English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 02/2020
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 June 01-02/2020
Lebanon records 13 COVID-19 cases
13 New Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in Lebanon
Hasan Says Too Early to Claim Victory over Coronavirus
Premiership Denies Govt. Endorsed U.S. Sanctions Act against Damascus
Lebanon must turn reform ideas into reality, says US ambassador Shea
Maronite patriarch defends Lebanon’s confessional system
Arab News recording exposes Nissan lawyer’s lie on IMF bailout for Lebanon
Lebanon earmarks June 21 to reopen airport if coronavirus decline remains stable
Army Foils Two Lebanon-Syria Smuggling Attempts
Geagea Urges Govt. to Rescue Crisis-Hit Private Schools
ISF Foils Bid to Smuggle Drugs into Zahle Jail
Israeli Spy Drone Hovers over Lebanon
Berri on Ain el-Tineh Incident: Police were Nervous over Coronavirus
Lebanon airport to reopen on June 21: Transport ministerOpen in fullscreen
Lebanon says too early to claim victory over coronavirus
'From Beirut to Minneapolis': Lebanese activists release 'protest guide' for US demonstrators

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 01-02/2020
Israel suspected in Syria strike that kills 5 Iran-backed fighters
Israel’s Gantz urges army to hasten preparations for annexing West Bank
Syrian tycoon Rami Makhlouf says ‘coming days decisive’ amid ongoing spat with regime
230 killed in Iran during November protests: Iranian lawmaker
Iran says it will continue fuel shipments to Venezuela despite US criticism
Senior Iran army commander criticizes IRGC
UAE Minister says Israeli annexation talk “must stop”
Saudi Arabia, Israel negotiating Temple Mount control - report
Hundreds attend funeral of unarmed Palestinian killed by Israeli police
Haftar's forces retake key town from Libya rivals: spokesman
Turkey’s Libya manoeuvres begin to worry Italy
Tehran exerts pressure to undermine US, Iraq talks
George Floyd: Minnesota man died of asphyxia, examination finds
Italy Records Fewest New Virus Cases since February
Top Doctor Sparks Row with Claim Virus 'No Longer Exists' in Italy
Biden Meets Black Leaders over Death of George Floyd

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 01-02/2020
Troublemaker vs. Superpower: Iran’s absurd claim of power equivalence with US/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Al Arabiya/June 01/2020
White House Iran Policy Is Hitting Tehran's Terror Allies Hard. Now Let Us Try for Harder./Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/June 01/2020
Hard-liners’ victory as ex-IRGC general Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf becomes Iran parliament speaker/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/May 31/2020
China: What We Must Do, What We Must Not Do/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/June 01/2020
Regime change in Iran shouldn’t be a taboo/Reuel Marc Gerecht/Ray Takeyh/The Washington Post
The decline of Europe’s strategic Middle Eastern role/Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/June 01/2020
Evidence piles up that Sweden may be on wrong path/Chris Doyle/Arab News/June 01/2020
Israel’s US-China balancing act in peril/Ramzy Baroud/Arab News/June 01/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 01-02/2020
Lebanon records 13 COVID-19 cases
Annahar/June 01/2020
The cases who were registered in the past 24 hours were distributed as follows: seven locals and six expats.
BEIRUT: The Ministry of Public Health announced on Monday that 13 new coronavirus cases were recorded, raising the total number of registered cases to 1,233.The cases who were registered in the past 24 hours were distributed as follows: seven locals and six expats. The total number of active cases reached 491.

13 New Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in Lebanon
Naharnet/June 01/2020
Lebanon recorded 13 new COVID-19 coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said. Seven of those infected are residents and the others are repatriated expats, the Ministry added in its daily statement.
It said six of the local cases have been traced to identified infected individuals. The new cases raise the country's tally to 1,233 among them 27 deaths and 715 recoveries. Only 74 of the COVID-19 patients are receiving hospitalization, among them four who are in intensive care.

Hasan Says Too Early to Claim Victory over Coronavirus
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/June 01/2020
The worst of the coronavirus pandemic has passed but declaring victory against the disease would be premature, Lebanon's health minister said Monday, as the country gradually opened up. "I think the worst-case scenario has passed and is behind us, but at the same time we need to stay alert and we are taking measures in all regions," Hamad Hasan told French news agency AFP. The country of six million has recorded a remarkably low number of cases and the official death toll is around 10 times lower than some countries with roughly the same population such as Israel, Norway or the United Arab Emirates. According to figures provided by the health ministry, Lebanon has recorded 1,233 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic and only 27 deaths. After weeks of lockdown, the government announced on Sunday that restrictions would be eased this week, including a curfew which is pushed back from 7:00 pm to midnight. "It's still early to announce a victory but we have scored points against the virus and we won't relinquish our lead," Hasan said speaking from his home in the city of Baalbek. The minister, who is backed by Hizbullah, and the rest of the government have been widely praised for their handling of the crisis despite the general distrust toward the authorities. The number of deaths has grown very slowly in recent weeks and, while the lockdown was maintained throughout the holy Muslim fasting of Ramadan, Hasan said Lebanon might even afford to send some of its staff to help other countries. "I am thinking of organizing some medical trips to help some countries if necessary," he said. The lockdown has compounded Lebanon's already dire economic situation and the coming days of opening up will begin to reveal the extent of the damage caused to businesses across the country. The government of Lebanon, which defaulted on its debt earlier this year, is currently negotiating the terms of possible financial assistance with the International Monetary Fund. The public health sector itself was in deep crisis even before the pandemic broke out but early confinement measures have so far successfully contained the spread of the virus. Most of the recent cases were detected among repatriated individuals from Lebanon's vast diaspora.

Premiership Denies Govt. Endorsed U.S. Sanctions Act against Damascus
Naharnet/June 01/2020
The press office of the Lebanese premiership on Monday denied that the government has endorsed a U.S. sanctions act targeting the Syrian regime. “Some media outlets have published a report claiming that the Caesar Act for U.S. sanctions was distributed during the Cabinet session and that the government has endorsed this law,” the press office said in a statement. “The truth is that the government intends to study the impact of this Act on Lebanon and the margins that the government could work within while avoiding negative repercussions against the country,” the office added. “No commitment, discussion or endorsement of this Act took place during the Cabinet session,” the office clarified. The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, also known as the Caesar Act, is a United States legislation that sanctions the Syrian regime, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for war crimes against the Syrian population. A number of Syrian operated industries, including those related to infrastructure, military maintenance and energy production, are targeted. The bill also targets individuals and businesses who provide funding or assistance to the president of Syria. Iranian and Russian entities are addressed for their governments' support of Assad in the Syrian conflict. The legislation imposes fresh sanctions on entities conducting business with the Syrian government and its military and intelligence agencies.

Lebanon must turn reform ideas into reality, says US ambassador Shea
Reuters/Monday 01 June 2020
The Lebanese government must turn its reform ideas into reality and take concrete steps to win international support, the US ambassador said in an interview broadcast on Sunday. Dorothy Shea also told Lebanese local broadcaster OTV it was a mistake to scapegoat any one person or institution for Lebanon’s economic collapse in response to a question about the role of central bank Governor Riad Salameh, who she said “enjoys great confidence in the international financial community.”Lebanon is suffering an acute financial crisis seen as the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. Shea said the United States was still assessing the government, formed with backing from the heavily armed, Iran-backed Shia group Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist organization by Washington. “The government has demonstrated a good intention to fight corruption and make itself committed to reforms. Now it needs to take that commitment to the next level and begin to make these ideas reality,” Shea said. “Are they willing to push these reforms forward? We haven’t yet made a final judgement on that.”The government launched IMF negotiations in May. Asked what Lebanon must do to secure support, Shea said the international community was looking for concrete reforms. “It is easy to say and much harder to do.”The crisis is rooted in decades of waste and corruption and exploded last year as capital inflows slowed and protests erupted against the ruling elite. On the role of Salameh, Shea said the United States had worked very closely with him over the years. Central bank appointments were a sovereign matter, she added. “If the international financial community does not have confidence, however, in the leadership of your government’s top financial institutions, then I think you are not going to see the inflows of investment ... that the economy so desperately needs,” she said.

Maronite patriarch defends Lebanon’s confessional system
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2020
Al-Rahi’s sermon indicates growing Christian frustration with Hezbollah’s manoeuvres.
BEIRUT--The Maronite patriarch of Lebanon criticised May 31 Hezbollah’s call to change the country’s confessional system and do away with the National Pact of 1943. “We refuse to transform the process of developing the Lebanese system into an excuse to eliminate Lebanon itself, a historic state with its peculiarities,” Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi said in his Sunday sermon. “Lebanon is a civil state of partnership, and the agreement has existed for 100 years. [Lebanon] cannot be reinvented today from nothingness and emptiness. Lebanon existed before we were, and will remain after us,” he said.
The patriarch defended the National Pact (al Mithaq al Watani) of 1943, devised by then Lebanese Prime Minister Riad Al Solh and President Bishara Al Khouri to serve as the official framework for Lebanon’s confessional system.
“Only the historical truth remains, but the rest is temporary and fleeting. So the duty calls on us to defend this state. We devote ourselves to free Lebanon and free the Lebanese. Together they live, and together they resist every occupation and aggression, supported in this by the state, its legitimacy and Army,” al-Rahi said.“Political groups should not run in the affairs of the country and citizens irresponsibly, and in the same spirit that brought our country to rock bottom,” he added. A week earlier, Ahmed Qablan, a mufti close to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, said Lebanon’s confessional system is no longer warranted in a public address lambasting the country’s leaders and warning of a “huge disaster.” “The Lebanese state, as we know it today, was created on a sectarian and authoritarian basis to serve the colonial and monopolistic project. This formula has ended,” said the Shia Jaafaria mufti in a speech delivered on the Eid al-Fitr holiday. “What Riad Al Solh and Bishara Al Khouri have created is no more suitable for the people and the country. That was a phase and now, it is over,” he said. In a possible response to Qablan’s statements, al-Rahi’s sermon indicates growing Christian frustration with Hezbollah’s manoeuvres. Al-Rahi’s comments come against the backdrop of Shia-Maronite tensions in the Byblos district of Mount Lebanon, where Hezbollah elements have been trying to prevent Christians from cultivating land that belong to the Maronite Patriarchate.

Arab News recording exposes Nissan lawyer’s lie on IMF bailout for Lebanon
Arab News/June 01/2020
LONDON: Arab News has published the recording of an interview with a Nissan lawyer after he denied saying that a bailout of Lebanon by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was linked to the extradition of fugitive tycoon Carlos Ghosn. The former Nissan chairman fled to Beirut in December from Japan, where he faced charges of financial wrongdoing.  In a story published in Arab News Japan on Saturday, Sakher El Hachem, Nissan’s legal representative in Lebanon, said the multibillion-dollar IMF bailout was contingent on Ghosn being handed back to Japan.
The lawyer said IMF support for Lebanon required Japan’s agreement. Lebanese officials had told him: “Japan will assist Lebanon if Ghosn gets extradited,” the lawyer said. “For Japan to agree on that they want the Lebanese authorities to extradite Ghosn, otherwise they won’t provide Lebanon with financial assistance. Japan is one of the IMF’s major contributors … if Japan vetoes Lebanon then the IMF won’t give Lebanon money, except after deporting Ghosn.”On Sunday, El Hachem denied making the comments. “The only thing I told the newspaper was that there should have been a court hearing on April 30 in Lebanon, but it was postponed because of the pandemic,” he said. In response, Arab News published the recording of the interview, in which he can be clearly heard making the statements attributed to him. Japan issued an arrest warrant after Ghosn, 66, escaped house arrest and fled the country.

Lebanon earmarks June 21 to reopen airport if coronavirus decline remains stable
Arab News/June 01/2020
DUBAI: Lebanon plans to reopen its airport to the public on June 21 amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to local media reports citing the Public Works Minister Michel Najjar. “The airport will not open on June 8 but it is expected [to open] starting June 21,” Najjar said. The statement was made after the Lebanese Health Minister Hamad Hasan said the reopening of the airport can happen if the country witnesses a two-week stable decline of coronavirus cases. “As long as the world is suffering from an international pandemic, the airport needs special arrangements regarding its reopening, mainly related to the number of infections that will come through,” he said. The capital’s Rafik Hariri International Airport banned all commercial and private flights on March 18 to help contain the coronavirus spread in the country.

Army Foils Two Lebanon-Syria Smuggling Attempts
Naharnet/June 01/2020
The army on Monday thwarted two attempts to smuggle foodstuffs across the Lebanese-Syrian border. “An army unit intercepted a pickup truck in the Bekaa area of al-Misherfeh and foiled an attempt to smuggle 8,360 kilograms of fruits from Lebanon into Syria,” an army statement said.
Separately, an army unit stopped another pickup truck carrying two people who were trying to smuggle quantities of spoiled and unspoiled foodstuffs from Syria into Lebanon.The detainees and the confiscated material were eventually referred to the competent judicial authorities.

Geagea Urges Govt. to Rescue Crisis-Hit Private Schools
Naharnet/June 01/2020
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday urged the government to assist Lebanon's private schools amid the unprecedented economic and financial crisis in the country. “Private schools have accompanied Lebanon since its independence and have been one of its remarkable characteristics, that's why the government should not let them collapse under the impact of the current severe financial and economic crisis,” Geagea tweeted. Calling on the government to “offer urgent assistance” to private schools to “maintain their continuity,” the LF leader warned that the collapse of private schools would oblige the state to “pay double the amount and more to accommodate the students of private schools in public schools.”

