English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 01/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 03/05-08:”Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 31- July 01/2020
Lebanon Reports One New Virus Death, 29 Cases
Ministry of Health: 29 new corona infections, 1 death case
Lebanon reduces curfew hours
Coronavirus Follow-up Committee recommends prevention standards before opening sports clubs
Protest in Lebanon Calls for Hezbollah’s Disarmament
Lebanese International Affairs Expert Abdo Laqis: Race Riots Indicate America Is Heading towards Blood-Soaked Civil War, Disintegration
Lebanese Singer Ragheb Alama: The Lebanese Army Should Take Control Of Lebanon By Force, Establish A Military Regime, Arrest Corrupt Officials, Interrogate Them Live On TV
Rahi highlights importance of civil state in his Sunday Mass sermon
APIC: No need to rush to gas stations
Majority of demonstrators leave the Presidential Road, head to Martyrs’ Square
Demonstrators protesting the high consumer prices cut off the roads leading to Abdul Hamid Karami Square
Najjar: Airport will not open on June 8, but perhaps on June 21
Abi Ramia: Law on appointments mechanism is in violation of the Constitution and we are going to challenge it
Ghajar: Deadline for submitting applications for second licensing round postponed
Arslan: If the Druze rights continue to be manipulated, we will suspend our participation in the government
Doctors Syndicate on ‘World No Tobacco Day’: For law enforcement
Kanaan says current manner of negotiating with IMF is “unproductive”, deems the continued differences in numbers a “crime”
Karami: Rashid Karami was assassinated in the context of a project targeting Lebanon’s unity
Hariri commemorating Karami: We remember the country's men who believe in democracy
Foucher plants Cedar tree in Ehden
The IMF should not give Lebanon funding without deep governance reforms: Petition
Mounting pressures for total EU ban on Hezbollah
Hezbollah, FPM deal allows Aoun, Bassil to save face
Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste/Jihad Azour/Asharq Al Awsat/May 31/2020
Austrian MPs want Iran-backed Hezbollah banned within European Union/Benjamin Meinthal/Jerusalem Post/May 31/2020
Lebanese demand bread, Hezbollah offers hot air and fantasies/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/May 31/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 31- July 01/2020
Pope calls for end to 'pandemic of poverty' after virus
Israeli Defense Minister Apologizes for Palestinian's Death
Russia Delivers Advanced MiG-29 Fighter Jets to Assad Regime
Kadhimi Sets Negotiation Team for Talks with US
Sinai Tribes: Landmine Explosion Kills 2 Tribesmen in Al-Ajra Area
Egypt: 19 Militants Killed in Sinai
US Eyes Security Cooperation with Tunisia
Street Named after Muslim Brotherhood Founder Sparks Uproar in Egypt
Iran’s interior minister suggests that up to 225 people died in November protests
Former Iranian president uses N-word in tweet about George Floyd, quotes Tupac
Iran bans women’s boxing in Khuzestan province
Torture, abduction, murder: Inside Kata’ib Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy in Iraq
Like a drug deal': Inside Lebanon's black market currency trade

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published oon May 31- July 01/2020
US Nationalism Pits the Financial World Against China/Noah Smith/Bloomberg/May 31/2020
“Such Things Should Not Happen”: Persecution of Christians, April 2020/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/May 31, 2020
Hard-liners’ victory as ex-IRGC general Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf becomes Iran parliament speaker
Turkey’s two-pronged gambit in Libya/Yasar Yakis/Arab News/May 31/2020
World can learn from Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul’s coronavirus response/Ngaire Woods/Arab News/May 31/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 31- July 01/2020
Lebanon Reports One New Virus Death, 29 Cases
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Lebanon on Sunday reported one death caused by the COVID-19 disease and 29 new infections, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 1,220. The new death increased the number of people that have died from complications caused by the disease to 27. The Health Ministry said that 712 people have so far recovered. Of the new infections, 27 were detected among Lebanese expatriates returning on special flights, the Ministry added. Public Works Minister Michel Najjar expected Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport to reopen June 21.

Ministry of Health: 29 new corona infections, 1 death case
NNA/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
The Public Health Ministry indicated Sunday that 29 new coronavirus cases have been registered within the past 24 hours, thus bringing the cumulative number to-date to 1,220 infected cases.It added that one case of death was also registered during the last 24 hours.

Lebanon reduces curfew hours
NNA/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Minister of the Interior and Municipalities, Mohammad Fahmi, issued this Sunday a circular announcing new general mobilization rules, with more businesses allowed to open, including malls. According to the circular, citizens are prohibited from taking to the streets between midnight until 5:00 a.m everyday, previously set at 7:00 p.m. However, gyms, public parks, nightclubs, and nurseries will still remain closed in the coming stage, pending the decision of the Ministry of Interior. As for traffic regulations, cars with plates ending in even numbers are still only allowed to be driven on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and cars with plates ending with odd numbered plates on the alternate days. All vehicles are allowed to be driven on Sundays.

Coronavirus Follow-up Committee recommends prevention standards before opening sports clubs
NNA/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
The Coronavirus Follow-up Committee held a meeting at the Grand Serail, chaired by the Secretary General of the Higher Defense Council, Major-General Mahmoud Al-Asmar in the presence of the Minister of Sports and Youth, Vartineh Ohanian.
Conferees discussed the situation in the sports sector in light of the general mobilization against the coronavirus. The committee recommended that Nabil Rizkallah, the representative of the Ministry of Labor, be instructed to communicate with the Minister of Sports to establish uniform standards and mechanisms for preventive measures against the virus and to monitor work in all sports facilities and clubs.

Protest in Lebanon Calls for Hezbollah’s Disarmament
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Two opposing protests were held on Saturday in front of the Justice Palace in Beirut. The first demanded the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah, and the other who stood in defense of the party’s weapons. The first rally chanted slogans that called for the removal of illegal weapons and the implementation of the relevant international resolutions, including resolutions 1559, 1680 and 1701. Issued in 2004, Resolution 1559 stipulates the disarmament of Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias, and the extension of state authority over all Lebanese territory. Resolution 1701 stipulated a ceasefire after the July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, and barred weapons in an area south of the Litani River and until the southern border of Lebanon. Protesters raised banners that read, “No to the black weapons”, “No to illegal weapons”, and others announced their rejection of a “state within the state.” On the other end, the second sit-in rejected calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament, while the security forces cordoned off the area to prevent a clash between the two groups. A pro-Hezbollah protester said: “The weapons are those of the resistance against Israel. There are not limited to Hezbollah.”He added: “When the state failed to protect the land from Israeli and terrorist attacks, [Hezbollah’s] weapons were here to defend the Lebanese.”

Lebanese International Affairs Expert Abdo Laqis: Race Riots Indicate America Is Heading towards Blood-Soaked Civil War, Disintegration
MEMRI/May 31/2020
Source: Al-Alam TV (Iran)
Lebanese international affairs expert Abdo Laqis said in a May 30, 2020 interview on Al-Alam TV (Iran) that he had predicted at the beginning of the year that the U.S. will head towards civil war and disintegration. He said that America’s ideological “genes” are racist, that American society is based on racism, and that U.S. President Trump shares this ideology. He elaborated that the American people as a whole are racist and further predicted that the U.S. will disintegrate in a blood-soaked conflict between the states. Berlin-based political analyst Muhammad Bakr, who also appeared on the show, expressed hope that the U.S. domestic front be ignited so that America can “drink from the same cup” that it has forced Middle Eastern countries to drink from, referring to the Arab Spring as an example.

Lebanese Singer Ragheb Alama: The Lebanese Army Should Take Control Of Lebanon By Force, Establish A Military Regime, Arrest Corrupt Officials, Interrogate Them Live On TV
MEMRI/May 31/2020
Source: Murr TV (Lebanon)
Lebanese singer Ragheb Alama said in a May 25, 2020 interview on MTV [Lebanon] that the only solution for Lebanon is for the Lebanese Army to take control of the country by force, establish a military regime, arrest the corrupt officials who have plundered and stolen from the Lebanese, and interrogate them live on TV. He said that no one is more transparent and moral than the Lebanese Army and that he supports the establishment of such a regime as long as there is a mechanism that would prevent it from doing as it pleases. When asked where the people arrested by the army should be put, Alama answered: "The Lebanese Army [knows] very well how to do its job."Ragheb Alama: "It seems to me that the only solution for Lebanon is for the Lebanese Army to take power and hold accountable all the corrupt [officials] who have stolen and plundered..."
Host: "A military government? A military regime?"Alama: "Yes, I support it, but with oversight. There should be a mechanism to prevent it from doing whatever it wants, but what was taken from the Lebanese people by force will only be restored by force, and I believe that no one is more transparent and moral than the Lebanese Army. There is no dispute over the Lebanese army. It should take control of the country by force and transparently, interrogate people on live TV. This should not be used to settle political scores."
Host: "Where would we put all those people?"
Alama: "If the Lebanese Army takes over, it will know very well how to do its job."

Rahi highlights importance of civil state in his Sunday Mass sermon
NNA NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rahi, presided over Sunday Mass service in Bkirki this morning. In his sermon, Patriarch Rahi deemed that those who do not pray show a selfish disregard for others, sectarian and doctrinal practices among the Lebanese.
"This is where our political, financial, and administrative corruption lies. This has led our country to bankruptcy and to the social tragedy in which we live. This has distorted the face of Lebanon as a message and the only civil state in the East that separates religion from the state without separating it from God," he stressed. "The civil state in Lebanon respects and guarantees all religions and their laws, as stipulated in Article IX of the Constitution," the Prelate went on. He added: "The specificity of the civil state in Lebanon lies in its democratic system, public freedoms, and its national charter to live together, Christians and Muslims, with full loyalty to the homeland. This charter is the spirit of the Constitution, and it is translated into a formula for equal and balanced participation in constitutional institutions and public administrations."In this context, Rahi refused to turn the process of developing the Lebanese system into an excuse to eliminate Lebanon. "Our duty calls on us to defend this entity. We have devoted ourselves to a free Lebanon and a free Lebanese. They live together and resist every occupation and infringement on leadership, legitimacy, the army, and the state," he underscored.
Finally, al-Rahi concluded by saying: "Lebanon, as a valuable assest, continues to arouse the interest of the international community, and therefore is not an abandoned and reprehensible state. The political group is not entitled to act in the affairs of the country and the citizens with less responsibility, and with the same spirit that brought the country to the bottom.

APIC: No need to rush to gas stations
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
After rumors circulated by some media and social media pages about an upcoming gasoline crisis in the next few days, the Association of Petroleum Importing Companies issued a statement on Sunday assuring that there was no need to rush to gas stations, “as the companies will deliver gasoline and diesel to distributors and stations as usual starting tomorrow morning, Monday June 1, 2020.” “The oil importing companies will deliver the required quantities according to the needs of the market, while taking into account the scheduled ships arriving progressively to Lebanon, their reserves and the local consumption. Moreover, the oil importing companies affirm that they will keep delivering gasoline and diesel as long as the Central Bank ensured the financial credits necessary for timely and quick imports. The concerns and fears of shortage in the fuel market today are due to the established economic situation, and the decrease of the available stock at the oil installations (pertaining to the Ministry of Energy and Water), in addition to the speculations of some distributors seeking to store large quantities that exceed their capacities and the actual need of the market.
APIC reiterates that there are no indications of an upcoming crisis despite all the rumors. In fact, the companies have never failed to supply the market with fuel for a single day even in the most difficult of circumstances, and they are continuously cooperating with official bodies to regularly meet the needs of the market,” the APIC’s statement added.

Majority of demonstrators leave the Presidential Road, head to Martyrs’ Square
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
The majority of the protesters have left the road leading to the Presidential Palace, heading in their vehicles to Martyrs Square in downtown Beirut, NNA correspondent in Baabda reported this evening.
This came after a hit-and-run operation between those who spread along the road and the army units who tried to ask them to return to their cars and leave the premises to re-open the road, and after the military units put up iron barriers along the road to prevent any gatherings or new protesters from joining the demonstrators,” NNA correspondent added. The demonstrators had reached a point along the Presidential Palace road for the first time, with national songs playing in the background, and when members of the security forces prevented them from advancing more towards the Palace, they spread out along the road while military reinforcements arrived at the site amidst strict security measures. Participants in the move indicated that their sit-in along the Presidential Palace road falls within the context of the marches they we have been carrying out for days in front of the headquarters and homes of Lebanese officials, to protest the current economic and daily living conditions prevailing in the country. They also expressed their rejection of what they were exposed to on the Baabda road, stressing that the torch of the revolution will not be extinguished until their full goals are achieved. Meanwhile, demonstrators have started gathering in Sassine Square in Ashrafieh this evening, announcing that they would cut off the Ring Bridge.

Demonstrators protesting the high consumer prices cut off the roads leading to Abdul Hamid Karami Square
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Protesters against the high prices in consumer products and the continuous rise in the US dollar exchange rate have cut off the paths leading to the Abdel Hamid Karami "Al-Nour" Square in Tripoli this evening, while chanting slogans against officials, merchants and banks, and demanding the judiciary to open the files of corruption, and to prosecute all those who stole state money and to recover the looted funds, NNA correspondent in Tripoli reported.
Demonstrators stressed that their uprising continues until the state is cleansed of the corrupt, and until the rise of the state of law and justice is achieved.

