LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 10/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.
Letter to the Philippians 02/12-19: “Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labour in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on May 09-10/19
Mansourieh Residents Protest High Voltage Lines for 3rd Day
Bkirki Meeting Fails to Reach Solution on Controversial Power Project
Neuroscientist Confirms Health Risks of High-Voltage Power Lines
Security Forces Block Access to Mansourieh Church on Third Day of Protests
Samy Gemayel Submits Challenge Contesting Government's Electricity Plan
Voice of Lebanon Radio Host Appears in Court in Media Freedom Case
Aoun hands US Ambassador demarcation proposals of southern maritime border
Lebanese Cabinet wants to reduce 1200 billion LBP from budget
Hariri receives Red Cross delegation
'Loyalty to Resistance' calls banks to contribute to reducing deficit
Maarab hosts conference on disappeared and detained Lebanese citizens in Syria
Lebanon's Central Bank suspends strike indefinitely
Jumblat: Have We Returned to Tutelage Era?
Amnesty Slams UAE Trial of Lebanese Shiites
Lebanon students get classes in surviving war and disasters
Brazil Court Orders ex-President Temer Back to Jail
Reports: Court denies Ghosn appeal on no contact with wife

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 09-10/19
US Sanctions to Hit Iran's Metals Industry, a Major Employer
European Powers Reject Iran 'Ultimatums'
Trump urges Iran to talk as US aircraft carrier passes
Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq ‘placed on high alert’
European Powers Reject Iran 'Ultimatums' on Nuclear Deal
Trump Unveils Iran Sanctions, Hopes 'Someday' for Talks
Deposed Istanbul mayor vows ‘revolution’ for democracy
Damascus Takes Key Town from Jihadists
EU Says New Syria Violence Breaches International Law
Controversial minister back for third stint in reshuffled Jordanian government
El-Sisi and Haftar discuss Egyptian support for Libyan National Army
Macron says military equipment sales to ally Saudi Arabia part of 'war on terror'
Philippines, US, Japan and India conduct first joint maritime drills
Pope Francis Issues Groundbreaking Law on Reporting of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up
Gold laden private plane seized in Sudan
North Korea Fires Projectiles, South Says
US Embassy to Celebrate Independence Day in Jerusalem for 1st Time

Litles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 09-10/19
Pope Francis Issues Groundbreaking Law on Reporting of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up/Associated Press/May 09/2019
The Middle East Anti-Peace Movement/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/May 09/2019
Ilhan Omar's Ignorance and Bigotry on Gaza Rockets/Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/May 09/2019
What Impact Would U.S. Designation of the Muslim Brotherhood As A Terrorist Organization Have/Michael Young/Carnegie Middle East Centre/May 09/2019
Troubled EU plots its future course/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/May 09/2019
ran faces crisis if oil exports reduced to zero/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/May 09/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on May 09-10/19
Mansourieh Residents Protest High Voltage Lines for 3rd Day
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/Residents of the Mansourieh-Ain Saadeh area maintained their sit-in Thursday for a third consecutive day in protest at the extension of high voltage power lines over their region. The proresters blocked the road with their bodies, which sparked fresh scuffles with security forces. The new violence prompted MP Elias Hankash of the Kataeb bloc to tweet: "Despite all of the patriarch's pacification efforts and the residents' good will gestures, and a few hours before our Bkirki meeting with (Energy) Minister (Nada) Bustani, they (security forces) are practicing treachery again, storming the land of the St. Therese Church and closing all leading roads."

Bkirki Meeting Fails to Reach Solution on Controversial Power Project
Kataeb.org/Thursday 09th May 2019/A meeting chaired by Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi in Bkirki failed to find a solution to the standoff caused by the government's insistence on executing the high-voltage power lines project in Mansourieh despite the resident's staunch objection. The meeting was attended by Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel, MP Elias Hankache, Energy Minister Nada Boustani, director of Electricite du Liban Kamal Hayek, as well as representatives of the residents. According to a statement issued by the Maronite Patriarchate following the meeting, the participants condemned the confrontations that erupted between the residents and security forces over the past two days, stressing the need to immediately ease tensions between the two sides. The statement called for a solution that would ensure the implementation of the government's electricity plan to serve the best interest of all the Lebanese, while making sure that the fears and concerns of the Metn residents are addressed and alleviated. Patriarch Al-Rahi will continue following up on this case with the energy minister, the statement concluded. Kataeb MP Elias Hankache said that the no agreement was reached during the meeting, adding that the patriarch pledged to carry out contacts aimed at easing tensions on the ground. Mukhtar of Roumieh, who also attended the meeting, said that Boustani has rejected the Kataeb party's proposal to form a neutral committee of experts who would assess the health risks of the project, adding that she argued that the Energy Ministry has already conducted all the needed studies for this plan. The only solution that Boustani put forth during the meeting is to buy the apartments of the affected residents as the plan will go on as it is, LBCI channel quoted knowledgeable sources as saying.

Neuroscientist Confirms Health Risks of High-Voltage Power Lines
Kataeb.org/Thursday 09th May 2019/Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of Interdepartmental Neuroscience Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Bakhos A. Tannous, confirmed that the exposure to electromagnetic fields can cause serious diseases, including cancer, especially to children. It also increases stress levels, and affects the sleep cycle, the immunity system, the DNA and several body functions, Tannous told MTV. The neuroscientist pointed out that hundreds of epidemiology studies carried out by Harvard, in collaboration with other universities, proved that living near high-voltage power lines increases the risk of developing cancer, especially in children, such as leukemia or brain cancer.

Security Forces Block Access to Mansourieh Church on Third Day of Protests
Kataeb.org/Thursday 09th May 2019/Mansourieh and Ain Saade residents on Thursday woke up to see a large number of security forces deployed in the vicinity of the Saint Theresa Church, blocking all roads leading to it and preventing people from attending the morning mass, the National News Agency reported. As residents continue to protest the forcible installation of high-voltage power lines for the third day in a row, police members entered a land belonging to the church and resorted once again to the excessive use of force. A footage showed pastor of the Saint John Church in Dayshouniye, Father Salim Khoury, lying on the ground to prevent security forces from entering the church premises.

Samy Gemayel Submits Challenge Contesting Government's Electricity Plan
Kataeb.org/Thursday 09th May 2019/Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel on Thursday submitted to the Constitutional Council a challenge contesting the electricity plan approved last month by the government, after garnering the ten requisite signatures. Speaking to reporters upon emerging out the Constitutional Council, Gemayel thanked all the lawmakers who signed the appeal and acted against all expectations that no law can be appealed amid the current composition of the Parliament. The deputies who signed the challenge are: Samy Gemayel, Nadim Gemayel, Elias Hankache, Marwan Hamadeh, Paula Yaacoubian, Nicolas Nahas, Oussama Saad, Ali Darwish, Jihad Al-Samad and Faysal Karameh. MPs Nicolas Nahas, Paula Yaacoubian and Oussama Saad also showed up at the Constitutional Council to submit the appeal. Gemayel stressed that the challenge does not stop the electricity plan, adding that it rather requires the adoption of transparency standards. "The challenge contests the exemption of the government from law enforcement. If the Constitutional Council validates the appeal, then the government would be compelled to abide by the laws and to set out a regulatory and transparent framework for tenders," he pointed out. "If the appeal is approved, we would then be imposing the respect of the Constitution and the laws in the tendering process, requiring the clarification of the legal framework and the mechanisms to be applied in the tenders, prompting the formation of a regulatory body that supervises the power sector, safeguarding the role of all the constitutional institutions as well as the audit bodies, and ensuring that accountability and transparency are applied throughout the plan's phases," Gemayel elaborated. "We insist on resorting to constitutional institutions to prevent the violation of laws," he stated.
The appeal, which mentions seven main law violations, requests that the contested plan be suspended until the Constitutional Council issues its verdict on the challenge. The power plan was proposed by the Energy Ministry to deal with the chronic electricity problem and ensure a 24-hour supply while reducing state subsidies that contributed to the country's heavy public debt. Gemayel had criticized the power plan following its endorsement, saying that it encloses a blatant violation of the concept of accountability and the basic tendering rules. "The way the Tenders Department was included in the plan is nothing but a major illusion," Gemayel said in the wake of the plan endorsement in April. "The Energy Ministry will be the one setting out the tender conditions and reviewing the bids. The Tenders Department's role would be only to host this process," he noted.

Voice of Lebanon Radio Host Appears in Court in Media Freedom Case
Kataeb.org/Thursday 09th May 2019/Voice of Lebanon radio host Nawal Lichaa Abboud on Thursday appeared before the Court of Publications in Baabda to give her testimony regarding the charges pressed against her by the President of the Lebanese University, Fouad Ayyoub. Ayyoub filed a lawsuit against the radio presenter over an episode she had hosted to discuss the conditions of the state-run academic establishment. Speaking before the hearing session, Abboud called for safeguarding the freedom of journalists and media figures in Lebanon, saying that their rights must not be violated.