ISF Foils Bid to Smuggle Drugs into Zahle Jail
Naharnet/June 01/2020
The Internal Security Forces said in a statement on Monday that it thwarted an attempt to smuggle narcotics into an inmate at Zahle prison. The Directorate said it caught the drugs while one of the visitors on May 28, 2020 was trying to get the drugs to his brother in prison. “While searching items sent to inmates by their families, the guards of Zahle police confiscated 870g of hashish in the form of plates, in addition to three envelopes containing 80 pills of different kinds of drugs, 201 small envelopes containing narcotic material,” said the ISF in a statement.
The assailant hid the drugs creatively inside a carton box, it added. Investigation got underway under the supervision of the relevant judicial authorities, the ISF said.

Israeli Spy Drone Hovers over Lebanon
Naharnet/June 01/2020
An Israeli spy aircraft conducted flights over the Western slopes of Mount Hermon and Rashaya al-Wadi along the Lebanese-Syrian border, the National News Agency reported on Monday. NNA said the drone conducted its flights hovering over the area from al-Faqaa in the south to Deir el-Asheer in the north.

Berri on Ain el-Tineh Incident: Police were Nervous over Coronavirus
Naharnet/June 01/2020
After clashes between Parliament police and protesters over the weekend, Speaker Nabih Berri attributed the incident to “nervous” police members over the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.
“God forgive all! Some have decided to protest near Ain el-Tineh (the Speakership residence) and the guards were nervous and pressured over security concerns and fears of coronavirus transmission. Moreover, due to some provocations, some lost their nerves and what happened, happened,” said Berri in remarks to the newspaper. The Speaker said he supports the demands of “sincere” protesters. Clashes erupted over the weekend between a group of activists and security guards near Ain el-Tineh. Activists published photos and video recordings on social media showing vehicles with smashed glass. They accused the parliament police who is also charged with protecting the speaker’s headquarters in Ain el-Tineh of assaulting them. On the Lebanon's negotiations with the IMF, Berri said he is interested in approving the reform projects. “Likewise, I am doing my best to unify the approaches of the government and the central bank’s financial file in order to strengthen Lebanon's position in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.”

Lebanon airport to reopen on June 21: Transport ministerOpen in fullscreen
The New Arab/June 01/2020
Lebanon's airport is expected to reopen on June 21, the country's public works and transport minister said on Sunday, pushing back a previously set reopening on June 8. The country's only international airport has been closed since March 19 as part of lockdown measure amid at stemming the spread of coronavirus. "The airport will not open on June 8, but it is expected [to open] starting June 21," Michel Najjar was quoted as saying by local media. While Rafik Hariri International Airport had suspended all commercial and private flights in March, the Beirut airport had been receiving organised flights repatriating its own nationals. Sunday's announcement came after the country's health minister said that while there was a stable decline of Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks, the reopening of the airport may result in an uptick of infections.  "As long as the world is suffering from an international pandemic, the airport needs special arrangements regarding its reopening, mainly related to the number of infections that will come through," Hamad Hasan said in a statement. Lebanon is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, compounded by a lockdown to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Lebanon says too early to claim victory over coronavirus
The New Arab & agencies/June 01/2020
The worst of the coronavirus pandemic has passed but declaring victory against the disease would be premature, Lebanon's health minister said on Monday, as the country gradually opened up. "I think the worst-case scenario has passed and is behind us, but at the same time we need to stay alert and we are taking measures in all regions," Hamad Hassan told AFP. The country of six million has recorded a remarkably low number of cases and the official death toll is around 10 times lower than some countries with roughly the same population such as Israel, Norway or the United Arab Emirates. According to figures provided by the health ministry, Lebanon has recorded 1,233 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic and only 27 deaths. After weeks of lockdown, the government announced on Sunday that restrictions would be eased this week, including a curfew which is pushed back from 7:00 pm to midnight. "It's still early to announce a victory but we have scored points against the virus and we won't relinquish our lead," Hassan said speaking from his home in the city of Baalbek. The minister, who is backed by the Shia militant movement Hezbollah, and the rest of the government have been widely praised for their handling of the crisis despite the general distrust toward the authorities. The number of deaths has grown very slowly in recent weeks and, while the lockdown was maintained throughout the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, Hassan said Lebanon might even afford to send some of its staff to help other countries.
"I am thinking of organising some medical trips to help some countries if necessary," he said. The lockdown has compounded Lebanon's already dire economic situation and the coming days of opening up will begin to reveal the extent of the damage caused to businesses across the country.
The government of Lebanon, which defaulted on its debt earlier this year, is currently negotiating the terms of possible financial assistance with the International Monetary Fund. The public health sector itself was in deep crisis even before the pandemic broke out but early confinement measures have so far successfully contained the spread of the virus. Most of the recent cases were detected among repatriated individuals from Lebanon's vast diaspora.

'From Beirut to Minneapolis': Lebanese activists release 'protest guide' for US demonstrators
'Sarah Khalil/The New Arab/June 01/2020
A group of Lebanese activists have put together a "protest guide" for US demonstrators in a show of solidarity with the mass protests against police brutality in the United States. Lebanese activists released on Friday a document entitled "From Beirut to Minneapolis: A protest guide in solidarity", which quickly circulateed across popular social media platforms. The guide addressed issues including what protesters should wear when demonstrating, how to react if hit with tear gas and how to document police abuse. Sarah Aoun, the co-author of the guide, spoke to The New Arab about the purpose of sharing the manual, which was co-written with media researcher Azza El Masri, and includes contributions from journalists, activists and organisers of protests in Lebanon. [The guide was written] as a show of solidarity to protesters in the US," Aoun says. "We wanted to share learned experiences from the October revolution."Aoun, who works between Beirut and New York City as a human rights technologist guiding journalists and human rights activists on security and privacy, used her professional experience to write the manual. We wanted to release it and connect it to the US for a few reasons," Aoun tells The New Arab. "Our struggles are global. We learned a lot from communities in the US who have been protesting for decades as well. "We learned a lot from Hong Kong and the protests there. We wanted to show our solidarity and contribute in a meaningful way by making an easy guide for everyday folks."Aoun says the guide received praise after it was found to be helpful to protesters. "We received a lot of messages of people thanking us and saying it was really useful," she says. "We're happy to have this circulated as broad as possible, for anyone who needs it. There are movements everywhere in the world, and [the guide] could be remixed and adapted in other situations." Mass rallies broke out in Lebanon in October 2019, after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across the country to protest rampant corruption and an ailing economy. They were met with brutal police violence, large amounts of tear gas, violent beatings and mass arrests.
Similarly, this week saw thousands of civil rights protesters take to the streets across America, demanding tougher measures against the police officer charged with the killing of George Floyd and wider police reform. Videos that emerged online showed unarmed black man George Floyd on the floor as a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The officer dismissed repeated pleas by witnesses to the incident, as well as Floyd, who clearly stated he "can't breath". The protests, some of which turned violent, also come amid disproportionate rates of death and hospitalisation from the coronavirus outbreak among America's Black and Latino community.Unemployment has also spiked among minority populations amid the business closures sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 01-02/2020
Israel suspected in Syria strike that kills 5 Iran-backed fighters
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2020
BEIRUT--In what seems like a continuation of Israel’s military strategy in Syria under the new Netanyahu-Gantz coalition, an airstrike targeted pro-Iranian fighters in eastern Syria on Sunday. Since last month, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz has been Israel’s defence minister in the “unity government” led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Sunday’s attack struck three military vehicles, killing five Iran-backed paramilitary fighters near the Iraqi border, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).The monitor did not say who was behind the attack near the border town of Abu Kamal. But Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said that “Israel was likely responsible.”Israel has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011, targeting government troops, allied Iranian forces and fighters from Lebanese Hezbollah. Iranian-backed militias and their allies command a significant presence in eastern Syria south of the Euphrates Valley. The Observatory said its sources monitored on May 20 “a bus carrying tens of Iranian-backed militiamen arriving in Abu Kamal city in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, coming from Iraq.” It added that recently Iranian forces have started “transporting military reinforcement in civil buses in order to evade detection.” In a previous May 16 raid, SOHR said an “unidentified aircraft” targeted M’eizileh base which is under the control of Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias in Abu Kamal countryside “a few days after military reinforcement was brought into a base from the 47th brigade affiliated to the Iranian-backed militias. ” The previous strike killed seven fighters, according to the Observatory. In May, then-Israeli Defence minister Naftali Bennett said his country was determined to drive Iran out of Syria. The US later confirmed Iranian troops were being deployed out of Syrian territory. Israeli envoy to the UN Danny Dannon told Israeli website I-24 last month that Israel would not allow Iran to military bases on the Golan Heights. “We look at what happened in Lebanon and we don’t want to repeat the same mistakes we made there. So we are very determined.” He added that “Israel would strike whenever it received intelligence that an Iranian shipment was in Syria.”

Israel’s Gantz urges army to hasten preparations for annexing West Bank
The Associated Press, Jerusalem/Monday 01 June 2020
Israel’s defense minister urged the military on Monday to hasten preparations for the country’s planned annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, in apparent anticipation of what could be fierce Palestinian protests against the move.
The statement by Benny Gantz came as Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed annexation on Monday in a call with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser. In a statement sent by his office, Gantz appeared to command the military to prepare for the fallout from annexation, asking the military chief of staff to “speed up the (military’s) preparedness ahead of political steps on the agenda in the Palestinian sphere.” The statement gave no further details. Gantz also serves as “alternate” prime minister until he is expected to replace Netanyahu late next year, under a power-sharing agreement that ended more than a year of political turmoil. The United Arab Emirates, called on Israel Monday to halt its plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank — joining a long list of Arab nations that have condemned the expected Israeli move. The UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said on Twitter Monday that annexing lands sought by the Palestinians would harm the chances for regional peace. “Any unilateral Israeli move will be a serious setback for the peace process,” he wrote on Twitter. He added that annexation would “constitute a rejection of the international & Arab consensus towards stability & peace.” Netanyahu has announced that he will annex parts of the West Bank, including the strategic Jordan Valley and dozens of Jewish settlements, in line with Trump’s Mideast plan. He has signaled he will begin moving forward with annexation next month. The US plan envisions leaving about one third of the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967, under permanent Israeli control, while granting the Palestinians expanded autonomy in the remainder of the territory. The Palestinians, who seek all of the West Bank as part of an independent state, have rejected the plan, saying it unfairly favors Israel. The annexation plan has come under harsh criticism from some of Israel’s closest allies, who say that unilaterally redrawing the Mideast map would destroy any lingering hopes for establishing a Palestinian state and reaching a two-state peace agreement. Saudi Arabia recently announced its “rejection” of Israel’s annexation plans. Jordan and Egypt, the only Arab countries with formal peace agreements with Israel, have also condemned the plan, while the Palestinians say they are no longer obligated to honor past agreements with Israel and have suspended security cooperation to protest annexation.

Syrian tycoon Rami Makhlouf says ‘coming days decisive’ amid ongoing spat with regime
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/Tuesday 02 June 2020
Embattled Syrian businessman Rami Makhlouf, who has claimed he is being unfairly targeted by the regime headed by his cousin Bashar al-Assad, described his situation as a “farce” and said that the coming days would be “decisive.”Makhloud released a new late on Sunday in which he revealed new information surrounding his employees at Syriatel – Syria’s largest telecom provider and one of the central pillars of Makhlouf’s sprawling business empire – and that he hoped there would be a "divine intervention that will shake the earth under the feet of the oppressors.” “There is no doubt that there is an invisible hand of supernatural power that allows some people to dare to own property and threaten to take serious measures against our actions if we do not submit to their requests,” Makhlouf wrote. The Syrian tycoon said that two threats were made against his company, the first of which was an amount levied on Syriatel to pay 134,000,000,000,000 Syrian pounds by the Syrian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. Makhlouf said the company accepted the imposed amount. The second threat imposed on the company, according to Makhlouf, was the authorities raising of the claims imposed on Syriatel to pay 50 percent of the company’s revenues to the government. “This will lead to bankruptcy, which we did not accept,” Makhlouf wrote. The Syrian government says Syriatel, the largest mobile phone network in Syria, owes 134 billion pounds, around $77 million at the current exchange rate on the parallel market. Syrian court formally placed a temporary travel ban on Makhlouf, whose assets were also seized by the government last month. The moves are the latest in the ongoing feud between Makhlouf and al-Assad, in which Makhlouf has published several videos criticizing the Syrian government.

230 killed in Iran during November protests: Iranian lawmaker
The Associated Press/Monday 01 June 2020
An Iranian lawmaker said Monday that 230 people were killed in November’s anti-government protests in Iran, the official news agency reported. This is the first time a prominent Iranian lawmaker has given a death toll figure for November’s protests. The unrest was the most widespread and violent Iran had seen since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. IRNA quoted lawmaker Mojtaba Zolnouri, the head of the influential parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy as saying, “The incidents saw 230 killed.”Zolnouri said about one fifth of those killed were members of the security forces. He said about one quarter of those killed were passersby not involved in the protests, some of whom were shot in the head or chest from close distances. He said 22 percent of those killed in the unrest had criminal records. Protesters attacked 92 security, police and public buildings in the course of the unrest, he added. Amnesty International has said more than 300 people were killed over the four days of unrest in cities and towns across Iran in November, which were sparked by a sharp rise in subsidized gasoline prices. During the violence and in the days that followed, Iranian authorities blocked access to the internet. Tehran has yet to release any official statistics about the scale of the unrest, though two weeks ago the government acknowledged that the security forces shot and killed protesters.