Najjar: Airport will not open on June 8, but perhaps on June 21
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Public Works and Transport Minister, Michel Najjar, revealed in an interview to "OTV" Station today, that "Beirut Airport will not open on June 8”, expecting that “it might open as of June 21." Najjar indicated that "as long as the opening of the airport will be delayed, we may be before a fourth phase of the return of expatriates."

Abi Ramia: Law on appointments mechanism is in violation of the Constitution and we are going to challenge it
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
"Strong Lebanon" Parliamentary Bloc Member, MP Simon Abi Ramia, considered Sunday that the law on administrative appointments violates the Lebanese Constitution, voicing his Bloc’s plans to challenge it. Speaking to Radio “Voice of Lebanon” this morning, Abi Ramia called for "resorting to a responsible logic in this period that Lebanon is going through, and to stay away from political intimidations.”He deemed that achievements have been made since the beginning of the mandate, but they are not sufficient. “There is a need for a constitutional workshop in order to develop constitutional life and bridge the gaps in the constitution, instead of striking at the current constitutional formula,” he underlined. Abi Ramia stressed that "transparency and openness in approaching national issues are always required from the Lebanese."Regarding the Capital Control daft law submitted by the Free Patriotic Movement, Abi Ramia said: “It aims to create a balance between giving people their rights and maintaining financial reserves in the Central Bank,” noting that it was referred to the parliamentary committees for further study.

Ghajar: Deadline for submitting applications for second licensing round postponed
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Minister of Energy and Water, Raymond Ghajar, announced on Sunday that the deadline for submitting applications for partaking in the second licensing course for granting petroleum rights in the Lebanese marine waters has been temporarily postponed, due to the Corona pandemic and its repercussions.
The Minister indicated that the date will be reset based on the recommendation of the Petroleum Sector Management Authority, with the aim of completing this round before the end of the year 2021.

Arslan: If the Druze rights continue to be manipulated, we will suspend our participation in the government
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
The Druze right is not a commodity for bargaining in meager political markets. We do not see a justification for not appointing a Commander of the Judicial Police Unit in the Internal Security Forces who possesses the required qualifications by adopting seniority as a valid standard for all, and allowing all qualified and competent Druze officers to achieve their rightful aspirations without favors from anyone,” tweeted Lebanese Democratic Party Chief, Talal Arslan, on Sunday. He added: “What is being said about Brigadier Maher Al-Halabi is shameful to those circulating such news…It is not permissible to rely on groundless, fictitious slurs…Enough manipulation of the Druze rights and interests. The Druze posts in the country are a red line, and we will not allow anyone to tamper with them, even if that entails the suspension of our participation in the government!”

Doctors Syndicate on ‘World No Tobacco Day’: For law enforcement
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
The Doctors’ Syndicate reiterated, in a statement today marking the World Anti-Smoking Day celebrated by the "World Health Organization" on May 31 of each year, its call on the government for "the effective and serious implementation of Law No. 174 on the prevention of smoking in public places."
The statement pointed out that according to the WHO statistics, smoking of all kinds kills more than 13 people daily in Lebanon, at a rate of 4,800 victims annually, and studies have confirmed that smoking affects the human immune system, and smokers are more likely than others to contract Coronavirus. Additionally, it indicated that sharing the hookah and its preparation, and the hand contact between people, greatly increases the risk of infection and transmission of the virus. The Syndicate, thus, urged the State and the Ministry of Health to "seriously interfere to ensure the implementation of Law 174 instead of keeping it ink on paper, and to spread awareness about the danger of smoking and the harm caused by the smoker to himself and others surrounding him/her, and to take decisive measures for the health of the citizen in combating and prevent smoking in public places."Finally, the Syndicate called on the State in its issued statement to move to protect people from the catastrophic scourge of smoking, an effort that will reflect positively on reducing the health bill and preserve public health.

Kanaan says current manner of negotiating with IMF is “unproductive”, deems the continued differences in numbers a “crime”
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Finance and Budget Parliamentary Committee Head, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, considered Sunday that "negotiating with the International Monetary Fund is unproductive in this way, and keeping the division between the government and the Central Bank of Lebanon at about 100,000 billion LBP and the variation in options is a crime, leading to suicide."He indicated that the sub-parliamentary committee, under his chairmanship, is carrying out what ought to have been done in the first place, in terms of discussion to bridge the gap and offer acceptable options.
Speaking in an interview with LBCI Television Channel this morning, Kanaan said: “The policy of burying heads in the dirt has brought us to our current situation, and it is not possible to continue with two books and two plans, and to deliberate with the international community on one thing while the reality is totally different.”He stressed that "the current stage is for rescue and salvation, and not for the struggle of options and right-and left-winged approaches…The will is required to deal responsibly, away from immaturity, so that we can unify options and numbers."
“The government's economic and financial plan will determine the fate of Lebanon for fifty years ahead, so we did not raise our hands as a Parliament and say that we are not concerned….but rather we were engaged in seeking to bridge the gap and unify the numbers, especially that the goal is to rescue and not fence between the government and the Central Bank of Lebanon,” Kanaan asserted.
“It is true that Lebanon lacks liquidity today, but it has assets of gold, real estate, the Middle East Airlines Company, Casino of Lebanon, and MiG 1 and MiG 2, and therefore, it is not bankrupt…and dealing with the IMF on basis that we are a bankrupt country and pleading for help is an improper approach. Hence, what is required are other proposals, which is what we are seeking in the sub-committee," the MP maintained. He added: “What was proposed by the government and the banks is not the right solution. Therefore, we need to search for a third option, especially since the logic of what has been drafted is incorrect, and the Parliament is playing a positive role in this regard through the sub-committee." “In wake of the collapse that has occurred, Lebanon is in need of confidence and regaining the economy’s effectiveness in facing the challenges. It requires trust, because without it, the Lebanese people will not return the money in their homes to the banks, nor will anyone who has money abroad transfer it to Lebanon," Kanaan emphasized. He added that the banks must be well-aware that the deposits are entrusted money which they must preserve and protect, in order to restore confidence that allows the return of funds that have been withdrawn to homes or are located abroad. “The time is not to score points, but to save the ship and cooperate to rectify its wrong course for which politicians, the Central Bank of Lebanon and the banks are responsible,” Kanaan corroborated.

Karami: Rashid Karami was assassinated in the context of a project targeting Lebanon’s unity
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Marking the 33rd anniversary of the martyrdom of Prime Minister Rashid Karami, the Head of the "Dignity Movement”, MP Faisal Karami, delivered a speech to the Lebanese this morning from his Tripoli office, saying: "He lived and died for the sake of Lebanon. This is the Martyr of Lebanon, Rashid Karami."
The MP considered that the assassination of the late Prime Minister Karami was part of a scheme to target Lebanon’s unity.
“Today, we have to admit and acknowledge that the Lebanese have accumulated failure after failure in maintaining and protecting their national unity, until they ended up diminishing it in the recent years to what they call national consensus, which is the opposite of unity...Rather, the consensus is only to link a conflict between two divided sides. Unfortunately, even the harmony has been emptied of its noble ends, if any, and transformed into a way of sharing the gains, disrupting the constitutional life and joining in mutual silence and complicity towards the committed sins and corruption," Karami underlined.
“For decades, we have excelled in overcoming problems without reaching solutions. We failed to determine this country’s position in history and geography,” he said. Karami recalled herein the Martyr PM’s words that solutions would emerge “if sincere national wills are available, and they do not need more than a citizen that is reassured of the ruler's impartiality, the judge’s justice and fairness, and the employee’s honesty.”
Commenting on those who are mourning the Taif Accord, MP Karami said: “Rather, the call to implement the Taif should be considered as a single reference for political and democratic life, and for affirming the covenant that unites the Lebanese and allows them to move to a modern state that satisfies the mind, logic, conscience and new generations. "
The MP then touched on the unprecedented economic and financial collapse that Lebanon is witnessing, which he considered will sooner or later lead to a catastrophic social explosion.
“There is no doubt that Lebanon is paying the price of the wrong economic and financial policies, and there is no doubt that the country is in a major crisis which is the natural result of the policy of defrauding the Taif, by sharing power, influence and persistence in the practice and coverage of corruption and public money thefts, as well as striking the most productive sectors in favor of a rentier economy and a financial engineering that accumulates the wealth of the rich, and increases the poverty of the poor,” Karami said regretfully.
However, the MP assured that “Lebanon, which is open to all economic rescue solutions with all advisers and those interested in the East and West, is ready to discuss all matters, but it will never barter at all in two main issues, namely its national unity and the unity of its people, land and state, and the balance of strategic terror with the Zionist enemy that constitutes the safety valve in protecting Lebanon, its people and its wealth."
“Our faith in a one and independent Lebanon will not be shaken in light of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and we will not give up straightness and honesty as an approach in the footsteps of Al-Rashid and Omar [Karami]…and Lebanon's Martyr, Rashid Karami, will continue to be the source of inspiration and guidance throughout the days…May God protect Lebanon!"

Hariri commemorating Karami: We remember the country's men who believe in democracy
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
Prime Minister Saad Hariri tweeted on Sunday in memory of the late Martyr Prime Minister Rashid Karami, saying: “We remember the Martyr PM Rashid Karami and we remember the statesmen who hold patriotic positions, adhere to the state and are defenders of the nation, and those who believe in democracy and its values, such as their defense of the rightful issues which are so many nowadays!”

Foucher plants Cedar tree in Ehden
NNA/Sunday 31 May 2020
French Ambassador to Lebanon, Bruno Foucher, on Sunday, planted a Cedar tree in the outskirts of Ehden, specifically in the locality of Nabhay, as an expression of his love for the Ehden Reserve and its mountainous neighborhood.
It is worth mentioning herein that Ehden Reserve is between 1700m and 3000m above sea level and 100km away from the capital, Beirut. It has become a popular destination for many visitors such as diplomatic bodies, ambassadors, consuls of the United States, Britain, Austria, Turkey and Canada, as well as experts and scholars, researchers, students and expatriates. Lebanon has fourteen natural reserves that form about 3% of its area. These reserves encompass rich biological diversity with around 370 different kinds of birds and 2000 types of plants and wild flowers, many of which are unique to Lebanon. The natural reserves are also home to thirty species of mammals, including the wolf, hyena, wildcat, porcupine and squirrel.

The IMF should not give Lebanon funding without deep governance reforms: Petition
Abby Sewell, Al Arabiya English/Sunday 31 May 2020
The International Monetary Fund should not give Lebanon funding until sweeping governance reforms are carried out, according to a letter sent to the IMF by a group of Lebanese former officials, civil society groups and analysts.
The letter is the latest intervention in the ongoing debate over how the Lebanese government should try to remedy the worsening economic crisis in the country. The government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab has sought $10 billion in IMF funding to help resolve the country’s financial crisis, but protest groups and analysts say that the funds should be contingent on deep reforms to combat corruption and waste in additional to the fiscal reforms the IMF more typically asks for.
“Any plan to improve or restore the fiscal and monetary balances will inevitably impose additional sacrifices on the Lebanese people and we would like to ensure that these sacrifices will not be in vain and that any IMF program does not simply constitute additional debt without putting the country on a sustainable path and implementing long overdue and critical reforms,” wrote the signatories.
They include former Minister of Economy and Industry Nasser Saidi, former Labor Minister Camille Abousleiman, former Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud, and former MP Ghassan Moukheiber, along with a number of representatives of finance and industry groups, trade syndicates, and good government advocates. On May 1, Prime Minister Diab and Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni signed a request for $10 billion of IMF assistance. Officials are hoping that the IMF funding – and the reforms required to get it – would also unlock a further $11 billion in soft loans pledged at the 2018 Paris CEDRE conference, which were contingent on reforms that have not been carried out.
Negotiations are currently underway on topics that reportedly include capital controls and financial sector restructuring among other reforms, with IMF officials having called an economic plan adopted by the government “a good starting point.”
The letter, which was sent Wednesday and is now being circulated as a petition online, calls on the IMF to require Lebanese officials to adopt or implement legislation dealing with different aspects of governance. It highlights specific sectors for reform including calling for adoption of existing draft laws on judicial independence, public procurement processes, and access to information, and argues for the implementation of the recently adopted National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan.
The letter also calls for the establishment of a regulatory authority to oversee the country’s power sector, which has been a source of long running government deficits along with inadequate electricity provision, and the appointment of a new board for state utility Electricite du Liban. It also advocates amending the previous government plan for reform of the sector to ensure that new plants are built via an “open, transparent and competitive selection process.”
Among other proposed measures to target corruption in the public sector, the letter calls for an audit of public sector employment and reforms to the customs system to prevent smuggling and corruption; as well as for social welfare distributions to be carried out through a mechanism that would ensure aid is “targeted to the truly needy away from political patronage;” and for reforms to the National Social Security Fund.
Another loan ‘wasted’ without reform
Abousleiman, the former labor minister and an attorney whose practice has focused on global financial matters, told Al Arabiya English that the letter had been his idea. While the IMF usually focused on macroeconomic reforms, Abousleiman said he wanted to draw the organization’s attention to governance reforms “that are more difficult to achieve and less on the radar screen of the IMF normally.”Many of the measures highlighted in the letter are reforms that have already been promised. Abousleiman noted that the Lebanese government has a poor track record on following through on pledges made to the international community. “This time what has changed is that it’s no longer future promises, but with an IMF program, you can and do usually have preconditions,” he said. Unless those preconditions include the type of reforms outlined in the letter, he said, “It will be just another loan with funds wasted and an accumulation of more debt into a system that is corrupt, wasteful and inefficient.”Abousleiman said he had received feedback from the dean of the IMF executive board describing the proposals as “important.”
Electricity and procurement reforms most important, says former minister
Former economy minister Saidi told Al Arabiya English that in his view, the electricity sector reforms, along with reforms to the public procurement process, were the most crucial. “If I’m going to be getting new power plants, I better make sure that I have transparency, disclosure, and a modern procurement law” to avoid corruption and waste in the contracts, he said. Saidi said he and the other signatories of the letter had intended the document as a “roadmap” for both the IMF and government officials in the negotiations and to push the government to make difficult reforms that so far it has been unwilling to undertake.
For instance, Saidi pointed to a long-awaited measure allowing for the lifting of bank secrecy passed by Parliament this week, but with last-minute amendments that critics send rendered it toothless. “If there is no willingness and ability to reform, then of course we’re going towards an economic and financial meltdown,” he said. “…It’s a bitter pill to swallow. Either you go through the IMF program, you clean everything up, you undertake the reforms – or you face a meltdown and a lost decade. Those are the options for Lebanon.”

