked teachers? Will staggered schedules cause sleep problems for the early shift or conflicts with parents’ works schedules? Will bus drivers be put at unacceptable risk?
We’ll soon find out. And as we do, experts should gather lots of data to identify best practices among the hodgepodge of approaches, so that schools can find ways to stay open even if the pandemic worsens. There’s a lot at stake.

Black Lives Matter: "We Are Trained Marxists" - Part I
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/July 02/2020
Black Lives Matter is a Marxist revolutionary movement aimed at transforming the United States into a communist dystopia. BLM states that it wants to abolish the nuclear family, police, prisons and capitalism. BLM leaders have threatened to "burn down the system" if their demands are not met. They are also training militias.
"Cutting the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers calling for backup won't get it, and rape, murder and assault investigations won't occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone complete." — Los Angeles Police Protective League, the city's police union.
"White people are so confused in America.... If there is systematic racism today it is a racism against white people, in the sense that white people are told that they are responsible for all the evils in the world...." — Dr. Carol M. Swain, university professor and advisory board member of Black Voices for Trump.
"We are all human beings in God's image. Black Lives Matter and Antifa and organizations like that will not help us transcend racism and classism and the 'isms' that they are concerned with. There are things that can be done in the black community, but the most important thing is helping people realize to how important their own attitudes are..." — Dr. Carol M. Swain.
Black Lives Matter is a Marxist revolutionary movement aimed at transforming the United States into a communist dystopia. BLM states that it wants to abolish the nuclear family, police, prisons and capitalism. BLM leaders have threatened to "burn down the system" if their demands are not met. They are also training militias. Pictured: A man carries and upside-down US flag with "BLM" written on it, at a protest march in Boston, Massachusetts on June 22, 2020.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that more than two-thirds of Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement. The high level of backing raises the question of how much the public knows about BLM.
On the surface, BLM presents itself as a grassroots movement dedicated to the noble tasks of fighting racism and police brutality. A deeper dive shows that BLM is a Marxist revolutionary movement aimed at transforming the United States — and the entire world — into a communist dystopia.
This is the first of a two-part series, which reveals:
BLM's founders openly admit to being Marxist ideologues. Their self-confessed mentors include former members of the Weather Underground, a radical "leftwing" terrorist group that sought to bring a communist revolution to the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. BLM is friendly with Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, whose socialist policies have brought economic collapse and untold misery to millions of people there.
BLM states that it wants to abolish: the nuclear family; police and prisons; heteronormativity; and capitalism. BLM and groups associated with it are demanding a moratorium on rent, mortgages and utilities, and reparations for a long list of grievances. BLM leaders have threatened to "burn down the system" if their demands are not met. They are also training militias based on the militant Black Panther movement of the 1960s.
BLM, which is not registered as a non-profit organization for tax purposes, has raised tens of millions of dollars in donations. BLM's finances are opaque. BLM's donations are collected by ActBlue, a fundraising platform linked to the Democratic Party and causes associated with it. Indeed, BLM leaders have confirmed that their immediate goal is to remove U.S. President Donald J. Trump from office.
Most importantly, the main premise of BLM is based on a lie — namely that the United States is "at war" with African Americans. Blacks are not being systematically targeted by whites. Fifty years after the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, more than three in four Americans, including most whites and blacks, agreed that real progress has been made in getting rid of racial discrimination. Scholars have noted that BLM's inability to produce solid empirical evidence of systemic racism explains why its leaders continue to "broaden and deepen" the indictment to include the entire American social and political order.
BLM in its Own Words
"We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [Garza] in particular, we're trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on ideological theories." — BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, July 22, 2015.
"If this country doesn't give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It's a matter of interpretation.... I just want black liberation and black sovereignty, by any means necessary." — BLM activist Hank Newsome, June 25, 2020.
"Stay in the streets! The system is throwing every diversionary and de-mobilizing tactic at us. We are fighting to end policing and prisons as a system which necessitates fighting white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchal imperialism. Vet your comrades and stay focused." — BLM Chicago, Twitter, June 16, 2020.
"There's no such thing as 'blue lives.' There is no hue of a blue life. Being a police officer is an occupation. It's a job. 'All lives matter'— it's like saying the sky is blue. I haven't heard how police are on the right side of history." — BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, ktvu.com, March 30, 2018.