Iran says it will continue fuel shipments to Venezuela despite US criticism
Reuters, Dubai/Monday 01 June 2020
Iran will continue fuel shipments to Venezuela if Caracas requests more supplies, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday, despite Washington’s criticism of the trade between the two nations, which are both under US sanctions.
“Iran practices its free trade rights with Venezuela and we are ready to send more ships if Caracas demands more supplies from Iran,” Abbas Mousavi told a weekly news conference broadcast live on state TV. Defying US threats, Iran has sent a flotilla of five tankers of fuel to the South American oil-producing nation, which is suffering from a gasoline shortage. Seeking to deter further shipments, Washington is monitoring the supply. It has warned governments, seaports, shippers and insurers that they could face measures if they aid the tankers. According to Refinitiv Eikon on Sunday, two Iranian tankers that delivered fuel to Venezuela as part of the flotilla have begun to sail back, as the government in Caracas prepares stations to begin charging for the gasoline. The fifth and final tanker in the flotilla, the Clavel, entered Venezuelan waters late on Sunday and was navigating near the country’s Tortuga Island on Monday heading to state-run oil company PDVSA’s El Palito refinery, the data showed. Tensions have spiked between longtime foes Tehran and Washington since 2018, when President Donald Trump exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers and re-imposed sanctions.

Senior Iran army commander criticizes IRGC
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Monday 01 June 2020
A senior commander of the Iranian army implicitly criticized the political and economic activities of the country’s parallel military force – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – in a now-deleted interview with the official IRNA news agency. IRNA published and later deleted an interview with the deputy coordinator of the Iranian army Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari on Sunday. IRNA did not offer an explanation for why it deleted the interview. Parts of the interview have been shared on social media. “It is not in the interest of the armed forces to get involved in the economy,” said Sayyari in the interview. This remark can be considered as criticism directed at the IRGC given that the military force controls large parts of the Iranian economy. The army does not get involved in politics and the economy, he said, stating: “Does this mean we do not understand politics? No, we understand politics well, we analyze well, but we do not get into politics. Politicization is harmful for the armed forces.” Sayyari also criticized Iran’s state media for displaying favoritism toward the IRGC and lessening the army’s role in the eight-year-long war with Iraq (1980-1988). Sayyari joined the army in 1974, before the Islamic Revolution, and fought in the war against Iraq. He headed the Iranian army’s navy force for over a decade before being appointed as the deputy coordinator of the army in 2017 by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Amongst supporters of the Islamic Republic, the army is generally considered to be responsible for “defending the country” while the IRGC’s duty is to “defend the system.” The IRGC is more powerful, better equipped and has a larger budget than the army. The IRGC is also heavily present in the economic sector, dictates foreign policy, has a strong propaganda arm, and controls the Basij militia and security forces that the regime deploys to suppress protests during times of unrest. Some analysts liken the rivalry between the army and the IRGC to the rivalry between the different political factions of the Islamic Republic – namely the conservatives and the reformists – arguing that both military forces ultimately serve the regime and the Supreme Leader. Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, commander in chief of Iran’s army, had previously defended the IRGC’s presence in the country’s economic sector.

UAE Minister says Israeli annexation talk “must stop”
DEBKAfile/June 01/2020
Any unilateral Israeli move towards annexing parts of the occupied West Bank would be a “serious setback” for Middle East peace, the Emirati minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted on Monday, June 1. It would also “undermine Palestinian self-determination and constitute a rejection of the international and Arab consensus on stability and peace,” he said. “The talk of annexing Palestinian lands must stop.”DEBKAfile: The Arab Gulf rulers have never directly rejected President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, although it was interpreted by PM Binyamin Netanyahu as a green light for extending Israel sovereignty to parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. On Monday, the prime minister declared his resolve to launch discussions on this measure in the cabinet and Knesset after July 1, as stipulated in his unity government deal with Benny Gantz. The United Arab Emirates minister’s denunciation of this step is seen as addressed to the Trump administration even more than Jerusalem and is expected to galvanize more leading Arab officials to add their voices.

Saudi Arabia, Israel negotiating Temple Mount control - report
Jerusalem Post/June 01/2020
While Jordan had strongly objected to any change in the makeup of the Waqf, in recent months their stance changed after Turkey became involved in east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount
Saudi Arabia and Israel are conducting negotiations to allow Saudi representatives to join the Jerusalem Waqf Islamic religious trust that controls the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa, according to a report Monday by Israel Hayom.
"These are sensitive and secret discussions conducted with ambiguity and low intensity with a small team of diplomats and senior security officials from Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia as park of negotiations to progress the Deal of the Century," said senior Saudi diplomats to Israel Hayom.
While Jordan had strongly objected to any change in the makeup of the Waqf, in recent months their stance changed after Turkey became involved in east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. After the clashes surrounding the Gate of Mercy complex and the attempt to install metal detectors at the Temple Mount, Jordan appointed Palestinian representatives to the Waqf. The Palestinian representatives began to allow Turkish organizations to operate on the Temple Mount by establishing foundations to which the Turkish government provides tens of millions of dollars, according to Israel Hayom.
As Turkish influence increased, the Jordanians told Israel and the US that the kingdom was ready to soften its stance concerning allowing Saudi representatives in the Waqf. The addition of Saudi representatives would occur under specific circumstances that won't impact the unique position held by the Jordanian kingdom on the Temple Mount and if Saudi Arabia provides millions of dollars as a contribution to Islamic foundations that operate in east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount and place diplomatic and political pressure to remove the Turkish organizations from the area.
An Arab diplomat told Israel Hayom that if the Jordanians were to allow Turkey to operate on the Temple Mount without interfering, Jordan "would remain only 'on paper' in their definition in the special position of managing the holy places of Islam. They need money and the influence of Saudi Arabia in order to stop [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan."
The diplomat added that Israel and the US have an interest in Saudi support in order to progress the Deal of the Century and the annexation process. "Moreover, Saudi Arabia brings with it the support of the UAE and Bahrain," said the diplomat to Israel Hayom.
The diplomat stressed that it was still too early to say whether the Saudi representatives would actually be added to the Waqf. "The intention is that the integration of the Saudi delegates will be in the constellation of observers only and not binding, in order not to impact the special position of Jordan on the holy area," said the diplomat to Israel Hayom.
The Temple Mount reopened on Sunday after closing in March due to the coronavirus outbreak. Eight Muslims were detained on the Temple Mount Sunday morning after they began shouting nationalistic slogans at a group of Jews visiting the site and tried to disrupt their visit, the police said.
Around 700 Muslim worshipers were present for dawn prayers on Sunday. In total, 206 Jews went up to the Temple Mount on Sunday morning, 147 in the morning visiting hours, and 59 in the afternoon.
According to Palestinian reports, a number of Palestinians from east Jerusalem were banned from entering the Temple Mount complex for a week on Sunday.
Reports of warming ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel have become more frequent in the past year.
In an interview with Globes in June of last year, a high-ranking Saudi diplomat stated "The blood conflict had lasted too long. Us Saudis and all Gulf States plus Egypt and Jordan realize that the age of going to war with Israel is over.”
Pointing to “the advantages of normalizing relations,” he argued that “the whole Arab world could benefit from it,” Globes reported. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, stated in February that "upgrading relations with Israel will occur only when a peace agreement is signed and is in accordance with Palestinian conditions." When the Trump administration's Deal of the Century peace plan was released, Saudi Arabia was among the countries that expressed support for the plan. "The Kingdom reiterates its support for all efforts aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian cause," said the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The kingdom appreciates the efforts of President Trump's administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides, and encourages the start of direct peace negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, under the auspices of the United States," the statement reads. It also called to resolve any disagreements with aspects of the plan through negotiations, "to move forward the peace process to reach an agreement that achieves legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that "our position towards the Palestinian issue has not changed, all the Arabs, and we are with you. The establishment of a just and comprehensive peace must be worked for. Peace is a strategic choice, which will bring a permanent solution that will fulfill the rights of the Palestinian people," according to Channel 13. In an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel in May, Jordan's King Abdullah II stated, "In the Arab League, the one-state solution is still completely rejected. When the one-state plan was published six or seven months ago, his highness, the King of Saudi Arabia, said, 'no, we are with the Palestinians.'"
Omri Nahmias, Jeremy Sharon, Reuters and Gideon Kouts/Maariv contributed to this report.

Hundreds attend funeral of unarmed Palestinian killed by Israeli police
Reuters, Jerusalem/Monday 01 June 2020
Hundreds of people attended the funeral on Sunday of an unarmed Palestinian who was fatally shot by Israeli police. A police spokesman had said officers killed a Palestinian they suspected was carrying a weapon in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday, but according to Israeli media, the man was later found to have been unarmed. Palestinian officials said the 32-year-old man, Iyad Khayri, suffered mental health issues and decried his killing. In comments at Israel’s Sunday cabinet meeting, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said: “We are really sorry about the incident in which Iyad Khayri was shot to death and we share in the family’s sorrow - but I am certain this matter will be investigated swiftly and conclusions will be drawn.”He said Israel will make “every effort” to limit casualties while continuing to “maintain the proper level of security.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not mention the incident in his remarks.
Tension has risen in recent weeks with Israel saying it hopes to move ahead with a plan to extend sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank - land the Palestinians seek for a state. The Palestinians, Arab states, the United Nations and European states have warned against the move and the Palestinians have declared an end to security cooperation with Israel and its ally, the United States, in protest.

Haftar's forces retake key town from Libya rivals: spokesman
The New Arab & agencies/June 01/2020
Forces affiliated with rogue Libyan General Khalifa Haftar on Sunday retook a key town from fighters allied with the UN-supported government, a spokesman said, as growing foreign intervention in the conflict appeared to move the Libyan war into a new phase. Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country is now split between a government in the east allied with the former army commander Haftar, and one in Tripoli in the west supported by the United Nations. Ahmed al-Mosmari, a spokesman for Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), said they recaptured the town of al-Asabaa, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of the capital, after airstrikes on the militias in the area. The eastern-based forces have been trying to take the capital from the weak but UN-supported government since last spring. Increasing Turkish support for the Tripoli government has turned the conflict after months of stalemate, leading to a series of defeats for Haftar in recent weeks. Al-Asabaa is located on a key road that links LNA forces to the town of Tarhuna, their main western stronghold and supply line southeast of the capital. The spokesman said their troops were chasing Tripoli-allied forces fleeing to their stronghold in the nearby town of Gharyan. A statement by Mohamed Gnono, a spokesman for the Tripoli-allied forces, said they were striking LNA forces on the town's borders. Gnono did not provide details. But two Tripoli officials said they lost the town after heavy shelling and airstrikes by Haftar's UAE-backed forces. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief reporters.The chaos in Libya has worsened in recent months as foreign backers increasingly intervene, despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year. Hifter is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia, while the Tripoli-allied militias are aided by Turkey, Qatar and Italy. The LNA lost a key airbase and several western town including al-Asabaa late last month. Despite his losses and international pleas for a ceasefire, Haftar vowed to continue his offensive and escalated airstrikes against rival forces. Last month, the US military accused Russia of deploying 14 aircrafts to Libya to help Haftar's forces, saying the move was part of Moscow's longer term goal to establish a foothold in the region that could threaten NATO allies. Russia has denied links to the aircraft, calling the claim "stupidity".

Turkey’s Libya manoeuvres begin to worry Italy
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2020
TUNIS –Turkey’s push to extend influence in western Libya is putting Italy’s interests at risk as Rome tries to regain control of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
A phone call between Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Sarraj earlier in May reflected Italy’s concerns about Turkey’s ambitions in Libya, which now seem to extend beyond its initial goal of creating a military balance that would bring the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) back to the negotiating table. During the call, the Italian PM expressed his country’s concern about the flow of foreign weapons into Libya, which he said was further fuelling the conflict and posing a security threat to neighbouring and European countries. Conte stressed the need for the GNA to return to the negotiating table in accordance with the UN Security Council decisions and the conclusions of the Berlin Conference. He said the future of Libya should be for Libyans to decide, without interference from foreign players. He also called for the prompt appointment of a new UN envoy in Libya to replace Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya Stephanie Williams and stressed the need for the resumption of Libyan oil production, which represents “a wealth for all Libyans and their main source of income.” In recent years, Turkey has taken advantage of Italian-French competition in Libya to build up their own influence. Ankara sees Libya as being of strategic importance given its security importance and energy ties with southern Europe. Italy and France are taken aback by Turkey’s manoeuvres at the same time Russia looks to take control of oil resources in eastern Libya. Turkey’s initial push in Libya is thought to have been green-lighted by Western powers like the US, Britain and Italy, who wanted to see a military balance between the GNA and LNA, which has received French backing. The LNA’s advance threatened Italy’s interests in Libya, especially after its commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, accused Rome of siding with the Islamists in the city of Misrata. However, Rome is now concerned that Libya’s conflict is taking the same form as Syria’s and that Turkey and Russia could be left to reap the spoils.
Libya is divided between forces loyal to the Islamist-backed GNA and fighters with the LNA, led by Haftar. Turkey has dramatically increased its involvement in the conflict this year, sending intelligence personnel, delivering air drones and dispatching hundreds of mercenaries from Syria, tipping the balance in favour of the GNA’s forces, which on May 18 recaptured the strategically located al-Watiya airbase. Rome is wary of Turkey’s expanded military and intelligence influence in Libya as it could allow Ankara to play the same migration blackmail game it has played against its Greek neighbours before. for now, it is in Ankara’s interest to amplify fears about Russian presence on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. On May 29, Moscow shot back by warning that outside intervention has “changed the balance of power” in Libya, in a clear reference to Turkey.
Calling for the conflict to be resolved through “diplomatic means,” Russia’s foreign ministry said the situation in Libya was continuing to deteriorate and that a ceasefire there was in tatters, the RIA news agency reported. Earlier last week, the US military accused Russia of deploying “fourth generation” fighter planes to Libya to support the LNA in its offensive on the capital Tripoli. Russia flew MiG 29 and SU-24 fighter planes to a Libyan airbase escorted by other Russian fighter jets, the US military said May 27. “Russian military aircraft are likely to provide close air support and offensive fire,” United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a statement posted on its website and on Twitter. Some of Washington’s analysts share the Pentagon’s concern about a wider Russian role. “Not only could Russian air power change the military balance in Libya itself, but this could be the first step in a gradual escalation to what eventually becomes a permanent Russian military deployment in the country,” Michael Kofman, director of the Russia studies programme at the Center for Naval Analysis told the New York Times. Other experts, however, argue that while Russia wants to influence the political process in Libya, it has little interest in directly taking part in a military showdown. Although the Libyan civil war seems to be a war between rival factions over control of the country’s vast resources, there has been an international dimension to the conflict ever since NATO intervened to help topple the rule of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi in 2011. Alongside Turkey and Egypt, Gulf and European countries have played a role to varying degrees in Libya’s conflict since 2014.