Mounting pressures for total EU ban on Hezbollah
Agencies/The Arab Weekly/May 31/2020
BRUSSELS--Pressures are mounting in Europe for the EU to consider Lebanese Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, without a distinction of “political” and “military” wings, after the adoption by Austrian Parliament Friday of a resolution which calls on the government in Vienna to issue a total ban on the pro-Iranian Shia party. The resolution adopted by the Austrian Parliament called on Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s government to outlaw Hezbollah activities in Austria and to advocate on the European level for the entire organisation to be considered a terrorist movement.
Austria People’s Party MP Martin Engelbert described the separation of Hezbollah into “political” and “military” wings as an “invention” of the EU. Austrian member of the European Parliament Lukas Mandl, from the European People’s Party, said, “it is clear without any doubt that the European Union must ban Hezbollah entirely. There is no so-called ‘political arm’ and a ‚’terrorist arm’,” he said. “A true European Foreign Policy will establish an even stronger relationship with reliable partners in Lebanon,” he added. The EU banned Hezbollah’s “military wing” in 2013 after Hezbollah militants were accused of involvement in a 2012 bomb attack on a tour bus in Bulgaria killing five Israeli tourists. The European Union remains bound by its 2013 decision, which, according to European foreign policy experts, tries to strike a balance between acknowledging member-states’ security concerns about suspected Hezbollah and Iranian activities in Europe and the desire of some European governments to keep their “channels open” with Hezbollah.
“The EU position has not changed,” said Peter Stano, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs, earlier this month.
“In July 2013, the EU 28 Member States agreed unanimously to designate the military wing of Hezbollah under the EU sanctions regime to combat terrorism (Common Position 2001/931),’’ he pointed out. Last month, Germany outlawed Hezbollah activities and classified the entire group as a terrorist movement, without distinction between “political” and “military” wings. Security concerns about the alleged involvement of Hezbollah operatives in terrorism and related financing and money laundering activities in the West have been fuelled in recent months by a number of arrests and uncovering of cases in Europe and the US.Last March, a suspected Hezbollah operative was indicted in Carinthia, Austria on the charge of financing terrorism. The US is also weighing in in the debate about a total ban by the EU of Hezbollah.
Washington welcomed the Austrian move and exhorted Europe to do more. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said: “We applaud the Austrian parliament for recognising the threat posed by Hezbollah in Europe and calling for additional action against this dangerous Iranian terrorist proxy”.
Richard Grenell, US Ambassador to Germany, said, “the designation of Hezbollah of a terror group in its entirety would not deprive Brussels of its open channel to the Lebanese government. The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and others each recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and each maintains a robust relationship with Lebanon. In fact, Lebanon receives more foreign assistance from the U.S. than from any other country in the world.”

Hezbollah, FPM deal allows Aoun, Bassil to save face
The Arab Weekly/May 31/2020
BEIRUT –The Lebanese government met Friday at the Baabda Palace, headquarters of the Lebanese presidency. During the meeting, there was a tug of war between Prime Minister Hassan Diab on the one hand and President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, on the other. Lebanese political sources said that there was an agreement between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement on a formula that would allow President Aoun and his son-in-law to save face by having the Lebanese cabinet approve the construction of a power plant in Selaata, a coastal town near the city of Batroun, Gebran Bassil’s birthplace. And indeed, a compromise has been reached and Aoun and Bassil were offered the opportunity to save face. The cabinet decided to reverse its previous decision and approved the construction of three new power plants in the country, one of them located in Selaata.
President Aoun and Prime Minister Diab had already met before the cabinet meeting and it is very likely that the decision to approve the Selaata plant was taken then.Sources said that Bassil, who had no cabinet position in the current government, was adamant on having the Selaata plant, which made the Lebanese president take the question of the plant as a matter of life or death to him, given his strong desire to find permanent and stable funding for the party he heads. They explained that the President’s son-in-law was arguing that the government’s already approved plan to construct two power plants, one in Zahrani in southern Lebanon and the other in Deir Ammar in Akkar, was unacceptable.
According to those close to him, Bassil considered the Deir Ammar plant as a Sunni plant, while the one in Zahrani was Shia. So he wanted one for the Christians and in one of their regions, which would be in line with his ideology of defending the “security of the Christians” in Lebanon.
The Lebanese political sources considered that the phrase “defending the security of the Christians” constituted the best slogan found at the present time in order to restore the lost popularity of the Free Patriotic Movement among a good number of Christian circles in Lebanon due to the stifling economic crisis in the country.The government has reached a formula to include the Selaata plant in the context of a comprehensive plan to make electricity available to Lebanese 24 hours a day. The same sources stated that Hezbollah is seeking to play the role of the primary agent behind bringing back electricity to all of Lebanon, a role that sits well with its policy to promote the image that it has full control of the country. The party was also keen to succeed in an area where the Free Patriotic Movement had failed even though it held the position of the Minister of Energy for more than ten years.
Sources said that getting his Selaata plant was a moral victory for Gebran Bassil. Before the cabinet meeting, Hassan Diab visited some Lebanese army stations in areas close to the Syrian border. During his visit to the Elias El-Khoury barracks in Ras Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, the Prime Minister said that the government will step up its efforts to combat smuggling activities by closing all illegal crossings.
The Prime minister was accompanied by the army’s chief, Joseph Aoun, and Minister of Defence Zina Akr. “We will continue efforts to stop the smuggling economy by closing the illegal crossings that cause great harm to the state and benefit a handful of smugglers,” he said. Lebanon is in a long-running financial crisis which represents the greatest threat to the country’s stability since the civil war. The crisis began to take centre stage in October when widespread protests against corruption and mismanagement by the sectarian elites erupted.
In a gesture that drew widespread criticism and satirical comments on social media, the Prime Minister was seen drawing a comb from his suit pocket and fixing his hair before giving his speech.
Speaking on the financial crisis, opposition Lebanese politician, Samir Geagea, said that there was little chance for Lebanon to obtain the needed assistance from the International Monetary Fund in light of the government’s failure to implement reforms demanded by donors. Geagea, whose party withdrew from the government after the outbreak of the protests, added that the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab had not implemented any reforms. The government started negotiating with the IMF in May after it failed to find alternative sources for aid. But Geagea said there was “very, very little hope” it will get it.

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
Jihad Azour/Asharq Al Awsat/May 31/2020
Now is the time to address vulnerabilities in the Middle East and Central Asia’s emerging economies
Emerging market economies in the Middle East and Central Asia are confronting one of the most severe and widespread crises ever, with a confluence of fast-moving shocks ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to financial market volatility, a plunge in oil prices, and domestic lockdown. The IMF currently expects this diverse group of economies—Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Georgia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates—to contract by 1.7 percent in 2020.
The pandemic is taking a toll on lives and livelihoods, and its full human and economic impact is still unknown. This crisis is also bringing to light external and fiscal vulnerabilities, which are limiting policy options for dealing with the economic fallout. If left unaddressed, these vulnerabilities could lead to a protracted economic recession with heightened regional uncertainty and other possible repercussions including social unrest.
Wide-ranging challenges
The region’s oil exporters are being hit by a dual blow to their fiscal and external positions from the plunge in oil prices by more than 50 percent since January, reaching its lowest level in nearly twenty years. At the same time, stay-at-home rules and other COVID-19 containment measures are disrupting tourism, transportation, and construction. As a result, fiscal balances will likely turn negative, exceeding 10 percent of GDP in several countries. Many of the region’s oil importers—such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Tunisia—entered the crisis with varying degrees of macroeconomic challenges. In addition, gains from lower oil prices are being offset by falling remittances and the pandemic’s impact on tourism and related sectors. For example, remittances amount to about 8 percent of GDP in Egypt and Pakistan and 13 percent of GDP in Lebanon, while retail and hospitality account for over 15 percent of GDP in Kazakhstan and Lebanon. Public debt in the region’s emerging economies is expected to increase by $127 billion by end-2020, considerably limiting the scope for a strong fiscal response. As revenue falls short, countries like Oman and Tunisia have had no choice but to cut spending, while others such as UAE and Kazakhstan may see their non-oil fiscal position deteriorate markedly.
Moreover, financial conditions remain highly volatile. March and April saw sudden reversals of capital flows from emerging markets generally, with the region experiencing about $6 billion in outflows. While some of the regional emerging markets (e.g., Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain) regained access to international capital markets, others experienced capital outflows and a spike in sovereign spreads. Countries in the region could also face the challenge of refinancing up to $24 billion in maturing external sovereign debt in 2020, especially in countries where domestic financial markets are underdeveloped.
Nonetheless, countries are responding swiftly and decisively to the crisis. Several oil exporters have announced a raft of fiscal measures to support demand, while others (including Oman, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia) have had to cut spending, including in investment, due to fiscal constraints. Many have also introduced measures to support the cash flows of affected sectors and ease credit markets, and seven central banks, including those of Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, have injected about $50 billion into their financial systems to support liquidity.
Getting all the policies right and on time will be a tall order for many of those countries. But policymakers need to prepare now for a strong recovery. In addition to prioritizing spending on health care, governments in the region could take the following steps:
Stand ready to provide further liquidity to banks, particularly those lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, while closely monitoring financial sector stability.
Carefully manage financing and further develop and deepen local financial markets to enhance debt management and meet financing needs.
Postpone nonessential spending, especially when public debt is already high, and rationalize capital expenditure as part of a plan to rebuild buffers. In addition, it would be prudent to redirect spending to critical areas to put the economy on a sustainable medium-term fiscal path.
What does the future hold?
As the peak of the crisis recedes, countries are facing sizable uncertainty as to how the phased reopening might impact the recovery, the evolution of oil prices, and the persistence of capital flow pressures. Elevated debt levels and associated financing vulnerabilities could further hinder capital inflows and constrain fiscal policy. Countries with high debt and weak fundamentals, facing tight financial conditions, may need to rely on official financing. The IMF is actively supporting the region and has already provided $10 billion to emerging market countries of the Middle East and Central Asia. Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Jordan have received emergency assistance under IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument; Morocco has opted to draw on its Precautionary Liquidity Line to boost reserve buffers and help manage needs arising from the shock; and the ongoing IMF programs for Armenia, Georgia, Jordan, and Pakistan have been adapted and, in Armenia and Georgia’s cases, augmented to accommodate COVID-19 spending. Even as the region’s emerging markets grapple with the immediate impact of the crisis, the pace of their recovery and medium-term prospects will depend on the strength of domestic policy responses and reforms, as well as their macroeconomic vulnerabilities. There will inevitably be challenges ahead and the process of stabilization may take time. As investors become more discerning about countries’ vulnerabilities and risks, the region’s emerging markets are likely to experience differentiated treatment depending on their credit quality. This makes it all the more important to ensure strong domestic policy responses that would provide a strong foundation for recovery.
*Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International

Austrian MPs want Iran-backed Hezbollah banned within European Union
Benjamin Meinthal/Jerusalem Post/May 31/2020
تحالف نواب نمساويين قدم أمس إلى الإتحاد الأوروبي مشروع قرار لوضع حزب الله بجناحيه على قوائم الإرهاب
NEOS party urges Austrian to outlaw the Lebanese terrorist movement.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/86817/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%81-%d9%86%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a8-%d9%86%d9%85%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%88%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%86-%d9%82%d8%af%d9%85-%d8%a3%d9%85%d8%b3-%d8%a5%d9%84%d9%89-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%a7/
BERLIN - Political representatives from the coalition parties governing Austria in the country’s parliament introduced on Friday a resolution urging the European Union to reassess Hezbollah’s entire organization as a terrorist movement.
According to a statement on the website of the Austria’s national council, the formal name for its parliament, a number of members of the legislative body declared that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.
"Hezbollah wants to destroy Israel and propagates antisemitism and spreads radical Islamic ideology," said Reinhold Lopatka and Michaela Steinacker, both of whom are MPs from the conservative Austrian People's party—the lead partner in the conservative and Green coalition government in Austria.
The two MPs added that Hezbollah’s entity should be classified as a terrorist organization.
Lopatka added that there is need to put an end to the formation of the legend that Hezbollah’s terror attacks are “just resistance.”
The resolution urged Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s administration to advocate on the EU level that Hezbollah’s entire organization be reassessed in connection with a full terror designation.
The Austria People’s party MP Martin Engelbert noted that the separation of Hezbollah into political and military wings is an “invention” of the EU.
The EU merely banned Hezbollah’s so-called “military” wing in 2013 after Hezbollah operatives blew up in Israeli tour bus in 2012 in Bulgaria, murdering five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver. Hezbollah's leaders declare their movement a unified organization.
Last month, Germany outlawed all of Hezbollah activities within the borders of the federal republic and designated the entire Hezbollah a terrorist movement.
The Austrian parliament resolution said the EU’s division of Hezbollah into political and military wings cannot be justified. The conservative and Green anti-Hezbollah resolution received the support of all MPs in the parliament.
“In the application, the National Council acknowledges Austria's historical responsibility towards the State of Israel. The EU had to deal with Hezbollah again. Its military arm had already been classified as a terrorist organization in 2013 and would threaten Israel's security,” the coalition factions said.
The opposition party NEOS (The New Austria and Liberal Forum) went further in its resolution than the conservative and Green party.
The NEOS criticized the resolution of the conservatives and Greens because the parties did not follow the lead of the Britain and the Netherlands and outlaw all of Hezbollah. The NEOS slammed the Greens and the conservative because the governing parties continue to” see Hezbollah as political party” that can be negotiated with.
In addition to Germany, Britain, and Holland, the US, Canada, Japan, the Arab League, Israel and a number of Latin American countries have classified Hezbollah’s entire organization a terrorist movement.
The Austrian social democratic MP Petra Bayr supports a ban of all of Hezbollah's activities within Austria.
The parliament stressed the need “for continuing measures to be taken against terrorist and criminal activities by Hezbollah supporters in Austria using all the rule of law and to prevent their financing through money laundering activities in the long term.”