"It's hundreds of years of generational oppression and trauma and infrastructural racism that impacts our bodies and makes our bodies more vulnerable to something like a COVID-19." — BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, Hollywood Reporter, June 2, 2020.
"We say #DefundThePolice and #DefundDepOfCorrections because they work in tandem. The rise of mass incarceration occurred alongside the rise of militarized and mass policing. They must be abolished as a system." — BLM Chicago, June 13, 2020.
"We are anti-capitalist. We believe and understand that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system." — Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), of which BLM is a part, June 5, 2020.
"'All Lives Matter,' is little more than a racist dog whistle that attempts to both delegitimize centuries of claims of global anti-Black oppression and position those who exhibit tremendous pride in their Blackness as enemies of the state. Well, we are enemies of any racist, sexist, classist, xenophobic state that sanctions brutality and murder against marginalized people who deserve to live as free people." — Feminista Jones, BLM activist.
"We stand with Palestinian civil society in calling for targeted sanctions in line with international law against Israel's colonial, apartheid regime." — BLM UK, June 28, 2020.
"We are an ABOLITIONIST movement. We do not believe in reforming the police, the state or the prison industrial complex." — BLM UK, June 21, 2020.
"Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down." — BLM leader Shaun King, June 22, 2020.
"We are anti-capitalist: We believe and understand that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system." — Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), of which BLM is a part.
"We are living in political moment where for the first time in a long time we are talking about alternatives to capitalism." — Alicia Garza, BLM co-founder, March 2015.
"Anti-racism is anti-capitalist, and vice versa. There are no two ways around it. To be an anti-racist must demand a complete rejection of business as usual. An end to racism demands transformation of the global political-economic setup." — Joshua Virasami, BLM UK, June 8, 2020.
Brief History
Black Lives Matter began in July 2013, when George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch coordinator of Hispanic-German descent, was acquitted of homicide charges in the 2012 fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black high school student, in Sanford, Florida.
Alicia Garza, a black woman from Oakland, California, posted to Facebook what she described as a "love letter to black folks." She wrote: "I continue to be surprised at how little black lives matter. Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." Patrisse Cullors, a black woman from Los Angeles, California, then put Garza's Facebook post on Twitter, with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. After seeing the hashtag, Opal Tometi, a first-generation Nigerian American woman from Phoenix, Arizona, partnered with Garza and Cullors to establish an internet presence. Tometi purchased the domain name and built BLM's digital platform, including social media accounts, where they encouraged people to tell their stories.
The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter gained national attention in August 2014, after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. The hashtag was ubiquitous during riots in November 2014, when a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. By 2018, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter had been tweeted over 30 million times.
Since its beginnings seven years ago, Black Lives Matter has grown into a movement with nearly 40 chapters and thousands of activists in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. What began as an effort to seek justice for black people has become far more expansive — and more radical — in its demands.
What's the Agenda?
BLM's worldview is based on a mix of far-left theoretical frameworks, including critical race theory and intersectional theory. Critical race theory posits that racism is systemic, based on a system of white supremacy and therefore a permanent feature of American life. Intersectional theory asserts that people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and other identity markers.
Black Lives Matter and other purveyors of critical race theory and intersectional theory reject individual accountability for behavior, criminal or otherwise, because, according to them, blacks are systemic and permanent victims of racism. Such racism, according to BLM, can only be defeated by completely dismantling the American economic, political and social system and rebuilding it from scratch — according to Marxist principles.
Black Lives Matter seeks to replace the foundational cornerstones of American society: 1) abolish the Judeo-Christian concept of the traditional nuclear family, the basic social unit in America; 2) abolish the police and dismantle the prison system; 3) mainstream transgenderism and delegitimize so-called heteronormativity (the belief that heterosexuality is the norm); and 4) abolish capitalism (a free economy) and replace it with communism (a government-controlled economy).
Abolish the Traditional Nuclear Family
In its policy agenda, Black Lives Matter states that it is committed to abolishing the traditional nuclear family:
"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and 'villages' that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels rejected the traditional family because, according to them, the nuclear family, as an economic unit, sustains the capitalist system. Engels wrote: "The care and education of the children becomes a public affair; society looks after all children alike, whether they are legitimate or not."