Aoun hands US Ambassador demarcation proposals of southern maritime border
Thu 09 May 2019/NNA - President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, on Thursday welcomed at the Baabda palace US Ambassador to Lebanon, Elizabeth Richard, and discussed with her the general situation in Lebanon, as well as most recent regional developments. President Aoun handed Ambassador Richard a number of demarcation proposals of Lebanon's southern maritime border. Separately, Aoun met with a delegation of the Middle East Council of Churches, chaired by the Council's Secretary General Thuraya Elie Bachaalani. "Lebanon is best able to manage the dialogue of civilizations because most of the civilizations started from the east, and Lebanon is not a mere gateway, but the mind of the east and the heart of the West," Aoun told the delegation. The delegation included representatives of Egypt, the Holy Land, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus, as well as Germany, Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the United States. Aoun reiterated his constant efforts to "strengthen the Christian presence in the East," voicing the Council's same direction in this regard. The Head of State also called on the Council to help Lebanon resolve the issue of the displaced Syrians by persuading western countries to accept their return as soon as possible to their homeland. Aoun said Lebanon's existence would be at stake should the half a million Palestinian refugees plus a million and 600,000 Syrian refugees remain in Lebanon, since as he said "its demography is changing completely." On the other hand, Aoun also welcomed head of the National Dialogue Party, MP Fouad Makhzoumi, with whom he discussed the situation in Lebanon and the broad region. The President also received the International Beitteddine Committee, headed by Ms. Nora Jumblatt, who invited him to attend the opening ceremony of the festivals this summer.

Lebanese Cabinet wants to reduce 1200 billion LBP from budget
Thu 09 May 2019/NNA - The Council of Ministers held today another meeting chaired by the President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri at the Grand Serail. At the end of the meeting, the Minister of Information Jamal Jarrah said: "Today's meeting lasted five hours, during which the budget items and required procedures to reduce current and operating expenses were discussed. The expenditures were discussed and the reduction rate for each article was defined so we can reduce between 1000 to 1200 billion Lebanese pounds from the 2019 budget.  This took around two hours. After that, each minister will study these reductions in his ministry. Starting tomorrow, we will discuss the articles of the ministries according to the directives set today regarding the reduction, so that we can reach the desired reduction. This way we will be able to reduce the budget deficit between 7 and 8 percent. This took a while because we went into the details of each article. Tomorrow, the Council of Ministers will meet at one-thirty to pursue the discussion." Asked if tomorrow's session will be the last one, Jarrah said that it will not and there might be meetings on Saturday and Sunday. Asked if the twenty percent reduction is an addition to the twenty percent reduced last year, Jarrah said: "It's true, but the percentage is not 20%. This means it is of 8 or 6 or 2% for some articles and more for others. But we took the directives based on a study prepared by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers to see the reductions that would lead to a cutback of 1200 billion Lebanese pounds". Asked if the 15% reduction in salaries is the last solution, Jarrah said that the issue of salaries was put aside to see what could be done in the other articles. There are new proposals by the ministers that can increase the income and reduce the expenditures, all of which are being studied. Tomorrow the ministers will give suggestions and practical ways to reduce the budgets of their ministries.

Hariri receives Red Cross delegation
Thu 09 May 2019/NNA - The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received today at the Grand Serail a delegation from the Lebanese Red Cross, headed by its president Antoine Zoghbi, accompanied by the Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation to Lebanon Christophe Martin. Discussions focused on the annual fundraising campaign of the Red Cross. Premier Hariri also met with Beirut Maronite Archbishop Boulos Matar, with the general situation featuring high on their talks.

'Loyalty to Resistance' calls banks to contribute to reducing deficit
Thu 09 May 2019/NNA - The "Loyalty to the Resistance" parliamentary bloc on Thursday called Lebanon's banks to shoulder their responsibility and contribute to reducing the state budget deficit. In a statement issued following its weekly meeting under the chairmanship of MP Mohammad Raad, the bloc maintained that the government must adopt serious measures to make the requires financial and economic reforms. The bloc also highlighted the necessity to fight corruption and to end the waste of public funds and tax evasion. On a different note, the bloc sternly condemned the fresh Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Maarab hosts conference on disappeared and detained Lebanese citizens in Syria
Thu 09 May 2019 /NNA - The Lebanese Forces organized Thursday a conference on the Lebanese citizens who were forcibly disappeared and detained in Syrian jails, under the auspices of LF chief, Samir Geagea, at his residence in Maarab. The event was attended by a panel of politicians, lawmakers, security and NGO figures, in addition to Consul Sultan al-Sebaihi representing Saudi Ambassador Waleed Bukhari. In his word, Geagea renewed commitment to the case of the disappeared in Syria, accusing the Syrian regime of brutality. "We gather here today to promise to keep their cause rooted in our conscience," he said. "Unveiling their destiny, repatriating those who are still alive and recuperating the martyrs' bodies will remain among our priorities," he stressed. "It is true that the liberation of Lebanon was accomplished with the withdrawal of the Assad's army. However, sovereignty is incomplete as there are still Lebanese detainees," he added. "This is what requires the reconsideration of the currently existing relation with this regime," he said. Geagea went on to say that the Syrian regime had released al-Qaida leaders from its prisons and enticed them to form Daesh, while it failed to free innocent Lebanese detainees. "We are not prisoners of the past, but our unwavering position towards this regime stems from its very insistence on the same practices and perpetrations," he concluded.

Lebanon's Central Bank suspends strike indefinitely
Georgi Azar/Annahar/May 09/2019/BEIRUT: Banque Du Liban employees will afford officials more time to discuss the austerity budget, suspending their strike indefinitely. The head of the BDL employees’ syndicate Abbas Awada said that a general assembly meeting scheduled for Friday has been called off while the Cabinet continues to debate the draft budget. Lebanon's Cabinet has been discussing an austere budget draft looking to slash public sector employees' wages by almost 25 percent in an attempt to curb the budget deficit, now equal to 11 percent of GDP. The small Mediterranean country is also battling a public debt that has soared to around $85 billion, the equivalent of 150 percent of GDP. This drew the ire of BDL employees as well despite Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil assuring them that the Central Bank isn't concerned. "BDL isn't a public institution like the rest he said," adding that it "follows the code of money and credit."Article 61 caps public salaries while Article 60 stipulates that all public institutions' administrative budgets and accounts should fall under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance. This caused BDL to express concern over the possibility of losing its ability to function independently from the government.  After the strike stifled Lebanon's banking sector earlier this week, normal operations resumed on Tuesday with a cash withdrawal limit lifted. To avoid a shortage of liquidity should the strike continue, banks implemented a cash withdrawal limit varying between $1500 and $2000, worrying Lebanese who flocked to ATMs. The strike was the first initiated by BDL employees since its inception in 1963.

Jumblat: Have We Returned to Tutelage Era?
Naharnet/May 09/2019/Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday criticized a raid by State Security agents on the building of al-Akhbar newspaper, wondering if Lebanon has returned to the Syrian tutelage era. "Is it true that a State Security patrol has raided al-Akhbar's offices? Have we returned to the days of the Second Office... Have we returned to the tutelage era?" Jumblat tweeted. "How can we accept the violations against the press and tomorrow against all individual and personal freedoms?" he warned. He added: "What is the stance of the parties, top politicians and freedom defenders?"The daily has strongly criticized both State Security and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil over a similar raid at the Foreign Ministry. It said the raid was linked to Bassil's intention to identify the person who leaked three diplomatic reports from the Lebanese embassy in Washington to al-Akhbar. Six diplomats and an employee were interrogated during that raid.

Amnesty Slams UAE Trial of Lebanese Shiites
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/The terrorism trial of eight Lebanese Shiites detained in the United Arab Emirates is unfair and based on fabricated confessions obtained under torture, Amnesty International said Thursday. A verdict is expected on May 15 in the trial of the eight men, who are all Shiite Muslims and were arrested in the UAE between December 2017 and February 2018. Amnesty International said the charges of planning attacks in the Emirates on orders of the Iranian-backed Lebanese organization Hizbullah were trumped up. "These men were tortured, they were forced into making confessions," Sima Watling, a researcher for the Britain-based rights group, told AFP. She said the defendants had lived in the United Arab Emirates for years but were denied regular access to their families or to a lawyer. One of the eight is Abdel Rahman Talal Chouman, who had lived in the UAE for more than 15 years and been working as a safety and security trainer with Emirates Airline. During an April 3 session at the state security chamber of the Federal Appeal Court in Abu Dhabi, he described how he was tortured for six hours at a time and forced to sign a confession he was not even given a chance to read. "He had documents in his laptop for training his colleagues on scenarios of possible attacks... these were part of the accusation that he was planning an attack on the airport," Watling said. "If the authorities take these confessions in this trial as being the truth, they are not abiding by international law," she said. All of them have been held in solitary confinement, more than two weeks of which can amount to torture, according to United Nations standards for the treatment of prisoners. The detained men are from Lebanon's Shiite community and are accused by the Emirati authorities of collaborating with Hizbullah. The UAE is a close ally of Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which considers Shiite-dominated Iran to be its arch enemy, and lists Hizbullah as a terrorist organization. "It is clearly fabricated, it is a bogus trial against people who happen to be Shiite from the south of Lebanon," Watling said, urging the court to recognize that the trial was unfair and set the eight free. In a Ramadan message to the UAE leadership on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil called for the eight to be granted amnesty.