Lebanese demand bread, Hezbollah offers hot air and fantasies
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/May 31/2020
Once upon a time, an incautious word against Hezbollah — whether from lowly journalists or leading politicians — could merit a death sentence. Nowadays, ridiculing the “Axis of Resistance” has become a Lebanese national pastime.
In recent days, a flood of videos and articles have boldly questioned how Lebanon benefits from Hassan Nasrallah’s promises of breakfasting in Jerusalem, while penniless citizens struggle to obtain breakfast in Beirut. “The image of the Israelis packing their stuff and getting on planes and ships is in front of my eyes,” Nasrallah blustered in his latest fusillade of lies and obfuscations.
Nasrallah nowadays has no stomach for confronting the “Zionist enemy.” He believes that being the most rabidly outspoken anti-Israel voice excuses him from acting on his pronouncements. His nonsensical rhetoric is Hezbollah’s pretext for pointing its weapons at the heads of Lebanese and Syrian citizens. Hezbollah doesn’t stand for “muqawamah” (resistance) against Israel — its real war is against Lebanon’s dignity, identity, prosperity, culture and national pride.
Just as Antoine Lahd and his South Lebanon Army were regarded as traitors for aligning with Israel, social media activists are incessantly denouncing Nasrallah as a traitor for selling out his nation to Iran. Hezbollah’s very existence guarantees that Lebanon will never receive sufficient international financial support, which represents its only possible exit from the current catastrophic impasse. Intellectuals, economists and academics are sounding the alarm bell that the cancerous tumor of Hezbollah is steadily killing the Lebanese state. Can nobody propose a procedure for excizing it before it’s too late?
Hezbollah and Israel enjoy a cynical relationship of mutually beneficial symbiosis — collaborating to undermine the Palestinian cause. By bankrolling radicals like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and flooding the Occupied Territories with weapons, Iran helped Israel discredit the Palestinian cause in the eyes of the world. Just as Daesh and Al-Qaeda provoked Western invasions to give themselves a raison d’etre, if Israel ceased to be, how would Hezbollah justify its existence?
Through its battalion of media outlets, Hezbollah weans its foot soldiers on a steady diet of vacuous propaganda about liberating Palestine, which only serves to justify perpetual Iranian hegemony and expanding monopoly over the Lebanese state, while offering nothing for the 50 percent of Lebanese who now live below the poverty line. By training and arming anti-state insurgents in Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah objectively poses a far more immediate threat to Arab regional stability than to Israel.
Through its aggressive regional expansionism, Iran is coming to eclipse Israel as the enemy of the Arab world. Palestine remains one of the most just and noble causes in the world, yet it breaks my heart to see how little resonance it has today among many Arab societies.
Through its aggressive regional expansionism, Iran is coming to eclipse Israel as the enemy of the Arab world.
The Israeli seizure of the Jordan Valley and rural West Bank would provoke immense sound and fury from Al-Manar TV. If this hot air was translated into tangible action to achieve Palestinian justice, I would be the first to offer wholehearted support. But does anybody believe that Hezbollah intends to lift a finger to redress such a colossal act of theft? Nasrallah rants endlessly about global injustice, yet for every 1,000 Palestinians Israel has dispossessed, Hezbollah and Iran have displaced 100,000 Syrians. For every Palestinian activist murdered by the Israel Defense Forces, Iran’s proxies have slaughtered 100 civilians. Israel is the enemy of all those who hate injustice, but Hezbollah, as an agent of Iran, has gone to extreme lengths to outdo its “Zionist foe.”
Within the Iran-Contra deal, Israel was secretly Tehran’s primary arms dealer throughout the 1980s war with Iraq. Despite Iran’s cartoonish “death to Israel” slogans, the regime knows that, if it ever initiated a direct conflict, Israeli warplanes would wipe its paramilitary fighters off the regional map within hours — while America and Tel Aviv’s other Western allies would not sit passively on the sidelines either.
During a speech last week, Nasrallah cited the “rules of the conflict that (have) been established between the resistance and Israel” to acknowledge their tacit understanding about avoiding targeting each other. He said: “We have the ability to initiate, and Israel has too, and that creates a balance that both parties take into account.” The New York Times reported that Hezbollah fighters have received “surprise phone calls” from Israeli sources, warning them to depart sites slated for attacks with the aim of preserving the delicate status quo. Nasrallah rages against UN Interim Force in Lebanon troops, yet the presence of this force suits Hezbollah in helping ensure that its bellicose rhetoric never becomes a reality. However, a fatal mistake in this warmongering propaganda could easily drag Lebanon into a viciously destructive war.
This shadow conflict, meanwhile, has horrific consequences. In the final 72 hours of the 2006 war, Israel dropped in excess of 4 million cluster bomblets over southern Lebanon, which continue killing and dismembering children to this day, while costing farmers millions of dollars in lost production. Hezbollah isn’t a “deterrent” against an Israeli invasion; it is a primary reason why Lebanon continues to live under the unceasing threat of war.
Lebanon is witnessing bouts of shadowboxing as each faction seeks to diversify its options: Gebran Bassil sends out mildly controversial trial balloons via his proxies to convince the Americans not to impose sanctions on him as a Hezbollah enabler, while conserving his all-important relationship with Nasrallah in an unceasing quest for the presidency. Bassil’s calls for administrative and financial “decentralization” have been interpreted as seeking to drag Lebanon down the fatally divisive direction of federalism, which many leading politicians like Walid Jumblatt have denounced as a “suicide path for everyone.”
Comments by Hezbollah and Amal Movement-aligned cleric Ahmad Qabalan also exploded like a hand grenade. He asserted that the “sectarian basis” of Lebanon’s post-civil war political system “is a phase which has come to an end.” Observers questioned whether this represented a veiled threat of Hezbollah’s readiness to impose its own political formula if rival factions pulled the plug on the current government.
This speculation and uncertainty is a symptom of Lebanon’s continuing plunge into the unknown. For once, Hezbollah has everything to lose. Where once Hezbollah was naively lauded as the defender of Lebanon, it is now reviled as the primary instigator of the country’s forthcoming demise. This is not the Party of God — it is the party of theft, corruption, foreign exploitation and naked political gain.
At this moment of insurmountable national peril, there is a growing realization in Lebanon about how close the country is to losing its Arab identity and national integrity. Citizens have finally realized who the real enemy is. Now, what will they do about it?
*-Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view


The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 31- July 01/2020
Pope calls for end to 'pandemic of poverty' after virus
AFP/NNA/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
"Everything will be different" after the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis said Saturday, calling for a fairer society and action to "end the pandemic of poverty in the world". Speaking in Spanish in a video message to mark the feast of Pentecost, the pontiff said there was a duty to build a new reality, particularly for the poorest. "Once we emerge from this pandemic, we will not be able to keep doing what we were doing, and as we were doing it. No, everything will be different," he said. "From the great trials of humanity -- among them this pandemic -- one emerges better or worse. You don't emerge the same. "I ask this of you: how do you want to come out of it? Better or worse?" said the 83-year-old Argentinian. The pope led a prayer in the Vatican gardens for all those affected by the pandemic, which has killed nearly 370,000 people worldwide and devastated the global economy. He will also address the faithful Sunday from his window overlooking Saint Peter's Square for the first time since March, as the city-state further eases its virus lockdown. For weeks his traditional Angelus prayer has been live-streamed each weekend to the world from inside the Apostolic Palace. People need to open their minds and hearts to learn the central lesson from this crisis, he said Saturday, declaring: "We are one humanity." "We know it, we knew it, but this pandemic that we are living through has made us experience it in a much more dramatic way," he said. "All the suffering will be of no use if we do not build together a more just, more equitable, more Christian society, not in name but in reality."

Israeli Defense Minister Apologizes for Palestinian's Death
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz apologized on Sunday for the Israeli police's deadly shooting of an unarmed, autistic Palestinian man. The shooting of Iyad Halak, 32, in Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday, drew broad condemnations and revived complaints alleging excessive force by Israeli security forces. Gantz, who is also Israel's “alternate” prime minister under a power-sharing deal, made the remarks at the weekly meeting of the Israeli cabinet. He was sat near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made no mention of the incident in his opening remarks. “We are really sorry about the incident in which Iyad Halak was shot to death and we share in the family's grief,” Gantz said. “I am sure this subject will be investigated swiftly and conclusions will be reached.”Halak's relatives said he had autism and was heading to a school for students with special needs where he studied each day when he was shot.
In a statement, Israeli police said they spotted a suspect “with a suspicious object that looked like a pistol.” When he failed to obey orders to stop, officers opened fire, the statement said. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld later said no weapon was found. Israeli media reported the officers involved were questioned after the incident as per protocol and a lawyer representing one of them sent his condolences to the family in an interview with Israeli Army Radio. Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups have long accused Israeli security forces of using excessive force in some cases, either by killing individuals who could have been arrested or using lethal force when their lives were not in danger. Some pro-Palestinian activists compared Saturday's shooting to the recent cases of police violence in the US.

Russia Delivers Advanced MiG-29 Fighter Jets to Assad Regime
Moscow - London – Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Russia has delivered advanced MiG-29 jet fighters to the Assad regime, in a move to reassure Damascus. The delivery came a day after President Vladimir Putin ordered talks to expand Moscow’s military position in Syria. Syria's official news agency SANA, citing a military source, said the new fighter jets were handed over to the Syrian army during a ceremony at Hmeimim airbase in the western coastal province of Latakia on Saturday. “The warplanes flew from Hmeimim to their deployment areas in Syrian airbases,” the source said. According to the source, the newly-received fighter jets are "more effective" than their previous generation. “As of June 1, 2020, Syrian pilots will begin to carry out missions on those planes in Syrian airspace,” the source said. Putin had asked the defense and foreign ministries to work with Damascus to sign an additional protocol that would expand the Russian military presence in Syria under an agreement signed in 2015. In other news, the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act goes into effect in mid-June, taking US sanctions against supporters of the Assad regime in Tehran and Moscow to a whole new level. The bill does not only target Russian efforts to keep the regime in power, but also affects Moscow’s ambitious post-war economic plans in Syria. In Syria, the public is divided on how to perceive the bill, but many are concerned with its repercussions on the living conditions of Syrians. Leaders in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), also known as Rojava, believe that the Act will exempt US allies in Syria from the sanctions.

Kadhimi Sets Negotiation Team for Talks with US
Baghdad - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Iraq and the United States are expected to start strategic talks on June 10, Asharq Al-Awsat learned from a political source. “Talks will not be at the level of foreign ministers,” the source indicated, saying negotiating teams have been divided into political, military and economic groups.
This dialogue was agreed upon late 2019 under the tenure of former Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government. Kadhimi’s supporters, especially Sunnis and Kurds, believe the outcomes of the dialogue will be in their favor. Foreign policy remains subject to the US-Iranian relationship, which the American Wall Street Journal considered an attempt to balance the two opposing powers and keep the country from becoming their battleground. According to the newspaper, “the US and Iran have quietly coalesced behind an Iraqi politician both see as critical to preventing further chaos in his country.” It stressed that the Prime Minister has already made good initiatives for demonstrators who have opposed Iranian influence and groups loyal to Tehran, which considers protests a US conspiracy. Although Kadhimi makes friends, even with his enemies, yet his opponents believe that he must be cautious in pleasing both enemies and friends. The newspaper noted that the challenges facing Kadhimi are enormous. “Despite the decline in popular protests that forced his predecessor to resign, but the public anger is greater than ever.” Dean of the Political Science Faculty at al-Mustansiriya University Dr. Khaled Abdel-Ilah told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US and Iraq aim to discuss the nature of their relationship especially in the aftermath of the security and strategic framework agreements in 2008. Despite signing both agreements, the US hasn’t determined its relation with Iraq, “whether it is a friend, a partner or an ally.”Therefore, he added, the upcoming dialogue will determine their ties. The Professor expected Iraq to become a US partner, mainly after US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held phone conversations with Kadhimi on restricting Iraq’s weapons to state control. Head of the Iraqi Center for Political Thought Ihsan al-Shammari told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US had wanted to hold this dialogue several years ago. “Iraq thought that the strategic framework agreement hasn’t been properly implemented over the past years,” he noted. The issue of the US withdrawal from Iraq is part of the agreement, which, according to Shammari, is mainly a re-positioning of forces, while defining their tasks with a gradual withdrawal of troops whose presence is no longer necessary.

