LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 05/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures for ever
First Letter of Peter 01/22-25/:”Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. For ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’ That word is the good news that was announced to you.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on November 04-05/2019
Aoun Meets Kubis: Anti-Corruption Measures Tops Next Govt. Tasks
Hariri, Bassil Hold First Meeting since PM Resignation
Sources: Government Formation Ensued from Hariri, Bassil Meeting
Lebanon's Aoun: Dialogue with protesters crucial to solve issues at hand
Lebanon Bonds Extend Rally
Protesters block roads in Beirut, other parts of Lebanon
Schools shut for third week/Worst economic crisis since 1975-90 civil war
Mustaqbal Denies Being behind Some Road-Blocking Protests
Choucair Orders Sale of Recharge Cards according to Official Exchange Rate
Financial Prosecutor Sues CDR, Several Firms over Brissa Dam File
Lebanon's Parliament Postpones Session to Elect Secretaries, Commissioners
Abdullah Urges Hariri to Form Govt. of People’s Aspirations
Protests Against Political Class Gain Momentum in Lebanon
Protesters close roads, paralyzing Lebanon as crisis worsens
Al-Akhbar Journalists Resign over Paper Policy on Lebanon Uprising

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 04-05/2019

US imposes sanctions on nine people, one entity tied to Iran’s top leader
Iran to launch an array of 30 advanced centrifuges, head of nuclear body says
EU warns Iran over nuclear deal after uranium claims
German minister urges Iran to return to nuclear accord
US State Dept: Iran interferes in Iraq, other countries to ‘foment chaos’
Iran Announces New Violations of Nuclear Deal
US issues $20 mln reward for American missing in Iran
New Railway to Link Iranian, Syrian Coasts
At least six killed as security forces open fire on Iraq protesters
Turkish court orders release of two journalists in Gulen case due to time served
Turkey claims it captured slain ISIS leader’s sister in Syria
Internet access cut off in much of Iraq: Reports
EU Condemns New Burst of Israeli Settlement Approvals
Government: Dutch Airstrike Killed Dozens of Civilians, ISIS Militants in 2015
Leaders of Palestinians of ‘48 Begin Hunger Strike over Police Negligence
Jordan government resigns ahead of a reshuffle: Reports
Egypt army reports killing 83 militants in north Sinai

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 04-05/2019
As Lebanon and Iraq Protests Flare, Iran Clings to Hard-Earned Sway/SourceAgence France Presse/November 04/2019
Lebanon Protests Rage on as Politicians Stall/Agence France Presse/November 04/2019
Sami Gemayel Lambastes Delay in Government Formation/Kataeb.org//November 04/2019
Lebanese Passport Ranked Among Worst in the World/CNN International/November 04/2019
By becoming an active part of Lebanon’s loathed political class, Hezbollah has faced the wrath of protestors too./Mohanad Hage Ali/Carnegie MEC/November 04/2019
Students protest against the university’s decision to resume classes/Sandra Abdelbaki/Associated PressN/ovember 04/2019
Beware of the Worried Arabs… Beware of the Worrying Arabs/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/November 04/2019
Did Turkey Know Where Baghdadi Was Hiding?/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/November 04/2019
Human Smuggling Demands a Human Solution/Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/November 04/2019
UK poised for an election like no other/Chris Doyle/Arab News/November 04/2019
Understanding the Saudi Aramco IPO/Simon Henderson/The Washington Institute/November 04/ 2019
Why Turkey Is Raising the Stakes in the East Mediterranean/Soner Cagaptay with Deniz Yuksel and Matthew Hernandez/The Washington Institute/November 04/ 2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on November 04-05/2019
Aoun Meets Kubis: Anti-Corruption Measures Tops Next Govt. Tasks
Naharnet/November 04/2019
President Michel Aoun on Monday said in talks with U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis that the first task for the upcoming government is to put anti-corruption measures in practice. “One of the first tasks of the new government will be to follow up on anti-corruption and the investigation process, which will involve all officials in (state) departments at various levels,” he told Kubis. “Dialogue with demonstrators is necessary in order to reach an understanding on the issues at hand,” he added. Aoun and Kubis held their talks at Baabda Palace where discussions focused on the latest developments amid nationwide cross-sectarian rallies that gripped Lebanon since October 17. Demonstrators are demanding a complete overhaul of a political system deemed inefficient and corrupt.
The meeting comes days before a Security Council meeting to discuss the stages of implementing resolution 1701.

Hariri, Bassil Hold First Meeting since PM Resignation
Naharnet/November 04/2019
Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Free Patriotic Movement chief and caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil were on Monday holding their first meeting since the October 29 resignation of Hariri. According to MTV, General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim played a mediation role to arrange the meeting.“The meeting between Hariri and Bassil cannot be described as positive or negative because it was shrouded by confidentiality,” MTV added. The TV network also described as “baseless and inaccurate” a media report published by the kataeb.org news website about the deliberations between Hariri and Bassil. The website had reported that a preliminary agreement has been reached between Hariri and Bassil on forming a 24-minister cabinet headed by Hariri and allotting the so-called sovereign portfolios to Bassil, Ali Hassan Khalil of the AMAL Movement and Wael Abu Faour of the Progressive Socialist Party. “Twenty ministers would be independent experts and two more sovereign portfolio ministers would be described as expert and independent but they would be associated with Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal Movement,” the website added. “It has been agreed that the line-up would be accompanied by a policy statement promising major reform pledges in addition to a work plan whose implementation would involve the civil society, with the aim of calming street protests and sparing the ruling political class the bitter cup that it has been tasting since the revolution erupted on October 17,” kataeb.org said. Hariri is reportedly seeking a government that would exclude figures that “provoke” large segments of the public opinion, such as Bassil, caretaker Telecom Minister Mohammed Choucair and caretaker Environment Minister Fadi Jreissati.Bassil’s Free Patriotic Movement, Hizbullah and their allies are meanwhile opposed to Hariri’s re-designation as premier should Bassil be excluded from the new cabinet’s line-up, according to some media reports.

Sources: Government Formation Ensued from Hariri, Bassil Meeting
Kataeb.org/November 04/2019
The new Cabinet will consist of 24 ministers to be headed by resigned Prime Minister Saad Hariri whose objective aims at pacifying protesters’ fury, sources told Kataeb website. The initial agreement reached between Hariri and caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil during a meeting held on Monday at the Center House indicate that Bassil, Ali Hassan Khalil and Wael Bou Faour will be assigned three of the sovereign ministries while 20 independent specialists will obtain the rest of the seats, provided that two of those will pertain to Hezbollah and the Future Movement. The new government will issue a ministerial statement presenting a list of reformative promises along with a work roadmap calling for the civil society to assist in its implementation.

Lebanon's Aoun: Dialogue with protesters crucial to solve issues at hand
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Monday, 4 November 2019
Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said on Monday that there is a need for dialogue with demonstrators in order to come to an understanding on the issues at hand. On its official Twitter page, The Lebanese Presidency cited Aoun as saying to the UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon that one of the first tasks of the new government will be to follow up the anti-corruption, and carry out an investigation process that will include all officials in departments at different levels. Demonstrators continue to block roads across Lebanon, including in the capital Beirut, as anti-government protests enter their third week. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that while some roads such as the Nahr al-Kalb highway had been reopened, others remain closed by protesters on Monday morning. A rally of support for President Aoun took place on Sunday, in a seeming counter-move against the nationwide protests, which have called for the resignation of the entire government. Aoun's son-in-law Gebran Bassil, who is also leader of his political party the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and foreign minister, attended the rally and called on demonstrators to refrain from accusing everyone of corruption. Aoun previously gave a speech on Thursday calling for a new cabinet. Protesters seem to have largely ignored his calls as banks and schools were again closed on Monday.

Lebanon Bonds Extend Rally
Reuters/November 04/2019
Lebanon sovereign dollar-bonds rallied again on Monday following almost two weeks of hefty losses as the country was facing its biggest economic crisis in decades, though protests showed little sign of abating. The gains came across most of the curve with the 2021 bond enjoying the largest jump, adding 2.12 cents in the dollar to trade at 74.375 cents, Tradeweb data showed. However, this was still well below the near-90 cents in the dollar pre-protests. Many longer-dated issues added around 1.5 cents in the dollar on Monday. On Monday, protesters blocked roads in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, pressing a wave of demonstrations against the ruling elite that have plunged the country into political turmoil at a time of acute economic crisis. The nationwide protests, which were ignited on Oct. 17 by a government proposal to tax WhatsApp calls, led Saad al-Hariri to resign as prime minister last week. Formal consultations over the formation of a new cabinet have yet to begin.

Protesters block roads in Beirut, other parts of Lebanon
Reuters/November 04/2019
Protesters blocked roads in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on Monday, pressing a wave of demonstrations against the ruling elite that have plunged the country into political turmoil at a time of acute economic crisis.
The nationwide protests, which were ignited on Oct. 17 by a government proposal to tax WhatsApp calls, led Saad Al-Hariri to resign as prime minister last week. Formal consultations over the formation of a new cabinet have yet to begin.After Hariri quit, protests had ebbed, roadblocks were lifted and banks reopened for the first time in two weeks on Friday. But in the early hours of Monday, new roadblocks emerged on in Beirut and around the country, snarling major traffic arteries including the main seaside highway north and south of the capital. Schools called off plans to reopen and are now in their third week of closure. “The slogan is ‘this revolution doesn’t know sleep, form the government today’,” said Hashem Adnan, one of several dozen protesters blocking the Ring Bridge in Beirut, demanding a new cabinet independent of the political elite which protesters accuse of corruption and steering Lebanon into economic crisis. “People are continuing because you know you can’t trust this regime, any part of it,” he said.
In the northern city of Tripoli, demonstrator Rabih Al-Zein said protesters had escalated again because they do not trust the ruling elite to meet demands for a new administration that will act against corruption.We want technocrats (in  government) and we want judges to fight corruption, recover stolen money and hold the government accountable,” he said. Lebanon is grappling with the worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. With growth around zero percent, a slowdown in capital inflows has led to a scarcity of US dollars and pressure on the pegged Lebanese pound.
Lebanon is one of the world’s most heavily indebted states and is widely seen to be in need of urgent moves that would narrow the government’s gaping deficit and revive confidence. Though no formal capital controls were announced, customers encountered new restrictions on withdrawals of US dollars and transfers abroad when the banks opened on Friday. Protesters in the southern city of Sidon mobilized outside government-run agencies and commmercial banks on Monday, forcing them to close, a witness said. Hariri, who is aligned with Western and Gulf Arab states, continues in a caretaker capacity until the formation of a new government.The prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim under the Lebanese sectarian system of government and President Michel Aoun must designate the politicians with most support among MPs. Aoun, a Maronite Christian allied to the powerful, Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah, has yet to begin the formal consultations with MPs to designate the next prime minister. On Saturday, the presidency said he was working to resolve “complications” first and would start the consultations soon. Supporters of Aoun staged a big rally near the presidential palace on Sunday, followed by large anti-government protests in Beirut and other parts of the country later in the day.

Schools shut for third week/Worst economic crisis since 1975-90 civil war
Reuters/November 04/2019
 Protesters blocked roads in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on Monday, pressing a wave of demonstrations against the ruling elite that have plunged the country into political turmoil at a time of acute economic crisis.
The nationwide protests, which were ignited on Oct. 17 by a government proposal to tax WhatsApp calls, led Saad Al-Hariri to resign as prime minister last week. Formal consultations over the formation of a new cabinet have yet to begin.After Hariri quit, protests had ebbed, roadblocks were lifted and banks reopened for the first time in two weeks on Friday.