Lebanon students get classes in surviving war and disasters
Arab News/May 09/2019/TRIPOLI: For students at Takmiliyat Al Kobba 2nd School in Tripoli in northern Lebanon, getting an education used to mean risking their lives in a hail of bullets. Pupils would dash down the exposed steps at the school, which was caught on the boundary between two warring sects, hoping to reach safety. But not all made it. Mekdad Dergham, 8, was killed as he left the school in 2010. “This child, for his bad luck, he was going back downstairs to go home and unfortunately he didn’t arrive. The bullet was faster than him,” school director Raghida Abdel El Hamid Chamsin told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, speaking from her office. “I still remember he was in the third grade. Every year, I would say, ‘If he was still alive he would be in fourth grade,’ next year I would say ‘He should be in the fifth grade’.”Now the school is working with the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) to train children on how to stay safe during conflicts and disasters. Around the world, people facing multiple threats, from worsening storms to violent uprisings, often are helped to deal with just one at a time, leaving them still vulnerable to others, researchers say. But joining up preparedness efforts — as is happening in Lebanon — can save both cash and lives, they say. In Lebanon, the war in neighboring Syria that erupted in 2011, with opposition fighters battling to topple Bashar Assad, triggered Lebanon’s worst instability since its own 1975-90 civil war. This included several bouts of fighting in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city and a historic base for fighter groups, that left hundreds dead and injured. But as well as struggling to cope with conflict, Lebanon’s 6 million people also face natural hazards: The country is crossed by three major earthquake fault lines and is at risk of flooding, landslides, wildfires and storms.
Increasing resilience
Recent years have seen growing efforts to increase the country’s ability to cope with disasters. A decade ago the prime minister’s office established a national disaster risk management unit, supported by the UN Development Program. This aims to “support the Lebanese government in its efforts to reduce exposure and vulnerabilities in order to reduce the risk of disasters,” a government spokesman said in an email. A Lebanon Crisis Response Plan was developed in 2017 with the support of international partners, aiming to protecting the most vulnerable and support stability in the fall-out from the Syria crisis. Much of the national disaster risk management work focuses on raising awareness of hazards and increasing collaboration within a heavily sectarian society. But schools have also been a focal point, with the government helping to develop educational materials such as a board game targeting children aged 9-15 called “If you don’t know, it’s a disaster.” The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has long argued that children should be offered disaster training, as they are among the most vulnerable in a crisis and schools often act as focal points for wider communities. “It is very important to safeguard our future generations and ... to enhance a culture of prevention and awareness,” said the government spokesman.
Regular drills
Although fighting has died down in Tripoli in recent years, mock gunfire still rings out at Takmiliyat Al-Kobba 2nd School and about 200 other government schools during regular drills run by the Lebanese Red Cross. During a recent armed conflict drill, students quickly evacuated their classrooms and took shelter in the school’s theater. “I feel afraid,” 14-year-old Amal Ibrahim said after the practice. “But when I think of the steps I should do, I feel less frightened because I know how to protect myself.”Students’ relatives are invited to learn about the drills — not least because otherwise they might risk their own lives by coming to school to try to save their children in a disaster, said Kassem Chaalan, an LRC project manager. “In studies we did, a number of the deaths and injuries were either caused by attempts to escape or to rescue others,” said Chaalan. The school training is also seen an opportunity to increase disaster resilience within wider communities. “You can create this culture among children at schools, and then they will be able to transfer this culture to their families,” said Chaalan. The school training includes information on how to recognize a disaster, where to shelter, when and where to evacuate, as well as the basics of first aid and firefighting. “When we used to hear (the) sound of bullets, we used to be too scared to know what to do. It was so confusing,” said Houssam Khaddooj, an 18-year-old former student who now volunteers with the LRC on the drills. “If this had happened before, the area would have coped better. We would have been able to take care of ourselves, to raise awareness among those who are younger than us.”

Brazil Court Orders ex-President Temer Back to Jail
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/A Brazilian appeals court on Wednesday ordered former president Michel Temer back to jail, an official said, weeks after the 78-year-old was freed by another judge. The order by the Rio de Janeiro court "has immediate effect," a court official told AFP without providing more details. Temer, who is accused of leading a sophisticated embezzlement and money laundering scheme, was arrested in Sao Paulo in March and placed in "preventative detention" in Rio. But that decision was overturned days later by another judge, citing a lack of legal justification. Temer was the second ex-president of the Latin American country to be caught up in a sprawling anti-corruption probe called Operation Car Wash that has claimed scores of political and corporate scalps. Since 2014 the Car Wash probe has uncovered a vast graft operation involving state oil firm Petrobras and major construction companies and bribes to politicians of several parties. More than 150 people have been convicted and hundreds more charged so far. The scale of the corruption uncovered has stunned Brazilians weary of graft among their leaders.

Reports: Court denies Ghosn appeal on no contact with wife
Associated Press/May 09/2019/TOKYO: A Japanese court has rejected an appeal from the lawyers of Nissan’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn over bail conditions that forbid him to contact his wife, as a prosecutor defended the restriction as needed to prevent evidence tampering. The Kyodo News service reported Thursday the Tokyo District Court rejected the appeal filed earlier in the day. The report could not be immediately confirmed. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Shin Kukimoto told reporters Thursday that limiting contact with Carole Ghosn was “an absolute necessity” because of risks of tampering with evidence. He also expressed outrage over Ghosn’s release. He declined comment on the court decision, saying that was a court matter. Ghosn’s representatives say Carole Ghosn is not permitted to meet or talk with her husband. Some legal experts had said earlier they might be able to meet under some conditions, such as having a lawyer present. Ghosn was arrested in November on allegations of financial misconduct. He was released in March on 1 billion yen ($9 million) bail, but re-arrested April 4. He was released again April 25 on an additional 500 million yen ($4.5 million) bail. Ghosn says he is innocent, denouncing his arrest as “a conspiracy” by some at Nissan Motor Co. Carole Ghosn is not a suspect, but is mentioned in the newest allegations that center on payments by an Oman business to operations allegedly run by Ghosn. She was called in for questioning by a judge last month. In a statement issued earlier this week, representatives of Ghosn and his family denied that communication among family members might lead to destruction of evidence, and said Japan’s reputation was being tarnished. Ghosn has been charged with falsifying financial documents to under-report post-retirement compensation and of breach of trust in diverting Nissan money and allegedly having it shoulder his personal investment losses. Carole Ghosn was living with her husband in a small Tokyo apartment after his first release and was present when he was arrested again. In an interview with the Nikkei newspaper on Thursday, she criticized the restrictions on her contact with her husband as a violation of human rights. Ghosn’s trial might not start for months as long preparations are common. Both sides acknowledge his case is complex.

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on May 09-10/19
US Sanctions to Hit Iran's Metals Industry, a Major Employer
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 9 May, 2019/US sanctions have targeted Iran's government, its paramilitary forces and the oil exports that fund them. Now they are hitting its vital steel, aluminum, copper and iron industries, said an Associated Press report Thursday. The new sanctions, imposed as Tehran announced its partial withdrawal from its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, seem to be moving ever closer to directly affecting the country's 80 million people, rather than the leadership. The metals industry is a major employer and a rare bright spot for Iran's anemic economy.
Many Iranians already feel the vise squeezing ever tighter around the country, which has caused its currency, the rial, to depreciate rapidly and push the price of nearly everything beyond the reach of ordinary consumers.
"I don't think (the US) can, or wants to fight Iran ... because wars are no longer a thing," said Ahmad Hashemi, who sells steel products like sheet metal and beams in southern Tehran. "Nowadays, wars are economic wars. Look at these sanctions. It's so easy."US President Donald Trump issued his executive order Wednesday announcing the sanctions. That came just after Iran threatened to enrich its uranium stockpile closer to weapons-grade levels in 60 days if European leaders fail to negotiate new terms of the nuclear deal to protect Iran's ability to trade on the global market. The new sanctions are part of Trump's maximalist policy targeting Iran after he pulled the US out of the nuclear deal a year ago. The United States, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, China and the European Union signed the deal in 2015, lifting international sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear program.
But the Trump administration contends that the deal, reached under former President Barack Obama, should have included limits on Iran's ballistic missile program and curbed its regional influence. Supporters of the deal describe it as an important measure freezing Iran's nuclear program while offering a step toward further negotiations.
"We have imposed the toughest sanctions ever on this Iranian regime," said Brian Hook, a US envoy for Iran. "We have designated nearly 1,000 individuals and entities since the beginning of the administration. We have taken Iran's oil exports to historic lows. And we have stopped issuing oil waivers to those who import Iranian oil, which means zeroing out the purchases of Iranian crude."Iran's domestic metal industry includes dozens of steel mills, mainly government-owned, that employ about 50,000 workers. Of the 25 million tons of steel produced, Iran exports over 30%, earning nearly $4 billion yearly.
About 3,000 factories and workshops produce goods for Iran's domestic market ranging from kitchen utensils and building frames to offshore oil rigs and military vehicles. It also feeds into Iran's domestic car manufacturing plants. Metal-related industries employ about 10 percent of the country's 22 million workers, a report by Iran's parliament said. How the sanctions will affect Iran's miners remains unclear. About 6 percent of its 8,840 mines produce raw materials such as iron, copper and aluminum. Tehran-based economic analyst Gholamreza Kiamenhr said he believed that the sanctions on the metals industry "possibly affects employment and production lines," although it won't be as crippling as those on Iran's oil industry, said the AP.
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of the Iranian economic website Bourse & Bazaar, said the measures appear aimed at stoking further unrest in the country. At the end of 2017 through the start of 2018, economic protests swept across 75 cities and towns, lasting for days and resulting in the deaths of dozens of people and the arrest of hundreds more. Some demonstrations have already hit steel mills. In December, authorities detained an unspecified number of steelworkers after five weeks of protests over delays in paying salaries. "Creating the conditions for mass unemployment - especially among the blue collar workers employed by state-owned enterprises who form the backbone of Iran's economy - is the likely aim of the Trump administration's latest round of sanctions," Batmanghelidj wrote. It's also weakening the position of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric whose signature accomplishment was the nuclear deal.
"The president should bravely admit the obvious defeat of his recent six years of strategies and resign," said Abdolreza Davari, a close adviser to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-liner. "This will quickly prepare the ground for taking office by a new government that is capable to control the country in this current critical situation." After the US withdrew from the nuclear accord, it restored the crippling sanctions, exacerbating Iran's economic crisis. The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 at the time of the accord, traded Thursday at 156,500, creeping further downward. "Even before the latest sanctions, the previous ones already impacted our daily lives and have been effective," said a 52-year-old engineer who gave his name as Afshin. "If we say they had no effect we are deceiving ourselves. I can say that my family has gone from a middle-class family to a lower-class family. The situation is much worse than before."Many believe the situation will only get worse as time goes on. Many of those who are young and unmarried discuss fleeing the country with friends. Those who are older simply shrug and watch as prices of everything from meat to medicines climb out of reach.