Sinai Tribes: Landmine Explosion Kills 2 Tribesmen in Al-Ajra Area
Northern Sinai (Egypt): Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
The Sinai Tribes Union, an amalgamation of tribes cooperating with Egyptian security authorities in northern Sinai, announced that two Tarabin tribesmen were killed in clashes with ISIS militants on Friday. According to a tribesman, speaking under the condition of anonymity, the two were killed by a landmine explosion in the Al-Ajra area, located to the far south of the central Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed areas. ISIS had planted landmines in the area before retreating against the push of security forces. The Sinai Tribes Union identified the two slain tribesmen as Awda Salim Abu Ankeez and Eid Mosleh Abu Masooh. They were combing Al-Ajra at the time of the explosion. After clashes between security forces backed by Tarabin tribesmen against ISIS, the latter had abandoned its positions south of Rafah and left behind machine guns’ ammunition, the Union reported. According to the Union, an ISIS key hideout was destroyed in the village of Naje’ Shabanah south of Rafah. During those clashes, many ISIS militants were killed. Last week, in northern Sinai, four civilians were killed and 13 injured in an attack carried out by masked gunmen in the village of Qabr Amir. Qabr Amir is one of the many northern Sinai areas that have witnessed fierce confrontations between security officers and ISIS militants since February 2018, when a region-wide security campaign was launched to purge the area of extremists. Al-Sawarkah tribesman Moussa al-Maniei said that terrorist elements in Al-Ajra, al-Moqataa, and al-lafitat areas are incurring heavy losses due to the intensive security campaign.

Egypt: 19 Militants Killed in Sinai
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
Egypt's military said Saturday it killed 19 militants in targeted ground and air operations as part of its battle against extremism in the northern Sinai Peninsula. In a video statement, the army said troops killed three "extremely dangerous" militants as well as 16 others in precision airstrikes on their "terrorist hideouts".
Troops found troves of automatic rifles, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades in possession of the militants, the army added. Egypt said on May 23 that security forces killed 21 militants in two separate raids in northern Sinai. The Interior Ministry said the militants were plotting attacks during the Eid el-Fitr holiday. It said two Egyptian officers were wounded in the raids. In February 2018, authorities launched a nationwide operation against militants, focused on north Sinai. Around 970 militants have been killed in the region along with dozens of security personnel, according to official figures.

US Eyes Security Cooperation with Tunisia
Tunis, Washington - Mongi Saidani and Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 31 May, 2020
The United States said it is considering deploying a Security Force Assistance Brigade in Tunisia for training, as part of its assistance program with the North Africa country, amid concern over Russian activity in Libya. According to Reuters, Libya’s civil war has drawn in regional and global powers, prompting what the United Nations has called a huge influx of weapons and fighters into the region, in violation of an arms embargo. “As Russia continues to fan the flames of the Libyan conflict, regional security in North Africa is a heightened concern,” the US Africa Command said in a statement on Friday. “We’re looking at new ways to address mutual security concerns with Tunisia, including the use of our Security Force Assistance Brigade.”It later said the Brigade refers to a small training unit as part of military assistance and no way implies combat military forces. US Brigadier General Gregory Hadfield, deputy director of US Africa Command’s Intelligence Directorate, told a small group of reporters the flight path of Russian aircraft to Libya originated in Russia and passed through Iran and Syria before reaching the country. Reuters quoted Hadfield as saying that the aircraft had not been used yet but could add a new capability for Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA). “If Russia secures a permanent position in Libya and, worse, deploys long-range missile systems, it will be a game-changer for Europe, NATO, and many Western nations,” he said. In a statement, Tunisia's defense ministry said the United States was a main partner in the effort to build the Tunisian army's operational capability. The ministry added that security cooperation between Tunisia and the US was the main point of discussion between Tunisian Defense Minister Imad al-Hazqi and Stephen Townsend, Commander, US Africa Command (USAFRICOM) in a phone conversation on Thursday.

Street Named after Muslim Brotherhood Founder Sparks Uproar in Egypt
Cairo - Walid Abdulrahman/Asharq Al Awsat/May 31/2020
A street named after the founder of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hassan al-Banna, in Nile Delta city has sparked outrage among the people. Following a complaint submitted by the residents of Mit Ghamr, officials pledged to rename the street after a police or army martyrs.
Deputy Governor of Dakahlia Haitham El Sheikh confirmed that the name will be changed and a committee will choose the new one. “The name will be changed as soon as a new one is chosen,” he added. The change will be introduced at all public departments and a new sign will be hung up.
Lawmakers had in October 2018 demanded that the names of Muslim Brotherhood be removed from street signs in the country. In late 2018, the same issue had sparked crises in the Egypt Delta and Minya governorates. Governors at the time took the necessary measures to rename the streets after martyrs, in response to the people’s demands to remove the Muslim Brotherhood labels.

Iran’s interior minister suggests that up to 225 people died in November protests
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Sunday 31 May 2020
Iran’s Minister of Interior suggested on Saturday that up to 225 people were killed in the country during last November’s anti-government protests. Anti-government protests erupted across Iran in November 2019 after the government announced gasoline price hikes of at least 50 percent. Over half a year later, Iran is yet to release an official overall death toll. “About 40 or 45 people, or about 20 percent of those killed, were people who were killed with non-standard issue weapons,” Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on state TV late Saturday.
According to the government, that would mean that between 200 to 225 people were killed in during the demonstrations. Rights groups have put the death toll from the protests at more than 300, while Reuters reported that security forces killed about 1,500 people during less than two weeks of unrest that started on November 15. Fazli went on to say that Iranian opposition groups, such as Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and the monarchists, were looking to start a “civil war” in Iran.Defending the internet blackout in the country at the time, he said: “All American and opposition media, including the monarchists, the MEK and ISIS were providing military training through the internet.”Security forces were advised to be “patient” and exercise “self-restraint,” Fazli said, adding that “there was no armed confrontation with the people” during the protests. “But when they attack police stations, they must be confronted,” he said. While Fazli suggested that security forces only opened fire on protesters to defend police stations, numerous reports and videos from Iran showed security forces shooting at unarmed protesters from rooftops and in the streets. Fazli also criticized the US for imposing sanctions on him for his role in suppressing the demonstrations. The US imposed sanctions on Fazli on May 20, accusing him of having a role in serious human rights abuse, including giving orders that led to violence against peaceful protesters.

Former Iranian president uses N-word in tweet about George Floyd, quotes Tupac
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Sunday 31 May 2020
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came under fire on Friday for using the N-word in a tweet about the police killing of George Floyd. “The killing of #GeorgeFloyd was deeply disturbing & upsetting & is the result of the current world order which we all must unite against,” part of Ahmadinejad’s tweet read. In the same tweet, Ahmadinejad quoted a song lyric from the late American rapper Tupac Shakur that included the N-word without censoring the word. Protests erupted in Minneapolis this week after a video emerged showing a police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck. Floyd later died of his injuries and the officer, Derek Chauvin, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter on Friday.
Iranian officials accused of hypocrisy
Ahmadinejad, as well as other Iranian officials, have been accused of hypocrisy in their reception of the protests in the US. Ahmadinejad’s re-election as president in 2009 sparked protests in Iran for months against alleged vote-rigging, during which hundreds were killed and thousands arrested. Iran often expresses support for protesters in non-friendly countries despite its long track record of violence against protesters at home over the years. Anti-government protests erupted across Iran last November after the government announced gasoline price hikes of at least 50 percent.
Iran’s Minister of Interior suggested on Saturday that up to 225 people were killed in the country during the anti-government protests. Reuters has reported that security forces killed about 1,500 people during less than two weeks of unrest that started on November 15.

Iran bans women’s boxing in Khuzestan province
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Sunday 31 May 2020
Women’s boxing in Iran’s Khuzestan province has been banned, the head of the province’s boxing board said on Sunday. “In light of a recent letter from the boxing federation, any activity in the women’s section of the discipline, including coaching, training, education, and theory classes, is prohibited,” Hamid Zanganehmanesh told the semi-official ISNA news agency. Zanganehmanesh did not say why the boxing federation has decided to ban women’s boxing in Khuzestan. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. “No male trainer in the province has the right to teach boxing to women, and if they do, they will bear the consequences of their action and they will be dealt with,” he said. Women’s boxing in Khuzestan will be unbanned once the boxing federation issues a permit, Zanganehmanesh said. Iran is accused of discriminating against Iranian athletes based on gender and limiting women’s participation in sporting activities. Women in Iran are not allowed to enter football stadiums to watch games. In 2016, the country’s top authority Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa (religious edict) banning women from cycling in public.

Torture, abduction, murder: Inside Kata’ib Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy in Iraq
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya EnglishSunday 31 May 2020
Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, issued a statement last week calling for terrorist attacks to be launched against Saudi Arabia.
The militant organization has been central in the proxy conflict between Iran and the US in Iraq, having carried out a series of attacks against US-led forces in Iraq that led to the US retaliating by killing Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Kata’ib Hezbollah former leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes in January. The group has carried out several missile attacks since, including an attack on a base that killed three US personnel.
And with Iran refusing to drop support for its proxy organizations across the region, Kata’ib Hezbollah is unlikely to fall out of the headlines any time soon.
Here is all you need to know about the group.
Who are Kata’ib Hezbollah?
Kata’ib Hezbollah – or the “Brigades of the Party of God” – is one of the most prominent Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq. It was established in 2007, when several Shia Iraqi militias formed an alliance. Kata’ib Hezbollah initially began operating in the southern parts of Iraq and later extended its activities to the rest of the country and beyond. On its official website, the militia identifies itself as a “jihadi group that believes in the principles of Islam and fights injustice and oppressors.”Kata'ib Hezbollah, which was designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2009, is estimated to have between 3,000 to 7,000 fighters, according to unofficial figures. In 2014, Kata’ib Hezbollah and six other Shia militias formed the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Unit (PMU) umbrella militia group. The PMU was established based on a fatwa (religious edict) by Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to fight ISIS. The militia has its own command structure, and is currently headed by Abu Fadak al-Mohammadawi, a former secretary-general of Kata’ib Hezbollah.
Leadership
Kata’ib Hezbollah is currently headed by Ahmad al-Hamidawi, who the US designated as a global terrorist in February.
Al-Hamidawi succeeded Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who was killed alongside Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike in Baghdad in January.
Ties with Iran
Kata’ib Hezbollah has strong sectarian, ideological and financial ties with Iran. On its website, the militia states that it believes Iran’s political system is the “best way to achieve the rule of Islam” during the absence of the 12th Imam and Shia Messiah, al-Mahdi.
“The establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran is an essential stage in preparing for the state of divine justice” that al-Mahdi would bring about once he reappears, Kata’ib Hezbollah says on its website. The militia enjoys Iranian funding, armament, training, and support, and aims to dominate Iraq’s political scene in a manner that suits its pro-Iranian political and ideological orientations.Some of Kata’ib Hezbollah’s goals which are listed on its official website include “the pursuit of a political majority that is able to bring about fundamental changes in the constitution and the political process” as well as seeking to “invest in competent, honest and courageous individuals and getting them to decision-making positions.”Besides enjoying significant support from Tehran, Kata’ib Hezbollah has also received military training from the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah inside Iran, according to the US treasury.
The militia stresses the need to fight countries Iran considers as enemies, such as the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies.
Operations inside Iraq
Kata’ib Hezbollah’s website has a “jihadi operations” section on its website which includes hundreds of videos documenting attacks carried out by the militia against US and coalition forces in Iraq over the years. On December 27, 2019, Kata’ib Hezbollah conducted a deadly strike on an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk using rockets, killing a US civilian contractor. Days later, supporters of the militia attacked the US embassy in Baghdad, torching parts of the compound, smashing security cameras, and hurling stones. On January 3, Washington carried out a drone strike outside Baghdad International Airport, hitting the two-car convoy in which Soleimani and al-Mohandes were travelling. Kata’ib Hezbollah is also accused of being behind the massacre of Iraqi demonstrators protesting corruption and Iran’s meddling in their country in December 2019. At least 24 protesters were killed and more than 120 were injured in the attack. Additionally, Kata’ib Hezbollah is accused of committing human rights violations motivated by sectarian hatred against Sunni Iraqi civilians after reclaiming Sunni-dominated areas in the country from ISIS. Rights group also say that Kata’ib Hezbollah, as well as other militias that are part of the Iran-backed PMU militia group, have tortured, killed, abducted and destroyed the homes of Sunni civilians in Iraq. In 2013, the militia was directly involved in an attack on Camp Ashraf in Iraq which hosted members of the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Over 50 MEK members were killed in the attack.
Presence outside of Iraq
Kata’ib Hezbollah believes it is obligated to defend Iran’s interests not only in Iraq, but wherever possible. Based on this belief, the militia has fought alongside the forces of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against Syrian rebels. In 2015, Kata’ib Hezbollah allegedly sent 1,000 fighters to Aleppo in Syria in response to a direct order from Soleimani. At the time, the militia was led by al-Mohandes, who considered himself a soldier of Soleimani. Asked about the nature of his relationship with Soleimani, al-Mohandes said on Iranian state TV in 2017 that his relationship with Soleimani is that of a soldier with a superior officer. “I am proud to be a soldier of Haj Qassem.”Kata’ib Hezbollah is also suspected of drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry in 2019. On May 14, 2019, Saudi Arabia announced that two oil-pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack “an act of terrorism” that targeted global oil supplies. Initially, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility, but US officials familiar with the intelligence on the May drone attacks concluded that the attacks originated in southern Iraq.

Like a drug deal': Inside Lebanon's black market currency trade
Timour Azhari/Al Jazera/May 31/2020
A crackdown on legal exchange shops has turbocharged illicit black market transactions in the crisis-ridden country.
Beirut, Lebanon - A four-wheel drive vehicle pulls up to the curb of a narrow side street in Beirut and collects a customer who climbs into the front passenger seat.
"How's it going? Thanks for doing this on short notice," says the customer to the driver. Pleasantries exchanged, the two get down to business. The customer pulls out a small roll of United States $100 bills, counts them individually and hands them to the driver, who counts them again.
The numbers confirmed, the driver reaches into a door compartment, pulls out a bulging envelope and hands it to the passenger, who opens it. Inside are dozens of crisp blue and green Lebanese pound notes, 50,000 and 100,000 denominations, each bearing the name of Lebanon's central bank. The passenger counts the notes. By the time he's finished, the driver has circled the block.
He drops the passenger off where he was picked up. "Let me know when you have more," he says, and disappears up the street.
This transaction, which Al Jazeera observed recently, is a black-market currency exchange. Though illicit, such transactions have become commonplace in the crisis-torn nation, arranged between people who meet through popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.
Some of those groups have swelled since late April to boast hundreds of members. Due to a government crackdown on legal, parallel exchanges, the black market is the only way most people in the country can currently swap rapidly devaluing Lebanese pounds for increasingly scarce US dollars.
Lebanon black market exchange
Some messaging app groups connecting black market buyers and sellers of currencies in Lebanon have swelled since late April to boast hundreds of members, after a government crackdown on legal, parallel exchanges backfired and drove the trade deeper underground [File: Ali Hashisho/Reuters]
No grey area
The black market is no grey area. Even small peer-to-peer exchanges of a few hundred US dollars are strictly forbidden. "It's illegal. Exchange activities can only be conducted by licenced offices," a senior figure in Lebanon's Internal Security Forces told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity without authorisation to discuss the matter. "People who do this are opening themselves up to prosecution."
Those who are found guilty of violating Lebanon's exchange laws could face up to three years in prison and a maximum fine of 10 times the yearly minimum wage- that is 81 million pounds or $20,250 at the current black market rate.
The risk is not lost on some people who engage in these illicit transactions, but who consider themselves as otherwise law-abiding. Carl, a finance graduate in his late 20s who asked Al Jazeera to withhold his surname, chuckled as he recounted his last illegal exchange transaction. The deal, which took place outside a shuttered shop, was negotiated through a car window, and involved swapping currencies inside a rolled-up newspaper.
"It was like a drug deal," he said.
Just six short months ago, US dollars and Lebanese pounds had been used interchangeably. The fixed official exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to $1 had endured for 23 years, rewarding the people of Lebanon with stable purchasing power and a relatively higher standard of living for the region. But eye-watering sovereign debt levels, corruption, economic mismanagement and a decade of deeply stunted growth fed by the war next door in Syria finally caught up with the Lebanese currency last summer. The pound started tanking in value against the US dollar as remittances from abroad slowed dramatically, setting in motion a domino effect. Since Lebanon relies heavily on imports, the purchasing power of the pound effectively spiralled downward, taking the real value of salaries and savings down with it, as well as many businesses.
Tens of thousands of jobs have since evaporated. Talk of hunger is now widespread, and COVID-19 is heaping even more hardships on the Lebanese people. Though the official exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to $1 still stands, that peg has completely unravelled in the streets.
A crackdown backfires spectacularly
The pound started losing value in the streets last year - a spiral that gained momentum after informal capital controls imposed by banks made withdrawals of US dollars impossible and transfers of cash abroad extremely difficult.
But in late April, the decline accelerated dramatically after authorities resorted to forceful measures to arrest the pound's slide on parallel markets.
The crackdown started when the Banque du Liban, Lebanon's central bank, ordered parallel market exchange shops to set a maximum rate of 3,200 Lebanese pounds to $1 - a valuation divorced from market realities, given the dearth of dollars in the country.
Few exchange shops complied with the order.
Accused of currency manipulation, more than 50 parallel-market exchange dealers were arrested, including the head and deputy head of the syndicate of exchange dealers, and the director of monetary operations at the Banque du Liban.
The dealers hit back by announcing an open-ended strike. Most exchange shops remain shuttered, which has pushed currency exchange transactions further underground. In a spectacular backfire, the authorities have not only failed to arrest the pound's decline, but they have turbocharged the black market that currently values the pound at roughly 4,000 to $1.
Al Jazeera reached out to a number of exchange shop owners for this story. They all declined to speak on the record, citing fears of the ongoing crackdown.
"Basically, the sector is being killed right now," Omar Tamo, a Lebanese foreign exchange analyst, told Al Jazeera.
"Licenced shops are either not working, or they are doing transactions under the table at the market price, ignoring the legal price of 3,200," he said.
"The currency has somewhat stabilised at 4,000 on the black market, but this is not sustainable. The root problem is that there simply aren't enough dollars. The rate will get worse as long as that's the case."
And turning things around is no mean feat. The scale of Lebanon's financial devastation is immense. The country's banks are largely insolvent, having lent depositors' money to the government, which elected to default on a $1.2bn Eurobond repayment in March.
The government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab is now trying to restructure the country's debt payments as part of a financial rescue plan that also envisages securing more than $20bn in foreign aid. But Lebanon's track record for implementing the necessary structural reforms for unlocking foreign aid is abysmal.
Faced with the possibility of seeing their savings wiped out, many Lebanese are looking to cut their losses any way they can. For those who dare to dabble in cryptocurrencies, converting savings to Bitcoin with a blistering transaction fee is one avenue. But the black market is the most popular choice.
"I just want to keep the value of my money," said George, an auditor in his early 30s, who regularly trades on the black market. He asked Al Jazeera to withhold his surname. "My family is converting some savings we have, because given our politicians, I don't see a green light or improvement of any sort in the future," he said. "We're actually betting that things will get worse."
Businesses that rely on imports, like car parts, food and luxury goods retailers, are also turning to the black market to source the hard currency they need to pay for what they then sell. "I have thousands of euros of imports every month or two, for Mercedes, for all German brands," a car repair-shop owner told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"We're really suffering. If I don't go to the black market, I close."

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 31- July 01/2020
US Nationalism Pits the Financial World Against China
Noah Smith/Bloomberg/May 31/2020
Globalization means increased movement of people, physical goods and of financial capital across borders. All of it is under increasing stress. The free movement of people is being curtailed by coronavirus and by a wave of anti-immigration sentiment around much of the world. The free movement of goods continues, but is menaced by the US-China trade war and a new recognition of the fragility of world-spanning supply chains. And now the free movement of capital is under threat from the emergence of financial nationalism.
Even before the pandemic, the US was growing wary of Chinese investment in domestic markets. President Donald Trump's administration strengthened the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US and has used it to block a number of cross-border deals.
Coronavirus is causing more countries to contemplate similar measures. The pandemic has put a large number of fundamentally healthy companies in places such as Europe and India in temporary distress. There is widespread worry that companies from China, where the disease is more under control and the economy has been harmed less, could seize the opportunity to snap up corporate assets around the world. India’s government recently put in place a law that requires explicit government approval for any acquisition from a country with which it shares a land border. Margrethe Vestager, the European Union's chief competition regulator, has suggested that EU-member governments buy stakes in domestic companies to block Chinese takeovers. Japan recently moved to limit foreign investment in many of its publicly listed firms.
So far, all of these moves involve blocking inbound capital flows. One question is whether outbound flows of money will be restricted as well. The US now seems to be taking a step in that direction.
In the aftermath of a corporate accounting scandal, Chinese coffee house chain Luckin Coffee has been delisted from the Nasdaq. Luckin’s fraud may be the tip of the iceberg; many Chinese companies have been involved in such scandals, and many use accounting standards that wouldn't fly in the US.
Amid concerns about the risks posed to US investors and steadily rising tensions with China, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that will delist many Chinese companies from US exchanges. To stay listed, a Chinese company must either certify that it’s not under foreign government control (a tall order for Chinese companies, where the line between state and private ownership is fuzzy) or allow periodic reviews by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a US accounting watchdog. Because many Chinese companies are obviously under total or partial state control and are loath to open their books to the Americans, this means even giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. might ultimately be delisted.
So financial nationalism is on the rise. But there are still many questions as to how far the trend will go. It’s not clear that other countries will follow the US’s lead in delisting Chinese companies. Whether the US will take further steps in restricting outbound investment is also unknown as yet. One further step might be to force US-based emerging-market indexes such as MSCI to stop including Chinese companies, which were only added in 2019. A bigger move would be to restrict Chinese ownership of US corporate debt as well as equity.
China itself, feeling stronger and more confident than other nations, has been pushing in the other direction, encouraging overseas financial companies to do business in China. It remains to be seen whether the US, Europe or other countries will try to counter this move.
If barriers to investment into and from China continue to go up, it will create a new economic division between China and much of the rest of the world. This will have a chilling effect on globalization. Restrictions on Chinese acquisitions will make it harder for Chinese goods to be sold in the US, Europe and other markets, as well as inhibiting the flow of workers and ideas. And if it becomes harder to invest in China, companies from the US, Europe, Japan and India will be less likely to put their factories and stores there. Financial nationalism could thus exacerbate economic nationalism, and become an aspect of a potential new Cold War.
This would have both good and bad effects. Obviously, Chinese companies defrauding overseas investors is not a good thing. And restricting Chinese takeovers could allow other countries to stanch the flow of advanced technologies to China, preserving some of their competitive edge against government-backed Chinese rivals. The downside, of course, is that the deeper integration with China that has driven much of the global growth for the last two decades would come to an end. But that may already be happening for other reasons.
The really dangerous possibility, however, is if financial nationalism becomes more than just the world versus China. Japan’s new legislation, for example, applies to all outside investment, not just from China. If countries start using investment restrictions to settle all of their various geopolitical grudges, and to try to protect their industries against all foreign competition, it will be very damaging to the global economy. And paradoxically, it will increase Chinese economic dominance because China will then be the biggest remaining economic bloc.
Although the restrictions on investment to and from China might be a wise move, the rise of financial nationalism should end there and go no further.

“Such Things Should Not Happen”: Persecution of Christians, April 2020
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/May 31, 2020
ريموند إبراهيم: تقرير مفصل عن وقائع اضطهاد المسيحيين خلال شهر نيسان 2020..هكذا أمور لا يجب ألأن تحصل
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/86810/%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%88%d8%af-%d8%a5%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%8a%d9%85-%d8%aa%d9%82%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%81%d8%b5%d9%84-%d8%b9%d9%86-%d9%88%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%a6%d8%b9-%d8%a7%d8%b6%d8%b7%d9%87/
“What is the crime of these innocent people against Fulani herdsmen?… For how long shall we continue to beg the government and the security agencies to come to the aid of our people?” — Local resident of one of the villages that was ravaged, Morningstar News, April 9, 2020, Nigeria.
“The insurgents have so far mainly targeted isolated villages, killing more than 900 people… The unrest has forced hundreds of thousands of locals to flee….” — The Guardian, April 22, 2020, Mozambique.
On April 21, Christian convert and human rights activist Mary Mohammadi was sentenced to three months in prison and flogging [10 lashes] — above and beyond what she had already experienced — due to her criticism of the regime’s violations against human rights…. During her hearing, the judge harassed her about her conversion to Christianity even though charges against her had nothing to do with religion. — The Christian Post, April 22, 2020, Iran.
As occurred during the height of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, “jihadist rebels” continue to confiscate Christian properties in the name of “sharia.” — Al Masdar News, April 25, 2020, Syria.
On April 14, Osama El Hannouny, a man with a history of anti-Christian hate crimes, tried to burn down Sacred Heart Church in Palos Hills, Illinois. Surveillance tapes indicate that he knew the church was occupied. Firefighters quickly managed to extinguish the flames. (Image source: Mike F./Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of April 2020:
The Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: The first two days of April opened with machete-wielding Muslim Fulani herdsmen murdered at least 13 Christians. “[W]e woke up to bury seven people burnt to death … from an overnight attack,” one source said. Those killed “are mostly elderly Christians who were unable to escape as members of the community ran into surrounding bushes during the attack.”
Then, on April 7, Muslim Fulani herdsmen slaughtered a pastor and three members of his congregation, including a 10-year-old boy. The pastor, Matthew Tagwai, who was murdered in his home, is survived by a pregnant wife and two small children.
On April 10, Muslim Fulani herdsmen murdered pastor Stephen Akpor, 55. “Two herdsmen came to a branch of our church, Celestial Church … where they shot him as he was praying and counseling five members in the church,” his colleagues said. “The herdsmen shot the pastor several times and then stabbed him to death.” He is survived by his wife and five children.
On April 11, Muslim Fulani herdsmen shot a Christian farmer dead.
On April 13, Muslim Fulani herdsmen decapitated two Christians, in a manner that required them to be “buried without their heads.”
On April 14, Muslim Fulani herdsmen butchered nine Christians, six of whom were children, one a pregnant mother. “They were armed with machetes and AK-47 rifles as they attacked us,” a survivor recalls: “They attacked our village at about 8 p.m., and they were shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as they shot into our houses.” Thirty-three homes were set ablaze.
On April 16, Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed Sebastine Stephen, a young Christian student. “The Fulani herdsmen were over 50 carrying sophisticated guns and shooting sporadically. After they killed the young man,” a survivor reported, “they then broke into the house of Mr. Jack Nweke and abducted him with his wife, leaving behind their three children.”
On April 19, Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed four Christians. “Thirty-eight houses with 86 rooms were also razed down, while about 87 families are affected,” a source said.
On April 20, “A Christian farmer, Titus Nyitar, was shot to death, and his head was cut off,” an area resident said. Titus was “working on his farm when he was killed by the herdsmen.” Afterwards they “proceeded to the village to burn down houses and kidnapped three villagers.”
On April 22, Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed 12 Christians; earlier, the report notes, they kidnapped a couple as they were being married inside their church.
On April 23, the Fulani “killed two people, kidnapped another and burned down a church building that included the pastor’s home in attacks on predominantly Christian areas in north-central Nigeria.”
“What is the crime of these innocent people against Fulani herdsmen?” a local resident of one of the villages that was ravaged asked. “For how long shall we continue to experience this killing? For how long shall we continue to beg the government and the security agencies to come to the aid of our people?”
Congo: The family of Batsemire Ngulongo Yesse, a Christian pastor and father of eight, who, along with 35 other Christians, was slaughtered at the hands of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamic rebel group that targets Christians, gave the details surrounding his execution in an April 9 report. According to his son,
“[Islamic militia armed with machetes] came at night and knocked at the door. My father opened the door. They asked him why he had defiled their order of leaving Christianity and becoming a Muslim. He replied that he was raised in a Christian family, became a Christian and baptized in an Anglican church and he cannot convert to another religion. The Islamists threatened to kill him. He said that it is only God who knows the time of his death and if it is time for him to die then he is ready to die a Christian. Then they slaughtered him. I was in another house and I heard all that they were doing. When they had killed my father they left.”
The victim’s widow, who was hiding in the house that night, offered other details: On entering the house, “the people introduced themselves as Muslims…. They told him to convert to Islam if he wanted to live. He declined. Right there, they slew his neck and left. He died on the spot.” The man’s son believes that the same Islamic rebel group earlier kidnapped his two brothers, whose fates remain unknown; he adds that “From that time our father used to encourage us to continue serving the local church instead of leaving as many pastors left the region.” Reverend Wilson Kasereka, who knew the slain priest, elaborated on the overall situation:
“The war against Christians has been escalating and people are dying daily… We have lost several pastors that have been serving Christians in Congo and we live in fear because we do not know when the ADF will come for us. We have many refugees … [who] need a lot of prayers and support.”
Mozambique: On April 7, Islamic terrorists known locally as “al-Shabaab” (“the youth”) and believed to be connected to ISIS, “cruelly and diabolically,” slaughtered 52 villagers in the Christian-majority nation. Although reports do not indicate the religious affiliation of those slaughtered, Mozambique is 60 percent Christian and 19 percent Muslim. The report adds:
“Militants have stepped up attacks in recent weeks as part of a campaign to establish an Islamist caliphate in the gas-rich region, seizing government buildings, blocking roads and briefly hoisting a black-and-white flag carrying religious symbols over towns and villages across Cabo Delgado province. The flag is also used by Isis and other Islamic extremists…. The insurgents have so far mainly targeted isolated villages, killing more than 900 people… The unrest has forced hundreds of thousands of locals to flee and raised concern among big energy firms operating in the region. More than 200,000 people have fled the area hit worst by the violence, according to a local Catholic archbishop, Dom Luiz Fernando.”
Attacks on Churches and Easter Day
United States: On April 14, a Muslim man with a history of anti-Christian hate crimes tried to torch a church. Osama El Hannouny, 25, tried to burn down Sacred Heart Church in Palos Hills, Illinois. Surveillance tapes indicate that he knew the church was occupied. Firefighters quickly managed to extinguish the flames. According to the report, “El Hannouny allegedly scratched, bit and spit at police when they tried to stop him,” and later “wrote a religious slur on the wall of his cell.” Earlier, in November 2019, the Muslim man slashed the tires of 19 vehicles in the parking lots of two other churches (First Baptist and Sts. Helen and Constantine). At that time, when he was arrested, he told police that he had damaged the cars because “I don’t like Christians.” He was then released on $10,000 I-bond with electronic monitoring, which did little to deter his most recent church attack.
Denmark: Around 3:30 am on Easter Sunday, the holiest day for Christians around the world, the Vejleå Church in Ishøj was vandalized with phrases such as, “We conquer Denmark,” and, in Arabic, “There is no God but Allah.” Many Danes were reportedly “stunned” by the graffiti. Police said they had surveillance pictures, but that they were not clear enough to publish. This same church in Ishøj had been vandalized earlier, in 2015, when eight of its large windows were smashed by hurled stones. Such attacks on churches in European regions with large Muslim migrant populations have become increasingly common.
Algeria: For the first time, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) added Algeria to its 2020 annual report on the worst violators of religious freedom around the world. A portion of the report follows:
“In 2019, Algeria escalated its ongoing repression of religious minorities. The government systematically cracked down on the Evangelical Protestant community in particular through a string of church closures and raids, including two of the largest Protestant churches in the country. The current crackdown mirrors the scale of past waves of church closures in 2008 and 2011, and has been ongoing since November 2017 and worsened in 2019. Officials have made arbitrary demands that churches cease all religious activities, accusing them of violating safety regulations, operating illegally, or evangelizing, or giving them other justifications for sealing off their places of worship. The Algerian government forcibly closed three of the country’s largest Protestant churches in October 2019…. The government of Algeria systematically restricts non-Muslims’ ability to register, operate houses of worship, proselytize, and practice their faith in other ways…. Ordinance 06-03 also limits proselytization by prohibiting anyone from ‘shaking the faith of a Muslim.’… These laws are actively used to arrest and charge individuals for proselytism, or for transporting or possessing religious objects such as Bibles.”
Egypt: On April 14, Egyptian security forces were involved in a gunfight with an Islamic terror cell ensconced in an apartment building in Cairo’s Amiriyah district, which is known for holding a large Christian population and several churches. Seven would-be terrorists and one police officer were killed in the shootout. Ammunition and automatic weapons were found and seized from their apartment. The Egyptian ministry confirmed that “the suspects were planning attacks on the country’s Coptic Christians during the Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christians, one the world’s oldest Christian communities, would celebrate Easter on April 19.”
Attacks on churches around Easter are not uncommon in Egypt. On April 9, 2017—Palm Sunday, which initiates the holy week of Easter—two Christian churches were bombed during mass; at least 50 worshippers were killed and 130 injured and/or mutilated. Two days later, another terror attack targeting a Christian monastery was thwarted. On April 12, 2015, Easter Sunday, two explosions targeting two separate churches took place in Egypt. Similarly, on Sunday, April 5, 2015, as Christians were celebrating Palm Sunday, yet another church was attacked in Alexandria; gunmen in a vehicle opened fire on the church during the night injuring a police officer and two civilians.
Indonesia: Members of the Islamic Defenders Front raided and violently disbanded a house church meeting consisting of about ten people. According to the report, “Video footage … showed two men bursting into a home, Sunday [April 19] in Cikarang.” One of the attackers, Ustad Muliana, was identified as a senior leader of the Islamic Defenders. The video showed the Muslims threatening the worshippers: “One of them physically attacked Christians with a piece of wood,” the report says, adding:
“Sunday’s incident followed a series of attacks or threats against churches involving Islamic parties or their supporters…. [W]hile Indonesia is officially secular, there has been a rise in politicians demanding a more significant role for Islam. Some groups, such as FPI [Islamic Defenders Front], want to turn Indonesia in a full-blown Islamic state.”
Greece: Muslim migrants in the island of Chios, according to a report, set fires and attacked police beginning on Holy Saturday and into the early morning hours of Easter Sunday, April 19, for the Orthodox. Although riots had erupted earlier, they were exacerbated by a false rumor that an Iraqi woman had died from COVID-19 in Chios, prompting the migrants to hurl stones at police; two cars, tents, a canteen inside of the migrant camp, and houses were burned during the riots. It was later revealed that the woman in question had never even been infected. Chios police arrested three migrants believed to be responsible for inciting the violence.
General Abuse of Christians
Syria: As occurred during the height of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, “jihadist rebels” continue to confiscate Christian properties in the name of “sharia.” According to the report,
“Christians in Idlib province face the injustice of jihadist organizations and violations by Islamic factions, in terms of applying ‘Islamic Sharia law’ to members of different religious communities. Islamic factions are clamping down on them and imposing levies ‘Jizya’ in order to force them to leave their homes to regime-controlled areas.”
Pakistan: In two separate incidents, Muslim men sexually assaulted very young Christian girls. First, a group of Muslims attempted to kidnap Ishrat, aged 9. According to the report,
“The April 9 assault took place while Ishrat was walking in the street in Qutiba. There, a group of Muslim men approached her and asked her to convert to Islam and marry Asim, one of the men in the group. When Ishrat refused, the men beat Ishrat, made derogatory remarks against Ishrat and Christianity, and attempted to kidnap Ishrat. The kidnapping, however, was averted as local villagers intervened. According to Ishrat, another man in the group named Ijaz had been harassing her before the assault. Ishrat claims that Ijaz followed her for a long time in an attempt to develop a physical relationship. Ishrat and her family reported the assault to local police. However, after reporting the incident, a group of armed Muslims attacked Ishrat’s family home. According to Ishrat’s family, the group threatened the family with severe consequences for ‘creating hurdles to their mission.'”
Two days later, on April 11, a Muslim man kidnapped and sexually assaulted Nadia, another Christian girl, aged 7. According to the report,
“Nadia was discovered to be missing at 7pm when her father Boota Masih returned home, and he and other neighbours immediately started to look for her. Ghulam Sabir, a Muslim resident of Talwandi, heard a cry coming from a nearby wheat field. There, Sabir found Nadia, who had been beaten and sexually assaulted, and her attacker Muhammad Shoaib. He tried to escape, but he was caught and taken into police custody.”
Iran: On April 21, Christian convert and human rights activist Mary Mohammadi was sentenced to three months in prison and flogging—above and beyond what she had already experienced — due to her criticism of the regime’s violations against human rights. The 21-year-old presented her side on social media:
“After suffering many types of torture and 46 days in jail in the terrible conditions of Vozara detention and Qarchak Prison [which has a ‘reputation for various types of gender abuse’], I have been sentenced to 3 months and 1 day in prison and 10 lashes.”
Mary added that she was sentenced for protesting “against the slaughter of human beings” and for displaying “sympathy for the families of those who perished on the Ukraine airline crash.” During her hearing, the judge harassed her about her conversion to Christianity even though charges against her had nothing to do with religion. In 2017, Mary spent more than six months in prison for attending an underground church meeting.
Uganda: In two separate instances, Muslims savagely beat two women—a six-months pregnant woman for converting to Christianity, and a Christian girl for evangelizing.
After converting to Christianity and attending church for six weeks, Sylvia Shamimu Nabafa, 27, was spotted by a Muslim neighbor leaving church. He told her father, Haji Juma Suleiman, who proceeded to interrogate his daughter, then six months pregnant: “I did not respond,” she recalls. “He began hitting me with kicks and blows. He then took a blunt object and hit my right leg. I started bleeding, and the next thing I knew, I found myself in the hospital bed at Palissa Health Centre.” According to local church elder:
“At the moment she needs support and encouragements as she recalls the ordeal she has gone through after giving her life to Jesus Christ. At times I find her weeping. She needs food, clothes, medication and hospital check-ups.”
As for Lydia Nabirye, the 23-year-old daughter of a Church of God evangelist, problems began for her after she shared her faith with a Muslim woman who subsequently became Christian. The Muslim family of the apostate woman proceeded to threaten her life. She took refuge with Lydia’s Christian family, where six other apostates from Islam had found sanctuary. Then, on April 7, while traveling to grieve with a Muslim mother whose son had died, Muslims ambushed Lydia. “They held me and started beating me up,” Lydia explained. “They slapped me, and others hit me with sticks, saying that they were out to kill me because I was changing Muslims to become Christians.”
Egypt: Several days after disappearing on April 22, Ranya Abd al-Masih (“servant of Christ”), 39, a Christian wife and mother appeared in a brief video, dressed in all black Islamic attire (niqab), saying that, “praise be to Allah,” she had willingly and secretly converted to Islam nine years earlier, and no longer wanted anyone — her husband, children, family — to bother about her anymore. Her family insists that such claims are for public consumption, likely made at gunpoint or even under the effect of drugs. The Coptic Orthodox Christian Church added an appeal to President Sisi to intervene and “return our daughter,” whose own “three young daughters are heartbroken at her absence, as is her husband and her entire family.” According to Ranya’s brother, Remon, “She was definitely kidnapped and forced to make that video, due to threats against her or her husband and children if she refused to comply.” He said the idea that she had “secretly” embraced Islam was ludicrous, and cited the fact that up until her disappearance she was regularly attending church, visiting and praying in monasteries — even fasting 55 days in the lead up to Easter. “We are sure that Ranya, our beloved sister, whom we know so well, is not the one we saw on the video; that is a woman who is being threatened and coerced.” After complaining that state security — which has been accused of complicity in similar cases — refuses to help, her brother wondered “What will we do about our Coptic mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters? We are in an era when such things should not happen.”
Raymond Ibrahim, author of the recent book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
*About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location.
© 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.

Hard-liners’ victory as ex-IRGC general Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf becomes Iran parliament speaker
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/May 31/2020
For the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, a former military general and member of the senior cadre of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been elected as speaker of the Iranian parliament (Majlis). Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf last week succeeded Ali Larijani to become the seventh speaker of the Iranian regime’s Majlis. Larijani was subsequently appointed as an adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a member of the Expediency Council, a political body that is mandated to resolve disputes between the Majlis and the influential Guardian Council.
The election of the hard-liner Qalibaf is a political victory for Khamenei and yet more proof of his recent authoritarian push. The move appears to have been orchestrated by Khamenei and the senior cadre of the IRGC because the powerful Guardian Council, whose members are directly or indirectly appointed by Khamenei, disqualified more than 7,000 candidates ahead of February’s parliamentary elections. The majority of those who were disqualified were from the reformist, independent, pragmatic and moderate political parties. As a result, Khamenei’s social and political base — the hard-liners — made significant gains. Some 230 lawmakers out of 264 reportedly voted for Qalibaf.
The newly elected speaker of the Iranian parliament is considered a Principlist (ultra-conservative) within Iran’s political spectrum and one of the most corrupt politicians in the country. Qalibaf, who is also regarded as a staunchly loyal confidante to the supreme leader, has played a crucial role as the regime’s insider in ensuring the survival of the Islamic Republic and the advancement of Tehran’s revolutionary principles.
When Qalibaf was the commander of the IRGC air force, he, along with the late Qassem Soleimani and 22 other senior IRGC commanders, signed a warning letter to President Mohammed Khatami in 1999 that they would take action to suppress student protests if his administration remained silent. The threatening letter stated: “Who is the person that does not know that today the hypocrites and opponents are gathering in regiments in the name of the ‘students’ and joining this line of battle? And vindictive, short-sighted and profit-seeking insiders are adding fuel to the fire.” The generals added: “We declare that our patience has come to an end, and we will not permit ourselves any more tolerance in the face of your inaction.”
Qalibaf is considered a Principlist within Iran’s political spectrum and one of the most corrupt politicians in the country.
Qalibaf later boasted about how he suppressed the protests, saying: “When students began to march on Khamenei’s office, I was the IRGC’s air force commander. My picture on a motorcycle while carrying a big stick is available. I was with Hossein Khaleqi, with whom we were on the street to quell the protests. Wherever necessary, we come to the street and beat (people) with sticks.”
After serving in the IRGC, in 2005 he became the first military commander to be elected mayor of Tehran, enjoying the endorsement of the supreme leader. He held this position for almost 12 years. He also became known as one of Iran’s most corrupt politicians and acted with impunity. Even Rouhani criticized Qalibaf for his corruption when they went head-to-head during the 2017 presidential election. When the journalist Yashar Soltani exposed some of Qalibaf’s financial and political corruption, he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. Soltani revealed the appropriation of government funds and properties worth more than 2.2 trillion tomans ($702 million).
Even some of the state-run media, including the Tabnak website, have reported on the theft and embezzlement carried out by Qalibaf and members of his family, which included “47 secret bank accounts, an unpaid judiciary debt of 229.7 billion tomans, 497 billion tomans that the IRGC’s Cooperative Fund owed to the Tehran municipality, a payment of 60 billion tomans and the handover of 80,000 square meters of land to the Imam Reza Foundation (owned by Qalibaf’s wife), and the purchase and sale of a Metro station.”
Intriguingly, the judicial system has never summoned Qalibaf for even a simple questioning. The head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Maryam Rajavi stated: “Qalibaf… has murdered members of the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran) and is an accomplice of Ebrahim Raisi, the judiciary chief.”
Finally, Qalibaf has long had his eyes on the presidential office. He has unsuccessfully run for president three times, in 2005, 2013 and 2017. He is most likely still seeking to become the first former military commander to assume the presidency.
In conclusion, Qalibaf is a regime insider, one of Khamenei’s top confidantes, a hard-liner, a brutal suppressor, and one of the most financially and politically corrupt men in Iran, but he still enjoys the endorsement of the supreme leader, the IRGC and the judiciary.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Turkey’s two-pronged gambit in Libya
Yasar Yakis/Arab News/May 31/2020
Turkey appears to be playing a high-risk game that encompasses both Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The key step was Turkey’s skillful grabbing of the opportunity to sign two important agreements with the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). One was the delineation of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Turkey and Libya. Ankara justified this act under the provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which authorizes states with opposite or adjacent coastlines to delineate their EEZs. Using this right, Turkey and Libya on Nov. 27 last year signed an agreement to do just that, allowing them to establish a corridor between their maritime jurisdiction areas.
This bilateral agreement clashes with the basic parameters of the previously agreed EEZs between Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and Israel. Their partition doesn’t give Turkey any EEZ except its territorial waters, even though it has the longest coastline in the Eastern Mediterranean. With the Libyan-Turkish partition, Egypt and Israel would be entitled to gain additional EEZs from Cyprus.
When Israel did not join the five countries — Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, France and the UAE — to sign a communique criticizing Turkey’s attitude, Ankara perceived this as a signal that Tel Aviv was eager to sign a separate agreement to delineate its EEZ. Israel denied this and said an agreement with Turkey was not on its agenda, adding that it did not sign the communique because it was not part of such a joint action. However, it pointed out that it would be pleased to see its relations with Turkey normalized.
Meanwhile, the corridor established by the Turkish-Libyan deal could impede the implementation of a pipeline project that was supposed to carry Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe.
The second agreement concerned military cooperation between Turkey and the GNA. This agreement was to save the latter from possible collapse. In fact, when Turkey started sending military equipment and advisers to Libya in line with this agreement, the military balance on the ground started to shift in the GNA’s favor. Turkey’s drones have proved to be particularly effective.
Turkey’s military assistance became like a lifejacket for the moribund GNA and the tide is now turning.
One of the reasons for Turkey’s support of the GNA is that its Tripoli parliament is composed mainly of Muslim Brotherhood-inclined members. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party has been strongly inspired by the Brotherhood’s practices, so there is strong solidarity between it and the Tripoli government.
Khalifa Haftar’s Libya National Army, which is supported by the likes of Egypt, Russia and France, had been steadily moving toward Tripoli since April last year. But, following the arrival of Turkish military personnel and equipment, Haftar’s advance slowed and eventually stopped.
Alarmed by this move, France in March persuaded the European Council to organize a naval operation in the Mediterranean, dubbed Operation Irini, which aimed to stop Turkey’s arms supply.
Despite Haftar’s efforts, Turkish-supported GNA forces seized the strategically important Al-Watiya air base south of Tripoli on May 18. Turkey’s military assistance became like a lifejacket for the moribund GNA and the tide is now turning to its advantage.
Turkey is sending armed Syrian opposition fighters, who are cornered in Idlib, to Libya. Thus, it is offering them an exit from the swamp where they are bogged down, while also using them to help ensure Turkey’s interests prevail in Libya.
Turkey’s military arrangement with Libya may also provide it with other benefits if the crisis is resolved the way it prefers — such as having a bigger say in the country’s future, a share of the country’s oil benefits, and allowing Turkish companies to gain more reconstruction contracts in post-crisis Libya.
The Libyan chessboard is less complicated than Syria as there are fewer foreign actors operating in the country. Unlike in Syria, Turkey caught a favorable wind by siding with the GNA, but this does not mean that success is guaranteed as it is still slippery ground. The flip side is that Turkey is siding with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has little support around the world.
*Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkey and founding member of the ruling AK Party. Twitter: @yakis_yasar

World can learn from Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul’s coronavirus response
Ngaire Woods/Arab News/May 31/2020
One of the coronavirus disease’s (COVID-19) paradoxes has been the way in which some wealthy, high-capacity countries (particularly the US and UK) failed to contain the virus, while some poorer countries and regions with less capacity (including Vietnam, Greece and the Indian state of Kerala) swiftly brought it under control. Now that countries must plan beyond their lockdowns, an equally stark contrast has emerged.
In the US and UK, ambiguous containment regimes without clear exit plans have resulted in a policy stalemate between maintaining unsustainable lockdowns and recklessly opening up the economy. By contrast, policymakers in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul have used careful planning to learn to live with the virus.
The state began preparing on March 2, when Governor Eduardo Leite tasked his secretary of planning, budget and management with assembling a data committee to develop and implement a plan for keeping the state’s economy going while combating the spread of the virus. In many other parts of Brazil, the virus remains unchecked, and the country now has the world’s second-highest number of COVID-19 cases and the fourth-highest death toll. However, its fifth-most populous state has responded in a way that many rich countries would do well to emulate. Five components of Rio Grande do Sul’s response stand out.
First, Leite focused from the outset on avoiding the worst possible outcome, rather than simply hoping it would not materialize. Before the pandemic reached Brazil, state officials used data from both Japan and Singapore (where the virus’s impact was limited) and Italy and Spain (where it was horrific) to generate mathematical projections, and set out to avoid outcomes resembling the latter. The governor then announced restrictions in mid-March before the state had reported its first COVID-19 death, thus buying time to strengthen the health system’s capacity while slowing the virus’s spread.
It focused from the outset on avoiding the worst possible outcome, rather than simply hoping it would not materialize.
Ngaire Woods and Leany Lemos
Second, state officials took a data-driven approach to tracking the virus, investing not only in collecting more data, but also in improving systems and hiring outstanding talent to assess the information. The data committee divided the state into 20 regions, each of which has a main hospital with an intensive-care unit (ICU), and has monitored 11 indicators in each region every week.
About half of the indicators measure the virus’s spread. They include the number of new hospitalized COVID-19 cases (compared to the previous week), the number of active cases relative to recoveries in the last 50 days, and new hospitalizations and deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The committee also tracks the number of patients in regular and ICU beds with either COVID-19 or acute respiratory distress syndrome, a related lung disease (because COVID-19 cases are typically under-recorded).
The other indicators measure the capacity of each region’s health system. They include the number of available ICU beds relative to both the total population and the number of inhabitants aged over 60, as well as the change in ICU occupancy compared to the previous week.
In addition to intensive data monitoring, the data committee convenes health experts and academics on a pro bono basis and makes their reports public. More than 150 experts from government and academia are currently examining COVID-19’s impact on economic activity, social vulnerability, infrastructure, and mobility in the state. Furthermore, the government created a partnership with a university early on to kick off random testing and surveying habits across the state, which is providing a better sense of the real prevalence of the virus.
The third component of the state’s response is a simple, specific and transparent alert system. Each week, the committee distils the 11 indices into a single figure for each region, which places the region in one of four risk categories. Yellow represents low risk, orange is medium, red is high, and black signifies very high risk, with a full lockdown expected in extreme cases. Because the public can examine the data on which the risk classifications are based, the system helps to build understanding and trust.
Fourth, officials carefully examined how to keep the economy functioning, because the already-indebted state could not afford to support out-of-work people for long. The committee has clearly segmented jobs and economic activities in terms of worker safety (given social distancing requirements) and their economic importance, giving these factors weights of 70 percent and 30 percent, respectively. For example, agriculture is relatively safe, because workers are outdoors and a safe distance from one another, and it is also vital for Rio Grande do Sul’s economy. All of the information is publicly available.
Finally, the state government drew up return-to-work protocols for each industry based on consultations with occupational health experts, industry associations, businesses, and workers. By publishing early drafts of protocols and inviting comments, the committee helped to ensure an open and transparent process.
Beyond mandatory measures such as wearing face masks, cleaning, distancing, and shielding at-risk groups, sector protocols vary depending on the alert level. For example, industry can function at 100 percent capacity in a yellow region, at 75 percent under an orange alert, 50 percent in red regions, and 25 percent in black regions, with exceptions for essential sectors such as food, energy, chemicals and health. Retail, which poses a higher contagion risk, may operate at only 50 percent capacity under a yellow alert, and must close down under a black alert.
While buses and churches have varying seat restrictions depending on the alert level, no mass events are currently permitted. The state is now debating which educational institutions should reopen first, and when, and how to reopen the rest.
*Rio Grande do Sul’s work-safety policies have now been in place for three weeks. As of the last week of May, fewer than 20 percent of the state’s COVID-19 ICU beds are in use. The state has 56 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 720 per 100,000 in Amazonas state, 390 in Ceara state, and 220 in Rio de Janeiro. And its COVID-19 mortality rate is 1.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, far below the rates in Amazonas (42.4) and Rio de Janeiro (23.1).
Rio Grande do Sul’s leaders have devised a strategy for living with the virus, based on key indicators, expert consultations and enforceable processes. And it has done so in full public view. There are lessons here for governments in richer countries that have yet to develop such a plan.
*Ngaire Woods is Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.
Leany Lemos is Secretary of Planning, Budget, and Management in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Copyright: Project Syndicate