Mustaqbal Denies Being behind Some Road-Blocking Protests
Naharnet/November 04/2019
Al-Mustaqbal Movement on Monday denied allegations accusing it of orchestrating the road-blocking protests in some regions to press for the re-appointment of caretaker PM Saad Hariri as prime minister. “Some news websites and social media activists are holding al-Mustaqbal Movement responsible for the blocking of roads in several regions, attributing their allegations to an alleged order for the Movement’s supporters to take to the streets to take part in a tug of war over the parliamentary consultations and support the designation of PM Saad Hariri,” al-Mustaqbal said in a statement. It added: “Al-Mustaqbal Movement stresses that everything that is being published and circulated in this regard is coming from tools and writers who are seeking sedition and incitement and are annoyed by the sentiments of solidarity with PM Hariri.”“PM Hariri will not, under any circumstances, put himself in a position of racing for the premiership in media outlets, and he considers the premier designation process a constitutional issue subject to binding parliamentary consultations, not to the wishes of some of those who are seeking sectarian incitement on social networking websites,” Mustaqbal said.

Choucair Orders Sale of Recharge Cards according to Official Exchange Rate
Naharnet/November 04/2019
Caretaker Telecommunications Minister Mohammed Choucair on Monday ordered mobile network operators touch and Alfa to sell prepaid recharge cards according to the official dollar exchange rate set by the central bank, after dollar rationing in the country led to a hike in prices.
“After a series of meetings and contacts held by Minister Choucair with the various parties and officials concerned with the issue of recharge cards, it has been decided to deliver these cards to distributors in Lebanese lira and according to the official US dollar exchange rate set by Banque du Liban,” Choucair’s press office said in a statement. “Accordingly, Minister Choucair has asked the two mobile network firms and their distribution employees to sell these cards to citizens according to the set prices as of tomorrow, Tuesday, calling on the Ministry of Economy and Commerce and the Consumer Protection Directorate to prosecute anyone who violates this decision,” the statement added. The statement also said that the minister has sought to find a solution that “does not contradict with the contracts signed with the two mobile network operators, which limit the jurisdiction of changing the prices of recharge cards to the government exclusively.”The statement also reminded citizens that they can continue to purchase recharge cards according to the official exchange rate through the 300 touch and Alfa centers spread across Lebanon, ATM machines and the Alfa and touch websites and mobile applications.

Financial Prosecutor Sues CDR, Several Firms over Brissa Dam File

Naharnet/November 04/2019
Financial Prosecutor Ali Ibrahim on Monday filed a lawsuit against the state-run Council for Development and Construction and several private companies on charges of wasting public funds in connection with the Brissa Dam project, the National News Agency said. LBCI television said several corruption-related files will be tackled after Monday’s move. The TV network said the files pertain to the telecom sector, illegal phone services, customs and cases related to the state’s finances. The development comes amid unprecedented, nationwide and cross-sectarian protests that have gripped Lebanon since October 17, demanding a complete overhaul of a political system deemed inefficient and corrupt.

Lebanon's Parliament Postpones Session to Elect Secretaries, Commissioners
Naharnet/November 04/2019
The Parliament speakership announced on Monday the postponement of a legislative session set to elect two secretaries and three commissioners, the National News Agency reported.The session was scheduled to be held on the 5th of November. It was rescheduled for November 12.

Abdullah Urges Hariri to Form Govt. of People’s Aspirations

Naharnet/November 04/2019
MP Bilal Abdullah, of the Progressive Socialist Party parliamentary bloc, called upon caretaker PM Saad Hariri to form a government that meets the people’s aspirations and leave his rivals to bear the consequences should they fail to listen to the popular street demands. The MP said that political figures are exploiting their popular gatherings to impose conditions and enhance their power shares. “In the designation (of PM) and formation (of government), some (politicians) use the squares to impose conditions and enhance quotas, and also disregard the constitution and customs...we listen to the statements of ministers and deputies of a particular party talking about the diversity of their choices,” said Abdullah. The MP addressed Hariri and urged him to form a government that meets the conscience of the people, “Sheikh Saad, your street is closest to the pulse of the street, why don't you form a government that meets the people’s conscience and let them (his rivals) bear the consequences alone," he said. Since October 17, Lebanon has been gripped by unprecedented anti-government and anti-austerity protests for nearly two weeks. Last week, the Lebanese government led by Hariri resigned under pressure from the street. President Michel Aoun acknowledged Hariri's resignation as prime minister but asked his government to stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed.

Protests Against Political Class Gain Momentum in Lebanon
Associated Press/Naharnet/November 04/2019
Lebanese demonstrators blocked key roads around the country on Monday after a weekend of mass rallies confirmed that political promises had failed to extinguish the unprecedented protest movement. In a now almost daily game of cat-and-mouse with riot police, increasingly organised protesters erected temporary road blocks using dumpsters and parked vehicles. In the capital Beirut, they sat cross-legged on a key flyover and gathered near the Central Bank, which protesters blame for fuelling Lebanon's economic crisis. Schools had been due to reopen on Monday after weeks of sporadic closures, but some remained shuttered as much of the country remained on partial lockdown for a third Monday. Unprecedented cross-sectarian demonstrations have gripped Lebanon since October 17, demanding a complete overhaul of a political system deemed inefficient and corrupt. The nationwide street movement has brought down the government, in what is regarded as its first major win. Protesters have however vowed to keep up the street movement until all their demands are met, including the formation of a technocratic government. Yusef Fadel, a demonstrator, ruled out the possibility that the next government could also include party loyalists. "I reiterate, we are demanding a technocratic government and not a techno-partisan one," said the 25-year-old who holds a masters degree in finance but remains unemployed.
"We need new blood."
Lebanon's president has said the country's next cabinet should include ministers picked on skills, not political affiliation, seemingly endorsing protester demands. On Sunday, tens of thousands took to the streets, calling for an end to President Michel Aoun's tenure, as well as the removal of a political system dominated by the same figures and families since the end of the civil war. The mobilisation followed a large rally organised by Aoun supporters in front of the presidential palace.

Protesters close roads, paralyzing Lebanon as crisis worsens
Associated Press/November 04/2019
On one of Beirut’s main avenues, protesters distributed leaflets apologizing for closing roads and saying that the “roads will remain closed until an independent government is formed.”
BEIRUT: Protesters have closed major roads in and elsewhere in Lebanon, paralyzing the country as the political crisis over the formation of a new government worsens. Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned last Tuesday, meeting a key demand of the protesters that have been holding demonstration since Oct. 17 demanding an end to widespread corruption and mismanagement by the political class that has ruled the country for three decades. President Michel Aoun has not yet set a date for consultations with heads of parliamentary blocs to name a new prime minister.Many schools, universities and businesses were closed on Monday. Art of Change: Revolutionary street art loudening Lebanon’s voice .On one of Beirut’s main avenues, protesters distributed leaflets apologizing for closing roads and saying that the “roads will remain closed until an independent government is formed.”

Al-Akhbar Journalists Resign over Paper Policy on Lebanon Uprising

Naharnet/November 04/2019
Two Journalists in Hizbullah-led al-Akhbar newspaper submitted their resignation recently rejecting the paper’s position about the nationwide demonstrations that gripped Lebanon since October 17 demanding a complete overhaul of a political system deemed inefficient and corrupt.
Mohammed Zbeeb, editor in chief of al-Akhbar newspaper business page, wrote in a tweet on Monday: “I submitted my resignation from al-Akhbar last week to protest the administration's attitude towards the Revolution.” The second journalist, Joy Slim, announced her resignation on Facebook last week because of her coverage of the Lebanese revolution. She wrote: “I submitted my resignation from al-Akhbar after working for five years and a half in the newspaper.”She added: “The past days were decisive for me, I was disappointed how the paper covered the uprising after working for months (and perhaps years) to provide evidence that it had to happen. As soon as it happened, the newspaper quickly joined the ranks of the counterrevolution, introducing inflammatory plots and rumors that fueled what happened today in the street and the attack of “citizens" (as al-Akhbar called them on facebook) on the protesters.”It is noteworthy that many articles written by the editor-in-chief of al-Akhbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, considered the October 17 uprising as “suspicious and funded by foreign embassies.”

As Lebanon and Iraq Protests Flare, Iran Clings to Hard-Earned Sway

SourceAgence France Presse/Naharnet/November 04/2019
Iran has worked to turn sweeping anti-government protests in Iraq from a threat to its hard-earned influence over its neighbor into an opportunity for political gains, analysts say. In Lebanon too, where similar rallies against corruption and government inefficiency have broken out, Iran's main ally Hizbullah has managed to maintain its influence. "Very clearly, Iran in both Lebanon and Iraq wants to protect the system and not allow it to fall apart," said Renad Mansour, researcher at London-based Chatham House. In both countries "it considers the demands of protesters potentially destabilizing," he told AFP. In Iraq, many demonstrators calling for an overhaul to the political system over the past month have pointed at Tehran as its primary sponsor -- a worrying accusation for Iranian officials. The leaders in Iran "are probably at peak influence and don't want anything to change, because it's exactly where they want to be," said Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. For decades, Iran has carefully crafted ties to a vast range of Iraq political and military actors, from Shiite opponents of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein to Kurdish factions in the north and even Sunni tribes in the west.
It therefore can play a crucial mediating role in Iraq's political crises, and Qasem Soleimani, who heads the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force, often visits Baghdad during such times.Tehran also backs many of the factions in Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, which was formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group. And it sells crucial electricity and natural gas to supplement Iraq's gutted power sector and is Baghdad's second-biggest source of other imports, from fruit to carpets and cars.
'Palm of Iran's hand' -
The political and economic sway is perhaps more valuable than ever amid Washington's efforts to isolate and economically handicap Iran. The leaders in Tehran "have absolutely everything to lose and will do anything to defend it," said Knights. "In the course of that, they are exposing their hand and their allies, and building even greater anger towards them." Since protests erupted on October 1 in Iraq, many demonstrators have accused Iran of propping up the corrupt, inefficient system they want to overthrow. One in five Iraqis live below the poverty line and youth unemployment stands at 25 percent, despite the vast oil wealth of OPEC's second-largest crude producer. "All our leaders are in the palm of Iran's hand," said Azhar, a 21-year-old protester in Baghdad's Tahrir Square. In unprecedented displays of anti-Iran sentiment, demonstrators chanted "Out, out, Iran! Baghdad will stay free!" Online footage showed Iraqis hitting pictures of Soleimani with their shoes, a severe insult in the region. The criticism caught Iran's attention, and Soleimani has visited Iraq multiple times over the past five weeks to "advise" factions on how to respond, sources told AFP."He's running the show," said a government official. "They agreed on a way to deal with protesters that allows the current political leadership to stay," another source with knowledge of Soleimani's visits said. One such meeting blocked a potential deal between paramilitary chief Hadi al-Ameri and populist cleric Moqtada Sadr to oust Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, sources said. But parties appear to have closed rank around the embattled premier again, maintaining the status quo. And amid the chaos of protests, several military commanders seen as close to the United States have been sidelined. "Iran has tightened its grip considerably and become much more bold," said Knights.
Lebanon erupts
A week before the resumption of Iraq's anti-government rallies on October 24, another Middle Eastern country erupted in anger at systemic corruption: Lebanon. Lebanon's government is dominated by the allies of Shiite armed movement Hizbullah, through which Iran exerts significant influence.
"Hizbullah has never had it this good," said Amal Saad, a Hizbullah expert and professor at the Lebanese University. But after rallies unexpectedly reached the party's strongholds in Lebanon, "Hizbullah and Iran are in a precarious situation," Saad told AFP. Criticism of the movement's chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah even aired on the Hizbullah-run al-Manar TV, which was previously unimaginable for its propaganda arm. After initially backing the protests, Nasrallah said his party would not back the government's resignation, which he said would lead to a dangerous political vacuum. Party loyalists have also launched counter-demonstrations, sparking scuffles with protesters and journalists. Despite the initial threat, said analyst Qassem Qassir, the party is as strong as ever. "It may have lost some morale or taken a hit in the media, but its strength remains," Qassir told AFP.