European Powers Reject Iran 'Ultimatums'
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 9 May, 2019/The European Union and the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain on Thursday said they would not accept ultimatums after Iran announced it was scaling back curbs to its nuclear program. "We reject any ultimatums and we will assess Iran's compliance on the basis of Iran's performance regarding its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA and the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons)," the statement read, with JCPOA referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. They said they regretted the re-imposition of sanctions by the United States after it withdrew from the nuclear deal and added that they remained committed to preserving and fully implementing the Iran nuclear deal. Iran said Wednesday it had stopped respecting limits on its nuclear activities agreed under the deal with major powers until they find a way to bypass renewed US sanctions, as Washington accused Tehran of resorting to "blackmail".Tehran said it was responding to the sweeping unilateral sanctions that Washington has reimposed since it quit the agreement one year ago, which have dealt a severe blow to the Iranian economy.

Trump urges Iran to talk as US aircraft carrier passes Suez
Arab News/May 09/2019/CAIRO: Donald Trump on Thursday urged Iran's leadership to sit down and talk with him about giving up Tehran's nuclear program and said he could not rule out a military confrontation given the heightened tensions between the two countries. The US President was speaking hours after Egypt confirmed the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln passed through the Suez Canal. The US strike group is heading towards the Gulf amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran. At an impromptu news conference at the White House, Trump declined to say what prompted him to deploy the force to the region over what was described as unspecified threats. “We have information that you don't want to know about,” said Trump. “They were very threatening and we have to have great security for this country and many other places.” Trump was asked whether there was a risk of military confrontation with the American military presence in the area. “I guess you could say that always, right? I don't want to say no, but hopefully that won't happen. We have one of the most powerful ships in the world that is loaded up and we don't want to do anything,” he said. Trump has expressed a willingness to meet Iranian leaders in the past to no avail and renewed that appeal in talking to reporters. “What they should be doing is calling me up, sitting down. We can make a deal, a fair deal, we just don't want them to have nuclear weapons - not too much to ask. And we would help put them back to great shape.”He added: “They should call. If they do, we're open to talk to them.” Trump's national security advisor John Bolton on Sunday announced the deployment of the aircraft strike group and bomber task force in a “clear and unmistakable” message to Iran that it would respond to any attack on the US or its allies. To reach the Gulf, the carrier must pass through the Suez Canal which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. General Ralph Groover, the US defence attache in Cairo, commended Egyptian authorities for ensuring the vessel's “complete safety” during its passage, according to a statement from the canal's Port Authority. In his announcement Sunday, Bolton stopped short of saying Washington planned to enter into a direct conflict with Tehran. But the deployment comes amid increasing rhetoric following Washington's withdrawal last year from the multi-party 2015 deal over Iran's nuclear programme. In recent weeks, Trump's administration has re-imposed stringent sanctions on Iran and blacklisted the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group. In response, Tehran said it would stop abiding by parts of the nuclear agreement. Iran on Monday dismissed the naval deployment as "old news", saying Iranian forces had seen the vessel enter the Mediterranean three weeks earlier. The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed to the Gulf on previous occasions, including during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq ‘placed on high alert’
Arab News/May 09/2019/Iraqi armed groups backed by Iran have been placed on high alert to respond to any action by the US amid growing tension between Tehran and Washington, their commanders told Arab News on Thursday.
Iran has trained and equipped dozens of Shiite, Sunni and Christian armed factions in Iraq. Most operate under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), a government body established in 2014 to cover forces who fought Daesh alongside the government, but they are not subject to the orders of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces. The US deployed an aircraft carrier battle group and other military forces to the Middle East this week in reponse to what Washington said was an “escalated threat” from Iran. However, commanders of several prominent Shiite armed factions told Arab News they had received no orders to target US troops or facilities inside Iraq, and their orders were “to be fully prepared and to exercise utmost restraint.”“The resistance factions are ready at the same level for both options, peace and war,” one leader said. “We are fully ready and waiting to see what will happen. The interests of Iraq will decide our next direction.” A commander in the Badr Organization, the largest pro-Iranian Shiite armed faction, told Arab News no orders had been issued by Iran to target US interests in Iraq, but they had been told to “be ready and await instructions.”
Greatest challenge
Restraining the pro-Iranian armed groups and keeping them away from American personnel and facilities is one of the greatest challenges facing the Iraqi government and Iraqi leaders.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday for an unannounced four-hour visit. He met President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi “to obtain assurances that the Iraqi government can curb these factions and cut any financial supplies to Iran through Iraq,” a US adviser in Baghdad told Arab News “The targeting of the US embassy in Baghdad, or any other US target inside or outside Iraq, by these factions would be considered a declaration of war between Iran and US,” the adviser said. “So the situation depends on the efforts of the president and prime minister to curb these factions, with the help of Iran.”The US Republican senator Marco Rubio said on Thursday: “If they attack our 50,000 US personnel and\or our facilities in Iraq, it should be considered no different than a direct attack by Iran.”The US is thought to be most concerned about Kata’ib Hezbollah-Iraq and Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq, the most hostile anti-American Shiite armed factions, who carried out deadly attacks against US troops in Iraq from 2007 to 2011. However, a senior Kata’ib Hezbollah-Iraq commander told Arab News they would not attack any US target if the US did not use Iraqi territory to attack Iran. “Shiite resistance, especially Kata’ib and Asa’ib, have always been at the forefront of supporters of the Iraqi government ... and avoided embarrassing it in many previous situations, so we would not do this now,” he said. “But if the Americans use Iraqi territory to strike Muslims in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will respond, as it would be our ideological duty. In that case, we would not be alone and all the factions of the PMU would join us.”

European Powers Reject Iran 'Ultimatums' on Nuclear Deal
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/European powers said Thursday that they still backed the nuclear deal with Iran, but rejected any "ultimatums" from Tehran to keep it alive. "We reject any ultimatums and we will assess Iran's compliance on the basis of Iran's performance regarding its nuclear-related commitments" under a 2015 deal, the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany said in a statement. Iran said Wednesday it had stopped respecting limits on its nuclear activities agreed under the deal with major powers until they find a way to bypass renewed US sanctions, as Washington accused Tehran of resorting to "blackmail."Tehran said it was responding to the sweeping unilateral sanctions that Washington has reimposed since it quit the agreement one year ago, which have dealt a severe blow to the Iranian economy. In their statement, the Europeans underlined "our own firm commitments under the agreement including as regards sanctions-lifting for the benefit of the Iranian people" but criticised the U.S. sanctions. "In this regard, we regret the re-imposition of sanctions by the United States following their withdrawal from the JCPoA," -- Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -- as the nuclear deal is known. "We call on countries not party to the JCPoA to refrain from taking any actions that impede the remaining parties' ability to fully perform their commitments."The European powers added that they were "determined to continue pursuing efforts to enable the continuation of legitimate trade with Iran" in an effort to keep the imperilled pact afloat. But it said that Iran must at the same time "implement its commitments under the JCPoA in full as it has done until now and to refrain from any escalatory steps."

Trump Unveils Iran Sanctions, Hopes 'Someday' for Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Iran's steel and mining sectors Wednesday in his latest tough sanctions but said that he "someday" hoped to negotiate face-to-face with the clerical regime. The announcement came hours after Iran said it was suspending some limits set by a multinational nuclear deal -- on the one-year anniversary of Trump's pullout from the accord. The White House said it was imposing sanctions on all trade of Iran's iron, steel, aluminum and copper, the country's biggest export after oil -- which the United States is already working to halt completely. "Today's action targets Iran's revenue from the export of industrial metals -- 10 percent of its export economy -- and puts other nations on notice that allowing Iranian steel and other metals into your ports will no longer be tolerated," Trump said in a statement. "Tehran can expect further actions unless it fundamentally alters its conduct." But in a switch in tone, Trump, who talked tough on North Korea before entering landmark talks with leader Kim Jong Un, said he was also willing to negotiate."I look forward to someday meeting with the leaders of Iran in order to work out an agreement and, very importantly, taking steps to give Iran the future it deserves," he said.

