English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 10/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.may10.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
He woke up & rebuked the wind & the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them Where is your faith?
Luke 08/22-25: “One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger.They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 09-10/2022
Happy & Blessed Mathers Day To All Mothers/Elias Bejjani
Pope may postpone visit to Lebanon due to knee problem
Nearly 60% Lebanon diaspora voter turnout for May 15 polls
Joy, hope and tension: How Lebanese abroad voted in parliamentary election
Mawlawi tries new electronic platform for sorting votes
World Bank grants Lebanon $150 million food security loan
Lebanese lira feared to see new freefall after elections
Bassil calls on citizens to vote for their 'dignity'
Berri hails supporters over expat vote, salutes opposition
Reports: Embassies issue warnings ahead of Hizbullah-Amal scooter rally
Nasrallah says polls a 'political July War', urges voting for 'resistance, allies'
Lebanese, Russian march for Russia Victory Day in Beirut
Protest by other means: Lebanon activists run in election
President Aoun discusses educational matters with Minister Halaby, meets Telecom Minister, Spanish Ambassador
The Task Force Lebanon has been dissolved/Jean-Marie Kassab
Beirut Doesn’t Deserve This Punishment’/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 09/2022
The Illusion of Elections.. A Black Shirt-Less Repeat of May 7/Sam Menassa/Asharq Al-Awsat
We Lebanese will get the parliament we deserve/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 09-10/2022
Analysis: Wave of Terrorism in Israel Continues, Hamas’ Role Becoming Evident
Syria's Assad Makes Surprise Visit to Tehran
Iran Confirms Upcoming Visit of Qatar's Emir to Tehran
No End in Sight for Ukraine War as Putin Hails Victory Day
Embattled Israeli Leader Vows to Keep Government Afloat
Macron backs EU treaty change
Islamic State claims attack that killed 11 Egyptian troops
Canadian Offices Going to the Dogs as Work-from-home Ending
Saudi Arabia Cuts Oil Prices to Asia by More than 50%
G7 Foreign Ministers’ joint statement on selection of Chief Executive in Hong Kong

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 09-10/2022
The Iranian regime’s real intentions/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News
Iranian resistance warns Iran’s primary goal is to build a nuclear weapon/Ray Hanania/Arab News
Iran and Israel in the US-Russian Standoff/Raghida Dergham/The National
IMF sees bumper year for Arab oil producers, risk for others/Aya Batrawy/ AP/Washington Post
China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding U.S. to Defeat/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute
Sweden Would Strengthen the NATO Alliance/Lawrence A. Franklin/ Gatestone Institute.
Why it’s time to stop negotiating with Iran/Stephen Harpe/National Post
Harvard President Should Use His First Amendment Right to Condemn The Harvard/Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute
Is This a Mine Elon Musk and Joe Biden Can Both Support?/Adam Minter/Asharq Al-Awsat

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 09-10/2022
Happy & Blessed Mathers Day To All Mothers
Elias Bejjani/May 08/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/74768/elias-bejjani-happy-blessed-mathers-day-to-all-mothers/
Today while in Canada we are happily and joyfully celebrating the Mothers’ Day, let us all pray that Almighty God will keep granting all mothers all over the world the needed graces of wisdom, meekness and faith to highly remain under all circumstances honoring this holy role model and to stay as Virgin Merry fully devoted to their families.
For all those of us whose mothers have passed away, let us mention them in our daily prayers and ask Almighty God to endow their souls the eternal rest in His heavenly dwellings.
In Christianity Virgin Merry is envisaged by many believers and numerous cultures as the number one role model for the righteous, devoted, loving , caring, giving, and humble mothers.
The Spirit Of My mother who like every and each loving departed mother is definitely watching from above and praying for all of us. May Almighty God Bless her spirit and the Spirits of all departed mothers.
In all religions and cultures all over the world, honoring, respecting and obeying parents is not a favor that people either chose to practice or not. No not at all, honoring, respecting and obeying parents is a holy obligation that each and every faithful individual who believes in God MUST fulfill, no matter what.
Almighty God in His 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 ) made the honoring of both parents (commandment number five) a holy obligation, and not a choice or a favor.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you”. (Exodus 20:12)
Reading the Bible, both the Old and New Testament shows with no doubt that honoring parents is a cornerstone and a pillar in faith and righteousness for all believers. All other religions and cultures share with Christians this holy concept and obligation.
“Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16)
“You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:3).
Back home in Lebanon we have two popular proverbs that say:“If you do not have an elderly figure in your family to bless you, go and search for one”. “The mother is the who either gathers or divides the family”
How true are these two proverbs, because there will be no value, or meaning for our lives if not blessed and flavored by the wisdom, love and blessings of our parents and of other elder members.
He who does not honor the elderly, sympathize and empathize with them, especially his own parents is a person with a hardened heart, and a numbed conscience, who does not know the meaning of gratitude.
History teaches us that the easiest route for destroying a nation is to destroy, its cornerstone, the family. Once the family code of respect is belittled and not honored, the family is divided and loses all its Godly blessings.
“Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls” (Luke 11-17)
One very important concept and an extremely wise approach MUST apply and prevail when reading the Holy Bible in a bid to understand its contents and observe the Godly instructions and life guidelines that are enlisted. The concept needs to be a faith one with an open frame of mind free from doubts, questions and challenges.
Meanwhile the approach and interpretation MUST both be kept within the abstract manner, thinking and mentality frame, and not in the concrete way of interpretation.
We read in (Matthew 15/04: “For God said, Respect your father and your mother, and If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death).
This verse simply dwells on The Fifth Biblical Commandment: “Honor your Father and Mother”. To grasp its meaning rightfully and put it in its right faith content one should understand that death in the Bible is not the death of the body as we experience and see on earth. DEATH in the Bible means the SIN that leads to eternal anguish in Hell.
The Bible teaches us that through His crucifixion, death and resurrection, Jesus defeated death in its ancient human, earthly concept. He broke the death thorn and since than, the actual death became the sin. Those who commit the sin die and on the judgment day are outcast to the eternal fire. Death for the believers is a temporary sleep on the hope of resurrection.
Accordingly the verse “If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death”, means that those who do not honor their parents, help, support and respect them commit a deadly sin and God on the Judgment Day will make them accountable if they do not repent and honor their parents.
God is a Father, a loving, passionate and caring One, and in this context He made the honoring of parents one of the Ten Commandments.
In conclusion: The abstract and faith interpretation of Matthew 15/04 verse must not be related to children or teenagers who because of an age and maturity factors might temporarily repel against their parents and disobey them.
Hopefully, each and every one of us, no matter what religion or denomination he/she is affiliated to will never ever ignore his parents and commit the deadly SIN of not honoring them through every way and mean especially when they are old and unable to take care of themselves.
Happy Mothers’ Day to all mothers

Pope may postpone visit to Lebanon due to knee problem
Associated Press/May 09/2022
Pope Francis may postpone a planned visit to Lebanon next month due to health reasons, a Lebanese minister said Monday. Minister of Tourism Walid Nassar did not specify the ailment, but the pope is known to be suffering acute knee pain that has greatly curtailed his mobility in recent months. He has recently appeared in public using a wheelchair. Nassar told the Al-Markazia news agency that Lebanon was awaiting an official statement from the Vatican in this regard, attributing any postponement strictly to health reasons. He said postponement of the visit, if it occurs, will not be for a long time, and that preparations for the visit were going ahead normally. The visit, planned for mid-June, was announced by the Lebanese president's office last month but was never confirmed by the Vatican. Francis has held special prayers for Lebanon and has repeatedly said he plans to visit the small country experiencing an unprecedented economic meltdown began in October 2019. Francis' trip would be the first visit by a pope to the Mediterranean nation since 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI paid a three-day visit to Lebanon. Despite Francis' knee problems, the Vatican has confirmed his visit to Congo and South Sudan in early July, and Francis has said he hopes to visit Canada later that month.

Nearly 60% Lebanon diaspora voter turnout for May 15 polls
Agence France Presse/May 09/2022
The turnout of Lebanese diaspora voting in 58 countries ahead of May 15 parliamentary elections was nearly 60 percent, officials said Monday, similar figures to the last polls in 2018. Some 130,000 Lebanese expatriates out of 225,000 registered voters cast their ballots, foreign ministry official Hadi Hashem said, releasing preliminary figures.While the number of overseas voters has more than doubled this year, they represent only a fraction of the millions of Lebanese residing abroad. In 2018, roughly 50,000 people out of 90,000 registered voters abroad voted, a turnout of 56 percent. The overseas ballots will now be sent to the capital Beirut for counting when polls close after nationwide voting on May 15. The elections are the first since mass protests erupted in late 2019 against the country's entrenched ruling elite, widely blamed for the economic collapse. Although many Lebanese hope they can vote traditional parties out, experts have said this is unlikely as opposition candidates lack unity, funds and experience. The economic crisis has pushed middle-class Lebanese, including families, graduates, doctors and nurses to emigrate in search of a better future. While opposition groups hope the diaspora will vote for change, only six percent of overseas voters picked independents in 2018, according to a recent report by the Paris-based Arab Reform Initiative.

Joy, hope and tension: How Lebanese abroad voted in parliamentary election
Agence France Presse/Associated Press
Foreign ministry official Hadi Hashem announced Monday the end of the expat voting for the Lebanese parliamentary elections, with Canada and the U.S. -- home to the largest community of registered voters -- being the last two countries to close the ballots.
The turnout of Lebanese diaspora voting in 58 countries was nearly 60 percent, according to Hashem, with Syria registering the highest participation of 84 percent and Iraq the lowest. In Dubai, people queued for up to three hours to vote, braving the Gulf heat outside the Lebanese consulate.
"I voted for change," said Abed Saad, who cast his ballot in Dubai. "If we don't vote, others will win, and we don't want them to win," the 27-year-old said, referring to established parties. About 195,000 Lebanese had registered to vote Sunday in 48 countries including France, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, European Union member states and several African nations. Although many of the Lebanese had emigrated to the Arab financial hub to escape their country’s mounting crises, the atmosphere was joyous as voters snapped selfies showing off inky fingers and blasted patriotic pop music. “This is not change,” said Kamal Shehadi, an executive driven to Dubai by Lebanon’s government corruption, voting on Sunday for environmentalist and private sector candidates. “It’s the march of a thousand steps, and this would be step four or five if we’re lucky to get a few of our people elected.”Across Europe, turnout by Sunday afternoon was at 20 percent with France accounting for the highest number of voters. In France, several voters almost came to blows when one shouted at two supporters of President Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, which is politically allied with Hizbullah. “You have brought the country to collapse. You have no honor or national sentiments,” the man screamed. The tense standoff mirrored divisions at home, where Lebanese are deeply fragmented along sectarian and ideological lines. "I have a great feeling of hope and satisfaction because I saw that there were a lot of young people and first-time voters," Lebanon's ambassador to Paris Rami Adwan told AFP. Lebanese citizens living abroad were able to vote for the first time ever for their 128 members of parliament in 2018. On Friday, early voting for expatriates took place in nine Arab countries and Iran, where more than 18,000 Lebanese cast their ballots with voter turnout reaching 59 percent -- a slight increase of two percent from 2018 polls.Although there are no official figures, Lebanon's diaspora is estimated to be more than double the size of its domestic population of over four million. But voter registration, while on the rise, remains relatively low among the millions of Lebanese who live abroad.

Mawlawi tries new electronic platform for sorting votes
Naharnet/May 09/2022
Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi launched Monday a new electronic platform for entering and sorting votes. The new platform will be used for the first time in Lebanon in the May 15 parliamentary elections, next Sunday. A trial was performed, as Mawlawi announced the platform, praising the elections that took place abroad on Friday and Sunday.

World Bank grants Lebanon $150 million food security loan
Associated Press/May 09/2022
The World Bank approved a $150 million soft loan for food security in crisis-hit Lebanon to stabilize bread prices during the coming months, the economy minister said Monday. Amin Salam told reporters that the loan has a very low interest rate but the minister did not make the rate public. He used the term soft loan indicating a below-market rate of interest. The loan will provide great relief through stability of bread prices in Lebanon during the country's historic economic meltdown. There have been concerns that the government might lift wheat subsidies as foreign currency reserves drop to critical levels at the central bank. Any lifting of subsidies would sharply increase the price of bread, affecting the poor in the Mediterranean nation where more than three quarters of its 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, now live in poverty. The small Mediterranean nation is in the grip of a devastating economic crisis that has been described by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern history. It imports most of its wheat and has faced shortages over the past weeks as the war in Ukraine leads to increases in prices of oil and food products around the world. Salam said the loan comes at a time "when we cannot take any instability in wheat" inflow, adding that now bread will be available in the coming month. Salam said last month that the government does not have immediate plans to lift bread subsidies, especially for flour used in making flat Arabic bread, the main staple in Lebanon. He said that the war in Ukraine is forcing Lebanon to find new sources of wheat that are far away and more expensive.

Lebanese lira feared to see new freefall after elections
Naharnet /May 09/2022
Informed political sources have expressed concern that the Lebanese currency could witness a new freefall after the May 15 parliamentary elections. “The central bank is still intervening to prevent a price deterioration and to keep (the dollar exchange rate) within LBP 25,000 to LBP 30,000, based on a request from some influential officials who want to keep the dollar under control, so that any surge does not affect the choices of voters” in the parliamentary elections, the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Monday. “The dollar might return to its uncontrolled surge, which might pave the way for the grand explosion, should the central bank stop intervening to support the lira after elections as expected,” the sources added. “To prevent this scenario, the government should quickly send the pending reform plans to parliament, including the plan for restructuring the banking sector, before it becomes a caretaker government as of May 21, the date of the expiry of the current parliament’s term,” the sources went on to say. The sources added that the new parliament should immediately embark on studying and approving the necessary reform laws in order to “ratify the final agreement with the International Monetary Fund.” “Only that can rein in the collapse and the dollar before the worse happens, seeing as this agreement will pave the way for restoring confidence in Lebanon and its economy,” the sources went on to say.

Bassil calls on citizens to vote for their 'dignity'
Naharnet/May 09/2022
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Monday said that voting for the FPM in the parliamentary elections is equivalent to voting for one’s “dignity.”“The FPM has been and will always be your dignity. Vote for it,” Bassil said in a tweet. The May 15 elections will be the first since mass protests erupted in late 2019 against the country's entrenched ruling elite, widely blamed for the economic collapse.

Berri hails supporters over expat vote, salutes opposition
Naharnet/May 09/2022
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday lauded Lebanese expats for “performing their national and constitutional duty” in the expat polls that were held on May 6 and 8. “I thank everyone who took the trouble to travel and cross thousands of miles to reaffirm the honesty and genuineness of their belonging to Lebanon, the country whose borders are the entire universe,” Berri added. “We bow in respect for every Lebanese who voted for the lists of (the Amal Movement and Hizbullah) in all continents and nations, especially those who cast their votes liberated from pressures, oppression, intimidation and disinformation,” the Speaker said. “The salutation also goes to the opposition voices,” Berri went on to say, stressing that electoral rivals “should complete each other to represent an added value to the country.”He also urged them to “meet over the values of democracy and the culture of accepting the other, for the sake of Lebanon and its people wherever they may be.”

Reports: Embassies issue warnings ahead of Hizbullah-Amal scooter rally
Naharnet/May 09/2022
The U.S. and Australian embassies in Lebanon have issued warnings to their citizens and tensions have surged in some areas amid reports that supporters of Hizbullah and the Amal Movement intend to stage a scooter rally in Beirut and its suburbs at 5pm Monday, media reports said. The pro-Hizbullah al-Akhbar newspaper reported that the U.S. embassy asked its citizens in Lebanon to “avoid areas witnessing rallies and gatherings.”A warning published on the embassy’s website on Monday reminded U.S. citizens to “review the current Travel Advisory for Lebanon.”
“In particular, we call your attention to the Country Summary which advises U.S. citizens to avoid demonstrations and large gatherings,” the warning said. “Demonstrations occur frequently in Lebanon. U.S. citizens should avoid demonstrations and exercise caution if in the vicinity of large gatherings or protests as some have turned violent. In the past, protesters blocked major roads, including thoroughfares between downtown Beirut and the area where the U.S. Embassy is located, and between Beirut and Rafiq Hariri International Airport,” the warning added.
The Australian embassy for its part warned its citizens and asked its employees to leave the embassy’s building at 4pm, while denying having any information about possible security incidents, al-Akhbar said. The embassy, however, noted that “there could be increasing traffic congestion due to the start of the motorbike rally at 5pm, which will begin in Beirut’s southern suburbs to renew allegiance for Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,” the newspaper added. “These motorbikes are expected to roam most areas,” the daily said. Later in the day, a scooter rally by Hizbullah supporters headed from Beirut's southern suburbs toward Tayyouneh amid measures by the army on Ain al-Remmaneh's entrances, MTV reported. Earlier, media reports said that “military and security forces will take the necessary measures to prevent the rally from deviating from its peaceful nature.”Unconfirmed media reports meanwhile said that “Beirut’s residents are asking the army to prevent the Nasrallah supporters scooter rally from leaving Dahiyeh and heading to Beirut this afternoon in order to avoid a worse scenario.”
Unconfirmed reports also said that there was “an unusual movement in the Ain al-Remmaneh area” after the reports about the scooter rally emerged.
The rally is supposed to coincide with an electoral speech by Nasrallah at 5pm.

Nasrallah says polls a 'political July War', urges voting for 'resistance, allies'
Naharnet/May 09/2022
The May 15 parliamentary polls will be a "political July War" and Hizbullah “will practice political resistance in the elections in order to preserve the military resistance,” Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday. “Those who want to defend Lebanon, extract its oil resources and protect its waters must vote for the resistance and its allies,” Nasrallah told a Hizbullah electoral rally via video link. “I call on you to stand by the resistance and by its allies, because they are also targeted,” he urged. “Some are saying that they won't vote for the resistance due to the economic crisis, but we say that the resistance will guarantee extracting oil and gas from the territorial waters in order to resolve the crisis,” Nasrallah added. Accusing political rivals of seeking to abandon Lebanon’s “biggest strength for extracting its oil and gas,” Nasrallah said, addressing the Lebanese state and people, that “they have a brave resistance that can prevent the enemy from exploring for oil and gas.”“Hundreds of billions of dollars are present in our sea and waters,” Nasrallah said of the potential oil and gas reserves. He added that those “calling for disarming the resistance” want Lebanon to be “exposed to the Israeli army.”“Does Israel dare to bomb any area in Lebanon today?” Nasrallah asked, attributing the deterrence to Hizbullah’s presence. “We respect the army and it has a national creed and competent officers and soldiers, but is it capable of shouldering this responsibility at the moment?” he asked. Moreover, Nasrallah said that his party is ready to discuss a national defense strategy because it has “reason and evidence.”He added that those calling for disarming Hizbullah have not offered “an alternative” in the face of Israel. “Who will protect the South and Lebanon if the resistance abandons its duties… The resistance is what's protecting Lebanon today,” Nasrallah went on to say. Lamenting that some politicians “do not consider Israel an enemy” and do not believe that “it has ambitions regarding Lebanon's water and gas,” Hizbullah’s leader strongly emphasized that “no one will be able to disarm the resistance.” “I want all Lebanese to know that those calling today for disarming the resistance do not know what the South has gone through since 1948,” he said, decrying that “some political forces have unfortunately made the issue of the weapons of the resistance the main topic of their electoral campaigns.”

Lebanese, Russian march for Russia Victory Day in Beirut
Associated Press/May 09/2022
Lebanese and Russian citizens have marched for Russia's Victory Day in Beirut, carrying portraits of relatives who fought in World War II.
The Russian holiday of Victory Day brings out patriotic displays of flags, military parades and marches by veterans' groups celebrating the country's triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945. A participant carried a sign written in Arabic and Russian, saying "No to Fascism," while another wore a t-shirt with the image of Russian President Vladimir Putin winking. Russia marks the victory today, as impeccably straight columns of soldiers will march through Red Square on Monday. But this year's observance of Russia's most important patriotic holiday carries exceptional weight, as Russian troops are fighting grueling battles in Ukraine.

Protest by other means: Lebanon activists run in election
Agence France Presse/May 09/2022
As a law student in late 2019, Verena El Amil joined mass street protests against Lebanon's political elite. Now she wants to fight them at the ballot box.
At age 25, she is one of a growing number of independent candidates running in a May 15 parliamentary vote in the crisis-torn country. "We are going to fight," the young lawyer, dressed in a black leather jacket and combat boots, said at a coffee shop outside Beirut. "The slogans we screamed during the protests are the ones we want to carry into campaigns and into parliament." The vote will be the first major electoral test since a youth-led protest movement from October 2019 vented its rage at Lebanon's graft-tainted political class. The revolutionary fervor has been sapped since by cascading crises, from a financial collapse and the pandemic to the 2020 Beirut port blast that killed more than 200 people. While most of her fellow graduates have fled abroad, Amil honed her political skills in student activism and spent all her savings on the campaign.
"Running for parliamentary elections for me is a continuation," said Amil, one of the youngest candidates to stand. "After the 2019 protests, we all grappled with defeat and the reality of a massive emigration wave. "But in spite of this, we still need to try, and I am running for the elections to show that we are still trying."
'Election as protest'
The number of independent candidates running against established parties has more than doubled since the last vote in 2018. Beirut-based think tank the Policy Initiative said opposition and independent candidates make up 284 of the 718 hopefuls -- up from 124 four years ago. They are running in 48 different electoral lists across Lebanon, including in peripheral regions where traditional leaders have seldom faced a challenge. Also in the race this time is Lucien Bourjeily, an activist, writer and director who emerged as one of the key figures of the 2019 protest movement. Running for a seat for the second time, Bourjeily said he sensed more engagement from the public this time around. But the opposition is mainly gunning for accountability, not a major win, he said, urging voters to document any signs of electoral fraud. "The way we documented people getting beaten and losing their eyes and getting killed on the street, we should document how votes will be stolen," he said. "People should treat election day as a protest."
'Haphazard, disorganized' -
Even in a clean election, opposition candidates would face an uphill challenge, lacking the funds and campaign machines of the traditional parties. Lebanon's electoral law is designed to benefit established players, and the opposition is far from united.
"You have competing opposition lists in most districts, and this is unacceptable," said Carmen Geha, a professor of public administration at the American University of Beirut. "We needed hope, and hope would have come from a national campaign."Voter turnout may be low, in part because high fuel prices deter travel to ancestral towns and villages where constituents are required to cast their vote. An Oxfam report last month said only 54 percent of over 4,600 people surveyed said they intended to vote, a trend it blamed largely on widespread "disappointment and hopelessness".
Most of those planning to abstain cited a lack of promising candidates, while nearly half of those who plan to vote said they would choose an independent candidate, the British-based charity said. Veteran activist Maher Abou Chakra, who ran briefly for the election before pulling out, criticized the opposition for lacking a coherent strategy to rock the establishment. "Lebanon's political regime is hundreds of years old... and it is deeply entrenched," he said."You can't challenge it in a haphazard and disorganized way."

President Aoun discusses educational matters with Minister Halaby, meets Telecom Minister, Spanish Ambassador
NN/May 09/2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met the Education Minister, Abbas Halaby, today at the Presidential Palace, and discussed with him educational affairs and the conditions of the Lebanese University.
Statement:
After the meeting, Minister Halaby made the following statement:
“I was honored to meet His Excellency, President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun. The issues of education and the Lebanese University were deliberated in the meeting. We tackled several issues that will be announced in the next few days. I was very satisfied with this. The meeting is about something that could lead to unraveling the university’s files and reviving it after a difficult year for its students, administration, professors and president. I also renew my optimism that the next few days will carry, either during this session or the next session of the Council of Ministers, something related to the decrees of the Lebanese University”.
Questions & Answers:
Question: Does what you discussed have anything to do with the file of appointing contracted deans and professors?
Answer: “There are 4 files on the agenda: the file of forming the university council by appointing genuine deans, the entry of professors to the staff, and the full-time assignment that affects the largest group of professors and trainers. If all these decrees are not passed, then at least we may witness the adoption of two decrees”.
Question: Which file is given priority?
Answer: “For me, all files have priority, but if it is not possible to approve all of them. We will accept what can be achieved for the benefit of the Lebanese University, because any such step will lead to reviving the situation in this university after a very difficult year.
I said the last time during the cabinet session, and I repeated today before His Excellency the President, that I do not hope that the university will witness this collapse, neither during the era of His Excellency the President, nor during the era of this government, nor during the era of the Minister of Education”.
Question: In light of the arrangements that have been made and will be conducted, how do you see the security preparations for the official exams?
Answer: “There is no security concern with regard to exams, and the Ministry is accustomed to this matter. We had set the dates and programs covered by the exams, and we reduced the materials and exam days so that they became two days instead of three days for the “brevet” certificate, and three days instead of five for the “secondary” certificate. With the programs being scaled back, there is no security concern. Coordination is also ongoing with the Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces.
We have opened a platform to receive requests from professors wishing to participate in monitoring and correction operations, and the Ministry is fully prepared to take exams, and has taken all logistical measures for that, including papers, stationery, and others”.
Question: Have you secured the money and the teachers’ compensation?
Answer: “Yes, we relied on donors, because the state budget does not allow much money to be spent, and we also spoke with these bodies to secure incentives for teachers to participate in monitoring and correction, in addition to the issue of the summer school we are talking about. Wehope that the donors will meet our request”.
Communications’ Minister:
The President received Communications’Minister, Johnny Qorm and tackled with him the situation of telecommunications in Lebanon, especially the cellular sector.
Minister Qorm stated that this sector is going through difficult conditions due to the difficult financial and economic conditions and the decline in the exchange rate of the Lebanese Lira compared to the US dollar.
In addition, Minister Qorm indicated that the meeting with the President was devoted to discuss supposed solutions for developing telephone and Internet services and launching new services, especially information transfer services.
Spanish Ambassador:
President Aoun met the Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon, Jesús Ignacio Santos Aguado.
Ambassador Aguado the greetings of the King of Spain and the Spanish Prime Minister, and pointedout that Spain is willing to cooperate with the Lebanese government and complete the provision of the urgent assistance requested in various fields. -- Presidency Press office

The Task Force Lebanon has been dissolved
Jean-Marie Kassab/May 09/2022
Hello all.
The Task Force Lebanon has been dissolved and no longer exists except in the souls and hearts of those who truly believe in a sovereign and prosperous Lebanon .
This was expected much earlier and ahead of the elections that led people to focus on one direction only. Unfortunately , elections are a very wrong direction to take in an occupied country such as Lebanon where resistance and not necessarily a military one , is the only way out. I will spare you any further details as I have said plenty earlier. Maybe one more argument before I leave: Parliament never was the problem, parliament was only was one aspect of our many problems. Good results in the parliamentary elections would have eventually only solved this one problem while leaving the main one intact, that is the occupation by Iran.
Most of our leaders from all sides are corrupt, devoted liars and profit seekers. The rest are incompetent. No wonder we are here.
Resisting the Iranian occupation by all means available was the main and only objective of this Task Force while noting that the rest of our ailments would automatically fall down if the Iranian godfather of corruption is ousted.
TFL was a concept that inspired many, yet failed to inspire all and create a minimal critical mass that could have allowed the resistance plans to unfold. We believe that the brainwash of the population worked and those behind it succeeded to get their message through for their own benefit. A misdiagnosis can lead to a wrong treatment that would eventually be lethal, and here we are now.
I strongly believe that on May 16th nothing will change and eventually deepen our ordeal .
I thank all those who believed our concept while wishing the best to those who want to resist and stand tall.
God save Lebanon
Vive la Résistance.
Vive le Liban
Jean-Marie Kassab
Task Force Lebanon.

Beirut Doesn’t Deserve This Punishment’
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 09/2022
At the polling station at the Lebanese Embassy, I had mixed feelings. I was happy to see the Lebanese still willing to vote despite the success of the ruling system in killing the essence of this practice. The previous elections did not contribute to stopping the decline that marked the past decades, which severely worsened in recent years. In previous rounds, papers thrown into the ballot boxes have paved the way to hell. Perhaps because they led to the election of men, who do not believe in the state’s logic… Men, who consider the authority an opportunity to plunder what remains of state assets and to obtain immunities that prevent any accountability or prosecution.
The best evidence is that we did not see a single perpetrator behind bars, but rather in their same official posts, lecturing on transparency and the state of institutions, while the number of those digging through piles of waste in search of a crumb of bread continued to increase.
I was saddened to believe that the Lebanese go to the polls and vote against their children. They vote in favor of a leader they consider to be the protector of the sect, confession or region in the face of the other whom they see as a source of danger to the group to which they belong.
The Lebanese go to the elections with a legacy of fears that is carried through old, but open wounds… As if those elections were a new round of a civil war that they had to stop, before they could deal a fatal blow to the opponent.
They see the polls as an opportunity to disqualify those who do not resemble them or do not submit to their dictates.
In the elections, the Lebanese will repeat a crime they committed in the previous rounds. They will give a new mandate to a man who has done nothing more than promote sectarianism on occasions that are unjustly described as national. He will vote again for a man who spread corruption in whatever cabinet portfolio he held. A man who sees nothing in the homeland but an open feast that tempts him with boundless gluttony. It is this kind of greed that increases people’s hunger.
If you talk to the Lebanese in a café or on a social occasion, they would lash out at the members of the political system. But when they return to their family, clan, tribe and sect, they forgive the corrupt for all his sins, because they consider him a reliable warrior in the declared or implicit civil war.
The journalist is tempted by stories. I have spent many years following the news of tyrants in this world. I found in them something frightening. But we must admit that those who bathed in blood and corruption did not reach the limit of plundering citizens’ deposits in banks. They did not reach the point of assassinating the capital, after climbing its branches to seize power, people and savings. Our tyrants violated the map and did not even care when they turned the Lebanese into hopeless people scattered at the doors of embassies. Despite these scenes, the images of the corrupt and the losers flock on the screens, awakening instincts and allowing the elections to erase crimes and pave the way for future atrocities.
Years ago, I went to see Mohsen Ibrahim, the Secretary General of the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon. I was keen to listen to his reading even if I disagreed with him sometimes. He amusingly told me: “I’m afraid that you will be on early retirement.” I was surprised, so he explained: “I am afraid that you will soon face a situation that will not please a journalist. It is to come to the country and not feel any desire to conduct an interview or a talk with its politicians. I fear that the country has lost its meaning, its role, its vitality, and the rules that caused its existence.”
I asked him to go further. He said: “The Lebanese have committed fatal mistakes against their country... They have abandoned the language of coexistence. Lebanon was built on tolerance and coexistence. The idea of writing off someone who does not look like you, claiming possession of the whole truth, and imposing it by force on others, leaves nothing out of the country.”I asked him to list the major mistakes. He said: “The national movement’s bet on Palestinian weapons to hasten change was a big error. Electing Bashir Gemayel to the presidency based on a regional storm unleashed by the Israeli invasion was a colossal mistake. The Mountain War was greater than Lebanon’s ability to withstand, because it weakened its immunity. The insistence of the Syrian regime on a Syrian implementation of the Taif Agreement was a wrong and dangerous act. I cannot count your faults and sins.”He continued: “The assassination of Rafik Hariri was an internal and regional coup that targeted the man, his sect, and position, as well as Lebanon’s regional and international status. Michel Aoun’s accession to the presidency was a colossal mistake. He did not get there through the elections, but with a coup. When the position remains vacant on the condition that a particular person occupies it, the only thing left for the parliament is to sign the deal.”
Ibrahim went on to say: “Aoun arrived to power in light of his position on Hariri’s killing and all other assassinations… In light of the events of May 7. A former army chief and the most prominent Christian leader has approved the ever-weakening of the state’s logic. Perhaps he thought that he could share the equation, ignoring that Hezbollah’s project is also greater than Lebanon’s ability to bear.”
We talked for a long time with Mohsen Ibrahim, but one thing struck me. He said: “If I were you, I would form a team whose mission is to write the story of Beirut. This capital is going in difficult and dangerous directions. Beirut does not deserve this punishment.”
I visited the Lebanese polling station upon my return from Berlin, where I went to see the conditions of refugees coming from Ukraine. I had visited the city seven years ago when Germany opened its doors to the waves of Syrian refugees. The stories I listened to were painful, but I had a feeling that Ukraine might return to normal or semi-normal life with a trimmed map, before Lebanon could witness the establishment of a state worthy of the name. I know that pure voices rose to express the longing to see a country and a homeland. But it is most likely that the corrupt system will get a new mandate. Lebanon does not deserve this punishment.

The Illusion of Elections.. A Black Shirt-Less Repeat of May 7
Sam Menassa/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 09/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108575/%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%85-%d9%85%d9%86%d8%b3%d9%89-%d9%88%d9%87%d9%92%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%aa%d8%ae%d8%a7%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%aa-07-%d8%a3%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%83%d8%b1%d9%91%d9%8e%d8%b1/
The only thing that the Lebanese can agree on is that a state of chaos and confusion defines all aspects of life, from politics and security, to the economy and society. That state manifested itself in the absurdity of the electoral campaigns preceding the day of the vote on Sunday.
The absence of a central authority is perhaps the most prominent reason for this chronic disillusionment. There is no dispute that rebuilding this authority through the legislative elections is the correct framework to adopt because a political vacuum calls for the intervention of external forces near or far and gives extra-governmental forces and terrorists the freedom they need to build a platform to realize their greater ambitions, as was the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Libya. All of them are countries that have submitted to the tide of fundamentalism, both Sunni and Shia, and to terrorism in general, becoming safe havens with ample space for such movements.
The biggest beneficiary of this chaos and vacuum is Iran, which found a successful formula for expanding its influence in neighboring countries, a formula based on cooperating with proxies from its sect and providing them with money, weapons, and political and logistical support. These proxies, like Hezbollah and militias, Afghan, Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni, are religiously, ideologically, and sectarianly committed to Tehran’s geopolitical project. They are ready to work across borders to support Iran’s aggressive and expansionist policies, considering its leadership legitimate and its theocracy a political model to be emulated.
Iran was able to expand its influence in the Near-East not through military expansion, but by infiltrating the local Shiite communities. It succeeded in empowering its proxies to become mini-states that chip away at the pillars of statehood and push the state to failure, with Lebanese Hezbollah its greatest success.
After this introduction, let us ask, since the legislative elections in Lebanon are approaching, whether democratic processes, especially the elections, are the right solution for weak and socially fragmented countries dominated by forces that reject democratic values and are subordinate to foreign powers? Is democracy reduced to ballot boxes and major undemocratic political parties that do not believe in political participation, the peaceful transfer of power, or freedoms?
Regional precedents do not suggest that elections are capable of resolving state weakness and bridging social rifts when extremist forces are hegemonic, as they use this democratic process to rise to power and then undermine democracy. The best example of this was seen in the Tunisian Constituent Assembly elections held after the 2011 revolution, when the Islamist party won and tried to annul everything civic about the new constitution. The same thing happened in Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in 2012. Iraq, for all the elections it has organized since 2003, has not found a solution for the rampant violence and spread of arms; it never became a proper democracy because the election brought hard-line Tehran proxies to power. After the results went against their favor in the latest elections because of a shift within the Shiite community, those proxies obstructed the formation of a government and disrupted the presidential elections.
Even with the sharp divergences between our conditions and of the US, we can add that the American scholar Gregory Gause wrote recently that those who believe that elections are the best tool for bridging social divides should take a look at the last two presidential elections in the United States. When societies are sharply divided, whose directives should the government follow? Meeting the demands of one group will necessarily imply allowing them to dominate the other group.
To go back to the unique difficulties of the Lebanese situation, even the most optimistic analysts do not believe the elections will change the political scene, but rather strengthen the power and authority of the parties currently in control led by Hezbollah. The elections will dispel many of the hopes and illusions that the poor or marginalized, as well as those yearning for a better life, are now clinging to, especially the forces advocating change that emerged after the October 17 uprising.
Attitudes on the merits of the current electoral process, which some describe as historic, vary. On one camp, we have those who support holding the election on schedule regardless of the circumstance, as the vacuum is more dangerous and worse. On a second camp, we have those who see that occupation, tutelage, or hegemony through illegitimate military power and arms not only deprives the elections of their legitimacy, but also presents the occupier or those in power with a tool that enables them to legitimize their practices and perpetuate hold on power. The debate between the two points of view goes on and on; it is too long to summarize here.
Moreover, these elections are marred by several issues. First among them are fears that manipulating democratic processes is a hallmark of the parties in power’s governance. That includes elections, which are exploited to ensure that these parties emerge victorious and are enabled to overthrow that process. This tactic is common to most of the hardline ideological parties who understand the processes of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power from an opportunistic lens. It is true that some Lebanese peculiarities complicate this task, most notably the schisms between its sects and their divergent interests, but they can be overcome. Indeed, the Lebanese have seen elections and the work of democratic institutions paralyzed without the need for electoral victories.
The second issue is the enthusiasm for the election shown by international and regional powers insistent that the elections must be held despite the fact that it is almost certain that they will neither change the political scene nor threaten Hezbollah’s dominance. These countries will not hesitate for a moment, after the results are announced, to accept them and cooperate with the officials that emerge from them, many of whom are on terrorist lists! How could one overcome this conundrum, and what does it make of the elections’ credibility? This state of affairs reminds us of the West’s enthusiasm for the 2006 Palestinian elections despite warnings about the consequences being made by most of those monitoring the situation at the time. Hamas indeed won, and cooperating with them was rejected.
The third problem is that the opposition parties and forces across the spectrum are unanimous in their support for holding the elections and their optimism regarding the elections’ impact on Lebanon’s future. However, they have carried themselves incoherently, and they are not seen as credible.
We begin with their reluctance to conclude alliances that would enable them to confront the parties in power, remaining fragmented and split between a conflicting and fragmented traditional opposition and the forces of change that sprung from the October 17 uprising, growing like mushrooms divided between those who prioritize reform and addressing corruption and those who prioritize restoring sovereignty and the state.
Furthermore, the latter have refused to cooperate with the traditional opposition, and so the votes for these parties will be scattered. How can such an opposition make gains against the cohesive powers running the country?
Even more strange are the hopes that the main Christian forces in the opposition have placed in the results. This enthusiasm, which has been openly reiterated on many occasions, is beyond comprehension, especially given the failure to build robust alliances both with the sect and with other sects, especially the Sunnis, who are divided into competing blocs and camps. How will it face its followers and supporters if they lose their bet on realizing change through the ballot boxes? What is true of the Christian forces also applies to the resounding collapse of the forces of change, whose supporters will feel the same sense of hopelessness. The first rule of election campaigns is to avoid going overboard with pledges, as these promises are a debt. What if the results do not meet expectations and the opposition, both sides of it, lose the bet? What if the forces in power manage to consolidate and even add to their gains? What if they managed to attain a majority in parliament or two-thirds of the seats? Many questions should have been resolved before rushing to sell unpurchased merchandise. If the widely expected scenario plays out and Hezbollah’s allies win, it would pave the way for completing the process of changing the country’s foundational function and identity.
The fear is that May 15, 2022, will become May 7, 2008- that it will kill democracy with its own tools and without the need for black shirts. These are historic elections indeed but in a negative sense. Their results could destroy the Lebanon we know from within, using its own constitutional institutions.

We Lebanese will get the parliament we deserve
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/May 09/2022
Lebanese citizens are reminded every minute of every day what the political status quo has brought us to: It is in the constant sensation of hunger in everybody’s stomach; the agony of medical conditions for which basic drugs are unavailable; power cuts, chronic shortages, endless queues, institutional meltdown, the endless humiliations. I’ve lost count of requests I have received to send Prozac to a nation plagued by an epidemic of depression.
If Lebanese citizens awaken after the parliamentary election on May 15 to discover we’ve somehow voted back the same traitorous, corrupt factions — or if these leeches and thieves win simply because too few bothered to vote — then it pains me to say it, but perhaps we deserve four more years of starvation, social chaos, and probably civil conflict.
We shouldn’t vote merely because of how bad things are, but because of how much, much worse they could become. Failing to vote decisively for radical change means saying an enthusiastic “Yes” to Armageddon.
Not all Lebanese have the luxury of a choice. In several Hezbollah constituencies we have been treated to the repulsive spectacle of opposition candidates not just publicly withdrawing from the contest in front of journalists, but apologizing for having the temerity to stand in the first place and pledging their undying loyalty to Hassan Nasrallah.
In one single Bekaa III district, three candidates in succession performed this act of personal abasement. We can only imagine the violence, death threats and outright bribery that brought them to this point. Candidates have been physically attacked, with grotesquely specific threats about raping or killing daughters and wives if they don’t withdraw. Nabih Berri’s Amal party beat up activists engaging in public activities. Constituencies throughout Hezbollah-land have the lowest numbers of candidates for depressingly obvious reasons.
What kind of monsters would attack and injure the Baalbek-Hermel candidate, Shiite academic Dr. Hussein Raad, at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of his mother’s death? Raad can reel off a whole series of other violent and threatening incidents targeting him and his family, including one in which heavily armed gunmen surrounded the home he was in and opened fire until he was rescued by the security forces. This is what it takes to challenge Hezbollah in 2022.
The propaganda from preachers such as Mufti Ahmed Qablan is that failure to vote for the “divine lists” of this “Shiite duo” means acting against God’s wishes for humanity. Who can argue with that? Mercifully, several brave Shiite clerics have denounced such shamelessly sacrilegious abuses of religion.
What vile religion is it they think they are following that gives them a license to physically attack opponents, activists and citizens? Is it just wishful thinking, or do these extreme measures reek of panic, as Nasrallah recognizes that the rotten, corrupt, humiliating status quo could be torn down and trampled underfoot before his very eyes?
Nasrallah knows that if the Lebanese nation — Christian, Shiite, Sunni and Druze — unites against him, then Hezbollah is far from invincible. These brutal shows of strength are actually screaming admissions of weakness and vulnerability from these traitorous puppets of Tehran who have labored so tirelessly to deservedly arouse Lebanon’s undying contempt.
With the forces of evil aligning to unleash everything in their arsenals to sabotage credible options and obstruct us from voting, this is an existential moment for securing our survival as a nation.
Everybody who doesn’t desire to embrace a Lebanese apocalypse owes it to their nation to study who the strongest advocates of radical change are in their district, who has a prospect of winning, as well as who might later betray their nation and side with “Hizb-al-Shaitan” — and ensure that everybody they know does the same.
Gebran Bassil, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, has filed an official complaint against rival parties for exceeding the electoral spending limit. Yet this is a man who has broken all imaginable rules of propriety, including traveling with his own private army – reputedly including security personnel from the presidential guard, courtesy of his father-in-law.
This was possibly required, given the tsunami of hatred and loathing toward him in the country at large, with citizens blocking roads with flaming tires to prevent him visiting their districts. In normal circumstances we would say give the man a chance to be heard, but this is someone who has almost literally done a deal with the devil.
Hearteningly, despite the best efforts of FPM personnel at the foreign ministry to make it prohibitively complicated, early expat voting has been at high levels. This is thanks to organizations such as Kulluna Irada and Impact Lebanon, and businessmen who have generously supported measures to facilitate diaspora engagement and activism. Hezbollah of course accuses them of acting on behalf of foreign embassies and Israel, but such rhetoric has been so overused that who listens any more?
Participating in the vote was an exciting and proud moment for me, and perhaps as a nation this can be a first step to regaining our sense of national pride and self-confidence. Despite immense queues for overseas voting, there has been a particular sense of euphoria among young people. Citizens who never previously took an interest in politics are awake and alert as never before, in part thanks to the galvanizing impact of social media.
Yet activists fear that the overseas vote could be squandered or suppressed back in Lebanon. They are also concerned about the fairness of the vote in districts controlled by particular factions, and that — as happened in Iraq — Tehran will command Hezbollah not to accept the results if it doesn’t win big. There is therefore likely to be an even greater need for civil activism after the elections, to ensure that the popular will is implemented.
With the forces of evil aligning to unleash everything in their arsenals to sabotage credible options and obstruct us from voting, this is an existential moment for securing our survival as a nation.
If we mess it up this time, is there anyone who seriously believes that Lebanon will still exist as a coherent entity in four years’ time to rectify this catastrophic blunder?
Consequently, these are undoubtedly the most important elections in our lifetime. Use your vote with extreme care. Our very lives and futures depend on it.
• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 09-10/2022
Analysis: Wave of Terrorism in Israel Continues, Hamas’ Role Becoming Evident
Joe Truzman/FDD's Long War Journal./May 09/2022
On Thursday night, two assailants wielding axes murdered three Israelis and wounded several others in the city of Elad, located east of Tel Aviv. According to an Israeli publication, two residents of the West Bank, As’ad Al-Rafa’ani, and Sabhi Abu Shakir were driven to Elad by one of the victims. After arriving, the pair murdered the driver and went on to commit further attacks in different areas of the city. Both attackers succeeded in escaping before law enforcement arrived. Video published on social media after the assault showed security forces hunting for the perpetrators and deploying a Skylark 1 UAV to assist in the search. Palestinian militant organizations published statements lauding the offensive saying it was a natural response to crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took their approval of the strike a step further by deploying its militants to the streets of Gaza to distribute sweets to citizens.Conversely, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas published a statement condemning the attack, saying the killing of “Palestinians and Israeli civilians only leads to further deterioration of the situation at a time when we all strive to achieve stability and prevent escalation.”The event in Elad comes less than one week after two Palestinians from the northern West Bank village of Qarawat Bani Hassan carried out a shooting assault against a security post in the settlement of Ariel that resulted in the murder of a security guard. Both suspects were captured the following day by Israeli security forces. Additionally, Hamas’ so-called military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed “full responsibility” for the Ariel offensive. Though the claim is dubious, and it is likely an effort to bolster the group’s image as it attempts to portray itself as the defender of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque during a time of renewed clashes in Israel. In a highly publicized speech days before the Elad strike, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar encouraged further terrorism and instructed perpetrators to use knives, guns, cleavers and axes. In light of Sinwar’s speech, it is difficult to ignore the connection between Hamas’ incitement and the murder of civilians by so-called lone-wolf attackers. Sinwar’s speech can be interpreted as evidence of Hamas’ direct involvement in the current wave of terrorism. Its incitement to murder civilians has largely gone unpunished and the latest assault, coupled with public outcry, could be enough to convince the Israeli political echelon to confront Hamas. The latest offensive also introduces a new factor that wasn’t prominent in the last six weeks: Israeli public anger. Repeated terrorist strikes inside major Israeli cities have left 18 dead. Hamas has also picked up on the Israeli public’s anger. The Brigades’ spokesperson issued an emphatic statement on Saturday saying last year’s Gaza conflict would look like an “ordinary event” if Hamas leaders were targeted for assassination by Israel. Israeli security services have yet to capture Rafa’ani and Shakir, though their remaining freedom can likely be measured in hours or at most several days.
*Joe Truzman is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

Syria's Assad Makes Surprise Visit to Tehran
Damascus - London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 May, 2022
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met on Sunday with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during an unexpected “work” visit to Iran. Syrian state media reported that the meetings dealt with “historical relations” based on “bilateral cooperation and mutual understanding on the issues and problems of the region and the challenges it faces.”The latest developments on the regional and international arenas were also discussed. Assad stressed the importance of “cooperation in order not to allow the US to rebuild an international terrorist system that is used to harm the countries of the world,” noting that “the US today is weaker than ever.”Khamenei was quoted as stressing “Iran’s continued support for Syria to complete its victory over terrorism and the liberation of the rest of the Syrian lands.”“We have no doubt that you will be able to liberate the rest of the Syrian lands and under your leadership, Syria will remain united,” Khamenei told Assad. “We have to maintain the strong relationship that unites our two countries and peoples, and this is beneficial not only for our two countries, but also necessary for the region,” added the supreme leader. Khamenei said in statements cited by local media that Syria’s “credibility” was “much greater now than in the past” and it was being looked at “as a power” today. “Syria's respect and position are now much higher than before, as it has become more powerful,” Khamenei told Assad according to Nour News, a website affiliated with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard. Moreover, Khamenei stressed the need to strengthen relations between Syria and Iran more than before. Iran has been one of Assad's strongest regional allies and has helped his regime with money and weapons during the Syrian conflict. Raisi expressed the “serious will” of his country "to enhance economic and trade cooperation" with Syria. For his part, Assad declared his country's readiness to expand economic cooperation with Iran, the statement added. According to Nour News, Assad and his accompanying delegation returned to Damascus after their day-long visit to Iran.

Iran Confirms Upcoming Visit of Qatar's Emir to Tehran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 May, 2022
Qatar's Emir will visit Iran soon, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed on Monday during a news conference. Reuters reported on Sunday that Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will visit Iran, Germany, Britain and other European states starting this week on a trip expected to discuss efforts to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear deal and energy security in Europe. A key focus of discussions is how to "bridge the gap" on the nuclear talks, which have been on hold since March, as well as liquefied natural gas and energy security on the European leg of the trip, a source said in a statement to Reuters. Iranian state media reported on Sunday that Qatar's emir would travel to Iran to bolster ties but did not give an exact date or further details.

No End in Sight for Ukraine War as Putin Hails Victory Day
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 May, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin used his country's biggest patriotic holiday Monday to again justify his war in Ukraine but did not declare even a limited victory or signal where the conflict is headed, as his forces pressed their offensive with few signs of progress.
The Russian leader oversaw a Victory Day parade on Moscow's Red Square, with troops marching in formation and military hardware on display to celebrate the Soviet Union's role in the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany. But his much-anticipated speech offered no new insights into how he intends to salvage the grinding war, and he instead stuck to allegations that Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, even though Moscow’s nuclear-armed forces are far superior in number and firepower. "The danger was rising by the day," Putin said. "Russia has given a preemptive response to aggression. It was forced, timely and the only correct decision."He steered clear of battlefield specifics, failing to mention the potentially pivotal battle for the vital southern port of Mariupol and not even uttering the word "Ukraine." On the ground, meanwhile, intense fighting raged in Ukraine's east, the vital Black Sea port of Odesa in the south came under bombardment again, and Russian forces sought to finish off the Ukrainian defenders making their last stand at a steel plant in Mariupol. Putin has long bristled at NATO’s creep eastward into former Soviet republics, and argued Monday that Russia had to invade Ukraine before an "inevitable" clash. Ukrainian leaders and their Western backers have denied that Kyiv or NATO posed any threat. As he has done all along, Putin falsely portrayed the fighting as a battle against Nazism, thereby linking the war to what many Russians regard as their finest hour: the triumph over Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in what Russia refers to as the Great Patriotic War. He also sought to depict the offensive underway for control of the Donbas region in the east - Moscow’s focus after its abortive attempt to storm the capital, Kyiv - as a fight on Russia's "historic lands." He has long sought to deny Ukraine’s own 1,000-year history. Progress in the east, though, has been slow-going, and many analysts had suggested Putin might use his speech to declare some sort of victory - potentially in Mariupol - to counter discontent over Russia's heavy casualties and the punishing effects of Western sanctions at home. Others suggested he might declare the fighting a war, not just a "special military operation," and order a nationwide mobilization, with a call-up of reserves, to replenish the depleted ranks for an extended conflict.
Neither step was announced.
Critics said the speech skirted some uncomfortable realities that Putin is facing: With the campaign in Ukraine faltering, he has not asked Russians to accept sacrifices to weather the sanctions and diplomatic isolation. He also left unanswered the question of whether and how Russia will marshal more forces in the face of significant losses. "Without concrete steps to build a new force, Russia can’t fight a long war, and the clock starts ticking on the failure of their army in Ukraine," tweeted Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Despite Russia's efforts to crack down on dissent, antiwar sentiment has seeped through. A few scattered protesters were detained around the country on Victory Day, and editors at one pro-Kremlin media outlet revolted by briefly publishing a few dozen stories criticizing Putin and the invasion. In Warsaw, anti-war protesters splattered Russia’s ambassador to Poland with what appeared to be red paint as he arrived at a cemetery to pay respects to Red Army soldiers who died during World War II. As Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air raid sirens echoed again in the Ukrainian capital. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in his own Victory Day address that his country would eventually defeat the Russians. "Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine," he said in a video. He added: "We are fighting for freedom, for our children, and therefore we will win."Russia has about 97 battalion tactical groups in Ukraine, largely in the east and the south, a slight increase over last week, according to a senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon's assessment. Each unit has roughly 1,000 troops, according to the Pentagon.
The official said that overall, the Russian effort in the Donbas hasn’t achieved any significant progress in recent days and continues to face stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainian military warned of a high probability of missile strikes around the holiday, and some cities imposed curfews or warned people not to gather in public places. More than 60 people were feared dead over the weekend after Russian bombardment flattened a Ukrainian school being used as a shelter in the eastern village of Bilohorivka, Ukrainian officials said.
With the war in its 11th week, Russia was perhaps closest to a victory in Mariupol. The US official said roughly 2,000 Russian forces were around Mariupol, and the city was being pounded by airstrikes. As many as 2,000 Ukrainian defenders were believed to be holding out at the steel plant, the city's last stronghold of resistance.
The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to complete a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, and free up troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbas. It would also give the Kremlin a badly needed success.
Odesa, too, has increasingly come under bombardment in recent days. Ukrainian officials said Russia fired four cruise missiles targeting the city Monday from Crimea. It said no civilians were wounded but did not elaborate on what was struck.
The war in the country long known as the "breadbasket of Europe" has disrupted global food supplies. "I saw silos full of grain, wheat and corn ready for export," Charles Michel, president of the European Council, lamented in a tweet after a visit to Odesa. "This badly needed food is stranded because of the Russian war and blockade of Black sea ports. Causing dramatic consequences for vulnerable countries."

Embattled Israeli Leader Vows to Keep Government Afloat
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 May, 2022
Israel's embattled prime minister on Monday vowed to continue to lead the country as his shaky government limped into the opening of parliament's summer session on the verge of collapse. Less than a year after taking office, Naftali Bennett has lost his parliamentary majority, his own party is crumbling and a key governing partner has suspended cooperation with the coalition. That has set the stage for a possible attempt by the opposition, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to topple the government later this week. While Bennett appears to be poised to fend off this immediate challenge, his longer-term prospects are uncertain at a time when the government is deeply divided over major issues, Israel is facing an ongoing wave of stabbings and shootings by lone-wolf Palestinian attackers and a confrontation with the United States over West Bank settlement construction is looming. Boaz Toporovsky, the acting coalition chairman, acknowledged the coalition is in the midst of a "serious crisis" but said he was optimistic it would survive. "Everyone understands that we’re at a crossroads that can bring about, heaven forbid, elections in Israel," he told the Israeli public broadcaster Kan early Monday. The new government made history when it took office last June, ending prolonged deadlock in which the country went through four rounds of inconclusive elections in just two years. Racing to head off what would have been another election, Bennett cobbled together a diverse coalition of eight parties with little in common beyond their shared animosity toward Netanyahu. The new coalition, including hard-line religious nationalists that oppose Palestinian statehood, dovish left-wingers and for the first time in an Israeli coalition, an Islamist Arab party, agreed to sideline the country’s most divisive issues and focus on areas of broad consensus.
The government has managed to pass a budget, navigate the coronavirus pandemic and strengthen relations with both the Biden administration and Israel’s Arab countries. Bennett also has emerged as a surprising mediator in the Ukraine-Russia war, regularly speaking to the leaders of both countries.
Although Bennett, who leads a small religious-nationalist party, has ruled out peace talks with the Palestinians, he has tried to reduce tensions by taking steps to improve living conditions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This cautious approach has repeatedly been tested. One member of Bennett’s Yamina party defected when the government took office, accusing him of abandoning their nationalist ideology. A second member followed suit last month, leaving the coalition and opposition equally divided in the 120-seat parliament.
Weeks of Israeli-Palestinian violence, much of it fueled by tensions and fighting at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, prompted Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Arab Ra’am faction in the coalition, to suspend cooperation. Abbas has not said whether he will resume cooperation or join the opposition in attempts to topple the coalition this week. "We’re in a not so simple crisis with Ra’am," Toporovsky said, adding that he understood the Islamist party's disappointment in the slow pace of effecting change for Israel's Arab citizens. A public opinion survey in April by the Israel Democracy Institute found that only 30% of respondents believed the government was likely to survive the year, down from 49% in February. The think tank polled 751 Israeli Jews and Arabs, and reported a margin of error of 3.65 percentage points. Netanyahu is weighing whether to introduce a motion this week to dissolve parliament and trigger new elections. Such a move is risky. It would require at least one of the remaining members of the coalition to join him, and there is no guarantee that will happen. If he fails, he would not be able to introduce a similar motion for the next six months as an ongoing corruption trial against Netanyahu moves ahead.
A pair of no-confidence motions floated by the opposition on Monday quickly failed. That prompted Bennett and his main coalition partner, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, to release a video together on Twitter saying they had defied the skeptics. "We are going to continue with victories, to sustain an excellent government in the state of Israel for the citizens of Israel," Bennett said. Yohanan Plesner, a former lawmaker who is now president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said he expects the coalition to weather the storm, at least in the short term. He said that even unhappy coalition members would have much to lose if the country were to plunge into new elections. Abbas, for instance, is just beginning to see the huge budgets he has secured to flow into the impoverished Arab communities he represents. But any member of the coalition can now pressure the government into pushing pet projects opposed by other partners. This week, an Israeli planning committee is expected to approve plans to build some 4,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite vociferous opposition from the United States and most of the international community. The construction project is being pushed by members of Bennett’s own party, which draws much of its support from the settler community. "The next few days will allow us to know whether the coalition is in critical but stable condition or critical but unstable condition," Plesner said. "The immediate areas to look at are either the Ra'am party, as a whole or parts of it, or elements from within Yamina."

Macron backs EU treaty change
Agence France Presse/Monday, 9 May, 2022
France's President Emmanuel Macron threw his weight Monday behind proposals from a citizens' panel to reform the European Union, and said the EU's guiding treaties would need to change. "We need to reform our texts, it's obvious," he told a meeting at the European Parliament.Earlier, a dozen EU capitals had publicly opposed treaty reform, which could trigger referendums in some member states.

Islamic State claims attack that killed 11 Egyptian troops
Associated Press/Monday, 9 May, 2022
An Islamic State affiliate in Egypt has claimed responsibility for an attack that targeted a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal, killing at least 11 soldiers. At least five other soldiers were wounded in Saturday's attack, according to the Egyptian military. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Egyptian security forces in recent years. Thousands of people attended separate funerals for the dead Sunday. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, meanwhile, presided over a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which includes the military's top commanders, to discuss the consequences of the attack, his office said without offering further details. The extremist group announced its claim of the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. The authenticity of the statement could not be verified but it was released on Telegram as similar claims have been in the past.
The attack took place in the town of Qantara in the province of Ismailia, which stretches eastwards from the Suez Canal. Militants attacked troops at a checkpoint guarding the pumping facility, then fled the site. The military said troops were pursuing the attackers in an isolated area of the northern Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is battling an Islamic State-led insurgency in the Sinai that intensified after the military overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. The militants have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians. The pace of militant attacks in Sinai's main theater of operations and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched an extensive operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country's western border with Libya.

Canadian Offices Going to the Dogs as Work-from-home Ending
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 May, 2022
Daisy moseys over to greet visitors, her tail wagging. She's listed as chief morale officer on Tungsten Collaborative's website, and is among the many pets joining their owners returning to Canadian offices after working from home through the pandemic. The 12-year-old Lab sniffs for treats. Before long, a Basset Hound named Delilah waddles over, offering up her belly for a rub, along with other four-legged colleagues Eevee the Greyhound and German Shepherd puppy Hudson, who lets out a bark. Daisy's proficiencies include "stress management" and "client engagement," according to her biography, which notes that many of the industrial design studio's "greatest innovations can be traced back to a long walk" with her. "We encourage people if they have pets to bring them (to work)," Tungsten president Bill Dicke, 47, said in an interview with AFP. "You develop this relationship being at home with your pet on a day-to-day basis and all of a sudden you go back to work, so now they have to be crated for the day or roam the house alone, it's not fair to them," he opined "The tolerance for pets (at work) during the pandemic has increased," he added. These dogs sleep under desks or in the boardroom throughout the day, chase balls down a hallway or chew squeaky toys. There's a row of water bowls in the office kitchen, if they get thirsty. The Ottawa company is listed by the Humane Society as dog-friendly, and it's actually helped drum up business, Dicke said, as well as increased staff productivity. Workers are forced to take regular breaks for dog walks instead of "eating lunch at their desk," for example, and are not fretting about their pet being left alone at home, he explained. According to a recent Leger survey for PetSafe, 51 percent of Canadians support bringing dogs to the office. Younger workers were the most supportive, with 18 percent of those aged 18 to 24 years saying they would change jobs if their employer refused to allow them to bring their pet to work. With an estimated 200,000 Canadians adopting a dog or cat since the start of the pandemic in 2020, bringing the nationwide total to 3.25 million, it could force employers now pressing staff to return to the office to consider this option.
'Going to w-o-r-k'
Johan Van Hulle, 29, joined Tungsten last year. Its dog policy, he said, "was a key part of the decision" to take the job, after working from home with Eevee. "Allowing dogs is a good indicator" of a company's culture, he said, and the kind of "not too corporate" workplace that appeals to him. Across town at construction joint venture Chandos Bird, people designing a nuclear research laboratory are visibly smitten by 10-year-old Samson. His owner Trevor Watt didn't want to leave the Yorkshire Terrier alone after moving into a new house and starting work in a new office in January. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement until Samson got used to his new surroundings, but he endeared himself with colleagues and staff in neighboring offices, who take turns walking him. "He loves going to work," Watt said. "When I say I'm going to w-o-r-k, he's ready to jump in the car." Watt likes it, too. "I don't have to worry about him." "Dogs in new environments get very anxious, when left alone," he explained. "I think a lot of new owners know that now that they've had their puppies through Covid." If Samson needs to go out, he just puts a paw on Watt's leg. He has toys and a bed at the office, and wanders from desk to desk. Petting him is a great way to "decompress after a tough meeting," commented Watt's boss Byron Williams. Dogs in the workplace, however, can also create challenges, he said, such as "if somebody is scared of dogs" or allergic to dander. One of Watt's coworkers is terrified of dogs. It was agreed with her that Samson would be leashed the days she comes to the office. At other offices, workers surveyed by AFP lamented carpet stains, disruptive barking and pet hair or drool on clothes -- not a great look for impressing clients. Downtown, many stores and cafes have water bowls for dogs, and several shopkeepers such as Emma Inns of the Adorit fashion boutique bring their dogs to work. "If they're home alone, they get into trouble," she said of Rosie, Oscar and Camilla. As store mascots, however, they're great for business.
"Everyone knows their names," Inns said. "Some people come just to see them, but then buy something."

Saudi Arabia Cuts Oil Prices to Asia by More than 50%
Riyadh - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 May, 2022
Saudi Arabia cut oil prices for buyers in Asia as coronavirus lockdowns in China weigh on demand, countering uncertainty around Russia’s supplies as the Ukraine war drags on. Aramco is expected to cut the official selling price (OSP) for flagship Arab Light crude to Asia in June by more than 50 percent.
The state-controlled company dropped its key Arab Light crude grade for next month’s shipments to Asia to $4.40 a barrel above the benchmark it uses, from $9.35 in May. Saudi Arabia raised its prices to record levels in the past two months after crude futures surged above $100 a barrel when Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian flows have already fallen and may drop further as the European Union moves closer to formally sanctioning energy supplies from the country. While the war has tightened the global oil market, Beijing’s Covid Zero strategy has led to China’s largest demand shock since the early days of the pandemic. Saudi Arabia sends more than 60 percent of its crude exports to Asia, with China, Japan, South Korea and India being the biggest buyers. Oil prices rose nearly 1.5% on Friday, posting a second straight weekly increase. Brent futures rose $1.49, or 1.3 percent, to settle at $112.39 per barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude climbed $1.51, or 1.4 percent, to end at $109.77 a barrel. For the week, WTI gained about 5%, while Brent nearly 4% after the EU set out an embargo on Russian oil as part of its toughest-yet package of sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine. The EU is tweaking its sanctions plan, hoping to win over reluctant states and secure the needed unanimous backing from the 27 member countries, three EU sources told Reuters. The initial proposal called for an end to EU imports of Russian crude and oil products by the end of this year. Russia’s exports of crude and oil products have probably dropped by around 1 million barrels a day from 7.5 million before the attack in late February, Mike Muller, head of Asia at Vitol Group, said Sunday on a podcast produced by Dubai-based Gulf Intelligence. They could fall further after May 15, he said. There will be a “different reality” even for companies that have until now kept up Russian energy purchases because they have contractual obligations to fulfill, he said. eneva-based Vitol, which traded 7.6 million barrels of crude and refined oil a day in 2021, said last month that it intends to stop dealing in Russian-origin products by the end of this year.

G7 Foreign Ministers’ joint statement on selection of Chief Executive in Hong Kong
May 9, 2022 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The G7 Foreign Ministers today issued a joint statement on the selection process of the Chief Executive in Hong Kong:
“We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, underscore our grave concern over the selection process for the Chief Executive in Hong Kong as part of a continued attempt to undermine political pluralism and fundamental freedoms.
“Last year, the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong authorities moved away from the ultimate aim of universal suffrage as set out in Hong Kong’s Basic Law by increasing the number of non-elected members appointed to the Election Committee and dramatically curtailing the number of voters eligible to participate in the Committee elections.
“We stand firm in upholding the fundamental human right of everyone to take part in government, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
“The current nomination process and resulting appointment are a stark departure from the aim of universal suffrage and further erode the ability of Hong Kongers to be legitimately represented. We are deeply concerned about this steady erosion of political and civil rights and Hong Kong’s autonomy. We continue to call on the People’s Republic of China to act in accordance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration and its other legal obligations. We urge the new Chief Executive to respect protected rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, as provided for in the Basic Law, and ensure the court system upholds the rule of law.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 09-10/2022
د.ماجد رافيزادا: نوايا النظام الإيراني الحقيقية
The Iranian regime’s real intentions
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/May 08/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108577/dr-majid-rafizadehthe-iranian-regimes-real-intentions-ray-hanania-iranian-resistance-warns-irans-primary-goal-is-to-build-a-nuclear-weapon-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1/
For decades, some scholars, analysts and politicians have debated whether the Iranian regime’s nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes or for developing nuclear weapons. By examining the evidence carefully, it ought to become crystal clear that developing nuclear weapons has always been part of Tehran’s nuclear program.
Putting aside the regime’s clandestine activities over the past three decades, some Iranian leaders have rather surprisingly revealed secrets about Tehran’s nuclear activities. For example, on Nov. 29, 2021, the former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, was the first Iranian official to admit that he was part of a program designed to develop nuclear weapons: “When the country’s all-encompassing growth began involving satellites, missiles and nuclear weapons, and surmounted new boundaries of knowledge, the issue became more serious for them.”
The second Iranian official to admit that Iran’s nuclear program has always had a military dimension is former Iranian Prime Minister Ali Motahari. He stated on April 20, 2022, when speaking to Iscanews in Tehran, that Iran was interested in obtaining nuclear weapons from the beginning. He pointed out that a country planning to have a nuclear program for peaceful purposes never starts with uranium enrichment, instead it creates reactors first. In other words, starting with uranium enrichment is a mistake if a country wants to secretly develop nuclear weapons: “To do enrichment directly creates the illusion that we want to make a bomb.” He added: “From the very beginning, when we entered the nuclear activity, our goal was to build a bomb and strengthen the deterrent forces but we could not maintain the secrecy of this issue, and the secret reports were revealed by a group of hypocrites.”
“Hypocrites” is a plural word often used by the Iranian regime to refer to the opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The group did reveal Iran’s nuclear activities on several occasions, which made it extremely difficult for the theocratic establishment to hide its secret activities.
The organization first revealed Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities at two major sites, Natanz and Arak, in 2000. Due to the NCRI’s connections in Iran, its information is said to have a high level of credibility. Frank Pabian, an adviser on nuclear non-proliferation matters at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, previously told the New York Times that the NCRI is “right 90 percent of the time.”
Furthermore, in 2017, additional critical information about Iran’s nuclear activities was disclosed by the NCRI. Former US President Donald Trump followed up by saying Tehran was “not living up to the spirit of the agreement.” Michael Anton, a former spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said at the time that his colleagues were “carefully evaluating” the NCRI information. The NCRI report stated: “Reliable information ... shows that the ‘nerve center’ of the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons project, responsible for designing the bomb, has been continuing its work. Following the ... nuclear deal reached in 2015, not only has the unit remained in place and its activities not subsided, but it is now clear that in some fields its activities have even expanded.”
It is suspected that the Iranian regime carries out the military dimension of its nuclear program at the military site Parchin. Tehran has not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect or monitor many of its nuclear-related sites. Tehran has disguised their true nature by labeling some of them military sites or conventional research centers. During the 2015 nuclear talks, Iran was determined that Parchin be beyond IAEA inspection.
It is incumbent on the international community to stop the regime from achieving the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons.
To back their claim that Iran’s nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes, the Iranian leaders refer to a fatwa issued by Ali Khamenei banning development of nuclear weapons. But this religious statement by Khamenei is most likely a cover-up.
As former IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei said: “I was told by a number of people, including President Mubarak of Egypt, that according to Shiite theology it is sometimes acceptable to deceive for the right cause. The concept is called taqqiya (dissimulation), meaning to protect oneself or those under one’s care from harm. I made it clear to our Iranian counterpart that regardless of the origins of this behavior, their denials and ongoing cover-ups had deeply hurt their credibility with the international community. From the outset they had dug a hole that would undermine their own diplomatic endeavors, what I referred to as starting out with a confidence deficit.”
In a nutshell, it should have become clear that Iran’s nuclear program has a military dimension. It is incumbent on the international community to stop the regime from achieving the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

راي حنانيا: المعرضة الإيرانية تحذر من أن الهدف الأساسي لملالي إيران هو امتلال سلاح نووي
Iranian resistance warns Iran’s primary goal is to build a nuclear weapon
Ray Hanania/Arab News/May 08/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108577/dr-majid-rafizadehthe-iranian-regimes-real-intentions-ray-hanania-iranian-resistance-warns-irans-primary-goal-is-to-build-a-nuclear-weapon-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1/
Gobadi said the resistance to Iran’s brutality continues to grow, not only outside of Iran under the leadership of the NCRI but also inside
CHICAGO: Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon and is using negotiations with the West to give them more time to achieve that goal, according to Shahin Gobadi, the spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
A thermal nuclear scientist who first joined the resistance while a college student at UCLA 40 years ago, Gobadi, 60, said the NCRI, which is based in Paris, works with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The PMOI/MEK operates inside Iran taking great risks to expose Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Gobadi said.
Without the PMOI/MEK resistance, Gobadi said, the world would never have known the true depth of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and how far it had advanced towards building a nuclear weapon.
“The Iranian resistance, mainly the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, have been the key factor, the key player that has brought the issue of the Iranian nuclear program to the international attention,” Gobadi said.
“If it were not for the Iranian resistance activities through the more than 120 press conferences and revelations regarding the secret Iranian nuclear sites, projects, facilities, the world would have been totally caught off guard regarding the mullahs’ secret drive to acquire nuclear weapons and by now the world would have been faced with a predicament of the worst regime being equipped with the worst weapon. Actually, this has been a part of our struggle of the past three decades through our vast human network inside regime, the vast network of the Mojahedin, the MEK, inside Iran taking huge risks to expose the various aspects of the mullahs’ drive to acquire nuclear weapons.”
During an interview on “The Ray Hanania Show” broadcast on Wednesday May 4, 2022, Gobadi said the resistance to Iran’s brutality continues to grow, not only outside of Iran under the leadership of the NCRI but also inside with everyday citizens protesting and engaging in significant disruptions.
“The protests and disruptions,” Gobadi said, “have been on the rise particularly during the past four years. Since January 2018 there have been eight nationwide uprisings in Iran against the regime. And in some of them like in November 2019, it caught on so quickly throughout the country, it spread to some 200 cities with people chanting ‘Down with Khamenei the Supreme Leader and down with the whole regime’.”
The mullahs, he said, responded by massacring more than 1,500 civilian protesters.
“But even that has not stopped people from coming to the streets. Or in 2021, in 21 nationwide protests and strikes teachers, who constitute more than 1 million people, have come to the streets. And also, after that, there has been a remarkable surge in the activities of the resistance which is affiliated to the Mojahedin, the MEK and their activities have been on a constant rise,” Gobadi said.
Gobadi said that everyday Iranian people “are standing up” and fueling “the continued rise of the resistance,” which makes the mullahs much “more vulnerable and much more worried” about their future.
“Since 1981 some 120,000 political activists, over 100,000 from the main resistance movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the principal resistance organization, have been executed by the theocracy simply for standing firm for secular government and gender equality,” Gobadi said.
“And that includes tens of thousands of women, which is an amazing aspect of our resistance in Iran. Hundreds of thousands of others have been imprisoned and severely tortured.”
Gobadi cited many incidents of resistance inside Iran. In January, the resistance disrupted 25 of the Iran regime’s television radio channels broadcasting chants of “Death to Khamenei and “Hail to Rajavi” — who is the leader of the resistance. The same month, they set fire to statues of Qassem Soleimani in several provinces.
On April 25, more than 100 computer servers of Iran’s Ministry of Agriculture were disrupted. In the past few weeks, resistance units have repeatedly broadcast anti-regime slogans in busy locations, in large cities and in shopping malls.
Gobadi said the Iranian mullahs have not only been brutal in their response against their own people, 70 to 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line but, just as importantly, the regime is “the primary source” of international terrorism.
He called it “foolhardy” to believe a brutal regime like Iran would abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, even if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is approved and the US removes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list. Iran sees the negotiations as “appeasement,” he said, rather than preventing them from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“An agreement that does not close the regime’s path to a nuclear drive is not going to stop the drive. If the West holds firm, the regime has no choice but to concede to the West. Unfortunately, that was not the desire at the time, particularly of the Obama administration,” Gobadi said.
“And look what happened. The mullahs took billions of dollars and it all ended up in the coffers of the regime’s leaders, Khamenei in particular, or the IRGC’s top brass, or has helped to prop up the regime’s surrogates and terrorist groups in the region to increase the regime’s capability of missile program ... and, the regime never, never, never gave up its nuclear weapons program.”
“Well, by far, they are the most active state sponsor of terrorism for years and years. Their tentacles have reached as far away as Europe, the US and even Latin America. Needless to say Europe, the Middle East. It’s very shocking.”
On the restoration of the JCPOA, Gobadi said, “We think such an agreement in and of itself is no guarantee that the regime does not get nuclear weapons.”
*The Ray Hanania Radio Show is broadcast on the US Arab Radio Network and sponsored by Arab News live every Wednesday at 5 PM EST in Detroit on WNZK AM 690, in Washington D.C. on WDMV AM 700. It is rebroadcast on Thursdays at 12 noon in Chicago on WNWI AM 1080.

Iran and Israel in the US-Russian Standoff
Raghida Dergham/The National/May 09/2022
The Iran-Israel equation has been imported into the American and Russian calculus this week, prompted by further heated developments in the Ukraine war and the nuclear talks in Vienna, where Iran is behaving like sleeping beauty, waiting to be awoken and eager to pounce on those who were the cause of its slumber.
The Western oil sanctions package on Russia expected to come in the coming days will make Iran a favorite destination for both the White House and the Kremlin for reasons related to the war. The rulers of Iran understand well the value of their oil in the war between the West and Russia, and are eager to play their cards pragmatically to advance their ideological and strategic projects, even if this were to require implicit accords that place them on the same side as Israel. Everything is on the table of Iranian foreign policy, shaped and enforced by the Revolutionary Guard and their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Small proxy wars in battlefields like Syria and Lebanon are ready for activation at the behest of Iran, as well as direct attacks from Iran on Israeli positions identified and communicated to Israel as a warning: Iran can strike them at will.
This scenario could come if Iran decides it wants to test the seriousness of the Vienna talks and pressure the Biden administration and the European powers to fully surrender to its demands, including the US delisting the IRGC as terror group. But if the backchannel talks with Biden’s men fulfil Iran’s conditions and end the sanctions on Iran, bringing in billions of oil revenues especially if to compensate for the Russian oil embargoed by Europe, then the leaders of Iran will be ready for a major pivot in their international relations: After all, Iran’s pragmatism allows it to adapt and realign easily in any direction. In other words, Iran will not hesitate to jump off the sinking Russian ship if this serves its interests, despite Vladimir Putin’s illusions that Iran’s loyalty is strategic and permanent.
Tehran will not publicize any accords made with Israel through the US channel should it decide its interests require – a tactical and provisional – alliance with the US and European camp, which Israel joined this week against Russia’s war in Ukraine. However, this and other options are being considered, including the option of a limited military confrontation between Iran and Israel to incentivize the acceleration of the revival of the JCPOA, and the option of exploiting Europe’s need for Iranian oil to offset Russian oil.
So what will the Kremlin do? Will it give its blessing to a deal in Vienna, even if that were to come at its expense? Does it factor in its calculations the Iran-Israel accords pursued by the Biden administration? Or does it believe that getting behind an Iranian-Israeli confrontation will impede America’s projects and advance Russia’s interests?
The deterioration of Russia-Israel relations recently is linked to Ukraine, but the tensions date back to many months ago because of the Russian military’s fury with what it believes were Israeli encroachments in Syria not too far from its base in Hmeimim. The personal relationship between Putin and former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu helped build a Russian diplomatic approach whose aim at the time was to complement the Trump administration’s push for Arab-Israeli agreements through the Abraham Accords. Russian diplomacy hoped it could pave the ground for Iranian-Israeli accords and expand the Arab-Israeli accords to states friendly to Moscow.
All this was before Putin’s adventure in Ukraine, and before the American, European, and Ukrainian pressures on Israel to take a stronger position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All this was before Russian FM’s blundering remarks about Nazism and Jews that compelled Putin to apologize to Israel…but too late. Indeed, Israel has decided to supply advanced weapons to Ukraine that include missiles and drones, and it cannot back down despite the Russian apology.
This marks a major political and psychological blow to Russia, beyond the game-changing nature of Israeli weapons and Israel joining the camp of ‘unfriendlies’ alongside 47 other states that include the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and others. There is also the issue of the Jewish community in Russia and the issue of rapprochement between Israel and Ukraine. All this suggests a radical change has taken place in Russian-Israeli relations.
It may have occurred to Moscow that it can use its relations with Iran to trigger Iranian-Israeli conflict in proxy arenas such as Syria and Lebanon, hoping this would embarrass President Joe Biden, and provoke US public opinion and the Jewish-American community against his administration, if he hesitates to defend Israel or goes too far in trying to appease Iran. This scenario is possible, but the decision will be up to Iran, not Moscow, unlike what the Kremlin believes. Right now, Tehran is holding on to its cards, weight each step to ensure its interests are best served. Iran stands to benefit from all circumstances, from the war in Ukraine and the Russian-Israeli falling out, to the eagerness of the Biden team and the European powers to appease Iran in return for its oil.
Some could ask why Putin would agree to a nuclear deal in Vienna, if he knew in advance that lifting the sanctions on Iran together with an embargo on Russian oil would mean a fatal blow to his energy exports. Some believe that Putin is extremely confident in his alliance with Iran’s rulers, and therefore is certain that Iran would circumvent the oil agreements and help Moscow in many ways behind the scenes.
Others see it much more simply: That it is a political imperative for Putin to appear that he has allowed the success of the Vienna talks – which has the ability otherwise to prevent – to show the world Russia is still a global player, and not a pariah. It could also simply be that Putin needs a success story at this juncture. He may find this success in the Vienna talks – if he decides that politics trump economics, or if he is really confident Iran is a permanent ally whose place is in the anti-Western troika with China.
Will the success of the Vienna talks, with facilitation from Russia, then be a message from the Kremlin to the White House, that would lead to a ‘fig leaf’ opportunity to take steps back instead of creeping towards a Third World War?
Everything is possible. Some scenarios seem more likely than others, and others are hindered by obstacles that could destroy accords, modify them, or expedite them before opposition to them accumulates and makes them impossible. The putative deal between Biden and Iran is one of those things that cannot be conclusively settled at this juncture, for several reasons.
The US Senate this week passed two bills that stressed keeping the designation of the IRGC as a terror group. 62 senators, including 16 Democrats, voted in favor of the bill put forward by Sen. James Lankford that bars the delisting of the IRGC – as Tehran demands the Biden administration do. The Senate also approved a bill put forward by Sen. Ted Cruz that would prevent the Biden administration from rolling backs sanctions on the IRGC and the Iran Central Bank, with 86 lawmakers voting in favor.
This is an important message from Congress warning Biden of the dangers of caving to Tehran and reviving the nuclear deal at the cost of ignoring Iran’s terrorist activities and destabilizing actions in the Middle East. Lankford’s bill is non-binding, but with Democrats such as Chuck Schumer and Chris Coons who is close to Biden joining those angry at concessions made by the administration to Iran, this carries implications that could either hinder or expedite a deal. In the latter case, the administration will need Israel’s help.
What kind of bargains and accords is the Biden administration working on to guarantee buy-in from Iran and Israel? The devil is in the details. What the Biden administration thinks it can achieve is a masterstroke based on the following: First, Israel’s joining of the Western camp confronting Russia with delivery of advanced weapons to Ukraine marks a victory for Biden, turning Israel from a neutral party in the war to a partner of the West against Russia. Second, separating Iran from Russia by enticing it with the lifting of sanctions, delisting the IRGC, and opening up European markets to its oil at high prices, is to the administration a strategic achievement. However, in reality these are mere risky tactical steps with long-term strategic risks not just for the Middle East but also for US interests.
Biden’s priority right now is to defeat Russia in Ukraine and beyond. It is rallying friend and foe in a game it sees as strategic but is in fact tactical, aimed at isolating Russia and toppling Putinism. Meanwhile, Putin seems no less naïve in his tactical and strategic calculations. There is no light at the end of the tunnel he took Russia into except the nuclear flash that he has started to threaten, hoping the West would give him an offramp towards rehabilitation. But this will never happen.

IMF sees bumper year for Arab oil producers, risk for others
Aya Batrawy/ AP/Washington Post/May 09/2022
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The world’s economy is forecast to grow around 3.6% this year, but Arab oil exporters are seeing a windfall from high energy prices that will buoy their economies and replenish their financial reserves this year and next, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Monetary Fund.
Those hard-hit in the Middle East, however, are oil importers and countries like Egypt that also rely heavily on food imports from the Black Sea region, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has impacted exports like sunflower oil, barley and wheat worldwide.
The war has caused wheat prices to soar as farmers in Ukraine were forced to pick up arms, stop farming or have been unable to export their grains due to blocked ports and roads.
Higher energy prices, though, spell fortune for the region’s oil producers, like Saudi Arabia where economic growth is expected to hit 7.6% this year.
Kuwait, another country highly dependent on oil revenue, is forecast to see 8% growth in 2022, a notable reversal from the just 1% growth its economy saw last year and the nearly 9% contraction its economy saw in 2020. The IMF’s figures forecast that Iraq will see the biggest expansion to its economy in the region, with 9.5% growth projected this year.
As a whole, the IMF expects that in the next five years, the level of additional inflows and financial reserves to Mideast oil exporting countries will exceed $1 trillion, Jihad Azour, director of the Middle East and Central Asia department at the IMF, told The Associated Press.
The IMF’s projections are based on a number of assumptions, including that the price of oil will average roughly $107 a barrel in 2022 and trade around $92 a barrel in 2023.
Gulf Arab oil exporting states are projected to produce some 18 million barrels of oil per day this year, with around 14 million barrels of that for export. Most of the barrels will be produced and exported by Saudi Arabia.
Rystad Energy, a research and business intelligence company, says Saudi Arabia will be the largest beneficiary of the higher oil prices and is expected to receive more than $400 billion from its oil and gas exports, an increase of almost $250 billion from 2021. The firm said Iraq follows with about $200 billion, a doubling of its income compared to 2021.
The extra financial inflows are critical to Gulf Arab countries as they try to diversify their economies away from dependence on oil for state spending and as the world seeks greener technologies to power industry.
The inflows are also crucial for providing handouts to the public in countries where absolute power is concentrated in the hands of hereditary rulers. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman announced this week an over half-billion-dollar package of social security payments to Saudis in need for the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which ends this week. Individuals will receive $267 and an additional $133 for their dependents.
The kingdom runs a separate “Citizen’s Account” program with around 10 million beneficiaries — close to half of the Saudi population. The program aims to ease financial burdens on citizens and provide support to families with limited incomes. Average support per family totaled $285 in April. Since its inception in early 2017, the program has disbursed $31 billion.
In contrast, countries like Syria and Lebanon are in such dire economic straits that the IMF has no economic projections for either. Syria has been wracked by civil war for more than a decade. Lebanon is mired in political gridlock with its last economic figures recorded by the IMF in 2020 showing a 22% contraction of the economy that year.
The situation is also particularly dire for Sudan, where consumer price inflation is forecast to hit 245% this year. Last year, the figure hit a whopping 359%, skyrocketing since the country’s 2019 revolution.
Egypt, the region’s most populous nation, faces numerous headwinds, though the IMF expects its economy to grow by nearly 6% this year, before dipping close to a percentage point to around 5% growth in 2023.
“Egypt was among the countries directly affected by the war in Ukraine,” Azour said.
Higher wheat prices are expected to increase the import bill of Mideast countries by around $9 billion, and between $1 billion and $2 billion for Egypt.
With inflation expected to hit 10.4% this year in Egypt, the government eased exchange rates and the currency depreciated by 15% in recent weeks. It also capped the price of unsubsidized bread to keep costs from soaring.
Egypt has since reached out to the IMF to explore additional funding. Earlier this month, energy heavyweights Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar pledged around $22 billion to Egypt to support its struggling economy. Some $5 billion of that were Saudi deposits in Egypt’s central bank. The rest came in the form of investment deals from the UAE and Qatar.
The regional outlook by the IMF comes after the lender released its global forecast earlier this month. It downgraded the outlook for the world economy this year to 3.6% from a projected 4.4% for 2022 in January, blaming Russia’s war in Ukraine for disrupting global commerce, pushing up oil prices, threatening food supplies and increasing uncertainty amid the coronavirus.
راي حنانيا: المعارضة الإيرانية تحذر من أن الهدف الأساسي لملالي إيران هو امتلاك سلاح نووي
Iranian resistance warns Iran’s primary goal is to build a nuclear weapon/Ray Hanania/Arab News/May 08/2022
د.ماجد رافيزادا: نوايا النظام الإيراني الحقيقية
The Iranian regime’s real intentions/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/May 09/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108577/dr-majid-rafizadehthe-iranian-regimes-real-intentions-ray-hanania-iranian-resistance-warns-irans-primary-goal-is-to-build-a-nuclear-weapon-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1/
For decades, some scholars, analysts and politicians have debated whether the Iranian regime’s nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes or for developing nuclear weapons. By examining the evidence carefully, it ought to become crystal clear that developing nuclear weapons has always been part of Tehran’s nuclear program.

China Accelerates Nuclear Buildup, Military Modernization; Biden Speeding U.S. to Defeat
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute./May 09/ 2022
"The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020." — Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2021, US Dept. of Defense.
"In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate." — General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations, quoted in The Washington Post, November 30, 2021.
"Look at what they [CCP) have today.... We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed." — General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, breakingdefense.com, November 4, 2021.
"[T]he Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time." — Timothy Heath, senior international and defense researcher at Rand Corporation, Business Insider, January 4, 2022.
"To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well." ­­ — Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.
There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination.... a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.
This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine.
"The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad." — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Associated Press, March 7, 2022.
"For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently." ­­ — Admiral Charles Richard, Senate Committee on Armed Services, April 20, 2021.
[T]his is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.
Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," said Milley. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."
"Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation. Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability." — Representative Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.) House Armed Services Committee, Defense News, April 5, 2022.
The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Pictured: DF-17 hypersonic missiles at a military parade in Beijing, China, on October 1, 2019.
When the Pentagon assessed China's nuclear arsenal in its annual report to Congress on China's military power in November 2020, it projected that China's nuclear warhead stockpile, which the Pentagon then estimated to be in the low 200s, would "at least double in size" over the next decade. The Pentagon also estimated that China was "pursuing" a "nuclear triad", meaning a combination of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear capabilities.
Just one year later, in November 2021, the Pentagon found itself acknowledging that China's nuclear buildup was taking place at an astonishing speed, with the nuclear warhead stockpile now possibly quadrupling from the estimated low 200s in 2020 over the next decade:
"The accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020."
In addition, China is no longer merely "pursuing" a nuclear triad but appears to have already achieved the basics of it:
"The PRC has possibly already established a nascent 'nuclear triad' with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities."
China, according to the report, is also "constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this force expansion, including increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities," while "building hundreds of new ICBM silos, and is on the cusp of a large silo-based ICBM force expansion comparable to those undertaken by other major powers."
The accelerating pace of China's nuclear buildup is concerning in itself, but even more so given that the military buildup constitutes just one, but significant, part of China's general military buildup and modernization. Last summer, for instance, China tested its first hypersonic weapon. In space, China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States and "fielding operational systems at an incredible rate," according to General David Thompson, the Space Force's first vice chief of space operations. China and Russia's combined in-orbit space assets grew approximately 70% in just two years, following a more than 200% increase between 2015 and 2018 according to Kevin Ryder, Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst for space and counterspace in the U.S.
According to General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:
"If you look at, again, 40 years ago, they had zero satellites...They had no ICBMs...They had no nuclear weapons... They had no fourth or fifth-generation fighters or even more advanced fighters, back then... They had no navy...They had no sub-force. Look at what they have today... So if you look at the totality, this test [of a hypersonic weapon] that occurred a couple weeks ago, is only one of a much, much broader picture of a military capability with respect to the Chinese. That is very, very significant. We're witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power that the world has witnessed."
According to Timothy Heath, a senior international and defense researcher at the Rand Corporation think tank:
"It's important to see the modernizing nuclear arsenal as part of the bigger picture, in which the Chinese are building up their military capabilities in space, cyberspace, and in the conventional force. It's all happening at the same time."
On April 20, 2021, U.S. Strategic Command's chief Admiral Charles Richard made it clear in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that China is no longer a lesser nuclear threat than Russia:
"While China's nuclear stockpile is currently smaller (but undergoing an unprecedented expansion) than those fielded by Russia and the United States, the size of a nation's weapons stockpile is a crude measure of its overall strategic capability. To fully assess the China threat, it is also necessary to consider the capability of the associated delivery system, command and control, readiness, posture, doctrine and training. By these measures, China is already capable of executing any plausible nuclear employment strategy within their region and will soon be able to do so at intercontinental ranges as well. They are no longer a 'lesser included case of the pacing nuclear threat, Russia." (Emphasis in original).
China's nuclear acceleration is not all, however. There is now as well the added probability of China and Russia engaging in military coordination: In February, the two powers declared that they were entering into a strategic partnership of "no limits" and with "no forbidden areas" in an agreement that they said was aimed at countering the influence of the United States.
This cooperation has already seen China undermining Western sanctions on Russia and supplying Russian President Vladimir Putin with the lifeline he needs to continue his war in Ukraine. China has not only supplied material support through a variety of deals with Russia, it has also refrained from condemning Russia's invasion and has criticized the sanctions.
In March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Russia the "most important strategic partner" for China.
"No matter how perilous the international landscape, we will maintain our strategic focus and promote the development of a comprehensive China-Russia partnership in the new era... The friendship between the two peoples is iron clad."
On April 19, China reassured Russia that it will continue to increase "strategic coordination."
China-Russia cooperation is going to affect US strategic deterrence. Admiral Richard told the Senate Armed Services Committee in early March that the US needs to have plans for scenarios in which the two powers cooperate militarily, adding:
"I'm very concerned about what opportunistic aggression looks like. I'm worried about what cooperative aggression looks like... We do not know the endpoints of where either of those other two are going either in capability or capacity. We're just now starting to work out what three-party stability looks like, what three-party deterrence dynamic works out."
In his April 20, 2021 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard said:
"For the first time in our history, the nation is on a trajectory to face two nuclear-capable, strategic peer adversaries at the same time, who must be deterred differently. We can no longer assume the risk of strategic deterrence failure in conflict will always remain low."
In the light of China's accelerating nuclear buildup -- and the nuclear threat that Russia poses with its thousands of tactical nuclear weapons -- this is NOT the time for the US to cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile (SLCM-N), as President Joe Biden plans to do.
The missile, according to the Wall Street Journal, "is considered a 'tactical' nuclear weapon that has a lower yield than 'strategic' options and might be used on battlefield targets. The missile could be launched from submarines or destroyers" and "is needed to deter Russia and others" and, according to the article, would also be useful "in dissuading China from using a nuke on Taiwan, without the longer and fraught debate of, say, putting American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil... [and] reduce proliferation at a volatile moment."
The acceleration of China's nuclear and military modernization, and the new situation of tri-polar deterrence that the U.S. finds itself in for the first time, necessitate increases in US military research and development, acquisition and procurement. Meanwhile, Biden's proposed defense budget risks speeding the US to defeat by insufficiently taking into account the current skyrocketing inflation, as acknowledged in early April by Gen. Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord. "This budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2%, which is obviously incorrect because it's almost 8%," Milley noted. "Because the budget was produced quite a while ago, those calculations were made prior to the current inflation rate."
"Nearly every dollar of increase in this budget will be eaten by inflation," Representative Mike Rogers (R-Ala), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said. "Very little, if anything, will be left over to modernize and grow capability."
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2022 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.

Sweden Would Strengthen the NATO Alliance
Lawrence A. Franklin/ Gatestone Institute./May 09/ 2022
The Swedes need little proof of Russia's disregard for the sovereignty of nation states.
After the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War in 1991, Sweden downgraded its defense posture -- until Putin's Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and seized Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Sweden has continued the upgrade of its national defense ever since.
In addition, Sweden possesses a historic sensitivity to democratic values and to global crises and humanitarian needs. When, for instance, other nations closed their doors to Jews attempting to escape German-occupied Europe in the early 1940s, it was Sweden -- even though caught between two totalitarian states, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia -- that extended a merciful welcome to Jewish refugees... Now NATO will have the opportunity to extend a welcome to Sweden.
The Swedes need little proof of Russia's disregard for the sovereignty of nation states. After the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War in 1991, Sweden downgraded its defense posture -- until Putin's Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and seized Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Sweden has continued the upgrade of its national defense ever since. Pictured: A Swedish Air Force JAS 39 Gripen fighter jet takes off from the F17 Blekinge Air Force Wing, based in Kallinge, on April 2, 2011.
The Swedes need little proof of Russia's disregard for the sovereignty of nation states.
Several Russian fighter aircraft were intercepted near NATO airspace over the Baltic and Black Seas several times in late April by alliance Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) warplanes. On April 29, a Russian spy plane also violated Sweden's sovereign airspace. NATO fighter interceptors from Denmark, Poland, Spain, and France responded to the Russian challenge over Baltic Sea airspace. Romanian and British fighters intercepted Russian aircraft over the Black Sea.
The Swedish government and people apparently now favor NATO's defensive umbrella. This became especially true after a March violation of Swedish airspace by Russian SU-27 Flanker Fighters and SU-24 Fencer Bombers, which were reportedly carrying nuclear weapons.
Sweden, with a well-equipped air forces, could add substantially to NATO's need to defend a northern approach to a potential attack against member states. Sweden also possesses an efficient, independent aircraft industrial base, much of it deployed in protective underground facilities. Sweden's Air Force could help contribute to Estonia's alliance mission to protect NATO's eastern and northern flanks.
Sweden's superior defense company, Saab, globally respected, produces the JAS-39 Gripen fighter, an aircraft already in use by at least two other NATO members: Hungary and the Czech Republic. Although Sweden's neighbors, Finland, Norway, and Denmark, have preferred the US F-35 fighter, the Gripen could be an effective alternative. Swedish pilots are also familiar with NATO facilities such as airfields in Italy and Estonia.
Although Sweden reduced the size of its armed forces after the end of the Cold War, its impressive arms industry still manufactures weapons systems. It produced the thousands of AT-4 anti-tank missiles that NATO recently decided to deliver to Ukraine and have been procured by more than 20 countries. Although not a NATO ally, for 20 years Sweden maintained a continuous troop presence in Afghanistan until the evacuation by allied contingents in the summer of 2021. Sweden's presence in Afghanistan also consisted of combat medics, military transport support personnel, training aligned Afghan soldiers and working closely with UK contingents in the north.
At the outbreak of WWII, Sweden had found itself woefully unprepared for any hostilities. That failure was, in large part, due to Sweden's longstanding policy of political neutrality and military non-belligerency. At the outset of the Cold War, however, Sweden moved aggressively to address its military unpreparedness, and quickly increased its defense budget. The Swedish Armed Forces, with the full cooperation of Sweden's civilian leadership, also adopted a "Total Defense Concept" -- a plan to mobilize all sectors of society to develop infrastructure that would serve both peace and wartime priorities. Sweden's national highway system, for instance, also enables fighter jets to land and take off. Gas stations along these routes were capable of refueling military jets, and farmers living near public roads are trained to man air-defense radar sites.
Successive Swedish administrations sponsored the construction of networks of underground installations designed to guarantee the continuity of the government should a war between NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance have broken out.
Another asset that Sweden could deliver to NATO are its sequestered submarines in fiord caves along the Baltic coast. The Swedish Navy is equipped with three Gotland-class submarines, domestically produced. They are capable of closely monitoring any movement of naval vessels from the Russian Navy Baltic Fleet headquarters just across the Baltic Sea in Kaliningrad. Saab is currently building two next-generation Blekinge Class submarines, scheduled for delivery in 2027/2028, which could help NATO neighbors Norway and Denmark protect maritime navigation in the Arctic.
After the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War in 1991, Sweden downgraded its defense posture -- until Putin's Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and seized Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Sweden has continued the upgrade of its national defense ever since.
In addition, Sweden possesses a historic sensitivity to democratic values and to global crises and humanitarian needs. When, for instance, other nations closed their doors to Jews attempting to escape German-occupied Europe in the early 1940s, it was Sweden -- even though caught between two totalitarian states, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia -- that extended a merciful welcome to Jewish refugees from Norway and Denmark. Many Jews in Hungary owed their rescue to the legendary Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who was regrettably abducted there by the Soviets and never seen again, presumably sent to his death in their gulags. Now NATO will have the opportunity to extend a welcome to Sweden.
*Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
© 2022 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.

Why it’s time to stop negotiating with Iran
Stephen Harpe/National Post/May 09/ 2022
In the shadow of Russia’s appalling war against its peaceful neighbour, misguided efforts to revive the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal have continued. The dangerous naiveté among Western leaders that left Ukraine outside NATO also underlies efforts to make deals with Tehran. We should hope that negotiators do not return to Vienna and that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) process with Iran is abandoned for good.
I spoke out in favour of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and have long viewed the effort as fatally flawed. Rather than stopping Iran’s nuclear program, the JCPOA in fact left the mullahs inching ever closer to nuclear weapon capabilities. Worse, the original 2015 deal served to enrich the Iranian regime and helped it finance and expand its terror network that is destabilizing the wider region. A revived deal would provide a new infusion of resources to the Iranian government, empower their ability to threaten neighbours, and advance activities hostile to our interests.
The recent effort to revive the deal has absurdly engaged Russia as a key facilitator of negotiations, at the very moment when its troops are perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Iran has predictably used the talks to push for additional, outrageous concessions, such as the removal of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps from the U.S. terror list.
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper being interviewed on the podcast American Optimist hosted by Joe Lonsdale.
'Its ethics are entirely nihilist': Stephen Harper slams 'woke' left in rare interview
First, the approach fails to recognize that Iran’s nuclear program is only a manifestation of its extremist Shia theocratic ideology. That ideology calls for goals that threaten the wider region. It is why, one step at a time, Iran has been working to build a nascent empire throughout the Middle East: Shia government and militia figures in Iraq, support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthi takeover in Yemen. The correct response to such extremism is deterrence, not accommodation. Western leaders should have recognized this truth in the case of Russia long before Feb. 24. We must not wait for an equally dire moment with Iran to figure it out.
Second, and even more troubling, is that the obsession with engaging Iran has caused many leaders to lose sight of who are our real allies in the region, especially the Gulf Arab nations that share our fundamental security interests. Just as the West needs help from them with the energy challenges presented by dependence on Russia, these countries need our support from the serious threat they face from Iran. Several of them have pursued an unprecedented thawing of relations with the democratic State of Israel, while some in the West seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Again, the West is failing to recognize a fundamental principle: you embrace willing friends and stand up to implacable foes, regardless of systems of internal administration.
The refusal of the U.S. administration to build ties with Saudi Arabia is an alarming case in point. The Kingdom is embarked on a wide range of reforms that the West has long wished for: greatly increased economic and social rights for women, freedom to travel abroad, accelerating economic diversification through Vision 2030, the crackdown on extremist actors and ideologies, and more. Yet there is silence from Washington, just as Vladimir Putin works overtime to build bridges.
Western leaders must learn from the mistakes that led to the attack on Ukraine and start dealing with the world in accord with our own security interests. We must return to policies anchored in the concept of peace through strength. This means boosting our own capacities, but also working more closely with those with whose interests we are aligned.
A nuclear armed Iran, with its apocalyptic vision, would be nothing short of catastrophic for its regional neighbours and global security, including the interests of North America. We must be pragmatic and strategic about deepening cooperation with those who have an existential stake in containing the dangerous theocrats in Tehran.
The breakdown of the JCPOA talks in Vienna is not a tragedy. It is an opportunity for the West to learn from its mistakes and choose a more rational path forward.
• Stephen Harper was the 22nd prime minister of Canada and is chairman and CEO of Harper & Associates Consulting.

Harvard President Should Use His First Amendment Right to Condemn The Harvard
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/May 09/2022
The Crimson editors justify their bigotry by subtly invoking the classic antisemitic trope of Jewish "power," and by presenting a one-sided history that places no fault on the Palestinian leadership, ignores the threats faced by Israel from Palestinian terrorist and Iranian nuclear threats, and mendaciously omits the numerous Palestinian rejections of Israel's offers to accept a two-state solution.
Would a similar refusal to condemn explicitly other bigoted editorials that singled out other groups or nations be deemed acceptable by the Harvard community? Such as:
An editorial supporting the overruling of Roe v. Wade and calling for the banning of all "baby killing" abortions;
An editorial blaming race-based affirmative action for lowering standards throughout the country...
[I]t was less than 90 years ago that the Harvard Crimson supported giving an honorary doctorate to the official spokesperson for Hitler's Nazi Germany. Harvard's then president, James B. Conant, did not condemn the editorial. Indeed, he himself supported Nazi Germany in many ways.
An editorial singling out Black African nations for human rights violations that are worse in other parts of the world;
An editorial declaring Donald Trump the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
The question [Harvard President Lawrence] Bacow should ask himself is whether he would refuse to comment on any of the hypothetical editorials were The Crimson to publish them.
Harvard cannot have a double standard regarding matters Jewish or the nation state of the Jewish people, even if some radical students demand it.
Bacow should reconsider his no comment stance and use his bully pulpit to say what I'm sure he believes in his heart: that The Crimson's editorial was a bigoted, mendacious and irresponsible attack on the nation state of the Jewish people and its supporters.
Pictured: Harvard President Lawrence Bacow. (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
The President of Harvard — a proud Jewish supporter of Israel and a good person— has thus far refused explicitly to condemn The Harvard Crimson's blatantly anti-Semitic editorial singling out Israel for a political boycott. The Crimson editors justify their bigotry by subtly invoking the classic antisemitic trope of Jewish "power," and by presenting a one-sided history that places no fault on the Palestinian leadership, ignores the threats faced by Israel from Palestinian terrorist and Iranian nuclear threats, and mendaciously omits the numerous Palestinian rejections of Israel's offers to accept a two-state solution.
The former president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers condemned the editorial as antisemitic in both "intent and effect." But Harvard President Lawrence Bacow refused to condemn the editorial, limiting himself to the following:
"First let me say that I will not comment on the Crimson editorial. The Crimson is a student newspaper. It is independent of the university, and, I think it is fair to say, the Crimson does not represent, or certainly the editorial board does not represent, the views of the university. The Crimson editorial board represents the views of the Crimson editorial board. We believe in a free press. They are entitled to publish what they wish and to share their views as they may."
Standing alone, that statement can be justified. But the more difficult question is whether it passes the "shoe on the other foot test" of neutrality? Would a similar refusal to condemn explicitly other bigoted editorials that singled out other groups or nations be deemed acceptable by the Harvard community? I doubt it.
Consider the following hypotheticals — hypotheticals only because the current reality would never permit them to be published:
An editorial supporting the overruling of Roe v. Wade and calling for the banning of all "baby killing" abortions;
An editorial blaming race-based affirmative action for lowering standards throughout the country;
An editorial calling gay and transgender people abnormal and immoral.
An editorial calling climate concerns "fake news;"
An editorial singling out Black African nations for human rights violations that are worse in other parts of the world;
An editorial declaring Donald Trump the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
These outrageous statements may seem farfetched to the contemporary eye. But it was less than 90 years ago that The Harvard Crimson supported giving an honorary doctorate to the official spokesperson for Hitler's Nazi Germany. Harvard's then president, James B. Conant, did not condemn the editorial. Indeed, he himself supported Nazi Germany in many ways.
I do not mean to compare the current editorial to the one in the 1930's, or to compare the reactions of Harvard's presidents. There is no comparison. I cite the pro-Nazi editorial to make the point that what is politically acceptable today — singling out the nation state of the Jewish people for bigoted and mendacious condemnation— may be as different in the future as it was in the past.
The question Bacow should ask himself is whether he would refuse to comment on any of the hypothetical editorials were The Crimson to publish them. And if his answer is that they are different, he should ask why. The one about affirmative action would involve Harvard directly, and so there would be a justification for "no comment," but at least some of the others would be quite analogous to the anti-Israel editorial: they would cause pain to many Harvard students but would not directly affect the university itself.
Harvard cannot have a double standard regarding matters Jewish or the nation state of the Jewish people, even if some radical students demand it. Bacow should reconsider his no comment stance and use his bully pulpit to say what I'm sure he believes in his heart: that The Crimson's editorial was a bigoted, mendacious and irresponsible attack on the nation state of the Jewish people and its supporters. If he persists on not commenting on this editorial, he must apply that same standard to other statements that are associated with the Harvard name, even when they do not represent "the views of the university."
The left shoe must fit comfortably on the right foot — and vice versa.
*Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of The Case for Color-Blind Equality in an Age of Identity Politics. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow," on Rumble.
© 2022 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.

Is This a Mine Elon Musk and Joe Biden Can Both Support?
Adam Minter/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 09/2022
The future of US-made electric-vehicle batteries might be found in a modest white shed in Tamarack, Minnesota, population 104.
Beneath bright fluorescent lights, foot-long cylindrical pieces of rock are laid out in cardboard boxes, where they sparkle with grains found in the millions of pounds of nickel that Tesla Inc. committed to buy on Jan. 11. That commitment has the potential to turn into a savvy buy for the electric carmaker.
Brian Goldner, chief exploration officer for Talon Metals Corp., an exploration and mining company, lifts one of the rock cylinders recently drilled from hundreds of feet below the Earth's surface and tilts it so that the nickel catches the light. “Over nine percent,” he says of the unusually high metal content. “It's crazy.”
In 2020, Tesla's Elon Musk begged miners to “please mine more nickel” and offered a “giant contract” to anyone who could do it sustainably. The problem is acute. Nickel is a key component of electric-vehicle batteries. Thanks to surging EV demand, geopolitics and a lack of new supplies, the high-grade nickel necessary for making electric-vehicle batteries is becoming scarce.
According to Goldman Sachs, the world faced a high-grade nickel deficit in 2021 that will widen in 2022, and quadruple to over 800,000 tons by 2030. That shortage is having an impact: In March, Tesla raised prices on vehicles with nickel-based batteries by $1,000 to account for surging raw material costs.
Recycling and waste reclamation are important means of obtaining some of it. But if the world is truly committed to achieving a net zero carbon future, new mining must play the key role over the next decade. Tesla's commitment to Talon is, in part, a bet that Talon can do it.
If it's successful, the payoff will be more than just financial. It'll be a road map for mining the critical materials necessary to compete in a net zero future.
Desperate Demand for US-Sourced Nickel
Late on a bright weekday afternoon, I step out of a Talon Metals' company car, a Tesla Model 3, and into a large, pine-lined clearing in Tamarack, located 50 miles west of Duluth. I'm accompanied by representatives of Talon, which — with its partner, Rio Tinto PLC subsidiary Kennecott Exploration Co. — continues to explore an ore body that stretches over 11 miles and 31,000 acres of state and private land.
Here, four rigs are drilling cores, what company representatives characterize as the “only high-grade development stage nickel project in the USA.” The company hopes to begin mining in 2026, one year after the country's only operating nickel mine, in Michigan, is scheduled to cease operations.
The timing is excellent, especially for policy makers and battery makers desperate for US-sourced, sustainable nickel. According to the White House, global demand for nickel sulfate, the high-grade ore containing metal pure enough for batteries, will grow from 200,000 to 3 million tons per year by 2040.
For now, production of high-grade nickel isn't nearly sufficient to keep up with a global electric-car population that will grow from roughly 13 million today to 677 million by 2040. And what production exists, isn't necessarily going to be accessible to US car and battery makers. For example, Russia accounts for around 20% of the world's Class 1 nickel supply. So far it hasn't cut off supplies to customers, but that could change.
The Joe Biden administration was worried about supply-chain constraints well before the war in Ukraine. Recent events have only sharpened the White House's thinking, highlighting — among other deficits — that the US accounts for only 0.64% of all global nickel production.
As a result, at the end of March, it invoked the Defense Production Act to boost domestic production of critical materials used in electric vehicles. Among the means to be used include “environmentally responsible domestic mining and processing.”
That phrase alarms environmentalists, and with good reason. When nickel is mined from sulfide-bearing ores like those in Tamarack, the tailings are typically exposed to air and often water. The resulting chemical reaction produces sulfuric acid and toxic metals that can seep into water and harm plants, animals and humans.
A 2012 review of 14 copper sulfide mines that represented 89% of US copper production found that 13 failed to control contaminated seepage. The damage can be catastrophic: Acidic mining wastes accumulated over decades transformed parts of Butte, Montana, into one of the US's largest Superfund sites.
In Butte and many other former mining sites, cleanup costs that can total in the billions are often borne by taxpayers. Paula Maccabee, advocacy director and counsel for Water Legacy, a nonprofit founded to oppose sulfide mining in northern Minnesota, argues that, on a regulatory level, few lessons have been learned from these failures. “Minnesota and federal regulators have shown themselves to be ill-equipped to control the environmental effects of sulfide mining,” she says.
The White House's interest in mining has also attracted the concern of native American tribes. Mining companies have a long history of damaging the environment in or near tribal lands, typically with little or no consent of the tribes. The transition to electrical vehicles could, potentially, further that ruinous legacy.
A 2021 analysis by MSCI Inc. found that the majority of US reserves of energy transition metals are located within 35 miles of native American reservations. In the case of nickel, it's 97%. That includes Tamarack, which is within a watershed that affects two federally recognized tribes, which, among other activities, cultivate wild rice in federally protected waters.
Can a Sulfide Mine Be Sustainable?
At Tamarack, the question of how to mine sustainably looms particularly large. As we walk toward one of the drill rigs, Todd Malan, Talon's chief external affairs officer and head of climate strategy, points out several water monitoring wells.
“These give us a baseline understanding of underground water flows over many years,” he says. That data won't just be incorporated into the eventual mining proposal, currently set to be released in early 2023. “We are sharing this data with regulators and the wider community.”
In central and northern Minnesota, the wider community includes tribes and environmentalists, and they will need to be satisfied. Over the last decade, Minnesota has hosted two bitter battles over proposed sulfide mines near the federally recognized Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
So far, the mining industry has lost, in part due to a perceived lack of transparency on environmental matters. In January, the Biden administration canceled the leases for one of the projects, and the other is tied up in environmental reviews and court cases, some of which include tribes.
With that in mind, Talon is explicitly positioning Tamarack as a sustainable project. For starters, the mine is nowhere near the Boundary Waters. Though most details of its plan aren't yet public, Talon is pledging that it will have a much smaller surface footprint than other proposed Minnesota sulfide mines. It will also be designed to recover more of what it mines, including iron powder that can be used for Tesla's growing fleet of cars using cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Perhaps most notably, Talon has received $2.2 million from the Department of Energy, and $4 million from Rio Tinto, to research a large-scale carbon sequestration system on the mine lands using technology already deployed in Iceland. If that comes to pass, Talon — and Tesla — would be in a position to market the mine's nickel as a net zero product.
Neither of the two tribal bands that will be directly affected by Tamarack responded to emailed questions about the project. But Talan isn't alone in hoping that they will eventually approve of it. The Biden White House has repeatedly signaled that it expects the mining of critical minerals to account for, respect and benefit tribal communities.
At a convention late last month on opportunities for indigenous communities to benefit from a net zero economy (in part, sponsored by Rio Tinto and Talon Metals), Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm went even further. She told the nearly 1,300 delegates that “we want to see tribal communities at the forefront of the clean energy transition.” Those communities appear to be listening: Among the delegates was Kelly Applegate, the commissioner of natural resources for the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe, one of the tribes with lands that the Tamarack mine could affect.
Environmental groups are taking a similarly cautious approach. Over the last year, several national organizations have voiced cautious support for the Biden administration's push for mining reform and sustainable mining of critical materials.
In Minnesota, Water Legacy's Maccabee remains skeptical that a mining plan can protect the water-rich environment around Tamarack. That said, she doesn't rule out the idea of acceptable sulfide mining, somewhere. But like many environmentalists, she insists that mining should be a last approach, after trying other means of obtaining critical materials: “Can we look at what we can get from nickel recycling?”
The White House wants recycling to play a role, as well. It’s offered support and funding for research and financing of advanced recycling infrastructure for critical materials, including those related to batteries. But there simply isn't enough high-grade nickel to fill the supply gap.
Goldman Sachs recently estimated that batteries available globally for recycling will quintuple by 2030 (to 356 gigawatt hours). Even if that estimate is accurate, it will still only amount to around 7% of the global nickel supply. Expecting it to replace high-grade nickel mining is a bit like asking for recycled railroad tracks to replace the need for iron-ore mining — in 1820.
‘A Unique Opportunity’
Tesla didn't respond to a request to comment on the Tamarack project. But that doesn't mean the company doesn't care. In recent years, for example, members of Minnesota tribal nations have been active in protests against oil pipelines, causing delays and reputational damage to their owners. It's not difficult to imagine similar disruptions over a mining plan, and a hit to Tesla's reputation as a “sustainable” company.
Talon, for its part, has no interest in seeing any of that happen. As we walk back to Talon's Tesla, Malan tells me that the company is “listening to the community's concerns about mining in a water-rich region.”
If Talon has any hope of meeting its target to begin mining in 2026, it will need to allay those concerns. “We have a unique opportunity build a mine that both Joe Biden and Elon Musk can support,” he tells me as we walk into one of the drilling rigs. If Talon succeeds in that quest, the US will be one step closer to achieving its net zero ambitions.