Lebanon Protests Rage on as Politicians Stall
Agence France Presse/Monday, 4 November, 2019
Demonstrators in Lebanon blocked key roads and prevented some public institutions from opening Monday after mass rallies showed political promises had failed to extinguish the unprecedented protest movement. Nationwide cross-sectarian rallies have gripped Lebanon since October 17, demanding a complete overhaul of a political system deemed inefficient and corrupt. The movement forced the government to resign last week and has spurred a raft of promises from political leaders, who have vowed to enact serious reforms to combat corruption. But on Monday demonstrators battled on, vowing to keep up their street movement until all their demands are met, including the formation of a technocratic government."The people in power are not serious" about forming a new government, said Aadi, a 30-year-old demonstrator blocking a road that connects the capital to the southern city of Sidon. "They think we are playing here."In Sidon, protesters gathered in front of public institutions and banks to prevent them from opening, an AFP reporter said. Another reporter saw similar scenes in the northern city of Tripoli. In a now almost daily game of cat-and-mouse with riot police, increasingly organized protesters erected temporary road blocks using dumpsters and parked vehicles. In the capital Beirut, they sat cross-legged on a key flyover and gathered near the Central Bank, which protesters blame for fueling Lebanon's economic crisis. Schools had been due to reopen Monday after weeks of sporadic closures, but some remained shuttered as much of the country was on partial lockdown for a third Monday.
'New blood'
Lebanon's under-fire political class has repeatedly warned against the chaos a government resignation would cause, but they have yet to make progress on appointing a replacement. President Michel Aoun has asked the outgoing government to stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new one is formed, but Lebanon has entered a phase of acute political uncertainty, even by its own dysfunctional standards. With a power-sharing system organized along sectarian lines, the allocation of ministerial posts can typically take months, a delay demonstrators say the country can ill afford. "The people and the politicians are living on two different clouds," said Steven, a 34-year-old from the Bekaa Valley who was blocking a key flyover in Beirut. "The president hasn't even called on parliament to discuss the formation of a new government," he added. "Nobody is listening to us."
One week after the government's resignation, there had still been no consultations between the president and parliamentary blocs.
These are to look into who would lead the next government, as well as the distribution of cabinet posts among established parties and independents.
Yusef Fadel, a demonstrator in central Beirut, ruled out the possibility that the next government would include members of established parties.
"I reiterate, we are demanding a technocratic government and not a techno-partisan one," said the 25-year-old who holds a masters degree in finance but remains unemployed.
"We need new blood."
On Monday, Aoun called for dialogue with "protesters to reach an understanding", and said fighting corruption was a priority. "The investigation will include all officials, of all ranks, in all administrations," he said on Twitter.
Cross-sectarian
Lebanon's largely sectarian political parties have been flat-footed by the cross-communal nature of the demonstrations. Waving Lebanese national flags rather than the partisan colors normally paraded at demonstrations, protesters have been demanding the resignation of all of Lebanon's political leaders.
Such was the scene on Sunday, when tens of thousands took to the streets across the country. "All of them means all of them," they chanted, calling for political leaders from all sectarian stripes to step down. Draped in white sheets, three demonstrators staged a mock execution of the grievances that pushed them down into the street. Nooses around their limp necks, they bore signs referring to corruption, sectarianism, and the 1975-1990 civil war. Sunday's mobilization followed a large rally organized by Aoun supporters in front of the presidential palace. Aoun's supporters said they backed the overall demands of anti-graft protesters, but insisted the president was the only man able to bring about reforms.The president has said the members of the next government should be picked on merit, not political affiliation, seemingly endorsing protester demands for a technocratic government. On Sunday, he urged the Lebanese to rally behind a roadmap to tackle corruption, redress the economy, and put together a civil government. But he is also thought to be insisting on keeping his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, who is Lebanon's foreign minister and one of the most reviled figures among protesters, in government.

Sami Gemayel Lambastes Delay in Government Formation
Kataeb.org//November 04/2019
Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel on Monday slammed the delay in the Cabinet formation noting that it exacerbates the crisis, deeming it shameful to count on people to break or on suppressing them. “We do not want a technopolitical government, or a political one, or any suggested biased form of a government,” Gemayel said during a press conference at the party's headquarters in Saifi. “We want an independent government that restores the international community’s trust, embarks on reforms and alleviates the monetary condition,” Gemayel stressed. “The people are calling for implementation of the Constitution, early Parliamentary elections and appointment of a new Prime Minister while you are procrastinating and asking them to form committees to negotiate with you,” he stressed. “The people are tired of closed doors, of political settlements and deals and are pleading for their demands to be respected,” he emphasized.
“How will the people trust you in resolving the country’s crisis while you are incapable of even forming a new government?”“Politicians should take a six-month break to review their steps before running for early elections,” he proposed.
“A neutral technocratic government and specialized ministries are needed in a transitional phase until early Parliamentary elections are set up which would generate people’s true representatives,” he stated. “The Parliament’s mandate can be shortened same as it was extended to allow people to express their opinion and we have submitted a law to the Parliament calling for that,” Gemayel explained that if approved, Parliament elections will be held in six months.
"Holding fast to your seats has destroyed the country" “Why are you afraid if you trust yourself?” “As an opposition force to the political settlement and the partitioning logic of detrimental implications, we urge all blocs and parties to acknowledge Lebanon’s need for a neutral competent government,” he indicated.
“The current mentality is destroying the country and egging on corruption which the citizens refused,” he lambasted. “Those protesting in the streets are not happy to be there; they are suffering and weary but this is their chance for a better life, better future for their children and better country” he declared.
“Today, we can see the Lebanese dreaming again and aspiring for an improved country,” he noted.

Lebanese Passport Ranked Among Worst in the World
CNN International/November 04/2019
It's been a two-horse race this year to be named the world's most powerful passport, with both top contenders in Asia.
Now, as we enter the final quarter of 2019, Japan and Singapore have held onto their position as the world's most travel-friendly passports.
That's the view of the Henley Passport Index, which periodically measures the access each country's travel document affords.
Singapore and Japan's passports have topped the rankings thanks to both documents offering access to 190 countries each.
South Korea rubs shoulders with Finland and Germany in second place, with citizens of all three countries able to access 188 jurisdictions around the world without a prior visa.
Finland has benefited from recent changes to Pakistan's formerly highly restrictive visa policy. Pakistan now offers an ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) to citizens of 50 countries, including Finland, Japan, Spain, Malta, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates -- but not, notably, the United States or the UK.
The European countries of Denmark, Italy and Luxembourg hold third place in the index, with visa-free/visa-on-arrival access to 187 countries, while France, Spain and Sweden are in the fourth slot, with a score of 186.
Five years ago, the United States and the UK topped the rankings in 2014 -- but both countries have now slipped down to sixth place, the lowest position either has held since 2010.
While the Brexit process has yet to directly impact on the UK's ranking, the Henley Passport Index press release observed in July, "with its exit from the EU now imminent, and coupled with ongoing confusion about the terms of its departure, the UK's once-strong position looks increasingly uncertain."
The United Arab Emirates continues its ascent up the rankings, up five places to rank 15th.
"It's the strongest climber this quarter," Lorraine Charles at Cambridge University's Centre for Business Research says in the October release.
"While the UAE may not be able to compete with Saudi Arabia -- the regional hegemon -- in terms of military strength and economic power, the projection of its soft power is uncontested in the GCC."
At the other end of the scale, Afghanistan is once again at the bottom of the rankings, with its citizens needing a prior visa for all but 25 destinations worldwide.
Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and the creator of the passport index concept, says in the July release: "With a few notable exceptions, the latest rankings from the Henley Passport Index show that countries around the world increasingly view visa-openness as crucial to economic and social progress."
The best passports to hold in 2019 are:
1. Japan, Singapore (190 destinations)
2. Finland, Germany, South Korea (188)
3. Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg (187)
4. France, Spain, Sweden (186)
5. Austria, Netherlands, Portugal (185)
6. Belgium, Canada, Greece, Ireland, Norway, United Kingdom, United States, Switzerland (184)
7. Malta, Czech Republic (183)
8. New Zealand (182)
9. Australia, Lithuania, Slovakia (181)
10. Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Slovenia (180)
The worst passports to hold
Several countries around the world have visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to fewer than 40 countries. These include:
100. Lebanon, North Korea (39 destinations)
101. Nepal (38)
102. Libya, Palestinian Territory, Sudan (37)
103. Yemen (33)
104. Somalia, Pakistan (31)
105. Syria (29)
106. Iraq (27)
107. Afghanistan (25)
Other indexes
Henley & Partner's list is one of several indexes created by financial firms to rank global passports according to the access they provide to their citizens.
The Henley Passport Index is based on data provided by the International Air Transport Authority (IATA) and covers 199 passports and 227 travel destinations. It is updated in real time throughout the year, as and when visa policy changes come into effect.
Arton Capital's Passport Index takes into consideration the passports of 193 United Nations member countries and six territories -- ROC Taiwan, Macau (SAR China), Hong Kong (SAR China), Kosovo, Palestinian Territory and the Vatican. Territories annexed to other countries are excluded.
Its 2019 index puts the UAE on top with a "visa-free score" of 177, followed by Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and Spain with 170.

By becoming an active part of Lebanon’s loathed political class, Hezbollah has faced the wrath of protestors too.

Mohanad Hage Ali/Carnegie MEC/November 04/2019
As the uprising in Lebanon has continued against the political elite and its corruption and mismanagement of power, a surprising victim of the popular unrest has been Hezbollah. Protests have taken place in Shi‘a areas of Lebanon, despite efforts by the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, to undercut the demonstrations. This has only cast light on how the Hezbollah of today is not the same party that took on a central political role in Lebanon in 2005.
Hezbollah’s decision to enter the first Lebanese government after the Syrian withdrawal in 2005 transformed it into a full-fledged partner of the country’s failed political class. The image last week of Hezbollah-backed thugs and loyalists attacking peaceful protesters will long stain the party’s self-professed reputation as the protector of Lebanon against Israeli aggression and an “outsider” with regard to the political elite. Indeed, Hezbollah in the past two weeks has stood as a main defender of this elite, whose system protects the party, with Nasrallah repeatedly trying to demobilize the protest movement.
A historical look back at Hezbollah’s recent history helps to better understand why many in the Shi‘a community joined the protest movement, after a long record of disciplined involvement in Hezbollah’s political gatherings. How has the party reached this stage, after a period when “the resistance” was considered above the petty maneuvering of internal Lebanese politics?
The questions is more striking given that the party was never a full participant in the formative postwar period after 1990. That is when Lebanon’s current economic model was defined, empowering Lebanese warlords to extend their clientelistic networks and sectarian partisanship into government institutions.
During that period, the Syrian regime compartmentalized the roles of its clients and cronies in the country. Hezbollah was focused mainly on combating Israel’s occupation until 2000. Throughout those years the party’s participation in parliamentary and political life was relatively limited, in comparison to the Amal movement, which was the main representative of the Shi‘a in government. While Amal gained by rewarding its loyalists, its behavior was marred with accusations of corruption, undermining its popularity.
Back then, Hezbollah, as a resistance movement, accumulated military achievements and was perceived as having stayed clear of corrupt Lebanese politics. Within the Shi‘a community, the party was respected and was regarded as pious, while Amal appeared to embody greed and a lust for power.
Hezbollah’s standing in elections expanded as a consequence. For the critical mass of Lebanese Shi‘a, Hezbollah’s success in forcing an Israeli withdrawal in 2000 sanctified the organization as a liberator. The death of Hassan Nasrallah’s son while fighting against the Israelis in 1997, meant that he was viewed as being of a different cloth than most other Lebanese politicians. This helped Hezbollah to portray itself as the antithesis of Lebanese politics.
The party hesitated at first to enter Lebanese politics in 2005, when the Syrian army and security forces withdrew from Lebanon after the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri. The party defined its new government role as complementary to its resistance. Given the Syrian pullout, Hezbollah sought mainly to safeguard its weapons by bestowing legitimacy on its own resistance role by anchoring this in a new government. Hezbollah forged close ties with Amal, which remain in place to this day. The former enemies and competitors became the “Shi‘a duo,” inseparable in politics. The party also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Michel Aoun in 2006, paving the way for deeper ties with his political heir Gebran Bassil, who now heads the FPM and is a main target of the protesters.
Regional conflicts only intensified these alliances. The 2005–2015 decade was a highly volatile one for Hezbollah, as it faced many crises. This included the Syrian withdrawal and accusations that the party was involved in the Hariri assassination, a war with Israel in 2006, a short-lived domestic conflict in 2008, when Hezbollah and its Amal allies took over western Beirut, and the party’s entry into the war in Syria in 2013.
Hezbollah survived all these events with little discernible impact on its Shi‘a base of support. Sectarian polarization allowed the party to keep its constituency mobilized. By overstating alleged internal and external threats to the party and to Lebanon’s Shi‘a, Hezbollah enjoyed a wide margin of maneuver.
All this changed in 2016. A year after Russia’s intervention in Syria, the Assad regime was gaining ground and Hezbollah found itself on the winning side there. This is when the party decided to translate such gains inside Lebanon. Hezbollah played an integral role in sustaining a vacuum in the presidency as a means of putting pressure to pave the way for Michel Aoun’s election as president. In return, Aoun and the FPM helped Hezbollah secure the passing of a favorable electoral law that allowed the party and its allies, including the FPM, to win a majority in the 2018 elections. To secure a large turnout in the Biq‘a and South Lebanon, Nasrallah pledged to personally oversee the party’s efforts to fight corruption. At the time the Lebanese Shi‘a shared the nationwide fatigue with the slowing economy, rising inequality, the youth bulge, and unemployment.
Nasrallah’s anticorruption promise did not materialize, and given the United States’ rising pressure against Iran and Hezbollah, the party prioritized its external conflicts yet again. However, the mandate the party had gotten from Lebanon’s Shi‘a in 2005 is today overstretched. The idea of external conspiracies, existential in nature and seemingly never ending, is increasingly less believable. If the ruling elite fails again, the economic crisis will drive people into the streets with even more force than what we’ve seen until now.
Nasrallah and his patron, the Iranian supreme leader ‘Ali Khamenei, have already attempted to demonize the demonstrators, a tactic that was used to justify some of the violence used against protestors. Yet this triggered criticism from within pro-Hezbollah institutions. Journalists at the Al-Akhbar newspaper, for example, have resigned in protest against the publication’s efforts to tarnish the protestors.
That explains why Nasrallah’s most recent speech was more about damage control. Hezbollah’s secretary general was conciliatory toward the protestors, praising them and their role, while explaining how his previous remarks on how the protests hid external conspiracies were taken out of context. Even if the party tries to pose as a reformer, little might stop the snowballing perception that Hezbollah is now a pillar of the failing and resented ruling class.

Students protest against the university’s decision to resume classes
Sandra Abdelbaki/Associated Press/November 04/2019
After the rush of demonstrations on Sunday night, many roads were blocked and students coming from outside Beirut weren’t able to attend their classes.
BEIRUT: As many universities have decided to open their doors on the 19th day of Lebanon’s revolution, many students have called for protests against this decision.
Since the wave of protests were quite calm after the government’s resignation, many universities such as the Lebanese American University, the American University of Beirut, the American University of Sciences and Technology, Saint Joseph University and the Lebanese University issued a decision to resume classes on Monday November 4. And with this decision came the opposition of students.
Many students from LAU and AUB gathered at the universities’ main gates and had a peaceful sit-in this Monday morning as an objection to the resumption of classes. AUB students blocked Bliss street with garbage cans on Sunday night. The protests’ aim is to send a message that the revolution needs to proceed with the students because they represent a big number of the protesters. The students, however, decided not to do it on the pavement but on the street itself because the pavement is public property.
“I didn’t attend my classes today because this is a historical moment in our country, it’s a moment of national unity,” said Antonio Chdid, a mechanical engineering student at AUB. “It’s the job of students to be part of this revolution because we are the educated youth in this country and we have the energy and spirit to enact real change. Our place isn’t in the classes right now. We should be on the streets.”
“We, as students, have the right to protest and it is not feasible with the university’s pressure and deadlines,” said Lea Fakih, one of the students at LAU. “It is like we have to choose between our country and our education, and it’s as if we are studying for a future that does not exist in case the revolution failed.”
After the rush of demonstrations on Sunday night, many roads were blocked and students coming from outside Beirut weren’t able to attend their classes. Consequently, universities such as AUB and LAU were cooperative and supportive of the students.
“We believe that students have the right to express themselves on campus or off campus,” Raed Mohsen, Dean of Students at LAU, told Annahar. “The university decided to resume its classes but the professors have instructions not to count the students who have not attended as absent.”
According to Mohsen, almost 40% of the students attended LAU today. Others were protesting or couldn’t attend due to the sudden roadblocks.
Talal Nizameddine, Dean of Student Affairs at AUB, believes that no matter how great a cause is, students shouldn’t lose themselves in it.
“We are very proud of our community and our students, and we have to make sure we do the right thing in the right way. People have to get their right, and they have to work for that while studying,” Nizameddine said. “We decided to open our classes since last Thursday because we have a lot of requirements to meet and we barely have one month of this semester left.”
Many students are still willing to continue with the protests and take part in Lebanon’s revolution considering that their future is at stake in this country.
“We’re not going to stop protesting and standing for what we believe in because no one else is going to do it for us,” Fakih told Annahar.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 04-05/2019
US imposes sanctions on nine people, one entity tied to Iran’s top leader
Reuters, Washington/Monday, 4 November 2019
The United States imposed sanctions on nine people with ties to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including his chief of staff, one of his sons and the head of Iran’s judiciary, the US Treasury Department said on Monday. The United States also sanctioned Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff, the department said in the statement, which came 40 years after Iran seized the US embassy in Tehran, taking more than 50 Americans hostage. “Today the Treasury Department is targeting the unelected officials who surround Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and implement his destabilizing policies,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “These individuals are linked to a wide range of malign behaviors by the regime, including bombings of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in 1994, as well as torture, extrajudicial killings, and repression of civilians,” Mnuchin added. Separately, the US State Department announced a new reward up to $20 million for information that leads to the location, recovery and return of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who was last seen in Iran. “The Trump Administration has made clear that the regime in Iran must release all missing and wrongfully detained Americans, including Robert Levinson, Xiyue Wang, Siamak Namazi, and others. We will not rest until they are reunited with their families,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, referring to American citizens who have been imprisoned in Iran after being accused of espionage. The sanctions are designed to impose more limits on Khamenei’s inner circle, an administration official said. “Our action is specifically focused on further targeting the financial assets of the supreme leader’s inner circle of both military and foreign affair advisors,” a senior administration official said in a call with reporters to discuss the sanctions.Those targeted by the US sanctions include Khamenei’s chief of staff Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani as well as Vahid Haghanian, who the department said “has been referred to as the Supreme Leader’s right hand.” Ebrahim Raisi, who Khamenei appointed in March 2019 to lead Iran’s judiciary, and Mojtaba Khamenei, Khamenei’s second son, were also sanctioned, Treasury said. US sanctions block any US-controlled property or interests held by those targeted, and prohibit anyone or any entities in the United States from dealing with those sanctioned. The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran to launch an array of 30 advanced centrifuges, head of nuclear body says
Agencies/Monday, 4 November 2019
Iran is launching a new array of 30 advanced IR-6 centrifuges on Monday, the country’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi told state television, scaling back Tehran’s commitments under a nuclear agreement with major powers.
“Today, we are witnessing the launch of the array of 30 IR-6 centrifuges,” Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said. He added that the move would show Iran’s “capacity and determination.”Iran said Monday its enriched uranium production has reached five kilogrammes per day, more than 10 times the level two months ago when it abandoned a number of commitments to the 2015 nuclear deal. The US last year withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear accord with world powers and reimposed sanctions. Iran responded by gradually scaling back its commitments under the agreement and has said it could take further steps in November.

EU warns Iran over nuclear deal after uranium claims
AFP, Brussels/Monday, 4 November 2019
The European Union on Monday warned its support for the Iran nuclear deal depends on Tehran fulfilling its commitments, after Iranian officials announced a major increase in enriched uranium production. Following a series of steps away from its commitments under the 2015 accord, the head of the Iranian atomic energy agency said Monday that production of enriched uranium had reached five kilos a day and two new advanced centrifuges had been developed. Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini, said the bloc “took note” of the announcement but would wait for confirmation by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency before responding. “We have continued to urge Iran to reverse such steps without delay and to refrain from other measures that would undermine the nuclear deal,” Kocijancic told reporters in Brussels, saying the EU “remained committed” to the nuclear deal. “But we have also been consistent in saying that our commitment to the nuclear deal depends on full compliance by Iran.”Tehran decided in May to suspend certain commitments under the accord, a year after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic republic. Iran has so far hit back with three packages of countermeasures and threatened to go even further if the remaining partners to the deal – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – fail to help it circumvent US sanctions.

German minister urges Iran to return to nuclear accord

Reuters, Budapest/Monday, 4 November 2019
Iran’s announcement that it has developed advanced machines to speed up its uranium enrichment jeopardizes an agreement with world powers, Germany’s foreign minister said on Monday, urging Tehran to return to the original accord.
“Iran has built very advanced centrifuges, which do not comply with the agreement,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told a news conference in response to a question about the announcement. “They have announced in early September that they would not comply with the nuclear accord and we think this is unacceptable,” he said through an interpreter.

US State Dept: Iran interferes in Iraq, other countries to ‘foment chaos’
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Monday, 4 November 2019
On the 40th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover in Tehran and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed, the US State Department spokeswoman said that Iran is interfering in Iraq and other countries “to foment chaos in the Middle East,” adding that Washington was not surprised by Tehran’s attempts to suppress the demonstrations. In an interview with Al Arabiya, the spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said on Monday that the United States is “committed to seeing peace and democracy in Iraq.”Pointing to Iran’s interference in the region, she said “For anyone that pays attention to Iran, it’s not at all shocking when you hear these reports instead it just exemplifies a pattern of behavior that you see by the Iranian regime. Whether it is Iraq, whether it is Yemen, whether it is Lebanon, whether it is Syria, I mean North Africa, you could go through the list of countries where Iran as the largest state sponsor of terrorism uses these proxies...to foment chaos in the Middle East.”“It is time for the peoples of the Middle East to stand up against this regime,” she said. Describing the seizure of the US diplomatic compound in Tehran in 1979, Ortagus said “This is one of the darker periods in State Department history.”“Today the Secretary of State will be honoring the hostages and their families,” said Ortagus. She called upon the Iranian regime “to release these American hostages, to release those missing and wrongfully detained, then we continue to work behind the scenes.”“We will go to any lengths, no matter how much time has passed, to get our Americans back home,” she said.

Iran Announces New Violations of Nuclear Deal

Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 4 November, 2019
Iran said on Monday it had launched a new batch of advanced centrifuges to accelerate uranium enrichment, further reducing compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal following the withdrawal of the United States.
Iran has gradually shed commitments made under the deal with world powers since being hit with renewed US sanctions that have crippled its oil exports. Germany said on Monday Iran’s announced roll-out of modernized centrifuges jeopardizes the accord and called on Tehran to return to it. Under the 2015 deal, Tehran is only allowed to enrich uranium with just over 5,000 of its first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, widely seen as antiquated and breakdown-prone. The new IR-6 machines can refine uranium 10 times faster, said Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.“Today, we are witnessing the launch of the cascade (operating set) of 30 IR-6 centrifuges,” Salehi told state television. “Iran now is operating 60 IR-6 advanced centrifuges. It shows our capacity and determination. “Our scientists are working on a prototype called the IR-9 that works 50 times faster than the IR-1s.”The nuclear deal, under which international sanctions against Iran were lifted, was tailored to extend the time Iran would need to accumulate enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb - sometimes referred to as the “breakout time” - to about a year from 2-3 months.
Tehran denies ever having aimed to develop a nuclear bomb, saying enrichment is only to generate energy for civilian uses.The UN. nuclear watchdog said in September that Iran had informed the agency about making modifications to accommodate cascades - or interconnected clusters - of 164 of the IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuge. Cascades of the same size and type were scrapped under the nuclear agreement. Iran “has no credible reason” to expand its enrichment program, a senior US administration official said on Monday in a call with reporters. “And what they’ve announced is a big step in the wrong direction.”
Iran’s announcement came on the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran at the start of its revolution. A brief thaw in decades of antagonism between Tehran and Washington brought about by the 2015 deal ended last year when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the accord, under which Iran had agreed to rein in its disputed enrichment program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Trump said the accord was flawed in Iran’s favor and wants it renegotiated. Washington has since renewed and intensified its sanctions, slashing Iran’s economically vital crude oil sales by more than 80%. The Trump administration on Monday slapped fresh sanctions on nine people with ties to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, including his chief of staff, one of his sons and the head of Iran’s judiciary. The US Treasury Department said those targeted help Khamenei “implement his destabilizing policies”. Responding to Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran has bypassed the restrictions of the deal step-by-step - including by breaching both its cap on stockpiled enriched uranium and on the level of enrichment.

US issues $20 mln reward for American missing in Iran
The Associated Press, Washington/Monday, 4 November 2019
The Trump administration on Monday offered a reward of up to $20 million for information about Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, and imposed new sanctions on leading Iranian officials as relations deteriorated further on the 40th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover. The reward for help solving the Levinson disappearance and the sanctions also come as Iran said it was doubling the number of advanced centrifuges it operates to produce nuclear fuel, trimming the time experts believe that the Islamic Republic would need to have enough material to build a nuclear weapon. The State Department claims Levinson was taken hostage in Iran with the involvement of the Iranian regime. The Iranian government has never acknowledged arresting him. Combined with a $5 million reward already in place from the FBI, this makes a total of $25 million available to the person or persons providing information about Levinson. “This is the 40th anniversary of the day in 1979 when 52 Americans were taken hostage and held for 444 days,” Levinson’s family said in a statement released after the new reward was announced. “Bob Levinson has been held more than 10 times longer - for 4,624 days. Bob Levinson must come home, and Iran’s hostage-taking as government policy must end.” The senior officials used the anniversary to call on Tehran to release all missing and wrongfully detained Americans, including Levinson, Xiyue Wang, Siamak Namazi and others. The Treasury Department said it took action against nine individuals to block funds from flowing to a shadow network of Khamenei’s military and foreign affairs advisers who are suspected of oppressing the Iranian people and supporting militants. The sanctions target individuals in Khamenei’s office, the armed forces and the judiciary. Two of them have been linked to the 1983 US Marine barrack bombing in Beirut that killed 241 US personnel and the 1994 bombing of Argentine Israelite Mutual Association.

New Railway to Link Iranian, Syrian Coasts
Damascus - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 4 November, 2019
A report by the Syrian ministry of transport revealed a bid on connecting Iranian and Syrian coasts as well as the Iranian town of Shalamcheh to Iraq’s Basra by a railway system that stretches from the Port of Imam Khomeini to the Port of Latakia.
Iran’s national state-owned railway system announced in April a project linking the cities of Shalamcheh and Basra via a 32-kilometer railway project financed and implemented by the Iranians. Iran seeks to bolster its presence in Syria through scoring many vital economic agreements which will help it in dodging US sanctions. It recently obtained the right to manage Syria’s port of Latakia after signing an agreement with President Bashar al-Assad during his visit to Tehran last February. Iran will use the Syrian port as an alternative route for shipping. All this coincides with accelerating the implementation of the railway project linking Iran to Syria through Iraq. While the terms of the Iranian agreement to manage the port of Latakia were unclear, Moscow was quick to take control of the port of Tartus through a 49-year lease.
More on Syria-Iran deals, state news agency IRNA said a memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries’ electricity ministers in Tehran covered the construction of power plants, transmission lines, cutting losses in Syria’s electricity network, and the possibility of connecting the two countries’ grids through Iraq. Iran, which has estimated expenditures in Syria at $6 billion yearly since 2012, has won economic contracts in Syria in agriculture, oil, industry, livestock and ports. Its exports to Syria increased after a tax exemption. Tehran also signed an agreement to develop phosphate mines in Syria and is looking to enter the telecommunications sector as a third mobile operator.

At least six killed as security forces open fire on Iraq protesters
Reuters, Baghdad/Monday, 4 November 2019
Iraqi security forces killed at least five people when they opened fire on protesters in Baghdad on Monday, a Reuters witness said, as thousands took part in the largest wave of anti-government protests for decades. Demonstrations also took place in several other locations, including the main Gulf port Umm Qasr and southern Shatra, where security forces also killed a protester. In Baghdad, a Reuters cameraman saw one man shot dead, his body carried away by fellow protesters, when security forces opened fire with live rounds on demonstrators near the Ahrar Bridge. He also saw at least four others killed. Security and medical sources put the toll at four killed and 34 wounded, but could only confirm one death was from live fire. Two were a result of rubber bullets and tear gas, giving no reason for the fourth death. The sources also said two people were killed, including a police officer, when special forces tasked with protecting the heavily fortified Green Zone opened live fire on protesters. At least 22 people were wounded. A spokesman for the prime minister said a group of protesters had crossed the bridge and set fire to a restaurant, and that law enforcement “dealt” with them. He did not elaborate. Separately, at least one protester was killed and 10 wounded after police used live fire and tear gas against them in the town of Shatra, 45 km (28 miles) north of the southern city of Nassiriya, security and medical sources said. More than 250 Iraqis have been killed in demonstrations since the start of October against a government they see as corrupt and beholden to foreign interests.
Monday’s deaths were in addition to three protesters killed late on Sunday when security forces opened fire on a crowd trying to storm the Iranian consulate in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala, security and medical sources said. Protesters defied the prime minister’s earlier plea to end the demonstrations which he says are costing Iraq’s economy billions of dollars and disrupting daily life. The protests have broken nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq since they started on Oct.1. More than 250 people have been killed. Despite the country’s oil wealth, many people live in poverty with limited access to clean water, electricity, healthcare or education. “The youth have lived through economic hardships, explosions, oppression. We want to root out this political elite completely. We want to get rid of this gang, then maybe we can rest,” said a protester, said a protester, who did not wish to be identified, who had camped overnight in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi appealed to protesters on Sunday night to suspend their movement which he said had achieved its goals and was hurting the economy.
The premier has said he is willing to resign if politicians agree on a replacement and promised a number of reforms, but protesters say that is not enough and that the entire political class needs to go. Operations at Iraq’s main Gulf port of Umm Qasr, which receives the bulk of the country’s grain, vegetable oil and sugar imports, have been at a complete standstill since Wednesday. The anger over economic hardship and corruption is aimed at the sectarian power-sharing system of governance introduced in Iraq after 2003 and the political elites benefiting from it. Hundreds of protesters gathered overnight in front of the Iranian consulate in the Shia holy city of Kerbala and tried to set it on fire. Security forces dispersed them using tear gas and live ammunition, security and medical sources said. Three people were killed and at least 10 people were wounded, including four from gunshots.

Turkish court orders release of two journalists in Gulen case due to time served
Reuters, Istanbul/Tuesday, 5 November 2019
A Turkish court, in a re-trial, ordered the release of journalists Ahmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak due to their time already served in jail, the Anadolu news agency reported on Monday. The two men had been convicted of aiding the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016. They had denied the charges against them. The court also acquitted journalist Mehmet Altan, a defendant in the same case, of alleged links to the Gulen network, Anadolu said.
Altan had already been released.

Turkey claims it captured slain ISIS leader’s sister in Syria
The Associated Press, Beirut/Tuesday, 5 November 2019
Turkey captured the elder sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the slain leader of ISIS in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to claims by a senior Turkish official, who called the arrest an intelligence “gold mine.” Little is known about the sister of al-Baghdadi. The Turkish official said that the 65-year-old known as Rasmiya Awad is suspected of being affiliated with the extremist group. He did not elaborate. Awad was captured in a raid on Monday evening on a trailer container she was living in with her family near the town of Azaz in Aleppo province. The area is part of the region administered by Turkey after it carried out a military operation to chase away ISIS militants and Kurdish fighters starting 2016. Allied Syrian groups manage the area known as the Euphrates Shield zone. The official said the sister was with her husband, daughter-in-law and five children. The adults are being interrogated, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol. “This kind of thing is an intelligence gold mine. What she knows about (ISIS) can significantly expand our understanding of the group and help us catch more bad guys,” the official said.
Al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi from Samarra, was killed in a US raid in the nearby province of Idlib last month. The raid was a major blow to the group, which has lost territories it held in Syria and Iraq in a series of military defeats by the US-led coalition and Syrian and Iraqi allies. Many ISIS members have escaped through smuggling routes to northwestern Syria in the final days of battle ahead of the group’s territorial defeat earlier this year, while others have melted into the desert in Syria or Iraq. The reclusive leader al-Baghdadi was known to be close to one of his brothers, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hamza. Al-Baghdadi’s aide was killed hours after the raid, also in northwestern Syria, in a US strike. The group named a successor to al-Baghdadi days later, but little is known about him or how the group’s structure has been affected by the successive blows.

Internet access cut off in much of Iraq: Reports
Reuters, Cairo/Tuesday, 5 November 2019
Internet access in the capital Baghdad and much of Iraq has been cut off, internet blockage observatory NetBlocks said late on Monday as the country experiences a wave of anti-government protests. “At the time of writing, national connectivity has fallen below 19% of normal levels sending tens of millions of users offline across Baghdad, also impacting Basra, Karbala and other population centers. The new disruption is believed to be the most severe observed in Iraq to date,” NetBlocks said in a statement. Iraqi authorities have previously blocked off internet access in the face of protests. Iraqi security forces killed at least five people when they opened fire on protesters in Baghdad on Monday, a Reuters witness said, as thousands took part in the largest wave of anti-government protests for decades.

EU Condemns New Burst of Israeli Settlement Approvals
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 4 November, 2019
The European Union criticized on Monday Israel's advancement of over 2,000 new homes in West Bank settlements. In a statement, the EU reiterated its longstanding position that all settlement activity on occupied land is illegal and "erodes the viability" of the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now said Israeli authorities approved various planning stages for the construction of 2,342 new housing units in the occupied West Bank last month. It revealed Israel has already pushed forward plans for over 8,300 settlement homes this year — an increase of 50 percent over all of 2018. Israel's Foreign Ministry declined comment, and COGAT, the defense body that authorizes settlement construction, did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Government: Dutch Airstrike Killed Dozens of Civilians, ISIS Militants in 2015
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 4 November, 2019
A Dutch airstrike against an alleged ISIS bomb factory in northern Iraq in 2015 killed about 70 people, including civilians and militants, the Dutch Defense Ministry said on Monday. The government of the Netherlands had not previously provided a detailed estimate of the number of deaths in Hawija, near the city of Kirkuk. A bomb dropped by a Dutch F-16 fighter jet taking part in US-led counter-terrorism operations on the night of June 2 "resulted in around 70 victims, including ISIS militants and civilians," Defense Minister Anna Bijleveld-Schouten wrote in a letter to parliament. It was unclear precisely how many civilians were killed, the letter said, but the number of victims was higher than had been anticipated in the night-time raid, partly due to a series of blasts from explosives stored at the building, it said. The facility was on an industrial site and "intelligence available to the Netherlands did not anticipate civilians deaths because there were no civilians living in the area near the target," it said. "After the raid there were a number of secondary and larger explosions that could not have been anticipated from earlier strikes on similar targets," it said, according to Reuters. "This caused the destruction of a large number of other buildings." Dutch F-16s flew around 2,100 raids over Iraq as part of the anti-ISIS coalition between October 2014 and 2018, the ministry said.

Leaders of Palestinians of ‘48 Begin Hunger Strike over Police Negligence
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 4 November, 2019
The political leaders of the Arab citizens of Israel, known as Palestinians of ‘48, announced a three-day hunger strike starting Sunday to protest the escalation of violence and crime within the Arab society, which the police still face with impotence and negligence.
They began a sit-in near government offices in West Jerusalem and announced that they would remain there throughout the entire strike. Islamic Movement MP Walid Taha said the sit-in and hunger strike are not just a protest, but a move to reach resolutions that guarantee the Arabs’ right to life. Arab Movement for Change MP Osama al-Saadi said the government continues to ignore its responsibilities and is not taking immediate action to reduce violence. He warned that they will not remain silent to the problems, asserting: “We are part of the Palestinian people, then why is the crime rate there so much less than in our areas?”The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens in Israel detailed the protest plan. It said protest tents were set up in front of the office of the Prime Minister and ministry buildings in Jerusalem. Head of the Committee Mohammed Baraka emphasized that the government, with the complicity of the police, is fully responsible for the spike in crime. “Police claims that less than 2 percent of Arab society is the cause of the crime, meaning 98 percent wants to live in peace and security, so why don't they act?” wondered Baraka, adding that such behavior means that criminals are protected by the government and police.
He stated that since the beginning of the year, 79 people have been killed in Arab society, meaning 52 deaths per one million people, while the rate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is nine deaths per one million people and in Jordan it is 11 deaths per one million people.
This vast difference is a clear indication of the complicity of the Israeli police, concluded Baraka.

Jordan government resigns ahead of a reshuffle: Reports
Reuters, Amman/Monday, 4 November 2019
Jordan’s cabinet on Monday resigned ahead of a government reshuffle expected in the next few days, the state news agency said. Officials say the reshuffle will solidify Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz’s mandate to accelerate economic reforms, seen as crucial to spur growth in the debt-ridden country. Razzaz was quoted by Petra state news agency as saying the move was needed “to face up to the challenges of the coming period.”It was not clear how extensive the reshuffle would be but an official said it would not affect key portfolios, but focus on merging some ministries to cut waste and curb expenditure. Under an IMF austerity plan, Jordan must rein in spending to cut spiralling debt that stands at around $40 billion, equivalent to around 95 percent of gross domestic product. Several government moves in recent months to raise the salaries of teachers and army retirees, while government revenues are falling, has further strained state coffers. King Abdullah appointed Razzaz in the summer of 2018 to defuse the biggest protests in years over tax hikes pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce Jordan’s large public debt. Razzaz has sought to revive confidence in a country where many blame successive governments for failing to deliver on pledges to revive growth, which is stuck at around 2 percent, cut waste and curb corruption. Jordan’s economy has also been hit by regional conflict, which has weighed on investor sentiment.

Egypt army reports killing 83 militants in north Sinai
AFP, Cairo/Monday, 4 November 2019
Egypt’s army said Monday it had killed 83 militants in clashes in the restive Sinai Peninsula, where an ISIS group affiliate has waged a long-running insurgency. Security forces “eliminated 77 takfiris”, referring to the extremists, who were found with stacks of weapons and ammunition in north and central Sinai, the army said. Six other “highly dangerous” militants were killed in shootouts in the region, the army said in a statement on a nationwide antimilitant operation between September 28 and November 4. Three soldiers were killed or wounded in the fighting, the statement added, without elaborating. About 61 “criminals, wanted individuals and suspects” were arrested, it said. Security forces also destroyed dozens of hideouts and vehicles as part of the ongoing operation, according to the statement. Egypt has for years been fighting an insurgency in North Sinai that escalated after the military’s 2013 ouster of extremist president Mohamed Morsi following mass protests. In February 2018, the army and police launched a nationwide operation against militants, mainly focused on North Sinai. The operation also targets other areas including the Western Desert along the porous border with Libya. The latest army figures brings the death toll of suspected militants in the Sinai region to more than 830. About 60 security personnel have been killed since the start of the offensive. Following the death of ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi late last month, the group’s North Sinai affiliate has pledged allegiance to his successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 04-05/2019
Beware of the Worried Arabs… Beware of the Worrying Arabs
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/November 04/2019
The intelligence chief sits confused in his office. His duty is to inform the president of the situation in the country and to propose ideas to break the impasse. He will not use the word “impasse” in his report. He must avoid the word that annoys the ruler and suggests that the doors are closed and can only be opened with serious concessions.
The decision-maker does not like the word “concession”. He has a deep feeling that the people are greedy. The more concessions you give them, the more they demand.
The director thinks carefully. Things were easier under his predecessors. The map of the whole republic was well-maintained. Back then, only the official version of the news made it to newspapers and screens. The media did not need to be reminded of the red lines. At night, the intelligence chief knew which headlines would appear in the morning, if he did not edit them himself. It was not possible to publish what threatens public order or questions the credibility of the government. Economic figures were manipulated to suggest that the wheel was turning. And that the rule is good. Problems were sensed before they occurred and were given the necessary remedies.
Security was stable. When a reckless minority was insolent enough to throw public objections, remedies were readily available. The person was summoned to the headquarters and brought in a state of anxiety or semi-surrender. He was accused of working for suspicious targets. If he insisted on his stance, he was accused of acting for the benefit of the enemy, with or without his knowledge. The man soon realized that his safety and that of his family was at risk. He chose not to take the risk.
If the man was affiliated to a certain party, he underwent some disciplinary measures that could cost him some teeth or nails. The man would come out broken. No newspapers would report what he had gone through, while the state television would be busy with more important issues.
The intelligence chief opens his hands. That world is over. If the intelligence summons a teenager and treats him with two slaps, newspapers, televisions and social media would scream in protest. Statements from human rights organizations would start to flow and the State’s reputation would be tarnished. Social media would call for demonstrations and protests and the streets would boil.
A dangerous criminal has entered the equation without permission. They call it a smartphone. It reduced the parents’ ability to control their children. It also reduced the State’s authority over its citizens. It is the most difficult entity to deal with in the Republic. As a witness and observer, it records, photographs and sends. It is the commander of protests and the leader of the instigators. The intelligence apparatus used to tame them, censor them, restrains them, or prevent their names from infiltrating the pages.
Today, every citizen is a journalist and a writer. What can we do with the flood of statements on Twitter, Facebook and others? The management of the Republic was easier. It was a party for the distribution of shares on the components, regions and parties. The size of the quota was associated with full loyalty. People were appeased by employment, contracts and parliamentary and ministerial seats. Everything was subject to formal treatment before its announcement, including unemployment, inflation and the five-year plan figures. Punishment was available to those disseminating doubts or frequently using question marks.
He asks for another cup of coffee. The world has changed and people were no longer the same, especially young men and women, who could no longer be controlled by the State. They communicate through social media and pour into to the streets. They utter big and dangerous words. They want to “overthrow the regime” and prosecute the “corrupt political class.” They want a transitional government with “honest and unpolluted” names and free and transparent elections under international observers.
They also say that sectarianism is dead. They violate the previous rules of communication with officials, politicians and symbols as if they want to re-establish the country by shouting, “All of them means all of them.”
They vow that they will not make the mistake of their parents when they were silenced by sectarian and regional sensitivities and bright promises. They want what is more dangerous: to “return looted money.” They do not know that the distribution of spoils was part of the stability formula.
It is so difficult to deal with this angry generation when its youth take to the streets, block roads or burn tires and make accusations. If the anti-riot forces responded to them with tear gas, their image would shine on the screens and they would gain the sympathy of viewers around the world. If one of them was killed, his funeral would turn into an opportunity to re-launch the movement and bring more crowds to the squares. Fear was the guard of order and stability, but they killed the guard.
It is so difficult to deal with the Twitter generation. Dealing with terrorists is easier. You monitor their calls, trap them and beat them without mercy.
The intelligence cannot be held responsible for the recent developments. Politicians went too far in confiscating the mines of the Republic.
With their conflicts and clashes, they aired their dirty laundry in public and on social media. They cut off the branch they were standing on.
This is a different generation… A generation of youth who are tired of poverty and corruption… A generation of people who want their voice to be heard… who want a modern state, an independent judiciary and a modern school. They want job opportunities, instead of unemployment and emigration.
The intelligence chief asks himself: Has social media contributed to the birth of a different Arab people, who accept nothing less than living in a country that deserves to be called as such? Is a new generation born in Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon? A generation who can no longer return to the house of obedience, whether by rubber or live bullets? Wasn’t it better to be aware of the gathering of clouds before the downpour of protests?
The old treatments and remedies have expired. Force will not save expired formulas.
The intelligence chief will not recommend declaring a state of emergency and pushing the army to collide with floods flowing into the squares. He will try to say that an era has ended and attempting to prolong it with blood is fraught with risks and consequences. He will write: Beware of underestimating an Arab generation of people who are worried about their future and who have become worrying for governments. The solution is listening to them, not declaring victory over them.

Did Turkey Know Where Baghdadi Was Hiding?
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/November 04/2019
As US intelligence analysts comb through electronic and paper documents seized from the lair of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one question is foremost on their minds: How was the ISIS leader able to find refuge in a Syrian province secured by the Turkish military and its proxy forces?
Three US national security officials told me that they want to know more about Turkey’s knowledge of Baghdadi’s whereabouts. One important task for the team now going through the material seized in the Baghdadi raid and another raid that killed organization’s spokesman, Abul Hassan al-Muhajir, is to map out the relationship between Turkey’s intelligence service and ISIS.
Both men were hiding close to the Turkish border in Syrian territory. Muhajir was found in Jarabulus, a town in the Aleppo province patrolled by Turkish forces. Baghdadi was found in Idlib province, where there are numerous Turkish military checkpoints.
It’s possible, of course, that two of the most wanted terrorists in the world managed to slip under the noses of a NATO ally. But US intelligence officials are suspicious. And this suspicion is based not just on where Muhajir and Baghdadi were found in Syria.
In the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Turkish intelligence service allowed foreign recruits from Europe and Africa to travel through Turkey into Syria. At the time, Turkey pursued a policy of regime change in Syria, supporting many extremist fighters against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
More recently, the US government identified at least one senior ISIS official as based in Turkey. The US Treasury noted in August 2017 that the organization’s finance minister had relocated from Iraq to Turkey earlier that year. As one US official who works closely on Syria policy told me: “Turkey has done everything in its power to support the worst actors in the Syrian civil war.”
Tom Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me the Turks have been known to raid al-Qaeda and ISIS safehouses and redoubts. More often, he said, US sources find cases of militants “roaming free,” raising the question of what Turkey’s real policy is on ISIS, just as in the first years of the Syrian civil war the CIA indirectly supported extremist elements fighting the Assad regime.
Over time, US interests diverged from those of its ally, with the rise of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and ISIS in Turkey. Osama bin Laden was found in 2011 in Abbottabad, where Pakistan’s most prestigious military academy is located. Baghdadi was found in Idlib, an area of Syria under responsibility of the Turkish military.
To this day, the US government has not accused Pakistan’s intelligence services of hiding bin Laden, though the US military considers elements of Pakistan’s military intelligence services to be working with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Trump has invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House this month, although Erdogan said he may not accept the invitation after the House passed a resolution condemning Turkey for its role in the Armenian genocide. Meanwhile, the Turkish military has violated an earlier ceasefire in northern Syria and resumed its campaign against Kurdish civilians, according to Syrian Kurdish leaders.
It was Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, remember, that cultivated the source that was able to find Baghdadi. US intelligence analysts may soon find out if the Turks knew where he was all along.

Human Smuggling Demands a Human Solution
Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/November 04/2019
More is required from the British and other European governments: They ought to be more humane. They also should understand that people smuggling is essentially a transportation business based on demand from the “passengers.” What makes it work are the economic realities of migration. Ignoring the economics and stressing the criminality of people trafficking — a specific variety of smuggling that feeds slavery and cruel exploitation, including in the sex industry — are tactics hard-line politicians such as UK Home Secretary Priti Patel use to justify replacing reasonable immigration policies with ever tougher enforcement.
There are many possible responses to the tragic deaths of 39 undocumented migrants found in a refrigerated truck container in Essex. The one from the UK government should serve as an example of how to make human smuggling even more dangerous and inhumane.
It’s not clear yet how exactly the immigrants, apparently mostly Vietnamese, died. The relatives of one woman who could have been in the container received panicked text messages from her saying she was suffocating. The family had paid thousands of dollars to send her to the UK bypassing the official immigration channels. The truck arrived in the UK from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. Clearly, a smuggling operation went horribly wrong.
Patel outlined the government’s response in remarks to parliament. There’s an intelligence-led operation to “to disrupt and deter organized crime gangs using refrigerated and hard-sided lorries to smuggle clandestine migrants.” Extra UK immigration enforcement officers have been dispatched to Zeebrugge. The driver of the truck was charged with manslaughter and human trafficking, and three more people have been questioned on suspicion of the latter offense.
“We must be ruthless now in our response,” Patel said.
According to Patel, “the motivations that lead people to try to cross borders illegally are broad and complex.” For policy purposes, however, it might be useful to consider the motives as something as simple as the wage disparity among countries. A large-scale study of irregular African migrants in Europe published by the United Nations Development Program this month revealed that 60% of these immigrants, from different countries and circumstances, cite the intention to work and send money home as their primary reason for traveling to Europe. For a further 21%, that’s a secondary reason.
According to the UN study, of those with an income, 78% are sending money home, which amounts to on average one-third of their European income. The study puts the irregular migrants’ average income at $1,020 a month.
The average cost of traveling to Europe — including, of course, payments to smugglers — was, for the study’s respondents, $2,710. This implies that those who managed to find a source of regular income on arrival pay back that cost to their families and friends, who usually help put the money together, within just nine months. That’s a powerful economic proposition, which, apart from fueling irregular migration, helps supply the poorer nations with remittances.
According to the UN, remittances from both documented and irregular migrants to their families in “remittance-reliant countries” around the world reached $689 billion last year, three times the combined amount of official development aid and foreign direct investment to these nations.
The UK has a target to spend 0.7% of its gross national income on international development aid. It spent 14.5 billion pounds ($18.7 billion) last year. Using World Bank data from the UK’s 2017 bilateral remittances matrix, I calculate UK-based migrants from developing countries transferred about $17 billion home that year. Of that amount, $147 million went to Vietnam, the apparent country of origin of the migrants found dead in that truck in Essex.
The UK would need at least to double its development aid budget, and make sure 100% of the additional money would reach ordinary people, to eliminate the economic incentives to migration.
That, of course, would be absolutely unrealistic — and so are expectations that tougher enforcement or a war on people smugglers will significantly reduce irregular migration. A recent University of Chicago study calculated that Italy’s major, European Union-backed 2017 anti-smuggler operation that involved funding the Libyan coast guard reduced migrant arrivals by 343 per week in the second half of 2017 — a time when between 5,000 and 12,000 of them arrived every month.
The same study pointed out that tougher border enforcement can actually incentivize smuggling, since migrants count on the smugglers to mitigate their risk. It’s the smugglers’ job to find the routes of less resistance and bribe officials; migrants would find it hard to do that on their own. And no matter how Western governments see the smugglers, their clients will often consider them legitimate, even morally and religiously motivated helpers who only charge them because they face big personal risks and expenses.
A reasonable policy aimed at preventing episodes like the mass death in Essex — and, more generally, the 4,000 deaths a year recorded on migratory routs worldwide — should contain elements of both enforcement and a better immigration policy.
The enforcement part should consist of punishing actual trafficking — the kind of smuggling that involves burdening migrants with debts they can’t repay by working the exploitative jobs they’re forced to take upon arrival. That’s a form of slavery that can’t be tolerated in the civilized world.
Shrinking quotas don’t keep the migrants out — they just lead to more smuggling and more deaths. Governments could only displace the smugglers by offering the same services to work-seeking migrants, only risk-free. They could even charge for directing people to unfilled, relatively low-paying jobs that would enable them to send money home.

UK poised for an election like no other
Chris Doyle/Arab News/November 04/2019
That the UK is about to embark on a midwinter election tells us everything about the state of British politics. Not since 1923 has an election taken place in December. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had little choice, lacking a majority and unable to force his EU withdrawal bill through Parliament. This is a huge gamble and it is not clear whether he or Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will be the one enjoying their yuletide festivities in 10 Downing Street.
This may be the fourth national electoral exercise in five years, but arguably it could be the most significant in decades. The outcome could determine if Britain stays in the EU or not, and on what terms. Two hugely contrasting political futures await Britain, depending on who wins: A hard-right Conservative-led government or a hard-left Labour one, with little to offer from the center. The outcome may also determine just how much of the UK remains. Determining what will happen will be little more than an educated guessing game for even the most talented psephologists and pundits, as this will be an election unlike any other. As it stands in the opinion polls, the Tories are hovering around the 40 percent mark, Labour on 24 percent and the Liberal Democrats on about 20 percent. Labour contends that replicates 2017, when Corbyn lay 20 points behind Theresa May at the start of the campaign before dramatically closing in. However, two years ago, May led one of the most inept, faltering and colorless political campaigns in living memory; not something Boris Johnson will be guilty of. Corbyn has hardly hit the heights since then, having the lowest personal polling of any opposition leader since 1977.
The contrast in personalities could not be more acute. Johnson oozes charisma but also a sense of entitlement from the privileged elite. He is witty and intelligent but gaffe-prone and widely accused of being cavalier with the truth. Corbyn is a better campaigner and protest leader but lacks his opponent’s easy touch.
In policy terms, Labour has a huge Achilles’ heel — a massive target for others to aim at. Simply put, its position on the central, No. 1 issue of the entire election is all over the shop. A vote for Labour on Brexit is akin to “don’t know.” The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are clear in their opposing viewpoints, the former to leave with the new withdrawal deal, the latter to remain in the EU. The Brexit Party would ditch the deal and just leave, thereby attracting visceral opponents of the EU. The Labour leadership objects to the deal but has no clear-cut alternative. The suspicion is still strong that Jeremy Corbyn is a “Leaver.” How, therefore, can Labour win this election if it can neither appeal to its significant “Remainer” base nor convince Labour leave voters, largely in northeast England, that it will deliver Brexit? Its hopes rest on other parties inadvertently coming to its rescue, not least the far-right Brexit Party eating away at the Conservative vote.
For Labour, the trick will be to shift the debate on to anything but Brexit. If it can do this, it might stand a chance of narrowing its deficit in the polls. If Europe was not an issue, it would have a considerable chance of making inroads. The public is concerned at the state of the health service, education, the rise in knife crime and the environment. In contrast to May in 2017, Johnson has countered this with a raft of spending pledges to diminish Labour’s appeal.
The challenge for Johnson is that, if the Tories do not win a majority, they have few potential partners for a coalition, unlike Labour.
The Conservative Party has issues too. A spate of moderate remain-supporting, one nation Tory MPs have opted not to stand again — an alarming indication of the direction the party is traveling. Is it the broad church it once was? Johnson is moving away from Europe and ever closer to the arms of Donald Trump. The American president even called in to a British radio show to express his support for the PM. Yet pollsshow Trump is far from popular in the UK, so Labour will milk this for every vote, not least stoking the fears that the National Health Service will be effectively sold off in pieces to major US health firms. The Tory shift to the right means that the Liberal Democrats have lured many to their benches. If the Liberal Democrats can maximize airtime during the six-week election period, they could erode both the Tory and the Labour vote. The Conservatives could face a wipeout in Scotland, with all 13 of its current seats at risk. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is polling well and is demanding a second referendum not just on Europe but also on Scottish independence. The SNP may well find itself in a postelection coalition with Labour. The challenge for Johnson is that, if the Tories do not win a majority, they have few potential partners for a coalition, unlike Labour. As dramatic as all this is, an outright Labour majority is unlikely. Johnson may be the only leader with a serious chance of carrying that off, but do not be surprised if the end result is yet another hung, divided and highly rebellious Parliament. But, who knows, the infamous British weather could be the joker in the pack that freezes turnout and delivers the strangest of results.
*/Chris Doyle is director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding. Twitter: @Doylech

Understanding the Saudi Aramco IPO
Simon Henderson/The Washington Institute/November 04/ 2019
The long-anticipated stock selloff has finally been green-lit, but doubts remain about just how much it will help to economically transform the kingdom.
On November 3, Saudi Arabia formally announced plans for the partial selloff of its state-owned oil company, to begin sometime next month. The successor of the Arabian American Oil Company, originally established by U.S. firms, Saudi Aramco is easily described in superlatives. It is the largest oil producer in the world, with the lowest production costs, and has a reputation for being extremely well run, all of which have helped it become the most profitable company on the planet.
Yet being situated in the Middle East, having key installations vulnerable to Iranian attack, and selling oil to countries increasingly concerned about climate change are hardly factors conducive to favorable long-term prospects. The kingdom simultaneously claims to be diversifying away from its dependence on oil, adding to the uncertainty about its approach. The details of the announcement therefore need context:
Reasons for delay. The initial public offering is seen as very much the project of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (aka MbS), the de facto Saudi ruler who wants to use the proceeds to fund his “Vision 2030” plan for modernizing the kingdom. The months of delay since reports surfaced that he and other officials were entertaining the idea of an IPO are attributed to hesitation about revealing the company’s financial details, as well as concern that its assets might become vulnerable to legal action, particularly if Saudi Arabia is found to bear any official responsibility for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Likely valuation. The company’s total value is also under question. MbS suggested it is worth $2 trillion, which means that selling off a mere 5 percent would result in a $100 billion inflow into Saudi government coffers. Analysts have expressed doubts about whether this valuation is credible, however, suggesting figures in the range of $1.5-1.8 trillion, even as low as $1.1 trillion. At one point, Riyadh mentioned selling off 5 percent per year for ten years then stopping so as to maintain majority control, but its current plans are unclear.
Sparse details. The November 3 announcement confirmed predictions that the IPO will first appear on the Saudi domestic exchange Tadawul rather than the New York, London, or Tokyo stock markets, which are arguably better equipped to handle such a large offering. No information has been given on the number of shares that will be available, but reports suggest between 1 and 2 percent. There is no indication about share price either, nor a specific date given for the launch. The crown prince’s advisors still seem to be seeking a way of hitting the $2 trillion headline figure that he favors.
Market valuation. Regardless of what MbS wants, the market will eventually decide such matters, especially once shares are being traded in exchanges other than Tadawul. For the domestic launch, the government is seeking commitments from foreign sovereign wealth funds (perhaps Russia and China) as well as rich Saudi individuals, reportedly including some of those who were detained in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton in late 2017 for alleged corruption and profiteering. More generally, the government is said to be encouraging Saudi citizens to take out bank loans in order to buy shares. Investors may be able to take an immediate profit when trading begins, as happened when Britain privatized state-owned utilities in the 1980s, yet a price increase is by no means guaranteed.
Domestic investment opportunities. Transforming the Saudi economy requires creating around one million new jobs in the next few years for the many young people entering the workforce. Vision 2030’s showpiece project is NEOM, a planned $500 billion, ultra-high-tech economic zone in the northwest part of the kingdom near Egypt and Jordan. Yet there will be comparatively few jobs for humans in the robot-filled facilities envisioned for NEOM, which so far only has a new airport and some palaces completed.
Foreign interest. A major foreign investment conference just ended in Riyadh, with better attendance than last year, when the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi cast a shadow over the proceedings. Even so, reporting suggests that foreign executives were more interested in securing fee income in new fundraising or investment assistance for overseas projects rather than actually putting money into the kingdom.
Saudi investment abroad. Some of the IPO’s proceeds will likely be invested outside the kingdom, although picking winners has proved a challenge for Riyadh. The kingdom has shown a loss so far on the $4 billion its Public Investment Fund put into Uber, and its support for the investment fund of Japan’s SoftBank looks dubious in light of the recently failed WeWork IPO, where SoftBank was heavily committed.
For these and other reasons, the Aramco IPO’s progress will be watched carefully by international financial markets as well as foreign governments, who often find themselves either troubled, puzzled, or both by the kingdom’s decisionmaking processes. In a cover story this week, the Economist described the selloff as “the world’s biggest and wildest IPO,” and characterized MbS as “an autocratic royal with blood on his hands”—hardly the type of press Riyadh wants to be getting so close to such a major investment milestone.
*Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at The Washington Institute.

Why Turkey Is Raising the Stakes in the East Mediterranean
Soner Cagaptay with Deniz Yuksel and Matthew Hernandez/The Washington Institute/November 04/ 2019
Ankara is willing to take provocative and risky steps around Cyprus because it views the island’s gas resources and strategic location as crucial to countering rivals and securing interests in the neighborhood.
On October 5, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Greek foreign minister Nikos Dendias for the third time in less than three months. At a joint press conference following the meeting, Pompeo stated that Washington had warned Turkey against “illegal drilling” in the East Mediterranean and would make sure international laws are upheld on the matter.
The warning comes at a time when the Cyprus issue has once again become a sticking point for Ankara. The Turkish government and the internationally recognized Cypriot government have not had diplomatic ties since the 1974 war on the island, but the potential for military confrontation spiked in recent years after natural gas deposits were discovered off the shores of Cyprus. Ankara disputes the exploration licenses that Greek Cypriot authorities in Nicosia have granted to international energy companies in these areas, instead supporting exploration efforts by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Turkey is the only country in the world to recognize the TRNC, which controls the northern portion of the island and is now working with Ankara to explore in southern waters where most of the deposits lie.
To reinforce the TRNC’s position, Turkey has sent drilling ships of its own and military vessels to the gas fields, spurring condemnations from Greece, Cyprus, the EU (of which Athens and Nicosia are members), and regional gas players such as Israel and Egypt. In response, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared that Ankara will “resolutely” continue these exploration efforts, even declaring no-go zones for Greek Cypriot vessels in local waters. The situation has led to confrontations between Turkish naval ships and exploration vessels contracted by the international energy companies to which Nicosia has granted licenses.
POWER PROJECTION GOALS AND MARITIME LAW
Ankara’s provocative policy stems from its worries about being boxed in by rivals in the East Mediterranean, some old (Greece and Cyprus), some new (Israel and Egypt). Erdogan seemingly believes that he can undermine this supposed “anti-Turkish axis” by challenging maritime zones around its weakest link, Cyprus—an approach in keeping with his more offensive-minded foreign policy in the neighborhood (e.g., see his ongoing intervention in Syria). Unlike his predecessors, Erdogan feels empowered to pursue Turkey’s interests unilaterally, even at the price of regional isolation.
Beyond Erdogan, Turkey has longstanding military and strategic interests in asserting itself in the East Mediterranean. Its navy still lacks the ability to project power beyond its waters, leading many policymakers in Ankara to view Cyprus as an extension of Turkish maritime power into the Mediterranean. Furthermore, with relatively few energy resources of its own, Turkey relies on gas imports. Its total annual energy import bill is currently around $30 billion, making it even more eager to explore gas opportunities around Cyprus.
Since Turkey does not recognize the Cypriot government in Nicosia as the head of a sovereign nation, it argues that the island is entitled to just twelve nautical miles of territorial waters, denying it the normal exclusive economic zone (EEZ) allotted to other nations, which typically extends much further. Turkey is not a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, so it does not formally recognize any continental shelf delimitations in the area besides the one it negotiated with the TRNC in 2011. Accordingly, it recognizes only the TRNC’s claimed EEZ, which includes a belt to the south of the island that does not abut the TRNC-controlled coastline. Based on this view, and with the TRNC’s consent, Turkey has proceeded with exploration, drilling, and potential extraction activities around much of the island.
A MEDITERRANEAN “AXIS”
Beyond Cyprus, Ankara’s ties with key East Mediterranean actors Israel, Greece, and Egypt can hardly be described as friendly. Turkey and Israel reestablished formal ties in 2016 following the 2010 flotilla incident and subsequent diplomatic rupture, but Ankara’s backing of Hamas continues to undermine bilateral relations. Similarly, while Turkey and Greece are NATO allies and have come a long way since their past perch on the brink of war, they are not good friends.
Meanwhile, Turkish-Egyptian ties dipped to their lowest in decades in 2013, when Ankara supported the Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo. Ever since that government was ousted by protestors and military officials, Erdogan has refused to recognize President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi as the country’s legitimate leader. Deep animosity persists between the two presidents, with Erdogan seen as the political Islamist who locked up secularist generals in Turkey, and Sisi as the secularist general who locked up political Islamists in Egypt. This state of affairs will likely prevent bilateral normalization anytime soon.
Given its cool-to-hostile relations with these states and Cyprus, Ankara has been alarmed by the rate at which they have come together in strategic cooperation in recent years, including joint diplomatic, energy, and military initiatives. Even a Persian Gulf player, the United Arab Emirates, has participated in some of these initiatives, fueled by its own vehement opposition to Erdogan’s region-wide support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Cairo is the key to many of these activities. Soon after coming to power, Sisi opened talks with Greece to delineate their maritime economic areas. And in November 2014, he held a three-way summit with his Cypriot and Greek counterparts to promote a deal supplying gas from Cypriot undersea fields to Egypt.
Cairo also hosted the inaugural meeting of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum this year. In addition to Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Israel, the group’s members include Jordan and the Palestinian Authority—with Turkey notably not invited.
On the military front, Cairo and Ankara had planned to hold joint naval maneuvers in the East Mediterranean during Morsi’s tenure, but the exercises were canceled following his ouster. In contrast, Egypt has been conducting joint air exercises with Greece in the area since 2015. The first of these, “Medusa,” was held on the Greek island of Rhodes just twelve miles from Turkey’s coast. Cypriot forces began participating in Medusa drills in 2018; separately, they carried out three rounds of joint exercises in Israel earlier this year.
Washington has largely backed such initiatives. The U.S. military participates in Medusa drills as an observer. And this March, following a meeting with representatives from Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, Secretary Pompeo underlined U.S. support for their trilateral mechanism to increase cooperation in the East Mediterranean. Then, in July, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation outlining support for Cyprus and criticizing Turkey’s actions in local waters. That same month, U.S., Israeli, and Egyptian representatives participated in an energy summit in Athens, where Cypriot energy minister Georgios Lakkotrypis stated that “Ankara’s provocative attitude” would be the focus of discussions.
CONCLUSION
Faced with this emerging bloc, and without allies of its own in the area, Turkey will likely continue asserting itself unilaterally in the East Mediterranean in order to pursue its energy and security interests, even at the price of further aggravating ties with Washington. The Turkish-Cypriot maritime dispute runs the risk of accidents involving their vessels or planes. Therefore, as U.S. officials build their agenda for Erdogan’s announced November 13 visit to Washington—an occasion that will be discussed at length in a separate PolicyWatch later this week, though media reports suggest Erdogan might cancel—they should urge Ankara to abandon provocative tactics toward Cyprus. They should also encourage regional powers to invite Ankara to participate in joint East Mediterranean initiatives as a way to defuse tensions and prevent conflict between U.S. regional partners.
*Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow at The Washington Institute and author of the new book Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East. Deniz Yuksel is a research assistant at the Institute, where Matthew Hernandez is an intern. The authors would like to thank Simon Henderson and John Sitilides for their help with certain aspects of the discussion.