Deposed Istanbul mayor vows ‘revolution’ for democracy
Arab News/May 09/2019/ISTANBUL: Istanbul’s deposed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was stripped of his election victory this week, told AFP he would lead a “revolution” for democracy ahead of next month’s vote re-run. “What we are doing now is a fight for democracy and mobilization for democracy. It will of course be a revolution once we carry it to its conclusion,” he told AFP. Turkey’s top election body annulled the results of the March 31 mayoral vote on Monday, after the ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alleged “serious corruption” in the count. “The seven members (of the election body) will take their place in history like a black stain, but it is our responsibility to correct it. We keep on fighting,” said Imamoglu, who represents the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Damascus Takes Key Town from Jihadists
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/Syrian government forces recaptured a northwestern town on Thursday from around which jihadists and allied rebels have launched rockets on their Russian ally's key airbase, a monitor said. The capture of the town of Qalaat al-Madiq, on the southwestern edge of the jihadist-controlled Idlib region, comes after weeks of intensified air strikes and shelling by pro-government and Russian forces. Intense bombardment caused the jihadists and Islamist rebels to flee, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "Rockets have been fired on the Hmeimim airbase" from the area around the town, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. The Russian airbase in the coastal province of Latakia has come under repeated rocket fire and Moscow has also accused armed groups of launching weaponised drones against it. In the latest attack on Monday, 36 rockets were fired at Hmeimim, but were intercepted without causing any casualties or damage, the Russian defence ministry said. The recapture of Qalaat al-Madiq comes after government forces retook the nearby town of Kafr Nabouda on Wednesday, pro-government newspaper Al-Watan and the Observatory said. Overnight and early Thursday, government and Russian aircraft also struck two other nearby towns, Hobait and Khan Sheikhun, the Observatory said. Russia signed a buffer zone deal with rebel backer Turkey in September to avert a broad government offensive on the Idlib region, which would have a potentially devastating impact on its three million people. But Turkey failed to deliver on the agreed withdrawal of extremist factions from the planned buffer zone and, in January, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, which is dominated by jihadists from al-Qaida's former Syrian branch, took control of the region, prompting an uptick in clashes. Since late April, government forces have mounted a major bombardment of the south of the region with Russian support, prompting tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes. State media has regularly reported attacks by the army on "terrorist" positions but there has been no announcement of any wider offensive. Analysts have said the government's strategy may instead be to chip away at jihadist territory one piece at a time. The civil war in Syria has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

EU Says New Syria Violence Breaches International Law
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/Air attacks and shelling of schools and hospitals in northwest Syria amount to "an unacceptable violation of international law," the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said. The uptick in fighting in the last few days between Russian-backed Syrian government forces and jihadists in the Idlib region have left dozens dead and displaced an estimated 150,000 people or more. The U.N. Security Council is due to meet Friday to discuss the violence. "The recent military escalation in Northwestern Syria, with air attacks and artillery shelling targeting schools and hospitals, including with the use of barrel bombs, is an unacceptable violation of international law," Mogherini said. "Far too many lives have been lost, far too much suffering has been inflicted to the Syrian people," Mogherini said in a statement. "The European Union recalls that Russia and Turkey, as the guarantors of the Sochi agreement, have an obligation to ensure its implementation," Mogherini said. She was referring to an accord struck in the Russian resort of Sochi by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Under the September 17 truce deal, Turkey would exert its influence over anti-regime groups in the Idlib region to have them pull back fighters and heavy weapons from a demilitarised zone.Mogherini warned that a further escalation could jeopardise the work of the U.N. special envoy, Geir Pedersen, to resume talks between the Syrian parties in Geneva.

Controversial minister back for third stint in reshuffled Jordanian government
Arab News/May 09/2019/AMMAN: Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz’s newly reshuffled government was on Thursday sworn in before the country’s King Abdullah. The reorganization was marked by the appointment of political hardliner Salameh Hammad as the new minister of interior replacing the outgoing Samir Mubaideen. It is the third time Hammad has held the interior ministerial post, his first stint being between 1993 and 1996, and his second in 2015 during the administration of Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour. In April 2016 Ensour was forced to ask for Hammad’s resignation after a large number of parliamentary members signed a petition expressing no confidence in him. Haytham Erefej, a founding member of the Civil Coalition party, told Arab News that the government rejig will make things more difficult. “This is a strange reshuffle, normally there is a goal behind the change, for example to lessen tension in the street, but this change will make the public angrier than before and this is in total contradiction to Prime Minister Omar Razzaz who was brought in as a liberal savior,” said Erefej. Sabri Rbehat, a former Jordanian minister, questioned the need for change. “It produces no advancement in the badly needed political process,” Rbehat told Amman’s Radio Al-Balad. Abla Abu Elba, secretary-general of the left-wing Hashd party, said: “Even though we don’t want to be pessimistic, the message in the appointment (of Hammad) signals that we will be facing a harsh position in the future.” Jordan MP Tariq Khoury told Arab News he was opposed to appointing government Cabinet members based on a quota system rather than qualifications. “We need to end this idea of making appointments based on geography or tribalism but on qualifications,” he said. Ali Khawaldeh, director general of the Jordanian Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs, told Arab News he welcomed some of the changes particularly the renaming of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to the Ministry of Local Government. He said the new name was in accordance with “international norms” and that it will “strengthen the current decentralization efforts.” The country’s Ministry of Telecommunications will now be called the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship with Mothana Gharabia continuing to head up the ministerial role. Razzaz had asked on May 8 for all his ministers to resign ahead of the third reshuffle in the space of a year. It follows a change of personnel in the general intelligence directorate and at the royal court. Bisher Al-Khasawneh was appointed as adviser to his majesty for communication and coordination as of April 23, 2019, and Maj. Gen. Ahmad Husni was appointed as director of the General Intelligence Department (GID) as of May 1.

El-Sisi and Haftar discuss Egyptian support for Libyan National Army
Arab News/May 09/2019/CAIRO: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi discussed Egypt’s support for the Libyan National Army (LNA) with its commander Khalifa Haftar on Thursday. El-Sisi confirmed Egypt’s support for efforts to counter terrorism and militias in order to achieve safety and stability in Libya, a presidential spokesman said. Last month, Haftar’s forces, which are loyal to the administration based in Eastern Libya, launched an offensive against the capital Tripoli which is held by a rival government.The country has been divided since the downfall of Muammar Qaddafi, and Egypt has supported Haftar as a bulwark against extremist forces in Libya. During Thursday’s meeting at the Ittihadiya presidential palace, Haftar explained Libyan efforts to address foreign interference in the country, which he said aims to smuggle weapons, fighters and foreign terrorists into Libya. Haftar has accused Turkey and Libya of backing hardline militias in the country. Earlier, the head of Libya’s Tripoli-based government met British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in London. Fayez Al-Sarraj, whose government is backed by the UN, has been in Europe this week seeking support against Haftar’s Tripoli offensive. Haftar’s Libyan National Army launched an assault on Tripoli on April 4, setting off another deadly escalation in a country mired in violence since Qaddafi’s death after an Arab Spring uprising in 2011. Britain has pushed for a resolution at the UN Security Council demanding a ceasefire in Libya but its efforts have foundered amid divisions at the world body. Meanwhile, three people were killed Thursday in a suspected hit-and-run attack by Daesh militants on a town in southern Libya, residents and a military official said, the second such attack within days. Gunmen stormed the southern town of Ghadwa and opened fire before retreating back into the desert, residents said. The attack came after nine soldiers were killed on Saturday in an attack claimed by Daesh on a training camp for Haftar’s forces. In Tripoli, three rockets hit a western suburb overnight close to the heavily fortified UN compound but otherwise there was less fighting than last week as life slowed down with the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

Macron says military equipment sales to ally Saudi Arabia part of 'war on terror'
Arab News/May 09/2019/LONDON: French sales of military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are to support allies in the war against terrorism, Emmanuel Macron said Thursday. “Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are allies of France and allies in the fight against terrorism,” the French president said as he arrived for a meeting of EU leaders in Romania. “We need to be with our allies in these difficult times and the war against terrorism is a priority for us.”A shipment of supplies is set to leave for the Gulf from the northern French port of Le Havre and the French president has faced pressure from critics at home over the deliveries. Meanwhile, leading British defence firm BAE Systems said it was working with the UK government to deliver its contracts with Saudi Arabia after Germany in March extended its ban on exporting arms to the kingdom. The move has been criticised by European allies since it put a question mark over billions of euros of military orders, including a multi-billion pound deal to sell 48 Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Riyadh that would be led by Britain's BAE Systems. “Following the recent updates from the German Government regarding export licences, we are working closely with industry partners and the UK government to continue to fulfil our contractual support arrangements in Saudi Arabia on the key European collaboration programmes,” BAE said Thursday.*With Reuters and AFP

Philippines, US, Japan and India conduct first joint maritime drills
Arab News/May 09/2019/MANILA: Naval vessels from the Philippines, America, India and Japan have sailed together through the South China Sea for the first time in a week-long joint maritime drill against a backdrop of rising tensions over territorial disputes in the region. Six ships from the four countries — the US guided-missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence, Philippine patrol ship BRP Andres Bonifacio, Indian destroyer INS Kolkata and tanker INS Shakti, and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) helicopter-carrier JS Izumo and destroyer JS Murasame — transited through international waters May 2 to 8 in a bid to promote maritime cooperation throughout a free and open Indo-Pacific. “This combined transit exercise aims to strengthen the partnership and foster mutual understanding between participants,” the Philippine Navy said an emailed statement. “The group sail showed the active participation of the Philippine Navy as it strengthens its relationships with allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific region. This gives us another opportunity to learn from like-minded navies,” said Captain Roy Vincent Trinidad of the Philippine Navy. The commanding officer of BRP Andres Bonifacio, Capt. Jerry Garrido Jr., said: “Our bond of friendship with regional partners is as strong as our commitment to maintain peace and stability in the region.”The naval drills came after the Philippines’ participation in the first phase of the ASEAN-Plus Defense Ministers’ Meeting Maritime Security Field Training Exercise 2019 in Busan, Republic of Korea. Ships from the four countries transited international waters to Changi, Singapore where the second phase of the exercise will conclude. As they crossed the South China Sea, the ships conducted formation exercises, communication drills, passenger transfers, and held a leadership exchange aboard JS Izumo.Rear Adm. Hiroshi Egawa, JMSDF Escort Flotilla Division One Commander, said the opportunity of a combined transit exercise with the US Navy and regional partners would “build mutual understanding and trust” and serve as a way to enhance regional peace and stability. “The ability to do various exercises (with) four different navies smoothly demonstrated (our) professionalism and high operational skills,” he said. An official statement from the Indian Navy said the group sail was intended to “enhance maritime cooperation, synergize maritime engagements, share best practices and standardize operating procedures.” Days prior to the exercise, the USS William P. Lawrence, along with another US Navy ship, the USS Stethem, sailed the Taiwan Straits, a move which provoked anger in China, which also denounced the sailing for two US warships close to the disputed Spratly Islands earlier this week.