Tehran exerts pressure to undermine US, Iraq talks
The Arab Weekly/June 01/2020
The new speaker of Iran’s parliament said he “considers negotiations with the US, which is the the axis of global arrogance, or appeasement of it, to be futile and harmful.”LONDON--Iran’s new Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC’s) Air Force, slammed May 31 any negotiations between Baghdad and Washington as “futile.”Ghalibaf, who was elected Speaker May 28 by a chamber dominated by ultra-conservatives, said the newly formed parliament “considers negotiations with the US, which the the axis of global arrogance, or appeasement of it, to be futile and harmful.”Ghalibaf also vowed revenge for a US drone attack near Baghdad airport in January that killed Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, a former commander of the Quds Force, an elite unit in the IRGC.
“Our strategy in confronting the terrorist America is to finish the revenge for martyr Soleimani’s blood,” he told lawmakers, pledging “the total expulsion of America’s terrorist army from the region.”Ghalibaf’s comments come following media reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had selected a team of negotiators to hold strategic talks with the US. Shia blocs in the Iraqi parliament voted last January on a resolution to expel foreign forces from Iraq, amid a boycott of Sunni and Kurdish parliamentary blocs. Iran’s allies in Iraq hoped to use the resolution as a launchpad to drive American forces out of Iraq, but Sunni and Kurdish opposition blocs have so far held them back. Shia political forces also lobbied to keep former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in his post as long as possible, despite his resignation following popular protests that erupted at the beginning of last October, as a way to pressure US forces out. Ghalibaf’s recent remarks were viewed as part of a renewed pressure campaign at Iraq’s government to downgrade ties with Washington.  The US-Iraq talks will reportedly be held by negotiating teams divided into political, military and economic groups.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the talks are part of efforts to balance the two opposing powers and keep Iraq from becoming a 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 solid progress in reaching out to demonstrators opposed to Iranian influence in the country. The Wall Street Journal continued: “Despite the decline in popular protests that forced his predecessor to resign, the public anger is greater than ever.”
Through the talks that were initially agreed to in late 2019 by former Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi, the US and Iraq are hoping to forge a stronger relationship. But any future ties will depend on how Baghdad deals with Iran. Decades-old tensions between Tehran and Washington have soared in the past year, with the countries twice approaching the brink of direct confrontation.Tensions have been rising since 2018, when US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from a landmark nuclear accord and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran’s economy. That was followed by the US drone strike near Baghdad airport in January that killed Soleimani, a highly popular military leader in the Islamic Republic. Days later, Iran fired a barrage of missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq in retaliation, but Trump opted against taking any military action in response.

George Floyd: Minnesota man died of asphyxia, examination finds
The National/June 01/2020
Floyd's brother visited the city on Monday and called for calm
A post-mortem examination commissioned for George Floyd’s family found that he died of asphyxiation caused by neck and back compression when three Minneapolis police officers kneeled on him for several minutes, the family’s lawyers said on Monday. The examination found the compression cut off blood to the African-American’s brain and weight on his back made it hard to breathe.
The results of the Floyd family’s post-mortem examination differs from those of the official process, as described in a criminal complaint against the officer.
The official results included the effects of being restrained, along with underlying health issues and possible intoxicants in Floyd’s system.
But it found nothing “to support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation".
The doctor who performed the examination for the family also examined the body of Eric Garner, an African-American man who died after being put in a choke-hold by a New York City police officer in 2014.
Floyd, who was in handcuffs at the time of the arrest, died after the white officer ignored bystander's shouts to get off him and the victim’s cries that he could not breathe. His death, captured on video, sparked days of protests in Minneapolis that have spread to cities all over the US and later the world.
US cities braced on Monday for more fury on the streets as a hearing was postponed for Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who was charged with Floyd's killing.
Floyd's brother Terrence visited Minneapolis on Monday and called for calm.
“Do this peacefully, please,” Mr Floyd urged the crowd while wearing a coronavirus mask with George’s image on it.
Chants of “What’s his name?” “George Floyd” filled the air on Monday as a large crowd gathered at the spot in Minneapolis where he took his last breaths.
Earlier, his brother said violent protests were “overshadowing” his brother’s memory because he “was about peace” and the unrest was a “destructive unity”.
US President Donald Trump on Monday urged state governors to crack down on protests over racial inequality that have engulfed the nation's cities since Floyd’s death. Tom Bernard, cleans the front of his damaged shop on June 1, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after protests for George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while while being arrested and pinned to the ground by the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota. AFP
Residents and business owners in cities from New York to Santa Monica, California, spent Monday sweeping up broken glass and taking stock of damage after protests over police force against African-Americans turned violent again overnight. "You have to dominate," Mr Trump told the governors in a private call obtained by media including Reuters.
"If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time. They’re going to run over you. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks."
Dozens of cities across the US remain under curfews at a level not seen since riots after the 1968 assassination of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
The National Guard was posted in 23 states and Washington.
Police in the capital arrested 88 people on Sunday night during violence and looting from the protests. Police Department Chief Peter Newsham said on Monday that half of those arrested were charged with felony rioting and the rest with offences including breaches of the 11pm curfew. “We are not done making arrests,” Mr Newsham said. He said the downtown area where much of the damage occurred was full of government and private security cameras that would provide evidence for more arrests. He encouraged the residents of Washington and those protesters opposed to violent tactics to help police identify vandals and looters.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a 7pm curfew for Monday and Tuesday nights. On Sunday, Ms Bowser dismissed the idea of a curfew but then changed course early Sunday evening.
She said on Monday that the decision was made based on real-time intelligence and was designed to give police “additional tools” to keep the peace.
Ms Bowser's decision drew criticism from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who said the mayor acted slowly and should have started the curfew much earlier. Ms Bowser said she supported the cause of the peaceful protesters enraged over a long string of black American deaths at police hands.
“We certainly empathise with the righteous cause that people are here protesting," she said. "Everyone should be outraged by the murder of George Floyd.
"However, smashed windows and looting are becoming a bigger story than the broken systems that got us here.”

Italy Records Fewest New Virus Cases since February
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/June 01/2020
Italy posted a series of encouraging figures in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday, including the smallest daily number of new cases since February 26, the Civil Protection Agency said in a statement. The official tally of new cases increased by 178 in 24 hours, bringing the total to 233,197. The daily number of new cases was 516 Friday, 416 Saturday and 355 Sunday. The number of deaths in the past 24 hours was also low compared to the recent average with 60 victims recorded throughout Italy for a total of 33,475 deaths, while the number of people in intensive care, 424, continues to fall.  Lombardy in the north remains the most affected region, with 16,131 deaths and 89,018 cases, but it recorded only 50 new cases on Monday from a population of around 10 million. Monday's figures make encouraging reading as they come two days before the planned reopening on Wednesday of internal boundaries as well as borders with European Union countries and the Schengen area.  Italy has been easing its lockdown gradually since the beginning of May, eager to get the economy back up off its knees.

Top Doctor Sparks Row with Claim Virus 'No Longer Exists' in Italy
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/June 01/2020
Top scientists, health officials and the WHO on Monday rushed to counter claims made by a leading Italian doctor who said the new coronavirus "no longer exists" in the country. The row came as Italy prepared the next stage of its gradual easing of a national lockdown imposed three months ago to fight the spread of the deadly virus. "In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy," said Alberto Zangrillo, head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. "The swabs performed over the past 10 days have showed a viral load that is absolutely infinitesimal in quantitative terms compared to those carried out a month or two months ago," he said in an interview on RAI television on Sunday. "Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country," Zangrillo added. Milan is the capital of the northern region of Lombardy, which took the brunt of the pandemic in Italy. Several specialists, in Italy and abroad, were quick to object to Zangrillo's remarks. Dr. Oscar MacLean, of the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said Zangrillo's claims were "not supported by anything in the scientific literature, and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds".
Martin Hibberd, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "In a situation where the numbers of severe cases are falling, there may be time to start observing people with less severe symptoms -- giving the impression that the virus is changing."
- 'Still a killer virus': WHO -
And the World Health Organization also stressed that the new coronavirus had not suddenly become less pathogenic. "We need to be careful: this is still a killer virus," WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told journalists.
"We need to be exceptionally careful not to create a sense that, all of a sudden, the virus, by its own volition, has now decided to be less pathogenic," said Ryan, who has a background in epidemiology. "It is not the case at all."The head of Italy's National Health Council, Franco Locatelli, said he was "baffled" by Zangrillo's comments. "It's enough to look at the number of new positive cases confirmed every day to see the persistent circulation in Italy of the new coronavirus," he said. The director of the prestigious Spallazani infectious diseases institute in Rome, Giuseppe Ippolito, also said there was no scientific proof the virus had mutated or changed in potency. The government has insisted this is one of the most dangerous phases of a pandemic that has claimed over 33,000 lives in the country. It has urged people to abide by social distancing rules and wear masks to prevent the virus from spreading once again. A contact-tracing app to help the country avoid a virus relapse was being launched Monday in four of the country's 20 regions, with others soon to follow. As part of the next stage of reopening the country, from Wednesday, foreign tourists will be able to enter Italy again and people will be able to move between regions.

Biden Meets Black Leaders over Death of George Floyd
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/June 01/2020
Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden denounced Donald Trump's presidency and the gnawing problems of racism and inequality in the United States, during a meeting with black religious and political leaders in the wake of unarmed African American George Floyd's death at the hands of police. "The band aid has been ripped off this pandemic and this president," Biden said, referring to the coronavirus, which has claimed disproportionately more lives among blacks and Hispanics, and his billionaire Republican rival's attitude toward minorities. "Nobody can pretend any longer what this is all about," said Biden, who sought to present himself as a unifier at the meeting hosted by a church in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. "Hate just hides. Doesn't go away. And when you have somebody in power who breathes oxygen into the hate under the rocks, it comes out from under the rocks," he said. "It matters what the president says," Biden added. "It encourages people to bring out the vitriol."The 77-year-old Biden, who served as president Barack Obama's vice president, recalled Trump's comments after clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 between white supremacists and anti-racist counterprotesters.
A white supremacist had rammed his vehicle into a crowd of demonstrators, killing a young woman. But the president said there were "very fine people on both sides."Biden promised the black leaders at the meeting that, if elected in November, he would create a police oversight commission in his first hundred days in office. Wearing a mas and taking notes after a prayer was said, Biden mostly listened in silence for about an hour as audience members spoke, some about the death in Minneapolis last week of George Floyd, who lost consciousness as a police officer pinned him down with a knee on his neck.
Several participants urged Biden to choose a black running mate, who would become the nation's first African American vice president, if he won. "I promise you there are multiple African American candidates who are being considered," he said. It was the first time Biden had participated in person in such a public gathering since mid-March, when the coronavirus pandemic abruptly paralyzed his campaign.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 01-02/2020
Troublemaker vs. Superpower: Iran’s absurd claim of power equivalence with US
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Al Arabiya/June 01/2020
As America and its allies spend trillions to stimulate their economies and mitigate consequences of the coronavirus lockdown, Iran and its satellite states have either been begging international organizations for loans or have been simply defaulting on their debt and watching their economies sink.
Despite the enormous economic disparity between Washington and Iran, Tehran and its leading lieutenant in Lebanon insist that they have power parity with United States, a clearly delusional belief.
Since coronavirus started spreading around the world in January, US Congress has spent $3 trillion in stimulus. The Federal Reserve threw in another $2 trillion in loan-buying and easy credit, bringing America’s total stimulus to a whopping $5 trillion. Meanwhile Japan injected $2.2 trillion into its economy, and the EU approved $824 billion in stimulus.
In contrast, Iran - which sees itself as one of the world’s big powers - begged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of $5 billion. Since the US withdrew from the nuclear deal in October 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, Iran’s economy has been in free fall, with its currency depreciating. The US dollar now sells for 165,000 rial, while Tehran’s official rate is 42,000. Before the 1979 revolution, a US dollar was worth 70 rials only.America effortlessly blocked the IMF’s loan to Tehran, but only after Iran’s satellite state, Lebanon, followed in Iranian footsteps and asked the IMF for assistance. With enormous debt and depleted Foreign Currency (FX) Reserves, Lebanon defaulted on its payment of $1.2 billion payment in loans.
Scared of the impending economic collapse, Lebanese depositors queued in front of banks, desperately seeking withdrawals. But to preserve whatever was left of its reserves, Beirut imposed capital controls, with every depositor limited to withdrawing $300 a month.
So while Iranians suffer of inflation and poverty and the Lebanese jump through hoops to recover what is left of their vanished deposits, a household of four in America — two adults and two underage dependents — received, in the mail, a check of governmental assistance for $3,600.
Despite the contrast of economic prosperity in America, Japan and the EU, with financial despair in Iran and its satellite states of Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, those associated with the Iranian regime have argued there is a power equivalence between the two groups.
Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Lebanese Hezbollah, argued during a televised address about the power parity between America and its allies, on one hand, and Iran and its puppet regimes, on the other.
Nasrallah did not substantiate his claim, but telling from Iranian propaganda, one can venture a few guesses over why Iran and its protégés think that America and Iran are power equals.
Iran and Nasrallah continuously move the goal posts. They spend their time promising to destroy Israel, then when war comes, like in 2006, Hezbollah claims “divine victory” because the militia survived the war, as if Hezbollah never notices that survival is one thing, while destroying Israel is quite another.
Iran and Nasrallah keep moving goal posts so much that they end up entangled in their own web of falsehoods. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Iran, Tehran’s propaganda has disseminated two conflicting messages. One: US sanctions do not affect a powerful and self-sufficient country like Iran. Two: America’s evil sanctions are the cause of widespread suffering in Iran.
Now Tehran wants the world to believe that sending five Iranian oil tankers to Venezuela is a victory that has rubbed America’s nose in the dirt. But if anything, America enjoyed watching how its sanctions have forced the country with the biggest oil reserves on earth, Venezuela, to import oil, due to Caracas’s impaired refining capabilities. An impoverished Venezuela that cannot maintain its refineries could not have possibly paid Iran anything for the oil shipments to help shore up Tehran’s crippled economy.
With its asymmetric military capabilities, Iran gave America a bloody nose in Iraq, and likewise, Hezbollah inflicted some harm on Israel in 2006. Yet there is a vast difference between being a troublemaker, like Iran and its militias, and being a superpower, like America and its allies.
Iran and Hezbollah can draw all the posters they want that show them occupying Jerusalem and praying at its holy Islamic site, the Dome of the Rock. The fact of the matter remains: since Hezbollah — with enormous Lebanese and Arab support — scored a victory by forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000, the pro-Iran militia has not won an inch back from Israel, and is unlikely to win anything in the future.

White House Iran Policy Is Hitting Tehran's Terror Allies Hard. Now Let Us Try for Harder.
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/June 01/2020
Since President Trump was elected, and the US administration took a tougher stance towards the mullahs, Iran's oil exports dropped to approximately 200,000 barrels per day -- a number that represents a decline of more than 90%.
Now it is incumbent on other governments -- specifically the European Union -- to join the US in pursuing its (almost) "maximum pressure" policy against the ruling mullahs.
The policy may not be really "maximum" -- everyone has carefully been tip-toeing around the words "regime change" -- which, bluntly, would be a boon to (almost) everyone -- but at least until then, sanctions are helping more than nothing, and definitely more than US pallets of cash.
The Trump administration's (almost) "maximum pressure" policy against the Iranian regime is apparently forcing Tehran to rein in some of its forces in the region as well as cut funding to its allies. Pictured: President Donald Trump addresses the media from the White House on January 8, 2020, following Iranian missile attacks that targeted American soldiers in Iraq the night before.
Thanks to the re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran by the Trump administration, the Iranian regime seems to have suffered a significant loss of revenue.
The Trump administration's (almost) "maximum pressure" policy against the Iranian regime is apparently forcing Tehran to rein in some of its forces in the region as well as cut funding to its allies.
According to the latest report, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has withdrawn some of its forces from Syria, and reduced its financial assistance to Syria's regime.
The US special envoy for Syria policy and the fight against the Islamic State, James Jeffrey, recently pointed out:
"We have seen the Iranians pulling in some of their outlying activities and such in Syria because of, frankly, financial problems... the Trump administration's sanctions policies against Iran [are] having a real effect in Syria."
He added, "We do see some withdrawal of Iranian-commanded forces. Some of that is tactical because they are not fighting right now, but it also is a lack of money".
Iran's oil revenues and exports have been steadily declining since the US President Donald J. Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- also known as the Iran nuclear deal, and incidentally, never signed by Iran -- and adopted a policy of (almost) "maximum pressure."
During the Obama-Biden administration, by comparison, when the White House was pursuing appeasement policies towards Iran, the regime increased it oil exports to a record high: more than 2.5 million barrels per day. Since Trump was elected, and the US administration took a tougher stance towards the mullahs, Iran's oil exports dropped to approximately 200,000 barrels per day -- a number that represents a decline of more than 90%. Iran has the world's second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest proven crude oil reserves; the sale of these resources account for more than 80% percent of its export revenues.
Consequently, he flow of funds to the Iranian regime has been cut off, thereby thwarting the Iranian leaders' efforts to fund and sponsor both Bashar Assad's regime in Syria and various terror groups. Even a Syrian-state controlled newspaper admitted that Tehran had scaled back its financial assistance to Damascus. Al-Watan also reported that Iran had halted its credit line to the Syrian government and that, as a result, the Iranian leaders have been having difficulty shipping oil to Syria, thereby creating a fuel shortage there.
For years, many Iranians have been frustrated with the regime's regional policy as well as its hemorrhaging billions of dollars and national resources on militias and terror groups in the region. In recent years, chants such as "Leave Syria alone, think about us instead", "Death to Hezbollah", "Never mind Palestine, think about us", and "Forget about Gaza and Lebanon; I'll sacrifice my life for Iran" became popular during protests.
Iran's Lebanese proxy, the terror group Hezbollah, also seems to be feeling the pressure of the Trump administration's tougher stance towards the mullahs. A senior Hezbollah official who spoke on the condition of anonymity reportedly told the Washington Post that the US sanctions against Iran has forced the group to cut expenses. "There is no doubt these sanctions have had a negative impact," he pointed out, and added, "But ultimately, sanctions are a component of war, and we are going to confront them in this context."
In addition, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has urged his group's fundraising arm "to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle."
Even Iran's leaders are admitting that the Trump Administration's (almost)
"maximum pressure" policy has hit Tehran quite hard. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, for instance, surprisingly admitted that his government is encountering the worst economic crisis since 1979. Iran's national currency, the rial, has dropped to historic lows -- one US dollar, which could buy you approximately 35,000 rials in November of 2017, now will buy you nearly 170,000 rials.
Cash-strapped Iran also appears to be having difficulty paying the salaries some of the militants. As a member of an Iranian-backed militia in Syria told the New York Times, "The golden days are gone and will never return. Iran," he added "doesn't have enough money to give us."
Now it is incumbent on other governments -- specifically the European Union -- to join the US in pursuing its (almost) "maximum pressure" policy against the ruling mullahs.
The policy may not be really "maximum" -- everyone has carefully been tip-toeing around the words "regime change" -- which, bluntly, would be a boon to (almost) everyone -- but at least until then, sanctions are helping more than nothing, and definitely more than US pallets of cash.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
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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