Many experts have noted that African Americans need stronger, not weaker, families. In March 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an Assistant Secretary of Labor under U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, wrote a groundbreaking report, which focused on the roots of black poverty in the United States. The report linked the many problems plaguing African Americans — crime, joblessness, school failure, out-of-wedlock births — to the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family.
When the Moynihan Report was written in 1965, 25% of black children in the United States were born out of wedlock. Fifty years later, in 2015, more than 75% of black children were born out of wedlock, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Twenty years after the Moynihan Report, Glenn Loury, the first black economist to earn tenure at Harvard University, lauded Moynihan as a prophet:
"The bottom stratum of the black community has compelling problems which can no longer be blamed solely on white racism, and which force us to confront fundamental failures in black society. The societal disorganization among poor blacks, the lagging academic performance of black students, the disturbingly high rate of black-on-black crime, and the alarming increase in early unwed pregnancies among blacks now loom as the primary obstacles to black progress."
Thomas Sowell, an African American economist and social theorist opined that the Moynihan Report of 1965 "may have been the last honest government report on race." By contrast, African American civil rights activists criticized Moynihan for "blaming the victim."
Abolish Police and Prisons
BLM states that it wants to "defund" and ultimately "abolish" police and prisons in the United States. Police officers would be replaced by educators, social workers, mental health experts and religious leaders, who, according to BLM, would bring down the levels of crime.
In an interview with Newsweek, BLM co-founder Cullors said:
"The freedom of mostly white affluent people is predicated on the unfreedom of black people. So, law enforcement is not actually used to keep black people safe. They're used to patrol, occupy, harass, abuse, often hunt and mostly, what we've seen is kill our communities.
"Policing and incarceration are part of a continuum. The policing is the first response and then incarceration is the last response. And these two systems rely on each other very, very deeply. We have to be working on getting rid of both systems."
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Cullors explained that she is not merely an activist but a modern-day abolitionist:
"An abolitionist believes in a world where police and prisons are no longer weaponized as a tool for public safety."
BLM co-founder Opal Tometi, in an interview with The New Yorker, claimed that policing in America has its roots in managing slavery and therefore is systemically racist. She explained:
"We have been fighting and advocating to stop a war on black lives. And that is how we see it — this is a war on black life. And people understand that this system is filled with all sorts of inequality and injustice, and that implicit bias and just outright racism is embedded in the way that policing is done in this nation — and when you think about it historically, it was founded as a slave patrol. The evolution of policing was rooted in that...."
Washington, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham has warned that underfunding police departments could cause an increase in excess force by police officers:
"The number one thing that contributes to excessive force in any police agency is when you underfund it. If you underfund a police agency, it impacts training, it impacts hiring, it impacts your ability to develop good leaders."
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the city's police union, said that budget cuts would be "extremely irresponsible":
"Cutting the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers calling for backup won't get it, and rape, murder and assault investigations won't occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone complete."
Polls show that most Americans — including most blacks — do not share BLM's views on abolishing the police. A recent Rasmussen's report found that 63% of American adults "regard being a police officer as one of the most important jobs in our country today." Furthermore, 64% are concerned that the current anti-police sentiment will lead to fewer people willing to become police officers, and that it will "reduce public safety in the community where they live." Importantly, according to the Rasmussen report, "Blacks (67%) are the most concerned about public safety where they live, compared to 63% of whites and 65% of other minority Americans."
Abolish Heteronormativity
BLM's policy agenda states:
"We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender [a term for people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth] privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence....
An academic study titled, "The 'Queering' of Black Lives Matter," describes in great detail how issues of sexual identity and gender orientation have taken priority over BLM's original focus on police brutality. The heavy focus on sexuality has led to accusations that BLM is "a gay movement masquerading as a black one."
Two of the three founders of BLM describe themselves as "black queer females." One, Alicia Garza, is married to a biracial transgender male. Patrice Cullors describes herself as "polyamorous." In interview after interview, Garza and Cullors raise the issue of "black trans and gender nonconforming people," often to the exclusion of police brutality.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Garza said that she is not interested in the American tradition of live and let live: "We want to make sure that people are not saying, 'Well, whatever you are, I don't care.' No, I want you to care. I want you to see all of me."
Abolish Capitalism and the "Patriarchal" System
BLM equates capitalism with racism in the same way that its Antifa cousins equate capitalism with fascism. BLM's views on capitalism are based on the concept of "racial capitalism," a term created by the late Cedric Robinson, who posited that capitalism and racism are two sides of the same coin: both are, according to Robinson, dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide.
The British wing of Black Lives Matter UK states: "We're guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world."
The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), an "ecosystem" of over 170 Black-led organizations, including BLM, states:
"We are anti-capitalist: We believe and understand that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system."
M4BL demands "a reconstruction of the economy to ensure Black communities have collective ownership" and "a progressive restructuring of tax codes at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth."
M4BL also demands reparations for past and continuing harms:
"The government, responsible corporations and other institutions that have profited off of the harm they have inflicted on Black people — from colonialism to slavery through food and housing redlining, mass incarceration, and surveillance — must repair the harm done. This includes:
"Full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education; a guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people; reparations for the wealth extracted from our communities through environmental racism, slavery, food apartheid, housing discrimination and racialized capitalism."
The demands of BLM and M4BL are similar to those found in the Communist Manifesto, which include:
"Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes; A heavy progressive or graduated income tax; Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan."
BLM's Immediate Demand
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors recently confirmed that the immediate goal is to remove U.S. President Donald J. Trump from office:
"Trump not only needs to not be in office in November, but he should resign now. Trump needs to be out of office. He is not fit for office. And so, what we are going to push for is a move to get Trump out. While we're also going to continue to push and pressure Joe Biden around his policies and relationship to policing and criminalization. That's going to be important. But our goal is to get Trump out."
Evaluations of BLM's Agenda
In an interview with Chanel Rion of One America News Network, Dr. Carol M. Swain, a university professor, public intellectual, and advisory board member of Black Voices for Trump, said:
"It's very clear to me that the Black Lives Matter organization is about something much bigger than black people, that it really is pushing a socialist, Marxist agenda.
"White people are so confused in America. I hate to say it like that but I don't know any other way to say it: They want to signal to black people that they care and the only way they feel like they can do that is to agree with the slogan, which is a true statement, that black lives matter in the same way that all lives matter. White lives matter, brown lives matter, but they can't separate the slogan, which is a true statement, from an organization that has a goal that I believe is ultimately destructive to America.
"There is something very wrong when they argue that racism is permanent. If it's permanent, then there is nothing you can do about it. That white skin is property that means that people who just happen to have been born white they have property that gives them advantages over blacks.
"If there is systematic racism today it is a racism against white people, in the sense that white people are told that they are responsible for all the evils in the world, that racism is permanent, and the only way they can redeem themselves is by divesting themselves of their whiteness. It involves a shaming of young white people, if you have white skin you're supposed to have all these white privileges. I contend that there is black privilege, brown privilege, that it's really about social class. The sooner we get away from defining everything, even the police brutality, as racism, the sooner we can bring everyone together as Americans.
"We are all human beings in God's image. Black Lives Matter and Antifa and organizations like that will not help us transcend racism and classism and the isms that they are concerned with. There are things that can be done in the black community, but the most important thing is helping people realize to how important their own attitudes are. I would argue that a person's attitudes are more important than race, gender, social class in determining whether or not they are going to be successful."
Columnist Josh Hammer wrote that the American system of governance and way of life is under existential threat by groups such as BLM and Antifa:
"The modern left, in thrall to the anarchists of Antifa and the Marxists of Black Lives Matter, has positioned itself as a political movement that stands athwart the American regime. At an institutional level, Democratic Party leadership is increasingly a dog wagged by the tail that is Antifa and Black Lives Matter. And that tail, as is openly conceded in moments of candor, is resolutely opposed to the idea of America itself. There is no alternative way to comprehend the ardent desire of those insurrectionists who, channeling the very worst of Mao's Cultural Revolution, would deface and demolish societal tributes to the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence (Jefferson) and the man who brought to fruition its ideals (Lincoln). Could we ask for a more clarion demonstration of the dripping disdain with which the left views the entire American project?
"We are now in the midst of a cold civil war between Americanists, proud defenders and preservers of the American regime and way of life, and the civilizational arsonists who seek to burn that regime and way of life into the ether. Yes, we are in a fight for America's soul — but we are also in a fight for America itself."
Part II of this series will examine BLM's ideological influences, its activities and its sources of funding.
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

US Needs to Review its IRF Report on India
Jagdish N. Singh/Gatestone Institute/July 02/2020
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom apparently based its India report on the versions of evidently hostile non-governmental organizations and media outlets.
If US President Donald J. Trump is determined to promote religious freedom the world over, he also needs to call upon other nations vastly more abusive than India is to "end religious persecution.'"
astonishing to note that the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Report, released by the US Department of State on June 10, 2020, ranks India on its lowest grade, "Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)." The report recommends that the US State Department meet people from India's "religiously persecuted" communities and slap sanctions on the agencies and officials responsible for the predicament of the affected.
The report also groups India with countries, such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, which have long been notorious for their religious freedom rights violations. It says that India's newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) makes the Muslims in the country "bear the indignities and consequences of potential statelessness." It also claims that the Narendra Modi government allows "campaigns of harassment and violence" against Muslims and other religious minorities.
The report suggests that the government-perpetuated discrimination against religious minorities in India can be discerned in the newly changed status of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region, the enactment of the cow-slaughter and anti-conversion laws, the inflammatory remarks of some Hindu-majority parties against minority communities, and the Supreme Court's decision in the Babri mosque case. The report also alleges that in February this year ", three days of violence erupted in New Delhi with mobs attacking Muslim neighborhoods." Finally, it adds that innocent members of minority communities "are being punished under India's cow protection laws" that prohibit the export or import of beef.
It is hard to believe that the Modi government allows any campaign of harassment and violence against Muslims and other religious minorities. Ironically, successive governments in India have generally resorted to a policy of appeasing minorities in a bid to attract more votes. The Modi government has been no exception.
The 2019 manifesto of the Modi's party talks of the empowerment and "development with dignity' of all minorities, including Muslims and Christians." During the Modi government (2014-19), the representation of minorities in India's employed by the central government increased from just about 4.9% to 9.8%. The Modi government's "New 15-Point Programme for the Welfare of Minorities" gives a fair percentage of the priority sector lending to the minority communities.
The claim made in the report that the Citizenship Amendment Act is anti-Muslim simply is not true. None of the provisions in this legislation harms Muslim citizens in India. The legislation just seeks to fast-track citizenship to refugees from the Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities who face religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and who fled to India. India's Home Minister Amit Shah has clarified that the CAA will not take away the citizenship of any Muslims.
Clearly, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is to blame for these pitfalls in this report. The Commission authored this report and submitted it to the US Congress on April 29, 2020. The USCIRF apparently based its India report on the versions of evidently hostile non-governmental organizations and media outlets.
Even in doing that, the USCIRF has not been fair. It did not care to note the plight in India of religious communities other than Muslims and Christians. It ignored how the Hindus and Sikhs in Kashmir still continue to feel about their right freely to practice their religions. It ignored how some Christian and Islamic missionaries have been converting Hindus to Christianity and Islam.
In its depiction of the incidents of violence in New Delhi and other parts of India, the USCIRF has been one-sided. It reported on the alleged activities of the disruptive elements in the Hindu community but meanwhile overlooked those of the disruptive elements in the Muslim community. In a court hearing, India's Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told Chief Justice of India S A Bobde that both Hindus and Muslims "indulged in hate speech" against each other during the February riots. The USCIRF did not care to note that some Hindus alleged that the Muslims had started the violence. The USCIRF also overlooked reports suggesting some Muslim leaders had been preparing for riots since January.
One hopes that in view of the glaring lapses in the current USCIRF's India report, the Trump administration would review it. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should not accept the USCIRF's current recommendation to slap sanctions on India, and he should instead investigate if the USCIRF today is operating in a truly professional way. If US President Donald J. Trump is determined to promote religious freedom the world over, he also need to call upon other nations vastly more abusive than India is to "end religious persecution."
*Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi.
© 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.

Time for France’s Emmanuel Macron to prove he is a different kind of president
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/July 02/2020
When Emmanuel Macron was elected, it seemed he wanted to differentiate himself from previous French presidents. He was a new breed of presidential candidate and so he would be a different president too. His movement, En Marche, had indeed differentiated itself from historical French political formations. This difference applied not only to his domestic policies, but also to French foreign policy. He offered a fresh approach to Europe and even more to the Middle East, where France has enjoyed historically strong and solid relations with the leading Arab countries.
It was, therefore, a surprise to the region, which was suffering and facing Iran’s negative interference in its domestic files, to see the French president take a softer approach toward Arab countries’ security and worries, even lightly taking the side of Tehran. From Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif’s surprise invitation to the venue of last year’s G7 summit in Biarritz to the repeated visits of his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian to Tehran, and with less communication with leading Arab countries, this all came as a new French approach to the Middle East.
It is, in principle, an inheritance of former US President Barack Obama’s vision. In this view, Iran has been isolated and circled for too long and so an engagement with the country would change its behavior and make the region and the world safer. Yet, as Obama secured the nuclear deal in 2015 without tackling other regional concerns, such as Iran’s missile program or its interferences in its neighbors’ domestic affairs, the Tehran regime was emboldened. It carried out even more negative interference and pushed for full dominance in key files such as Iraq and Lebanon, and a bigger involvement in Yemen. Although Obama’s intentions were good, the nuclear deal failed to make the region safer on the ground. Instead it promoted instability and Arab countries ended up paying a heavy price for this mistake. Lebanon and Yemen are now the main, helpless victims of this Iranian escalation.
However, for Macron, it was not only about proving his difference — there was also the objective of maximizing French companies’ share of the Iranian business boom created by the partial lifting of sanctions. And, as President Donald Trump took the decision to withdraw the US from the nuclear agreement, Macron saw this as a good way to kill two birds with one stone. First, to continue his appeasement of Tehran, which would put French companies in a good economic position. And, second, to present himself as an independent voice from the US and extend this to other files, such as climate change.
Yet, even faster than Obama, the French president was hit by the realities of the Middle East. For one, despite all the mediations, he was not able to create a new nuclear deal to prolong the economic benefits for French companies. This was mainly due to the refusal of Iran to include key regional issues in the deal. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime’s repression of protests forced Macron to shift his position and even cancel a planned trip to Iran.
As much as we want to show good faith and extend our hand to the Iranian regime, it seems that, unfortunately, it does not want friendly and positive bilateral relations — it only seeks dominance and blackmail. Arab countries had warned of this situation, as they would like nothing more than to have good relations with Iran — and also Turkey for that matter — yet their advice was disregarded and considered biased. Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have all, sometimes in coordination with the US, tried several times to launch initiatives to reach good relations with Iran, but they all failed. Any Arab official will tell you that, on paper, Iran is a country they all seek to have prosperous and transparent relations with: It has a rich history, gifted people, and a potentially large and diversified economy, with many synergies and opportunities to explore. Yet, when it comes to reality, it becomes impossible. As a clear example, when Egypt opened its doors to Iranian tourists after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the first group of visitors was exclusively composed of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose primary objective was to organize groups around Egypt’s historical Fatimid sites.
Macron’s focus on a breakthrough with Iran blinded the French to other important foreign policy issues. Like Obama, Macron disregarded the Syrian file to appease Iran and lost ground there. Most importantly, he also did not foresee or react to Turkey’s growing role in other files such as Libya, where France and Italy were busy countering each other behind the scenes. France is now waking up to the risks of instability on the southern Mediterranean coast, as well as the eastern door to Europe, which Arab countries have long warned of.
It is, therefore, not surprising to see France, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the same side of the Libyan file and Paris going back to its historical and expected policy in the Middle East. It is not because of the French deep state, as some analysts described it, but because it is the right policy.
Even faster than Obama, the French president was hit by the realities of the Middle East. The answer to all these problems is not French; it is European. It seems that Germany and Italy are also pursuing their own objectives, striking deals when needed to ensure benefits for themselves. I would go as far as saying that this is the true risk for Europe, even more than Brexit. Europe was able to build the world’s second-largest economic zone after the US but, if it does not unify its political vision — of which foreign policy is an important component — it risks dissolution. In this aspect, Libya and Turkey’s role in it are only the tip of the iceberg.
Europe will need to preserve and strengthen the Western alliance while considering a changing role for the US, which will be less prone to coming to its rescue in the coming years. This means being able to strike a balance between US and Russian interests. It is an even more difficult balancing act than the failed attempt with Iran, yet it could have extremely positive consequences for Europe and the Middle East. Macron’s upcoming visit to Moscow will, therefore, be important for Europe and for NATO, and it could determine whether he is indeed a different breed of president.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the CEO of Eurabia, a media and tech company. He is also the editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.

Iran must be held to account for global espionage, assassinations and terrorism plots
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/July 02/2020
While it is important to examine what topics Iran’s state-owned Persian news outlets focus on, it is also critical to analyze what they decide not to cover. This week, for instance, there was little mention of the Iranian spy who was recently sentenced by a Danish court to seven years in prison.
The spy, who will be deported from Denmark after serving his jail term and permanently banned from re-entering the country, was reportedly an accessory to the attempted murder of one or more opponents of the Iranian regime. The court stated that he “collected information about an exiled Iranian in Denmark” and handed the information over to an Iranian intelligence agency, an act that is illegal under Danish law.
While the intelligence agencies of many nations gather information in other countries, the Iranian case is different because the regime is actively involved in using gathered information to assassinate or bomb its targets.
In the Netherlands, for example, Ahmed Mola Nissi, a Dutch citizen of Iranian origin, was gunned down outside the front door of his home in the Hague in Nov. 2017. The 52-year-old, considered an opponent to the Iranian regime, was a prominent figure in the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, an activist group that fights for the formation of a separate state in Western Iran.
The Dutch authorities made a public announcement stating that the Iranian government commissioned the murder. Nissi’s resistance to Iran’s tyrannical regime made him a target, and his life was ended to further the goals of the autocratic rulers in Tehran.
He was not the only person targeted in this way. Another political opponent, Ali Motamed, was killed under similar circumstances in Amsterdam in 2015. The regime has made it clear that there is a target on the backs of all who oppose it or stand up for freedom and human rights.
Tehran also seems to use intelligence information gathered by its spies to carry out terror attacks. For example, European officials foiled a terrorist plot to bomb a Free Iran convention in Paris in June 2018 that included many high-profile international speakers, including former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird.
An Iranian diplomat and several other individuals of Iranian origin were arrested in France, Belgium and Germany. After a thorough investigation, French officials concluded that the Iranian regime was behind the bomb plot. Had it succeeded, the loss of life would have been staggering and the devastating toll on a community that fights for human rights would have been immeasurable.
Iran’s spies have not only been arrested in the Middle East and Europe but also in the US. This was not an isolated incident in Europe. In 2018, officials in Denmark accused Tehran of attempting to assassinate a Danish citizen. Anders Samuelsen, the foreign minister at the time, emphasized the seriousness of the plot, saying: “An Iranian intelligence agency has planned an assassination on Danish soil. This is completely unacceptable. In fact, the gravity of the matter is difficult to describe. That has been made crystal clear to the Iranian ambassador in Copenhagen today.”
Also in 2018, after an investigation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the federal prosecutor’s office ordered police to carry out raids on properties around the country linked to suspected Iranian spies. It was strongly believed that those individuals had spied on people and organizations “on behalf of an intelligence unit associated with Iran.”
Iran’s spies have not only been arrested in the Middle East and Europe but also in the US. Two Iranians accused of spying for the regime on opposition group the People’s Mujahedin of Iran were arrested and indicted in the US in Aug. 2018, for instance.
The US Federal Court charged Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, 38, in Chicago and, Majid Ghorbani, 59, in California. According to the Justice Department, the pair are charged with “knowingly acting as agents of the government of Iran without prior notification to the attorney general, providing services to Iran in violation of US sanctions, and conspiracy.”
In addition, an Iranian-born Canadian was arrested in Washington State for illegally assisting the Iranian regime.
Iranian intelligence minister, and Iran’s chief spy, Mahmoud Alavi made an astonishing announcement in 2017, when he boasted that Tehran had agents in Washington promoting the hardline agenda of the ruling mullahs.
It is incumbent on the international community to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its involvement in assassinations and terror plots in foreign nations.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Time for France’s Emmanuel Macron to prove he is a different kind of president
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/July 02/2020
When Emmanuel Macron was elected, it seemed he wanted to differentiate himself from previous French presidents. He was a new breed of presidential candidate and so he would be a different president too. His movement, En Marche, had indeed differentiated itself from historical French political formations. This difference applied not only to his domestic policies, but also to French foreign policy. He offered a fresh approach to Europe and even more to the Middle East, where France has enjoyed historically strong and solid relations with the leading Arab countries.
It was, therefore, a surprise to the region, which was suffering and facing Iran’s negative interference in its domestic files, to see the French president take a softer approach toward Arab countries’ security and worries, even lightly taking the side of Tehran. From Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif’s surprise invitation to the venue of last year’s G7 summit in Biarritz to the repeated visits of his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian to Tehran, and with less communication with leading Arab countries, this all came as a new French approach to the Middle East.
It is, in principle, an inheritance of former US President Barack Obama’s vision. In this view, Iran has been isolated and circled for too long and so an engagement with the country would change its behavior and make the region and the world safer. Yet, as Obama secured the nuclear deal in 2015 without tackling other regional concerns, such as Iran’s missile program or its interferences in its neighbors’ domestic affairs, the Tehran regime was emboldened. It carried out even more negative interference and pushed for full dominance in key files such as Iraq and Lebanon, and a bigger involvement in Yemen. Although Obama’s intentions were good, the nuclear deal failed to make the region safer on the ground. Instead it promoted instability and Arab countries ended up paying a heavy price for this mistake. Lebanon and Yemen are now the main, helpless victims of this Iranian escalation.
However, for Macron, it was not only about proving his difference — there was also the objective of maximizing French companies’ share of the Iranian business boom created by the partial lifting of sanctions. And, as President Donald Trump took the decision to withdraw the US from the nuclear agreement, Macron saw this as a good way to kill two birds with one stone. First, to continue his appeasement of Tehran, which would put French companies in a good economic position. And, second, to present himself as an independent voice from the US and extend this to other files, such as climate change.
Yet, even faster than Obama, the French president was hit by the realities of the Middle East. For one, despite all the mediations, he was not able to create a new nuclear deal to prolong the economic benefits for French companies. This was mainly due to the refusal of Iran to include key regional issues in the deal. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime’s repression of protests forced Macron to shift his position and even cancel a planned trip to Iran.
As much as we want to show good faith and extend our hand to the Iranian regime, it seems that, unfortunately, it does not want friendly and positive bilateral relations — it only seeks dominance and blackmail. Arab countries had warned of this situation, as they would like nothing more than to have good relations with Iran — and also Turkey for that matter — yet their advice was disregarded and considered biased. Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have all, sometimes in coordination with the US, tried several times to launch initiatives to reach good relations with Iran, but they all failed. Any Arab official will tell you that, on paper, Iran is a country they all seek to have prosperous and transparent relations with: It has a rich history, gifted people, and a potentially large and diversified economy, with many synergies and opportunities to explore. Yet, when it comes to reality, it becomes impossible. As a clear example, when Egypt opened its doors to Iranian tourists after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the first group of visitors was exclusively composed of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose primary objective was to organize groups around Egypt’s historical Fatimid sites.
Macron’s focus on a breakthrough with Iran blinded the French to other important foreign policy issues. Like Obama, Macron disregarded the Syrian file to appease Iran and lost ground there. Most importantly, he also did not foresee or react to Turkey’s growing role in other files such as Libya, where France and Italy were busy countering each other behind the scenes. France is now waking up to the risks of instability on the southern Mediterranean coast, as well as the eastern door to Europe, which Arab countries have long warned of.
It is, therefore, not surprising to see France, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the same side of the Libyan file and Paris going back to its historical and expected policy in the Middle East. It is not because of the French deep state, as some analysts described it, but because it is the right policy.
Even faster than Obama, the French president was hit by the realities of the Middle East. The answer to all these problems is not French; it is European. It seems that Germany and Italy are also pursuing their own objectives, striking deals when needed to ensure benefits for themselves. I would go as far as saying that this is the true risk for Europe, even more than Brexit. Europe was able to build the world’s second-largest economic zone after the US but, if it does not unify its political vision — of which foreign policy is an important component — it risks dissolution. In this aspect, Libya and Turkey’s role in it are only the tip of the iceberg.
Europe will need to preserve and strengthen the Western alliance while considering a changing role for the US, which will be less prone to coming to its rescue in the coming years. This means being able to strike a balance between US and Russian interests. It is an even more difficult balancing act than the failed attempt with Iran, yet it could have extremely positive consequences for Europe and the Middle East. Macron’s upcoming visit to Moscow will, therefore, be important for Europe and for NATO, and it could determine whether he is indeed a different breed of president.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the CEO of Eurabia, a media and tech company. He is also the editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.