Pope Francis Issues Groundbreaking Law on Reporting of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up
Associated Press/Thursday 09th May 2019/
Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking law Thursday requiring all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-up by their superiors to church authorities, in an important new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for failing to protect their flocks.
The new church law provides whistle-blower protections for anyone making a report and requires all dioceses around the world to have a system in place to receive the claims confidentially. And it outlines procedures for conducting preliminary investigations when the accused is a bishop, cardinal or religious superior. It's the latest effort by Francis to respond to the global eruption of the sex abuse and cover-up scandal that has devastated the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy and his own papacy. And it provides a new legal framework for U.S. bishops to use as they prepare to adopt accountability measures next month to respond to the scandal there.
"We have said for years that priests must conform to certain strict rules, so why shouldn't bishops and others in the hierarchy do the same?" said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican office for bishops. "It's not just a law, but a profound responsibility." The law makes the world's 415,000 Catholic priests and 660,000 religious sisters mandated reporters. That means they are required to inform church authorities when they learn or have "well-founded motives to believe" that a cleric or sister has engaged in sexual abuse of a minor, sexual misconduct with an adult, possession of child pornography — or that a superior has covered up any of those crimes. The law doesn't require them to report to police. The Vatican has long argued that doing so could endanger the church in places where Catholics are a persecuted minority. But it does for the first time put into universal church law that they must obey civil reporting requirements where they live, and that their obligation to report to the church in no way interferes with that. If it is implemented fully, the Vatican could well see an avalanche of abuse and cover-up reports in the coming years. Since the law is procedural and not criminal in nature, it can be applied retroactively, meaning priests and nuns are now required to report even old cases of sexual wrongdoing and cover-ups — and enjoy whistleblower protections for doing so.
Previously such reporting was left up to the conscience of individual priests and nuns. Now it is church law. There are no punitive measures foreseen if they fail to report, and similarly there are no sanctions foreseen if dioceses, for example, fail to comply. But bishops and religious superiors could be accused of cover-up or negligence if they fail to implement the provisions, or retaliate against priests and nuns who make reports. The law defines the crimes that must be reported as: performing sexual acts with a minor or vulnerable person; forcing an adult "by violence or threat or through abuse of authority, to perform or submit to sexual acts," and the production, possession or distribution of child pornography. Cover-up is defined as "actions or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid" civil or canonical investigations.
Ouellet said the inclusion of sex crimes involving adults was a clear reference to cases of sexual abuse of nuns and seminarians by their superiors — a scandal that has exploded in recent months following reports, including by The Associated Press and the Vatican's own women's magazine, of sisters being sexually assaulted by priests.
In another legal first for the Vatican, the pope mandated that victims reporting abuse must be welcomed, listened to and supported by the hierarchy, as well as offered spiritual, medical and psychological assistance. It doesn't mandate financial reparations, however.
But the key point of the law is to decree that the church's own priests and nuns are mandated reporters and require every diocese around the world create an accessible, confidential reporting system to receive claims of sexual abuse and cover-up. The other key element outlines the preliminary investigation procedures to be used when the accused predator is a member of the church hierarchy. Victims and their advocates have long complained that bishops and religious superiors have escaped justice for having engaged in sexual misconduct themselves, or failed to protect their flocks from predator priests. Bishops and religious superiors are accountable only to the pope, and only a handful have ever been sanctioned or removed for sex abuse or cover-up, and usually only after particularly egregious misbehavior became public.

Gold laden private plane seized in Sudan
Arab News/May 09/2019/KHARTOUM: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized a private plane that attempted to smuggle a large amount of gold on Thursday, the RSF’s Facebook page reported. The plane, that belonged to a foreign company, was seized by the RSF in Sudan’s River Nile state, the forces said. The aircraft was due to land at Khartoum International Airport within the next few hours, according to the RSF. The RSF grew out of the government-backed Janjaweed militia and is headed by Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

North Korea Fires Projectiles, South Says
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 09/2019/North Korea fired a number of unidentified projectiles Thursday, the South's military said, as a U.S. envoy visited Seoul for discussions on how to break the nuclear deadlock. "North Korea fired unidentified projectiles eastward" from Sino-ri in North Pyongan province, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