China: What We Must Do, What We Must Not Do
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/June 01/2020
The truth is that the United States is defending more than just its position in the international system. We are defending the international system itself, the system of treaties, conventions, rules, and norms.
Unfortunately, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, does not believe in that system. He is trying to impose China's imperial‑era notions of the world.
In short, Chinese rulers believed that they had the mandate of heaven over tianxia, meaning "all under heaven." Recently, his pronouncements have become unmistakable.
In the last few months, Xi Jinping has seen an historic opportunity because the United States has been stricken by the disease that China itself has pushed out... What must we do? First, let us talk about what we must not do. We must not save Chinese communism again. In the past, American presidents, when China has been stressed, had ridden to the rescue of the Chinese state.
On May 13 of last year, Beijing declared a "people's war" on the United States. This means the contest with China is existential. There is going to be one survivor. It is either going to be the Peoples' Republic of China or the United States of America, but not both.
What should we do? In my call for action, there are eight items. First, we need to cut off trade with China. Now, I know a lot of people think we should not do this, or this would be unfortunate. Yes, this is unfortunate, but the point is that China's communism cannot be reformed, so the only way we can protect American society and Americans is to reduce our exposure to China and our great exposure, of course, is trade... we should not be enriching a hostile state with the proceeds of commerce with the United States.
China's Communist Party does not have sovereign immunity.... We have the Global Magnitsky Act.
We need to "rip and replace" all the equipment in our telecom backbone that has been supplied by Huawei Technologies... China has been using that company's equipment to spy on others. We should have no Huawei equipment in our backbone
Also, we should be turfing out even more Chinese journalists. Those "journalists"... work for China's intelligence services.
Unfortunately, China does not believe in comparative advantage, it does not believe in being a responsible member of the international community. Unfortunately, the only thing we can do is what many people think is unthinkable, and that is to cut our ties with China.... We cut our ties until... the Communist Party no longer rules [and] the Chinese people govern themselves.... I believe the Chinese people eventually will get this right.
The truth is that the United States is defending more than just its position in the international system. We are defending the international system itself, the system of treaties, conventions, rules, and norms. Unfortunately, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, does not believe in that system. He is trying to impose China's imperial‑era notions of the world. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
China has attacked America with coronavirus. At this moment, more than 100,000 Americans have been killed. We brace ourselves for the deaths to come.
Today, I'll do two things. First, I'll talk about the nature of that attack. The second thing, what we must do to protect ourselves.
First of all, China is not, as many people will tell you, just a competitor. It is an enemy. China is trying to overthrow the international system, and in that process, it is trying to make you subject to modern-day Chinese emperors.
I know this sounds as if it cannot be true, but we must listen to what Chinese leaders say. When we do that, we realize that to defend the American republic and defend our way of life, we are going to have to decouple from China.
On May 6, President Donald J. Trump said that China's attack was worse than Pearl Harbor, worse than the World Trade Center. "There's never been an attack like this," he said, and he is right.
Most critically, Chinese leaders publicly admitted that the novel coronavirus, the pathogen causing COVID-19, could be transmitted from one human to another on January 20.
Yet doctors in Wuhan, the epicenter, were noticing the contagiousness of this virus no later than the second week in December. Beijing knew a few days after that. If Chinese leaders had said nothing during that five‑week period, that would have been grossly irresponsible.
What they tried to do, however, was deceive the world into believing that this was not transmissible human-to-human. As a result of that campaign, the World Health Organization (WHO) propagated China's false narrative, especially with that infamous January 14 tweet:
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China."
At the same time, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2012, pressured countries not to impose travel restrictions or quarantines on arrivals from China. Again, WHO helped China, this time with its January 10 statement opposing these restrictions.
What happened was arrivals from China -- when Chinese officials knew this virus was human-to human-transmissible -- turned what should have been an epidemic contained to China into a global pandemic.
I don't know what Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, was thinking, but if after having seen what the coronavirus did to cripple China, he decided to cripple other societies to get even, he would have done exactly what in fact he did do.
That means there is only one inescapable conclusion. This conclusion is that China maliciously spread this virus around the world, sickening people, killing others.
This is the first time in history that one nation has attacked all the others.
That is not all. After admitting the human-to-human contagiousness of this disease, Beijing then downplayed it.
On January 21, the day after formally admitting the disease's human-to-human transmissibility, Beijing got its propaganda machine in full gear to tell the world that this was less dangerous than SARS.
SARS is the 2002‑2003 epidemic that according to the World Health Organization infected 8,096 people across the world, killing 744. By then, on January 21, Chinese officials knew it was much worse than SARS.
According to Der Spiegel, Germany's intelligence agency, the BND, believes that on January 21 ‑‑ this is the day after China formally admitted human‑to‑human transmissibility of the disease ‑‑ Xi Jinping spoke to Dr. Tedros, the director-general of WHO, and tried to get the organization to hold back information on human‑to‑human transmissibility, as well as to delay declaring a pandemic.
Now, WHO denies that this phone conversation between Xi and Tedros took place, but it fits known facts. It also fits what the US intelligence community has been saying, according to various reports.
China's actions had consequences. Beijing lulled public health officials around the world, including those in the United States, into not taking actions that they otherwise would have adopted.
Democrats and Chinese communists have criticized President Trump for acting too slowly after he imposed the travel restrictions on China on January 31. If that is true, it is only because people on his coronavirus task force were actually listening to what Beijing was saying and making judgments on what they had heard.
For instance, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, in her March 31 press briefing said she had seen the data from China and decided that this was no more dangerous than SARS, but realized, after the infections ripped through both Italy and Spain, that she had been deceived by the Chinese. She is not the only one. Dr. Anthony Fauci has also talked in public about how the Chinese misled him.
We must impose costs on China. We must impose costs because, first of all, what China did was a crime against all of humanity. We must also impose costs because we need to deter China. This is not going to be the last pathogen generated on Chinese soil. We got to make sure the Chinese leaders do not believe that they can maliciously spread another disease.
This means there is going to be friction between China and the United States as we Americans take steps to protect ourselves in the future. Those steps are going to cause arrogant and belligerent Chinese to move against us.
We should take a look about how the arrogant and belligerent Chinese indeed view the international system, how they view the world order. You will hear many analysts say that the friction between the United States and China is just another one of these boys-will-be-boys contests in history.
The notion is that the United States is jealously protecting its position in the international system fits in with Beijing's narrative that their rise is inevitable and that we are in terminal decline.
The truth is that the United States is defending more than just its position in the international system. We are defending the international system itself, the system of treaties, conventions, rules, and norms.
Unfortunately, Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler, does not believe in that system. He is trying to impose China's imperial‑era notions of the world. In other words, he believes that everyone around the world must acknowledge Chinese rule.
In short, Chinese rulers believed that they had the mandate of heaven over tianxia, meaning "all under heaven." Xi Jinping has used tianxia‑like language for more than a decade. Recently, his pronouncements have become unmistakable.
For instance, in his 2017 New Year's message he said, and I quote, "The Chinese have always held that the world is united and all under heaven" -- all under heaven -- "are one family."
If this were not enough, his foreign minister, Wang Yi, in September of 2017 wrote an article in Study Times, the Central Party School's influential newspaper. Wang Yi wrote that "Xi Jinping thought" ‑‑ "thought" in Communist Party lingo is an important body of ideological work -- "made innovations on and transcended the traditional Western theories of international relations for the past 300 years."
If you take 2017 and subtract 300 years, you almost get to 1648. Wang, with his time reference of 300 years, was almost certainly pointing to the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which established the current international system. That system recognizes the sovereignty of different states.
Also, when Wang Yi used the word "transcended," he was saying that Xi Jinping does not believe that there should be sovereign states, or at least no more sovereign states than China itself. The trend of Xi Jinping's recent comments is that he doesn't want to live within the international system. He does not even want to adjust it. He wants to overthrow it altogether.
This means China once again is a revolutionary state. Now, Xi Jinping, of course, has not had the power to compel others to accept this audacious vision of worldwide Chinese rule.
Nonetheless, in the last few months, he has seen an historic opportunity because the United States has been stricken by the disease that China itself has pushed out beyond its borders.
What must we do? First, let us talk about what we must not do.
We must not save Chinese communism again. In the past, American presidents, when China had been stressed, have ridden to the rescue of the Chinese state. In 1972, for instance, Richard Nixon went to a Beijing that had been weakened by more than a half decade of the Cultural Revolution, signaling America's support for China's communism. That is how people in China took that visit.
The second time, 1989, George H. W. Bush sent Brent Scowcroft, his secret emissary, to Deng Xiaoping in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre. Again, America was telling the Chinese, "Don't worry about American sanctions, don't worry about what we say in public, we have your back."
The third time, 1999, President William Jefferson Clinton signed a trade deal with China – at a time when the Chinese economy, in reality, was contracting. Certainly, China was suffering geopolitical setbacks. That deal was the basis of China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
Despite all these saves of Chinese communism, China's communist leaders have remained hostile. We have seen this hostility, especially since the first week of February of this year when the Global Times, which is a Communist Party newspaper, and the Chinese foreign ministry have engaged in an inflammatory disinformation campaign against the United States in an attempt to tar the US with all sorts of disease‑related sins.
This campaign culminated, reached a high point -- although this campaign is still continuing today -- on March 12th when the foreign ministry went on a Twitter storm. As a part of that Twitter storm, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that coronavirus patient zero was in the United States.
In other words, the disease started here. He also suggested that the US Army carried the disease to Wuhan. We were seeing daily stories about how the United States had been spreading the disease around the world.
Now, Americans, of course, were taken by surprise by this Twitter storm, but we really should not be -- because on May 13 of last year Beijing declared a "people's war" on the United States. This means the contest with China is existential. There is going to be one survivor. It is going to be either the Peoples' Republic of China or the United States of America, not both.
We have just heard about what we should not be doing. We should not be rescuing Chinese communism.
What should we do? In my call for action, there are eight items.
First, we need to cut off trade with China. Now, I know a lot of people think we should not do this, or this would be unfortunate.
Yes, this is unfortunate, but the point is that China's communism cannot be reformed, so the only way we can protect American society and Americans is to reduce our exposure to China and our great exposure, of course, is trade. In any event, we should not be enriching a hostile state with the proceeds of commerce with the United States.
This means, of course, that we need to get our factories off Chinese soil, but especially our pharmaceutical factories. China has been threatening to throw the United States into what it calls "a mighty sea of coronavirus," and it has not been kidding.
For instance, we know the Chinese have turned around at least one ship carrying personal protective equipment -- masks, gowns, gloves -- that were on their way to New York hospitals. Moreover, Peter Navarro has said China has even nationalized one American factory in China producing those N‑95 masks.
China's leadership always talks about how it is not possible for the US and China to "decouple." Now, it is possible. Our job is to make it inevitable.
Second thing that we need to do: The administration is well on the way to making sure federal pension money is not invested in China's markets. We also need to make sure that state pension money, and money from individuals, is not put into China's markets. We should not be enriching China with our investments into its equity markets.
Third thing, we need to make China pay. Now, many people have sued the Chinese central government. There are class‑action suits in the federal district courts in Florida, Texas, and Nevada. Of course, the Chinese Central Government has sovereign immunity, but there are a number of bills in Congress, including one sponsored by Senator Blackburn and Representative Lance Gooden.
There is also another bill sponsored by Tom Cotton and Dan Crenshaw, and these would strip China of sovereign immunity. I believe Josh Hawley, the Senator from Missouri, also has a bill.
The State of Missouri, by the way, has sued the Communist Party of China, which is far more important and far richer than the Chinese central government. Guess what? China's Communist Party does not have sovereign immunity.
People have also been talking about seizing China's holdings of US Treasury obligations. According to official records, it holds more than a trillion dollars. In reality, it is probably a bit higher than that because China holds US Treasuries through nominees.
Of course, China would engage in a vociferous propaganda campaign if we did that. Beijing would say we are repudiating our debt. They would also say we are not responsible members and stewards of the global financial system. They would be wrong, they would be incorrect, but the US might suffer reputational damage.
That is why I think we should seize Treasuries, but we should be doing this in connection with the holders and issuers of other major currencies. For instance, the Canadian dollar, the British pound, the European Union's euro, the Swiss franc, the Japanese yen, maybe the Singapore dollar
When we act with others, this becomes not a China-versus-US issue but an issue of China versus the world. No one country is going to suffer reputational damage.
Of course, Beijing could nationalize American factories in China, but I'm not so sure they're going to do that because China would be hurt far more than we would by that.
Remember that China's economy is still in a contraction phase and it is still export‑dominated, which means it needs those factories on its soil.
Fourth, with the possibility of the coronavirus escaping from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, we are now thinking about whether China has a biological weapons program in contravention of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.
Right now, we have seen all sorts of circumstantial evidence suggesting lab leak, and we have seen all sorts of circumstantial evidence that the Chinese military has been involved in the cleanup.
The Biological Weapons Convention does not have an inspections regime.
The item on my action list is that the United States should insist on inspections of China's labs, and if we cannot get inspections we should withdraw from the Convention. I am not saying that the novel coronavirus was a biological weapon. We really do not know.
The one thing we do know is that in China's labs, they have been engineering coronaviruses in the past. They have issued scientific papers on this, and what they are doing is extremely risky.
Fifth, we should make sure that China does not mess in our elections. China was extremely active in the 2018 midterms. They were concerned about President Trump's tariffs, and they actually did have an effect in electing Democrats to the House of Representatives.
We know they are going to do that, or something like that, this time. The New York Times a few weeks ago said they are trying to sow chaos in the American public square by disseminating false rumors.
Sixth, we need to stop China from using its nationals to systematically gather information on our soil. Unfortunately, we have had a series of American presidents who have, for various reasons, either done nothing about China's intelligence operations here, or the actions they took were deliberately ineffective.
We know that China's diplomats operate on our soil, sometimes spying, other times in a manner inconsistent with the diplomatic status they have. Also, China's Ministry of State Security agents operate here, freely.
We need to "rip and replace" all the equipment in our telecom backbone that has been supplied by Huawei Technologies, China's telecom equipment manufacturer. China has been using that company's equipment to spy on others. We should have no Huawei equipment in our backbone.
Also, we should be turfing out even more Chinese journalists. Those "journalists," we know, work for China's intelligence services. We have allowed them to stay on our soil for far too long. Secretary of State Pompeo has expelled many of them, and we need to complete the job.
We have to remember that China's 2017 National Intelligence Law requires every Chinese citizen and every Chinese entity to spy if demanded, which means that Chinese nationals on our soil can be under a compulsion to engage in intelligence collection.
Seventh, let's remove China from our cable networks and our newsstands. We should not be allowing China to exploit the openness of our system to try to end it.
Eighth, and the last, we have to deter China, which right now is engaging in what people in Beijing call "wolf warrior" diplomacy. For instance, we see Xi Jinping, with these threats to invade Taiwan.
Since the middle of February, there have been these boat-bumping and other provocative engagements in the South China and East China Seas against almost all of China's sea neighbors. A Chinese diplomat laid the groundwork for taking over Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, and also China has moved to end the autonomy in Hong Kong.
China is lashing out, challenging everybody at the same time. This is a Maoist tactic, and it suggests problems inside the Chinese political system. In any event, we know that this is an incredibly dangerous moment for everyone.
One final note. Pushed by China, the Trump Administration is moving to an historic rupture with the People's Republic of China. Because of this, we are seeing changes in the five‑decade‑old engagement policy.
Those changes are absolutely essential for us because, without them, we cannot be self‑reliant.
Q: As an attorney, do you feel there is any way to hold China accountable, liable for financial compensation to devastated nations ravaged by their actions?
If so, as a practical matter, exactly how? Are there US companies that were collaborating with Wuhan labs via research responsible for this corona strain?
Chang: Great. I should say I haven't practiced law for two decades, and I've given up my bar memberships. I'm more than happy to answer that question, however. First of all, as I mentioned, China does have sovereign immunity.
Now, a lot of people will tell you, and this is not an unreasonable argument, that sovereign immunity benefits the US more than any other nation. I do believe the fight with China is existential. To me, it's important that we make China pay.
As I said, we can avoid this sovereign immunity issue ‑‑ and which would have some blowback for the US ‑‑ if the plaintiffs sue the Communist Party. Because the Communist Party is not sovereign.
In China, there's a clear distinction between the party and the state. The state has sovereign immunity like other countries and other states have, but the party does not. We can go after the party.
By the way, the party actually has more control over China's enterprises, which means it should be considered to be the owner of those enterprises. So, it has assets to seize.
We talk about China's military. Actually, it is not a state army. It is an army of the Communist Party, which means that if we can find a Chinese plane, or a ship, or whatever, that would be subject to a successful suit in US Court because there's no sovereign immunity and it's a party army.
Having said all that, I think where we are going to seize assets will be the Treasuries. We should be working, as mentioned, with our allies and friends so that all countries in the world seize China's assets. That, I think, will work.
Q. Are there US companies that were collaborating with Wuhan labs via research responsible for this corona strain?
Chang: I don't think so. The Wuhan Institute of Virology was built with French companies, not American, as far as I know. Of course, the issue here is not corporate support but is US government support.
The US has chipped in, most famously, $3.7 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for research on bats. Many people think that the novel coronavirus is derived from a bat. I think part of the reason for the contribution is that the United States thought that experimenting on bat viruses was really too risky to be done in the US, so it decided to let the Chinese do it.
That is crazy. If it is too dangerous for us to do it, it's too dangerous for the Chinese to do it, especially because we know that in China's labs ‑‑ although the Wuhan Institute of Virology has a P4 biosafety lab, that is the highest level of safety standards ‑‑ we know that the Chinese do not adhere to those standards.
In 2018, State Department teams that visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology came away appalled -- actually I should say alarmed -- because they saw that Chinese technicians were not adhering to safety standards and protocols.
Also, we had those China Daily pictures. China Daily is an official state media publication. They tried to convince the world how safe the Wuhan Institute was so they posted these pictures, and those pictures actually documented broken or bent seals on refrigerators, a real safety problem.
We know that that lab was a walking disaster and something was going to happen. Unfortunately, it looks as if it did. Probably the coronavirus was an accidental lab release.
Q: How would you advise key US allies?
Chang: I advise every country to cut their trade relations with China because of the danger China poses.
The general view I have is that the world just needs to cut relations with China. If it were possible to reform Chinese communism, maybe that would be a worthwhile experiment, but we Americans have tried that for almost a half‑century and it has not worked.
As a matter of fact, our engagement of China has produced the opposite of what we wanted. We now have a richer and stronger China, more belligerent, more provocative, more aggressive, and much more dangerous. We have got to reverse what was clearly then, and is certainly clearly now, a misguided policy.
Q: What can we do now to try and protect us from more of these viral attacks?
Chang: The less trade and travel we have with China, then the better we are going to be. If there is no Chinese traveler, there would be no global pandemic. There would be no infections outside China. What we are going to have to do is to severely restrict travel from China.
We have to do this at least until we get our hands around this issue. Clearly, we have not been able to manage this. We have this notion, and everybody accepts it, at least implicitly, about globalization, comparative advantage, all of these things that have underpinned our modern world.
Unfortunately, China does not believe in comparative advantage, it does not believe in being a responsible member of the international community. Unfortunately, the only thing we can do is what many people think is unthinkable, and that is to cut our ties with China.
We cut our ties until we feel comfortable dealing with China, which in my mind means that the Communist Party no longer rules, that the Chinese people govern themselves, and then we can get along with them. I believe the Chinese people eventually will get this right.
At least at the moment, until they get it right, we have an obligation to our own citizens to cut those links. Because without those links, we are not going to have the next disease. Remember, China produces, especially in southern China, a lot of disease. Most of the world's diseases do come from southern China.
This is not some academic question. Unfortunately, the remedy is severe, but I do not know how else we do this because you just cannot cooperate with China. You have got to cut your links.
Q: What might be possible in the way of the US government exposing details on high‑ranking members of the CCP's overseas bank accounts, family dealings, and for instance, how Xi, on a government salary, paid for his daughter's attendance at Harvard.
The press has covered some of these things, but that is different from official confirmation and surely greater access to such things as bank records.
Chang: I think we should just publicize it, and seize the assets of Chinese leaders in the United States. We have the Global Magnitsky Act.
These guys, even before the coronavirus episode, were engaging in a crime against humanity with the detention of somewhere between 1.3 and 3 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other peoples of Turkic backgrounds in what China calls Xinjiang, the northwestern part of China.
We know that people were dying in those camps because China has been building crematoria. We know that this is an attempt to eliminate a religion, to eliminate ethnic identity. This is very close to genocide. If it is not genocide, it is as bad as what the Third Reich did before the mass extermination of what, 1941?
That alone should give us justification for applying the Global Magnitsky Act and just seizing all their assets in this country. As I mentioned, I believe this was a deliberate spread of the coronavirus. More than 100,000 Americans have died. We have the right to do everything we can within our power to protect ourselves and to punish wrongdoers.
We may not be able to bring Xi Jinping to The Hague. We may not be able to put him in that prison we have in Florence, Colorado, otherwise known as the Supermax. We may not be able to put him in Guantanamo, but we sure can seize his assets.
Q: Please discuss what we need to do to regain the technology commanding heights, national industrial plan, whole of government, whole of economy, society, Sputnik‑like program.
Chang: It is a whole-of-society approach. You go back maybe 10 years, China was not considered to be a tech competitor. Right now, it is ahead in crucial technologies such as, for instance, 5G, the fifth generation of wireless communications, and in quantum communications it has at least a half‑decade lead on us.
This is really stunning because this whole theoretical notion of quantum communications was developed by an American, Albert Einstein. For us, this is just Americans not paying attention.
It is also, of course, China's stealing. China steals somewhere between $150 to $600 billion of US intellectual property each year, and now, the FBI is warning that it is trying to steal vaccines and medical‑related information.
What China has been able to do, and it is more than just that, it has had determined programs to develop technology. For instance, China has its 13th Five‑Year Plan, which is just about finished. It has the Made in China 2025 Initiative, where medicines and medical equipment comprise one of the 10 sectors that China wants to dominate by the year 2025.
These are, for China, a whole-of-society approach toward developing technology. We really need to do the same thing, and we can do it. President John F. Kennedy went to Rice University and said, "We are going to go to the moon." That was a time when the Soviets were well ahead of us.
Through federal programs, through cooperation with business, just through everything, we were able to put the first man on the moon. By the way, no other country has left earth orbit, but the Chinese probably are ahead of us in the race to get back to the moon.
For us, I think what we are going to have to adopt the whole-of-society approach. The one thing that we should focus on is our universities. We have Chinese students and others taking in ways which are sometimes violative of federal law, sometimes just inconsistent with their status on campus.
They have been stealing, downloading entire databases, doing all the rest of this. We need to stop that. I know Chinese students, Chinese professors play a large role in our campuses, but they have also been taking US technology. We need to end that.
For me, it means a renewed approach. One of the ways we can stop this is, we have allowed Chinese diplomats and Ministry of State Security agents to surveil Chinese students on campus. That means Chinese students feel really under a compulsion to do what Beijing wants.
We are Americans. This is our country. We can get those diplomats out of those campuses, get the Chinese agents off our soil. That is up to us. To me, this is important of course. I'm here because my dad came here as a student in 1945, just before the end of the war.
I think we have got a long way to go, to solving what I think is actually the most complex issue we face: what do you do with Chinese students on American campuses? There are no easy solutions, but we need to address this in a much more rigorous way than we have been. We must do all of those things, that means we have a whole-of-society approach.
Q: Pharmaceuticals, how can we best replace the Chinese market? And rare earth strategic elements. Does the US have adequate resources to produce our own? How can we best disconnect from the dependence on the Chinese market?
Chang: On rare earths, we have rare earths in our country and our allies' -- most notably, Canada and Australia -- have a lot of rare earths. What we do not have is the refining capacity. Stuff mined in countries other than China is actually shipped to China to be refined.
That has occurred because we do not want to suffer the environmental damage caused by refining rare earths, which in the past has really been awful. New technologies, and those that are coming on-stream now, mitigate much of the environmental impact. I think we need to start refining rare earths in North America.
If not here, then in Canada, which has huge deposits of many of the rare earths. It is a political decision for us to make, that we decide not to be dependent on China.
With regard to pharmaceuticals, Peter Navarro, President Trump's trade adviser, has been talking for weeks about an executive order that would require the federal government to not buy pharmaceuticals from China. That EO has yet to be signed.
I think there is intense fighting at the top of the administration: trade groups and pharmaceutical companies have been fighting that executive order. This is something the President needs to do. It is in his power.
He can wake up one morning and say to the pharmaceutical companies, "I don't care what you think. This is a national security issue." You remember that on July 21, 2017, President Trump signed that executive order on supply chain robustness.
We know on March 24 of this year he talked about what is now called his American independence agenda, which is Americans making things for Americans.
Remember, he has the power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to do a lot of stuff, including getting pharmaceutical companies out of China. It's up to him. We should be, I hope, putting pressure on the White House to do what should be done because he is getting a lot of pressure on the other side. President Trump can do this.
Now, one other note. I do not do domestic politics, but I have noticed that there is an election this year. That is probably going to slow down the reaction of the president to many of the initiatives I think should be taken, but nonetheless, this is a really critical one. We cannot allow China to make our pharmaceuticals.
We should not be relying on any single country to the extent that we are relying on China, but certainly not a hostile regime that threatens to cut off products. Again, this is a question of American political will.
Q: How do we get other countries to join us in this effort? They are already getting blackmailed by China. If they criticize China, it punishes them over trade. Australia dared to join 100 countries asking for an investigation into coronavirus origin.
China responded by imposing 80% tariffs on Australian agricultural imports. How can we help other countries to stand up to China?
Chang: At the World Health Assembly, which just concluded, the resolution for an independent investigation of the origins of the coronavirus actually was sponsored by 144 countries. It passed without objection.
This is an investigation which China does not want, although China eventually saw the handwriting on the wall and decided not to oppose it. I think we get to this is a couple of ways. One of them is, the intelligence community, our intelligence community, has a lot of information which is going to throw a light on what China actually did, in terms of spreading the coronavirus.
I know that the intelligence community does not like disclosing a lot of this stuff because it compromises sources and methods. Every once in a while, you get an intelligence issue which is so critical to the future of our country.
I think that this is one of those where disclosure of information really is important. Once countries know what China did in terms of deliberately spreading this coronavirus, I think it is over for China.
With regard to Australia, because Australia was the second country to propose this investigation after we did, China has decided to punish Australia more than any other country, especially with those tariffs on barley.
This is one of those cases where we Americans should start buying Australian barley. We have got to show Beijing that we can out-muscle them. Remember, China looks fearsome because it has had economic growth.
China right now is in a contraction phase, and it has also got one other huge problem, and that is a lot of its Belt and Road loans to other countries are coming due this year. These countries cannot pay China back, which means China's debt‑trap diplomacy is trapping not just the debtors, but it's trapping China itself.
What we should be doing is making sure these countries do not pay back, because this is one way to starve the beast. There are many different ways to do it, cutting off trade, cutting off investments.
Those are things we can do, and we can be working with our allies, our friends, and countries that normally are not our friends. They now have an interest in opposing China, so we should be working with them.
Q: To what extent do you consider Xi's position as head of the CCP to be precarious? Might concerns about his own vulnerability have anything to do with his renewed aggressiveness?
Chang: That's the question I wish I knew the answer to. There are a number of things that can be said. Of course, China's political system is not transparent. Especially at moments like this, it can be very opaque. I think this is one of those do-or-die moments for Xi Jinping. I mean that literally.
You have got to remember, Xi has changed the nature of the Chinese political system. Under Hu Jintao, his predecessor, it was collective, which means a Chinese leader really did not get blamed for things that went wrong.
Also, he did not get that much credit: all decisions were essentially made by consensus, especially at the Politburo Standing Committee, but even in the wider Politburo. The Chinese leader did not worry too much about things going bad.
Xi Jinping, of course, has taken that consensus system that he inherited at the end of 2012, and he has made it more or less into a one‑person system where he is the one person. Which means, of course, he has the greater accountability that goes along with that great power.
Xi Jinping, even before the coronavirus, was having a pretty bad year, in 2019, because he had a stumbling economy. He had problems in Hong Kong. He had some pretty unhappy people in China.
What Xi has done is run roughshod over everybody. As long as he can do that, he is safe. You have got to remember, though: people have not forgotten what Xi Jinping has done to them in terms of taking away their power, putting their family members in jail, all the rest of this.
They are sort of waiting on the sidelines for an opportunity to strike back. When Xi Jinping stumbles, they will strike back. This is a particularly important time for Xi because what he is trying to do is intimidate the world with this "wolf warrior" diplomacy.
If he succeeds, he is golden. If he does not succeed, if the world starts to contain China, starts to reduce relations with Beijing, all the rest of it, he is gone. By gone, I mean, he not only loses his position, he also loses perhaps his freedom, his assets, and maybe even his life.
He has taken what was a consensus-driven system and made it like the Maoist political system of the first years of the People's Republic. When people lost political struggles, they not only lost power, they sometimes were executed.
Xi Jinping knows what is at stake right now. There are rumors ‑‑ I don't know how much weight to give them ‑‑ that he is not going to get a third term as general secretary at the next Communist Party Congress in 2022. I tend to believe them, but I think that has not yet been determined.
What is interesting is that people in Beijing are talking about that. Which means that it probably is an option for the party to ditch Xi Jinping at the next opportunity. We shall see.
Q: Can we analyze some of the pharmaceuticals or even vitamins that come in that possibly show pathogens because of their poor oversight and loose regulations?
Chang: The answer is yes. We have had in the past medicines coming from China that have been adulterated. For instance, in the middle of this decade, maybe even earlier, Heparin, the blood thinner, was adulterated.
I do not think China would intentionally try to adulterate their vaccines and stuff. Nonetheless, they have had these fake vaccines scandals periodically in China. One not too long ago. We have got to be very concerned.
China can actually get to a vaccine before anybody else does if for no other reason that they are willing to cut corners. It is important for us to make sure that whatever China comes up with is not only effective but also safe.
Xi Jinping at the World Health Assembly address that he gave a couple of days ago, said he was going to share the vaccine with the world. I am happy if that is the case, but we have to be concerned that what they come up with is probably going to be ineffective or dangerous.
The Chinese are not going to test. They are not going to adhere to the same safety protocols that the rest of the world will. We need to be really concerned about what comes out of China in terms of a vaccine.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow.
This article is based on a briefing to Gatestone Institute, given on May 20, 2020.
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Regime change in Iran shouldn’t be a taboo
Reuel Marc Gerecht/Ray Takeyh/The Washington Post
Regime change in Iran is one of the biggest taboos in U.S. foreign policy. Bring it up and you will be scorned as a warmonger, a fomenter of chaos. Yet we have encouraged and welcomed the collapse of dictatorships in other countries, especially within the former Soviet empire. And we used severe sanctions against apartheid South Africa to bring fundamental change. The Islamic republic has been directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Syria. Is that a lesser sin?
The Iranian theocracy’s disregard for the rights and livelihoods of its people periodically drives them into mass protests (at great risk to themselves). Its imperialist ambitions endanger its neighbors. Yet American leftists routinely argue that we can never dare to replace it. Two liberal analysts recently warned in The Post that “it is fair to ask whether the political and social collapse of a country of 80 million people at a time of a global pandemic is in the United States’ — or anybody’s — interests.” To speak of its demise, much less try to hasten it, is considered untoward and egregiously ideological in polite Washington society.
To a remarkable extent, we have turned Iran policy into a debate about ourselves. If the regime is opposed by conservatives, liberals veer the other way, often trying hard to find something redeeming about the Islamic republic (at a minimum, it isn’t Saudi Arabia). For them, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is reactionary, if not a tad villainous, because of his ardent opposition to Tehran. When Cotton prophetically warned Iran’s leaders in an open letter in 2015 that a nuclear agreement would not be binding on a Republican president, his colleague Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) described his move as “undermining the authority of the president,” while Secretary of State John F. Kerry professed himself to be in “utter disbelief.”
The advocates of cooperation with the clerical regime often play down its crude and constant anti-Semitism. Its misogyny and homophobia somehow do not invite calls for sanctions from liberals. The ardent left — for example, Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) foreign policy staff — can see bigotry and bellicosity in any use of “mullah” to describe Iran’s religious government (even though “mullah” is a word used most often by Iranians to describe a cleric). And some even manage to blame Tehran’s harsh repression of its own people on anti-American animus that is allegedly empowering the hard-liners who would be weaker if Washington weren’t so mean.
If the intellectual classes can’t contemplate the demise of the Islamic republic, neither can the intelligence community, which has a knack for echoing the zeitgeist. Without seeing classified documents, one can be assured that a typical CIA memorandum will point out all the problems confronting the regime and end with pretty firm assurance of its survival. By temperament, our spies are rarely capable of spotting discontinuities. Iran today is probably where the Soviet Union was in the 1970s, an exhausted regime mishandling every crisis it encounters. And the same intelligence services that just couldn’t see the Soviet Union dying don’t see the cracks in the clerical regime.
Arms control defines America’s approach to the Islamic republic. It did so during the Obama years, and it lingers in the Trump White House. The problem with an arms-control approach is that you have to pretend that your interlocutors are sufficiently “moderate” to seek regional stability. You have to pretend that the Iranians are willing to concede their religious ideology and imperial ambitions. Most importantly, you have to pretend that the regime you are dealing with is durable and can soften if given access to the global economy. Americans are particularly susceptible to this business argument, even though recent history (see post-Mao China) surely tells us that wicked authoritarianism can adapt to market imperatives.
Much of Washington fears that the only alternative to arms control is war. Far preferable would be a strategy of relentless pressure that with time cracks the regime. This was the definition of containment as envisioned by George Kennan. He advocated unrelenting patience with the Soviet Union; we should do the same with Iran.
It shouldn’t be hard to see that anti-Americanism is an inextricable part of this revolutionary Islamist state, or that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (an ardent fan and translator of the seminal Egyptian jihadist Sayyid Qutb), the ruling clerical elite and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards have no desire to create a normal country. Once you accept this reality (which many Democrats did before the Iran nuclear deal undercut their support for sanctions policy), regime change becomes the only viable option — assuming, of course, that you believe the United States has a role to play the Middle East in the first place.
Seeking regime change isn’t rude. It is pragmatic, cost-sensitive, humane and — in the best sense of the word — liberal.
*Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
*Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The decline of Europe’s strategic Middle Eastern role
Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/June 01/2020
The last couple of weeks in Libya have demonstrated the role of hard power in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as Turkey and Russia have increased their military support to rival factions. These developments have highlighted the growing role of Russia and regional actors at the expense of Europe, as Europe’s role as a straegic actor in the region declines.
Europe has long been a key player in the MENA region. In recent history, European countries acted as colonial powers, drawing the Middle East’s modern borders. That era gradually ended, marked by the UK’s withdrawal as the primary naval presence in the Arabian Gulf in 1971, but Europe continued to be an important strategic actor in the region and maintained significant political influence.
In the last decade, Europe’s role in the MENA region has significantly declined, even while it retains economic and cultural influence. The European response — or lack thereof — to events in Libya, Syria, Iran, and Israel and Palestine has undermined its role.
European countries played a major part in the 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya, but Europe has lost much of the influence that intervention might have brought to the Western powers. European powers have supported different groups in Libya, while Russia and regional actors have provided military support to opposing factions, sidelining Europe.
Europe has also become nearly irrelevant to the civil war in Syria. It was unwilling to provide significant support to pro-democracy Syrian rebels early in the war or to impose military consequences on the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons. When the conflict created a historic refugee crisis, European leaders responded in different ways, lacking a continent-wide strategy and tending to focus on keeping refugees out rather than addressing the root causes of the crisis. European countries participated in the coalition to fight Daesh and, while this was very important, it reinforced the message that Europe is only willing to use hard power to deal with terrorism and not to support its values or broader strategic interests.
While Barack Obama was US president, Europe remained influential, if only because Washington wanted European partners to support its actions in the MENA region. Europe played a role in US policy toward Libya and Syria and particularly toward Iran. Europe helped to negotiate and implement the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. When Donald Trump became president, he soon withdrew from the JCPOA despite European objections.
Europe’s efforts to salvage the JCPOA appeared feeble. Tehran hoped that European leaders would take effective action to circumvent the US sanctions. However, the combination of Europe’s economic and financial integration with the US market and a lack of political will soon demonstrated that it would not act as a counterweight. Europe took a long time to set up INSTEX — a mechanism to allow some European trade — and its scope is far narrower than Iran had hoped. European leaders were mostly unwilling to take actions that might have shielded more European companies from US sanctions, and European companies demonstrated that maintaining access to the US market was more important than business opportunities in Iran.
For years, Europe appeared to be important in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, playing a role in some negotiations and providing significant aid. However, the Trump administration’s approach again demonstrated that much of Europe’s past influence depended on its importance to Washington. The Trump administration moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, cut nearly all US aid to the Palestinians, and supported Israel’s perspective in its proposed peace plan, ignoring European concerns. Europe’s attempts to maintain neutrality in this environment effectively render it irrelevant.
Multiple factors have led to Europe’s loss of political and strategic influence. The Trump administration has made it clear that the US does not need Europe, which damages the latter’s influence globally. European countries have often failed to coordinate their foreign policy, undermining their potential leverage and complicating the EU’s ability to act effectively. In a world with diminishing space for political moderation, Europe’s efforts to be a balancing influence gain little traction. Europe’s reluctance to use hard power has undermined its influence at a time when Russia and MENA’s regional powers are more willing and able to deploy military power.
The Trump administration’s approach demonstrated that much of Europe’s past influence depended on its importance to Washington.
Europe maintains important economic and cultural relations in the MENA region. However, this is insufficient for it to remain a key strategic actor. For Europe, the consequences are negative. The MENA region poses important risks and offers opportunities, and Europe’s ability to shape those is diminishing. It has less ability to prevent or respond to refugee and migration flows, nuclear weapon threats, terrorist risks, and more. For those who share similar values around human rights and democracy, Europe’s declining influence is also a negative development.
However, for those who see Europe’s legacy in the MENA region as a mixed bag or mostly having negative impacts, Europe’s declining power is a positive development. It leaves more room for regional powers to act independently and with more influence. However, Russia is trying to fill the power vacuum, which may raise new concerns for regional actors.
*Kerry Boyd Anderson is a writer and political risk consultant with more than 16 years’ experience as a professional analyst of international security issues and Middle East political and business risk. Her previous positions include deputy director for advisory with Oxford Analytica and managing editor of Arms Control Today. Twitter: @KBAresearch

Evidence piles up that Sweden may be on wrong path
Chris Doyle/Arab News/June 01/2020
For most of the last few months, the only place in Europe where you could go to the gym, the cinema or a bar was in Sweden. Swedes did not have to run the gauntlet of lockdown haircuts at home — no doubt they have the best-groomed locks on the continent. They did not have to resort to watching online fitness gurus, baking banana bread or only seeing friends and family on video calls. This all fits neatly with the image of Sweden: The happy, secure and egalitarian Scandinavian powerhouse of Ikea, Tetra Pak and Volvo.
Think of risk-taking countries and you do not think of Sweden. This is a country where it is the law to have your headlights on throughout every journey. A Swede invented the three-point safety belt for cars. Yet it is Sweden that has, almost alone, opted not to engage in any form of lockdown to fight the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It is a gamble. The government of Stefan Lofven has merely issued guidelines on social distancing and outlawed gatherings of more than 50 people. Swedes are advised to work from home and keep at arm’s length from others in restaurants and cafes. Elementary and middle schools never closed — only for the over-16s, but even these will be opening again from mid-June.
Swedish officials are at pains to stress that the aim is not herd immunity; although, if levels of immunity are higher, it will help. Epidemiologists reckon that herd immunity arises when about 60 percent of a given population has been affected and acquired immunity. It appears that the British government toyed with this approach in March before revised data and modeling forced a rethink. Consequently, many think Britain was too late into the lockdown and see this as one reason why it has suffered more virus-related fatalities than anywhere in Europe and lies second only to the US in the global ranking.
The official Swedish view is that COVID-19 cannot be defeated without an effective vaccine, so it is a disease that society will have to learn to live with. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, argues: “You can’t keep a lockdown going for months — it’s impossible.”
Other countries go under lockdown but, as the restrictions are eased, risk a second wave. The rest of Europe will discover if that is true in the next two months, as most states are opening up and easing the tougher measures. Arguably, if these countries can do this while keeping the infection rate low and avoiding future waves, Sweden’s approach will look reckless. Was this more of an experiment than elsewhere? Did it constitute a risk too far?
But has it worked? The current picture is not favorable, with 4,395 deaths and more than 37,000 cases as of Monday in a country with a population of about 10 million. And lower testing rates than its neighbors means more people may have been infected than so far reported. At the start, Sweden’s Public Health Agency enjoyed massive support. Tegnell was a celebrity figure, his image on mugs and T-shirts. While most people still back the authorities, ever more are fearful. Although Swedes typically exhibit a high level of trust in their government and authorities, more are questioning the path taken. One potent argument is that an early lockdown would have allowed time to prepare and protect those most at risk.
It is not as if Sweden was not capable of sustaining a lockdown. A rule-abiding society like Sweden’s perhaps could have handled a strict lockdown better than others. Swedes are accustomed to long, dark and very cold winters. Stuck indoors during those months, they typically spend the rest of the year outside — almost hibernating in winter and out in the open air in summer.
How has Sweden fared in comparison to its Nordic neighbors? After all, they share similar cultures, climate and demographics. Norway and Finland last week had mortality rates of 4.42 and 5.58 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively, whereas Sweden’s was 39.57, which was even above the US’ figure of 30.02. It is hard to argue that Sweden has got it right when its death rate is almost 10 times higher than Norway’s. In part, Sweden’s figures are a result of a failure to protect the elderly in care homes; something the UK has also suffered from. Denmark and Norway have announced dates for the reopening of their borders, but not for travel to and from Sweden. Estonia, Latvia and Greece are doing likewise.
Take Greece — a country typically looked down on by the richer northern EU states. Despite its lack of resources, a tough crackdown has led to one of the lowest infection rates in Europe with only 175 deaths. It puts Sweden’s record to shame.
In fairness, the Swedish argument depends on how the situation looks in a year’s time, not today. Perhaps Swedes will have a degree of immunity that others do not, even though it is still not certain that infection leads to immunity.
It is hard to argue that Sweden has got it right when its death rate is almost 10 times higher than Norway’s.
By maintaining near-normal life with only minor inconveniences, Swedes may not have to face the same levels of emotional stress and mental health issues as other populations that are isolated at home. And the Swedish economy may not be as constricted as those of other countries. Figures indicate that it grew in the first quarter of this year by 0.1 percent — something other countries have struggled to match. But the Swedish economy could still shrink by more than 7 percent this year. Its economy is not isolated from the global economic slowdown and the pandemic has bitten hard.
“Be like Sweden” has become a slogan of anti-lockdown activists in the US and elsewhere. Sweden ranks high in the deaths per million of population, but several other European states that did lockdown, such as Belgium and Italy, have higher rates. Who knows, Swedish leaders and scientists may yet come out shining. Knowledge of the virus is still evolving, but it is tough to ignore the evidence piling up for suppression over mitigation, for restrictions over laissez-faire. The world will be watching Sweden closely.
*Chris Doyle is director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding. Twitter: @Doylech

Israel’s US-China balancing act in peril
Ramzy Baroud/Arab News/June 01/2020
Israel’s balancing act, which has allowed it to reap America’s unconditional and often blind support while also slowly benefiting from China’s growing economic influence and political prestige, is floundering. Thanks to the growing cold war between the US and Chinese economic superpowers, the Israeli strategy of playing both sides is unlikely to pay dividends in the long run. Soon enough, Tel Aviv might find itself having to make a stark choice between Washington and Beijing.
When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Israel on May 13, two items topped his agenda: Israel’s imminent illegal annexation of Palestinian land and the growing Israeli-Chinese economic ties. Pompeo communicated his country’s stand on both issues, reflecting Washington’s long-standing policies regarding Palestine and China. In the case of Palestine, the US seems to adhere to Tel Aviv’s agenda, often to the letter. But China is a different story.
Two significant historical examples come to mind: In the 1990s, Israel attempted to sell China the Israeli-made Phalcon airborne radar system, which relied heavily on American technology; and a similar event from 2005, this time concerning Israel’s Harpy anti-radar missiles. On both occasions, Israel succumbed to US pressure and canceled the deals.
For the Chinese, Israel matters for two reasons. Firstly, it is a strategic stop on the Belt and Road Initiative — China’s most significant economic project to date, which ultimately aims to turn Beijing into a center of global trade and financial activities. And, secondly, China is hoping to fight the US on its own political turf in the Middle East, partly in response to the American “pivot to Asia” strategy, which was initiated by the Obama administration.
However, the post-coronavirus pandemic world is likely to be a changed one compared to that of previous years, both in terms of political and economic balances of power. China’s rise has been in the making for many years, while the US’ political retreat and declining global outreach has also been evident for some time. The isolationist policies of President Donald Trump, coupled with Washington’s many China-related tantrums in recent years, are indicators of the vastly changed political realities of a formerly unipolar world.
A few years ago, Beijing had the time, patience and resources to play the long geopolitical game in order for it to challenge the US’ global influence, whether in South America, Africa or Israel. The visit by Vice President Wang Qishan to Israel in 2018 to “boost business ties” was part of this strategy. That visit followed the signing, one year earlier, of the China-Israel Innovative Comprehensive Partnership. China-Israel trade jumped from $10.9 billion in 2014 to $14 billion in 2018 and has continued to grow ever since.
China would have been happy to carry on with that strategy for many years to come. Israel, likewise, would have played along considering the lucrative financial returns from this partnership. Despite Washington’s warnings and, at times, explicit demands that Israel refrain from giving Chinese companies access to its fifth-generation telecommunications infrastructure (5G) projects, Tel Aviv labored to make China feel welcome. However, the global response to the coronavirus pandemic is likely to change this, as it has increased the tensions between the US and China, pushing the latter to adopt a more aggressive form of diplomacy and pour massive sums into other countries’ economies to help them in their desperate fight against the virus.
The Chinese strategy is predicated on two main pillars: Fortifying existing ties and solidarity with its allies or potential allies anywhere in the world; and pushing back against its foes, especially those who are participating in Washington’s anti-Beijing campaign. The latter is known as “wolf warrior diplomacy.” The “wolf warriors” are Chinese diplomats who have, for months, pushed back with unprecedented ferocity against what they perceive to be US and Western propaganda.
“We never pick a fight or bully others,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing on May 24, while explaining China’s novel approach to diplomacy. “We will push back against any deliberate insult, resolutely defend our national honor and dignity, and we will refute all groundless slander with facts.”
China’s aggressive new diplomacy is unlikely to allow Israel to maintain its balancing act for much longer. Beijing’s ambassador to Israel, Du Wei, died in his home only a few days after Pompeo’s visit to the country. Although Du’s death is not perceived to be the result of foul play, his absence, especially in the age of coronavirus and “wolf warriors,” might prompt a shift in China’s approach to its economic and political interests in Israel.
Last week, under American pressure, the Israeli Finance Ministry denied a Chinese company a massive $1.5 billion desalination plant contract, instead awarding it to an Israeli firm. This was the first time in many years that the US had used its political and economic sway over Israel to curb Chinese influence in the country. China must now be anxiously watching events unfold to see if US pressure on Israel will continue to undermine its long-term strategy.
Chinese diplomats have pushed back with unprecedented ferocity against what they perceive to be US and Western propaganda.
The world’s quickly shifting balance of power and the unmistakable US-Chinese fight for dominance is likely to eventually force countries like Israel to make a choice — to either wholly join the American or the Chinese sphere of influence. This is reminiscent of the US-Soviet Cold War, where much of the globe was divided into zones of influence operated by proxy from Washington or Moscow.
Balancing acts only work in politics if all parties are willing to play or, at least tolerate, the game. While this form of politics suited Israel’s interests in the past and was played for years, quite successfully, by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s balancing act is now possibly over.
Between Washington’s demands for Israel to keep China at bay, and the latter’s aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy, Israel is facing a stark choice: Remaining loyal to a retreating superpower or diving into the uncharted waters of an emerging one.
*Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is “The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story” (Pluto Press, London). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine studies from the University of Exeter. Twitter: @RamzyBaroud