US Embassy to Celebrate Independence Day in Jerusalem for 1st Time
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 9 May, 2019/The US Embassy in Israel has decided to hold its annual Fourth of July celebrations in Jerusalem, according to diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv. The sources said the decision carries great significance and further cements Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and its decision to move the embassy to it. Independence anniversary celebrations have in the past years been held at the Ambassador’s residence in Herzliya in the presence of 2,000 guests. This year, the embassy will invite over 3,000 persons, including top Israeli officials from the government, the presidency, security services and others. In 2018, the embassy’s decision to hold it in Jerusalem was met with objections. US Ambassador David Friedman insisted on moving the celebrations to Jerusalem this year as a reflection of the new US policy set by President Donald Trump. The embassy in Israel is still operating from its old headquarters in Tel Aviv, but Friedman has an office at the US consulate in West Jerusalem. The consulate will become the Ambassador’s permanent residence. Construction companies are working at a high pace to complete the new building of the embassy on a land south of West Jerusalem. Earlier, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, known for his close friendship with Israel, will arrive in Tel Aviv next month, accompanied by a delegation, to hold a ceremonial meeting in solidarity with Israel. DeSantis is scheduled to meet with President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. He will also sign three economic cooperation agreements. The Ministry asserted the importance of the relationship between Israel and Florida, which has a population of 6 million, adding that the visit will further consolidate ties.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 09-10/19
The Middle East Anti-Peace Movement
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/May 09/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14189/anti-peace-jordan
[The Jordanian mayor] went on to say that he believes in the "liberation of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River" – meaning that he supports the elimination of Israel.
The campaign against the Jordanian mayor is the direct result of anti-Israel incitement in Jordan and most of the Arab and Islamic states. While some of the leaders of these countries may appear to be relatively moderate in their views towards Israel, their people continue to reject any form of normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have been radicalizing their people on a daily basis against Israel. They have delegitimized Israel in the eyes of their people to a point where they can no longer be seen talking to or making peace with Israelis.
One is left wondering how any Arab leader would accept any peace plan with Israel when a mayor is being widely condemned and shamed for being caught on camera in the company of Israelis.
In order to achieve peace with Israel, Arab and Muslim leaders need to start preparing their people for peace, and not inciting them against Israel.
Ibrahim al-Karaki, the mayor of the Jordanian city of Al-Karak, 87 miles to south of Amman, with a view to the Dead Sea, is under attack for hosting Israeli (Jewish) tourists during the Jewish Passover holiday. His critics have accused him of promoting normalization with the "Israeli enemy" and are demanding his resignation.
Although Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel, many Jordanians remain opposed to any form of normalization with Israelis. The same applies to Egypt, the second Arab country that has a peace treaty with Israel and where the "anti-normalization" camp remains one of the strongest in the Arab world.
Al-Karaki is reported to have helped the Israelis cross a valley that is closed to tourists. His other "crimes" include feeding the Israeli tourists and presenting them with plaques of appreciation from the city.
Because of these "crimes," the mayor has been facing a massive wave of condemnations from angry Jordanians accusing him of engaging in normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
"The mayor's actions have sparked anger among many residents, political parties and activists in his governorate," according to a report in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Rai. "They considered that what the mayor did as a normalization step with the Zionist enemy. They also said that the mayor's actions contradict our values and moral, humanitarian and religious heritage, and called on him to apologize and submit his resignation."
Representatives of various political factions and community leaders in Al-Karak held an emergency meeting during which they denounced the mayor for his interaction with the Israeli tourists. At the end of the rally, they issued a statement that said that the mayor "is no longer a representative of the sons of Al-Karak, who reject normalization with the Zionist entity." The statement also called on the members of the municipal council immediately to resign and quoted a verse from the Koran that says: "O you who have believed, do not take My enemy and your enemy as guardians/allies." (60:1)
Shortly after the rally, Al-Karak municipal council member Khaled Bkaeen announced his resignation. He was the first council member to resign in protest over the mayor's "crimes." Other council members, meanwhile, issued statements strongly condemning al-Karaki for welcoming and helping the Israeli tourists. They said that the mayor had acted on his own and did not represent the city when he met with the Israelis.
The embattled mayor has gone on the defensive, claiming he was not aware of the identity of the tourists when he helped them and received them in his city. In a video posted on his Facebook account, al-Karaki apologized to the residents of his city and all Jordanians and denied engaging in normalization with Israel. "We are against normalization and the Zionist entity," the mayor said. "I thought that what I did was a humanitarian act. If you believe that I made a mistake and offended your feelings, I apologize. As mayor of Al-Karak, I did what I did out of a humanitarian motive." He went on to say that he believes in the "liberation of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River" – meaning that he supports the elimination of Israel.
Despite the apology and call for destroying Israel, many Jordanians continued to call for the mayor's resignation. "The mayor's apology and claim of ignorance do not exempt him from his responsibility," commented Dima Tahboub, a member of the Jordanian parliament. "The only acceptable thing is for him to quit his job so he could be replaced by someone else."
Journalist Rania al-Sarayra, a resident of Al-Karak, also rejected the mayor's apology and called on him immediately to resign. "He should be fired and held to account," she said. "His apology does not change anything."
In addition, scores of Al-Karak residents took to the streets after Friday prayers to protest their mayor's "crimes." During the protest, the angry residents burned the Israeli flag and stressed their opposition to any form of normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
Jordanian writer and political analyst Anis Khasawneh joined the vicious campaign against the mayor. He wrote: "We do not want their tourists, and the Zionists need to realize that they are not welcome in Al-Karak and other Jordanian lands. The mayor must apologize not only to the residents of his city who elected him and made him an important public figure, but also to all Jordanians. It is painful and even shameful for an elected mayor to host Zionist tourists and honor them in the name of an ancient city."
The campaign against the Jordanian mayor is the direct result of anti-Israel incitement in Jordan and most of the Arab and Islamic states. While some of the leaders of these countries may appear to be relatively moderate in their views towards Israel, their people continue to reject any form of normalization with the "Zionist enemy." One of the reasons for this deep hatred of Israel may be attributed to the ongoing anti-Israel incitement by the leaders themselves.
For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have been radicalizing their people on a daily basis against Israel. They have delegitimized Israel in the eyes of their people to a point where they can no longer be seen talking to or making peace with Israelis. A leader who promotes boycotts and sanctions against Israel will be condemned by his people if and when he is seen talking to or doing business with Israelis.
Sadly, instead of defending his humanitarian action of helping tourists visiting his city, the mayor of Al-Karak has chosen to appease his critics by voicing his support for the "liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea." Even this extremist message has failed to placate his critics, who continue to call for his resignation and punishment.
The incident in Al-Karak comes weeks before the announcement of US President Donald J. Trump's plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the "deal of the century." One is left wondering how any Arab leader would accept any peace plan with Israel when a mayor is being widely condemned and shamed for being caught on camera in the company of Israelis. In order to achieve peace with Israel, Arab and Muslim leaders need to start preparing their people for peace, and not inciting them against Israel.
*Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Ilhan Omar's Ignorance and Bigotry on Gaza Rockets
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/May 09/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14190/ilhan-omar-gaza-rockets
Does Ilhan Omar not realize that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, when Israel removed every soldier and settler from that area?
The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee issued a statement condemning Israel for "targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, including children and infants." Irresponsibly, it never once mentioned the firing of 698 rockets by the rules of Gaza that target Israeli civilians, and it never mentioned the sad reality that Hamas and Islamic Jihad deliberately use "Palestinian civilians, including children and infants" as human shields in order to increase the number of Palestinian civilians who are inadvertently killed or injured by Israel's legitimate efforts to protect its civilians from unlawful rocket attacks.
Israel is also celebrating its 71st year of independence. No nation has contributed so much to humankind in so short a period of time. No nation faced with threats compared to those faced by Israel has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law or concern with avoiding civilian casualties. The world should join Israel in celebrating its 71 years of statehood. The world should also recognize that if Israel's enemies stopped attacking its citizens, there would be peace. But if Israel stopped defending its citizens, there would be genocide.
All decent people should be outraged at the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip that fired 698 rockets at Israeli civilians, killing four, injuring 234 and traumatizing thousands of innocent children. Pictured: A house in the city of Ashkelon, Israel that was damaged by a rocket strike from the Gaza Strip on May 6, 2019. (
All decent people should be outraged at the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip that fired 698 rockets at Israeli civilians, killing four, injuring 234 and traumatizing thousands of innocent children. Imagine what other countries, including the United States, would do if lethal rockets targeted their civilians. Yet, Israel has responded with restraint. To be sure, 30 Palestinians were killed and 154 injured by Israeli efforts to stop the rocket rampage. Many of these were terrorists, but some were civilians who were put in harm's way by the terrorists.
These deaths and injuries were caused by the tactic employed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad: they deliberately place their rocket launchers in densely populated areas -- near schools, hospitals and mosques -- in a deliberate effort to maximize Arab civilian casualties. This has been called "the dead baby" or "CNN" strategy. The goal is to have CNN and other media show the children and other civilians that Israeli counter-measures have inadvertently killed in trying to stop the terrorist rockets from killing Israeli children and other civilians.
Tragically, this strategy works, because with the media, "if it bleeds, it leads." The visual media loves to show dead and injured children, without explaining that they are actually encouraging such casualties by playing into the hands of the terrorists.
So, too, is Congresswoman Ilhan Omar encouraging the firing of rockets by Hamas and Islamic Jihad by blaming the Israeli victims for what she calls the "cycle of violence," instead of blaming Hamas and Islamic Jihad for initiating terrorist violence against innocent Israeli civilians.
In a tweet following the rocket barrage, Omar justifies the double war crimes committed by terrorists who target Israeli civilians while using Palestinian civilians as human shields. She asks rhetorically, how many "rockets must be fired, and little kids must be killed until the endless cycle of violence ends?" This implies that these war crimes are justified by what she calls the "occupation and humanitarian crisis in Gaza."
Does Omar not realize that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, when Israel removed every soldier and settler from that area? Gaza could have become Singapore on the Mediterranean, with its port and location. The Israelis left behind greenhouses and other facilities. Europe and Qatar poured money into the Gaza Strip. But Hamas -- which forcefully took over from the Palestinian Authority -- decided to turn it instead into a large-scale rocket launcher. Instead of using its newly acquired resources to provide humanitarian benefits to its residents, it used them to build terror rockets and tunnels that targeted Israeli civilians. This forced Israel to take counter-measures to protect its citizens. To use the "occupation" -- there is no longer any occupation -- as a justification for why "rockets must be fired" is to show both ignorance and bigotry.
Nor is Omar alone in blaming Israel for the rocket attacks on its civilians. The ADC (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) issued a statement condemning Israel for "targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, including children and infants." Irresponsibly, it never once mentioned the firing of 698 rockets by the rulers of Gaza that target Israeli civilians, and it never mentioned the sad reality that Hamas and Islamic Jihad deliberately use "Palestinian civilians, including children and infants" as human shields in order to increase the number of Palestinian civilians who are inadvertently killed or injured by Israel's legitimate efforts to protect its civilians from unlawful rocket attacks.
The conflict in Gaza will only get worse if terrorism is encouraged by the lies of commission and omission told by Omar, ADC and other supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. All decent people must try to discourage the targeting of civilians by terrorist rockets and tunnels. A good beginning would be to tell the truth. I write these words from Israel, which is now commemorating the many soldiers who have fallen during its years of fighting against those who would destroy the nation state of the Jewish people. Israel is also celebrating its 71st year of independence. No nation has contributed so much to humankind in so short a period of time. No nation faced with threats compared to those faced by Israel has ever had a better record of human rights, compliance with the rule of law or concern with avoiding civilian casualties. The world should join Israeli in celebrating its 71 years of statehood. The world should also recognize that if Israel's enemies stopped attacking its citizens, there would be peace. But if Israel stopped defending its citizens, there would be genocide.
Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School, author of The Case Against the Democrats Impeaching Trump, Skyhorse Publishing, 2019, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

What Impact Would U.S. Designation of the Muslim Brotherhood As A Terrorist Organization Have?
Michael Young/Carnegie Middle East Centre/May 09/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/74671/%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%84-%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%86%D8%BA-%D9%85%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%8A-%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%83%D9%86-%D8%A3%D9%86-%D9%8A%D8%AE/
Shadi Hamid | Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and coeditor of Rethinking Political Islam (Oxford University Press, 2017)
Designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization would be new and unprecedented. In effect, it would be the first time that a U.S. administration declared that millions of Muslims are terrorists. Terrorist designations usually only target organizations—such as Al-Qa‘eda or the Islamic State—that however well-known or influential can only claim a relatively small number of members or active supporters. The Brotherhood, in contrast, is a mass movement.
Because Muslim Brotherhood or Brotherhood-linked groups are often the largest groups that oppose authoritarian regimes and call for democratic elections (even if observers might disagree over the sincerity of such commitments), designation would remove any pretense that the United States has even a passing interest in supporting Arab democracy. For the Trump administration, however, this is likely a feature rather than a bug, since its Middle East strategy is explicitly oriented toward shoring up and empowering authoritarian regimes. Designation would mean that the United States, the ostensible leader of the free world, wouldn’t just be turning a blind eye to repression—which is nothing new—but giving it official sanction. It would be U.S. policy, at least until a future president, most likely a Democrat, might decide to undo it.
Nervana Mahmoud | Egyptian doctor, blogger, and commentator on Middle Eastern issues
The Muslim Brotherhood is not a conservative Muslim party, but a cult that abuses Islam. By designating the group as a terrorist organization, the United States would send a clear message that it is firmly against the toxic ideology of Islamism, not the faith of Islam. Curtailing the group’s cancerous expansion among the American Muslim community would help counter Islamophobia by making it clear to the American public that Islam is not the enemy.
It would also send a message to regional players in the Middle East that the U.S. will not tolerate tactical deceptions by allies or excuses by others. Those, such as Turkey, who label the Kurdistan Workers Party and the Gülen movement as terror groups while continuing to support Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood will understand that the U.S. rejects such dualism. Arab regimes that resist democratic reforms under the premise of fighting terrorism would run out of excuses. And the cult would finally understand that its talent for deceptive violence has consequences. Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers inside and outside the U.S. may not like the decision, but their noise is irrelevant. The U.S. has an opportunity to kickstart a new post-Islamist world order with clear values and policies that are needed now more than ever.
Alison Pargeter | Senior visiting fellow in the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College in London, author of The Muslim Brotherhood: The Burden of Tradition (Saqi Books, 2010)
Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization would open the door to further tyranny in a region already replete with repression. Authoritarian regimes have long used the threat of Islamism to justify suppressing political opponents. Yet for all its illiberal tendencies, the Brotherhood has desisted from embracing violence, despite the many challenges it faces today. By buying into a narrative that the Brotherhood is a terrorist group, the United States would provide further justification for many regimes to silence whoever dares oppose them. It would also help cement the rule of anachronistic and authoritarian forces, depriving the region of any genuine opposition and undermining any prospect for real change.
A designation would also embroil Washington further in the regional conflict between Qatar and Turkey on the one side and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates on the other. The Muslim Brotherhood has become a pawn in this power struggle between undemocratic forces that is wreaking havoc in the region. One needs to look no further than the catastrophic situation in Libya to understand the damage that it has done. For the U.S. to throw its weight even more strongly behind one side in this fight will escalate tensions and bring more misery to a region crying out for change.
Marc Lynch | Nonresident senior fellow in the Carnegie Middle East Program
The Trump administration’s renewed move to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization would fit its pattern of repeatedly reviving discredited, politically convenient ideas without regard for their likely consequences.
The degree of consensus among experts that the Brotherhood is not a terrorist organization is striking, especially given the intense disagreements among those experts about every other aspect of the organization’s ideology, behavior, and politics. Muslim Brotherhood factions have evolved in many different directions since 2011. They have been shattered by the military coup in Egypt, run the government in Morocco, shared power in Tunisia, and taken a leading role in the Syrian opposition. Therefore, a designation would have little to do with reality. It would serve President Donald Trump’s domestic political interests, pandering to the anti-Islamic biases of the American right and pressuring Muslim civil society organizations.
In the Middle East, such a designation would be taken as a signal of support for autocratic allies such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, which long ago issued such a designation to justify the 2013 Egyptian military coup, pressure political opponents at home and across the region, and pursue a quixotic campaign against Qatar. For Trump, those benefits likely outweigh the potential costs, given that he views strengthening autocratic regimes and harming the prospects for democracy as something positive. For the region, however, the move would be one more destabilizing provocation, adding pressure on shaky regimes and exacerbating the lines of regional conflict.

Troubled EU plots its future course
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/May 09/2019
European presidents and prime ministers met on Thursday for a landmark summit aimed at helping to set the EU’s strategic agenda for the next five years. The session, which came just days before the May 23-26 European Parliament elections, looked not only at the challenges and opportunities ahead, but was also a stocktake on the past. The EU’s current agenda was agreed in 2014 by the European Council and has focused on five priority areas: Jobs, growth and competitiveness; empowering and protecting citizens; energy and climate policies; freedom, security and justice; and the EU as a strong global actor.
There has been important progress in these areas in the last five years, but there is also a widespread recognition that there is much more to do, especially in the context of growing Euroskepticism across the continent. The last five years have seen not just the Brexit referendum, but also a growing backlash against Brussels across the continent, with openly skeptical governments being formed from Italy to Poland. The rise of anti-integration sentiment could reach a new high-water mark in this month’s elections, which will set the political weather in the continent for months to come. Here, Euroskeptic parties across the continent are hoping for big gains, building on the 2014 elections that saw significant swings to anti-integration parties from the extreme right to the far left.Thursday’s summit in Romania, the first time that the country has hosted an EU leaders’ meeting since it joined the bloc in 2007, was also one of the last big meetings before European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker bows out of office in November. For some time, Juncker has led a debate across the EU-27 about its future into the 2020s.
The last five years have seen not just the Brexit referendum, but also a growing backlash against Brussels across the continent.
The summit was one of his last opportunities to push his vision for the future of the union. While he has a clear personal preference for greater integration among member states, including the creation of a European Defence Union, there are still a multitude of views across the continent.
The Romanian summit was therefore a major opportunity to steer and shape debate about the continent’s future with a view to finalizing a vision that could potentially see Europe emerge stronger from the current challenges and opportunities it faces. To help facilitate this, Juncker has outlined a number of key 2025 scenarios to try to crystalize a consensus before he leaves office.
The scenarios range from the EU retreating, post-Brexit, to no more than the current economic single market that seeks to guarantee the freedom of movement of goods, capital, services and people. At the other end of the spectrum, however, is a quite different future for the continent, where the 27 post-Brexit member states decide to do much more together, reigniting European integration, which is favored not just by Juncker but also French President Emmanuel Macron.
Yet, of the five scenarios, “carrying on” is probably the most likely to be realized. This would see the EU muddling through from where it is today and seeking to deliver on the 2016 Bratislava Declaration and Roadmap, which were agreed just weeks after the Brexit referendum.
This manifesto includes improved policies regarding migration and border security, plus beefing up external security and defense. It also stresses enhanced economic and social development, especially for the young people across the continent who have been badly impacted by the fallout from the 2008-09 international financial crisis; not least in countries like Spain and Greece.
However, further setbacks — which are likely in the next few years — could instead see either a “nothing but the single market” or “doing less more efficiently” scenario come to pass. In either of these futures, the current scale of EU functions would be rolled back, with attention and limited resources focused instead on a smaller number of policy areas, including the single market.
In the months after the Brexit referendum, perhaps the least likely scenario to be realized by 2025 was “doing much more together.” However, some in Brussels are now more bullish on this, not least with last month’s Spanish election result, which saw the strongly pro-Brussels socialist government easily emerge as the biggest party, underlining the significant support for the EU across much of the continent. This “doing more” option would see all 27 remaining states sharing more power and resources, with decisions agreed faster and enforced much more quickly.
Perhaps more likely, however, is the “those who want to do more” scenario, which would see more coalitions of the willing emerge in select policy areas to take forward the integration agenda on a flexible, rather than across-the-board, basis. A model here could be the euro zone, where 19 of the current 28 EU members have entered into a monetary union with the euro as the single currency.
One scenario that is, inevitably, left out is the worst case of the bloc imploding. Nonetheless, given the build-up of challenges now facing it — which go well beyond Brexit — this outcome cannot be completely dismissed in the 2020s.
Taken overall, Thursday’s summit kicked off the final phase of the EU’s debate over its future. Decisions taken this summer and autumn, including over the future of the euro zone, will define the economic and political character of the bloc well into the 2020s and potentially beyond.
* Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics

Iran faces crisis if oil exports reduced to zero
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/May 09/2019
When it comes to the Trump administration’s policies on Iran, one of the core objectives is to reduce Tehran’s oil exports. In fact, the White House is planning to drive Iran’s crude exports to zero. This idea was first publicly announced last month by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who emphasized that the US had “made clear our seriousness of purpose: We are going to zero.”
The supporters of the Islamic Republic and critics of the Trump administration’s policies toward Tehran cast doubt on whether they can achieve such a goal. Not surprisingly, even the Iranian leaders believe that the US cannot succeed. According to the Mehr News Agency, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh recently said at an energy conference in Tehran that Washington would not be able to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero.
Nevertheless, we should remember that the critics also previously argued that the US would be incapable of reducing Iran’s oil exports by withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the nuclear deal, and reimposing the primary and secondary sanctions that were lifted under the Obama administration. They believed that the EU’s reluctance to join the US would see Washington fail in its objective of pressuring the ruling clerics.
But, since Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, Iran’s oil revenues and exports have been steadily falling. Before the US took a tougher stance toward the Iran regime, it was exporting more than 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Iran’s oil exports have since dropped to approximately 1.1 million bpd — a decline of more than 50 percent.
The White House has shown itself to be committed and determined to exerting pressure until it brings Iran’s oil exports to zero; unless the regime changes its destructive and aggressive policies. For example, the US has recently ended the sanctions waivers that permitted eight countries — China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea — to purchase oil from the Islamic Republic.
The White House has shown itself to be committed and determined to exerting pressure until it brings Iran’s oil exports to zero
These developments beg the question of what will happen if Iran’s oil exports do indeed reach zero. To address this question, we first need to examine how much of Iran’s total exports are linked to the energy sector, and how much of the country’s budget is dependent on oil and natural gas exports.
Iran has the second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest proven crude oil reserves in the world, and the sale of these resources account for more than 80 percent of its export revenues. In addition, according to the most recent budget proposed by President Hassan Rouhani, roughly a third of Iran’s income was expected to come from exporting oil to other countries. Tehran was hoping to generate approximately $21 billion of oil revenues in the current financial year. This highlights the fact that the Islamic Republic depends heavily on oil revenues to fund its spending.
If the Iranian regime was unable to export any oil or natural gas, it would be extremely difficult for the authorities to continue funding, sponsoring and supporting its militias, proxies and terror groups across the Middle East. The Iranian leaders would have to substantially cut or totally halt their financial assistance to groups such as the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, and Hezbollah. And when these militias do not receive the required funds to operate and advance Iran’s interests, some will begin to lose their power, disintegrate and even fall apart. Other militia groups will also start losing their loyalty to the Islamic Republic and will likely attempt to find new paymasters.
According to the latest reports, Iran’s reduced oil revenues have already caused Tehran to cut funds to its militias in Syria. As Iran’s militants are not getting their salaries and benefits, it is becoming extremely difficult for them to continue fighting. A militant with an Iranian-backed militia in Syria told the New York Times: “The golden days are gone and will never return. Iran doesn’t have enough money to give us.”
Also feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle.”
Furthermore, it is worth noting that, although the unemployment rate is high in Iran, a large portion of those who have jobs work for the state. If the theocratic establishment loses its ability to generate adequate income, it will be forced to cut salaries or stop paying its employees altogether. When state employees do not receive their paychecks, they will likely begin to join the rest of the population in protesting against the government.
In summary, if Iran’s oil exports are reduced to zero, the regime will be less capable of sustaining its power, unless it fundamentally changes its domestic and foreign policies.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman, and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh