English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 05/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.august05.20.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith
Matthew 23/23-26: "‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 04-05/2020
Israel Offers Lebanon Aid after Beirut Port Blasts
Gulf Nations Pay Tribute to Lebanon Blast Victims
World Offers Support, Condolences to Lebanon after Devastating Blasts
Iran Airs Support for 'Resilient' Lebanese after Blasts
‘They became ashes’: at least 70 killed in massive explosion at Beirut port
Hundreds injured after massive explosion rocks Beirut Port
Massive explosion rocks Beirut Port causing damage to nearby buildings
Beirut explosion shatters windows across Lebanese capital
Netanyahu warns Hezbollah after Israeli strike in Syria
Netanyahu Warns Hizbullah after Israeli Retaliatory Strike in Syria
New FM Assumes Duties at Ministry
Report: Hitti’s Resignation ‘Exposes’ Government
President Aoun receives call of solidarity from Emir of Qatar
President Aoun asks armed forces to address repercussions of Beirut Port explosion
French, Iraqi Presidents contact President Aoun, express solidarity with Lebanon
Diab delivers speech in wake of Beirut Port’s blast: Lebanon is facing a disaster
UN’s Kubis says Beirut Port blast a “horrific tragedy”
Minister Wehbe receives solidarity contacts from foreign counterparts
Kettaneh to NNA: Red Cross is fully ready to transfer all Covid-19 cases to hospitals
Coronavirus toll at 1100 GMT Tuesday
Rafik Hariri Hospital Clarifies Number of COVID-19 Beds
Police Scuffle with Protesters near Energy Ministry
Lebanese Try to Storm Energy Ministry Amid Power Cuts
Hariri Meets Security Chiefs as STL Verdicts Loom
Lebanon Govt. 'Stalling since Inception,' Say European Diplomats
Record Temperatures, Pending Deals Inflame Lebanon, Iraq's Power Woes
Speculation and fear after massive explosion in Beirut
Hezbollah looted Lebanon and it will cost $93b. to bail it out - analysis
Israel strikes at targets in southern Syria after attempted Golan attack/Damascus said air defences had gone into action near the Syrian capital.
Charbel Wehbi: Who is Lebanon's new foreign minister?
Lebanese FM abandons ‘sinking ship’, sees no reform intent
Lebanon is sliding into the abyss of a “failed state”
Crisis-weary Lebanon braces for Hariri tribunal verdict
Often on brink, Lebanon hurtles toward collapse
Experts warn Lebanon could be heading towards collapse

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 04-05/2020
Turkey works with Syrian regime to oppose US company oil deal in Syria
Fire breaks out at Iranian industrial area, no casualties: state TV
North Korea has 'probably' developed nuclear devices to fit ballistic missiles, U.N. report says
WHO Urges Russia to Follow Guidelines on Virus Vaccine
Philippines Orders Millions to Stay Home as Global Virus Cases Soar
Kuwait emir's health shows "significant improvement" PM
 

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 04-05/2020

It’s time for a third special operations revolution/David Maxwell/Military Times/August 04/2020
Biden Should Give Maduro Reason to Worry/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
Like the IRGC, Iran’s army should be a designated terror organization/Reza Parchizadeh/Al Arabiya/Tuesday 04 August 2020
The Rich Still Want to Buy Their Ferraris/Chris Hughes/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
100-Year-Old Antitrust Laws Are No Match for Big Tech/Tara Lachapelle/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
Goodbye Weak Dollar, Hello Emerging Market Crisis?/John Authers/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
Good Covid-19 News From Italy...and Sweden/Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
Developing Nations Are Dealt a One-Two Hit to Growth/Noah Smith/Bloomberg/August 04/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 04-05/2020

Israel Offers Lebanon Aid after Beirut Port Blasts
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
Israel on Tuesday offered humanitarian aid to Lebanon, with which it is still technically at war, following the huge explosions that rocked Beirut, killing dozens of people and wounding thousands. "Following the explosion in Beirut, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, on behalf of the State of Israel, have offered the Lebanese government -- via international intermediaries -- medical and humanitarian aid, as well as immediate emergency assistance," said a joint statement from the two ministries. The offer comes after two weeks of heightened tensions between the rival neighbors. Last week, Israel accused Lebanon's Hizbullah of trying to send gunmen across the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line and said it held the Lebanese government responsible for what it termed an attempted "terrorist" attack. Hizbullah and Israel last fought a 33-day war in the summer of 2006. General chief Abbas Ibrahim said Tuesday's blast may have been caused by explosive materials confiscated years ago and stored at the city's port.

Gulf Nations Pay Tribute to Lebanon Blast Victims
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
Countries in the Gulf paid tribute to victims of the two powerful blasts that rocked Beirut Tuesday as Qatar said it would send field hospitals to support Lebanon's medical response. Qatar's ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani called President Michel Aoun to offer condolences, according to the state-run Qatar News Agency. Sheikh Tamim wished "a speedy recovery for the injured," QNA reported, adding that he "expressed Qatar's solidarity with brotherly Lebanon and its willingness to provide all kinds of assistance."Field hospitals would be dispatched, the report added. Elsewhere in the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates' Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted that "our hearts are with Beirut and its people."He posted the tribute alongside an image of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, illuminated in the colors of the Lebanese flag. "Our prayers during these difficult hours are that God... protects brotherly Lebanon and the Lebanese to reduce their affliction and heal their wounds," he wrote. Gulf countries including Qatar and the UAE maintain close ties with Beirut and have long provided financial aid and diplomatic assistance to mediate Lebanon's political and sectarian divisions. Bahrain's foreign ministry urged its nationals in Lebanon to contact the ministry's operations center or Manama's representative in Beirut, while Kuwait ordered its citizens to take extreme caution and stay indoors. It also asked those in need of assistance to contact their embassy.

World Offers Support, Condolences to Lebanon after Devastating Blasts
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
Close allies and traditional adversaries of Lebanon paid tribute on Tuesday to the victims of massive and deadly twin blasts in Beirut, as condolences and offers of help poured in. Prime Minister Hassan Diab called on "friendly countries" to support the country already reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades as well as the coronavirus pandemic. Gulf nations were among the first to react, with Qatar promising to send field hospitals to support the medical response. Qatar's ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani wished "a speedy recovery for the injured," while the United Arab Emirates' Vice President and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, tweeted "our condolences to our beloved people in Lebanon."Kuwait said it would also send emergency medical aid. Egypt expressed "deep concern" at the destruction, and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboulgheit offered condolences, stressing "the importance of finding the truth about the explosions". Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Amman was ready to provide any help Lebanon needed, while Iran said it was "fully prepared to render assistance in any way necessary". "Our thoughts and prayers are with the great and resilient people of Lebanon," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted.
"Stay strong, Lebanon."
Neighboring Israel also offered humanitarian aid to Lebanon, with which it is still technically at war. "Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, on behalf of the State of Israel, have offered the Lebanese government -- via international intermediaries -- medical and humanitarian aid, as well as immediate emergency assistance," a statement read. Outside the region, President Vladimir Putin said that "Russia shares the grief of the Lebanese people," according to a Kremlin statement. "I ask you to convey words of sympathy and support to the families and friends of the victims, as well as wishes for a speedy recovery to all affected."Washington said it too would help. "We extend our deepest condolences to all those affected, and stand ready to offer all possible assistance," a State Department spokesperson said. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the country was "ready to provide assistance according to the needs expressed by the Lebanese authorities".

Iran Airs Support for 'Resilient' Lebanese after Blasts
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
Iran's top diplomat expressed Tehran's support for the "resilient" people of Lebanon after Beirut was rocked by devastating explosions on Tuesday. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the great and resilient people of Lebanon," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted. "As always, Iran is fully prepared to render assistance in any way necessary," he said."Stay strong, Lebanon," added the Iranian foreign minister. At least 50 people were killed and 2,750 injured, according to "preliminary estimates" announced by Lebanese Health Minister Hamad Hassan. The explosions hit Beirut's port, flattening buildings in the vicinity and sending out shockwaves for kilometers. The cause was not immediately known.
 

‘They became ashes’: at least 70 killed in massive explosion at Beirut port
Sunniva Rose , Bassam Zaazaa , Taylor Heyman and Khaled Yacoub Oweis/The National/August 0/4/2020
Thousands were wounded in the apparent accident, which sent shockwaves across the city, officials said.
A huge explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least 70 people and wounding thousands in the port area of the Lebanese capital, the country’s health minister said.
The blast, felt as far away as the island of Cyprus, shattered windows and caused buildings to collapse in the area as a huge pink-hued mushroom cloud rose into the sky. "It is a disaster in every sense of the word," Health Minister Hamad Hasan said while visiting a hospital in Beirut. Mr Hasan said nearly 4,000 people were injured in the blast.A civil defence official at the scene of the blast said his men had moved dozens of people to hospitals and that there were still bodies inside the port, many of them under debris. Mr Hasan said the blast had caused a "very high number of injuries".The country’s Red Cross, which appealed for blood donations, said there were hundreds of casualties.
The cause of the blast has not been confirmed but officials indicated an accident involving chemicals.
Lebanon's internal security chief, Maj Gen Abbas Ibrahim, said authorities confiscated a large amount of ammonium nitrate, which was supposed to have been destroyed months ago.
Gen Ibrahim said the chemicals caught alight, causing the huge second blast.
“It was a big explosion and then my house ceiling came down and all the windows were wrecked,” a journalist who lives in the Gemmayze area told The National.
“I fell down on the floor and had to dig myself out of the apartment.”
Supermarket manager Bahij, 47, was driving in the Karantina area of the city, close to the blast site, when he was suddenly blown from the car, causing injuries to his head and hands. “This is insane. It is the first time I've come across such a massive explosion. I don’t know what it is,” he said.
“I only remember myself on the pavement being carried and attended to by two bystanders.”Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab appealed for international help after the “catastrophe”.
Mr Diab said there would be a full investigation “to reveal facts regarding this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014".
He said “those responsible will pay the price for what happened today".
Mr Diab earlier met heads of the Lebanese security agencies, concerned ministries and other senior officials for an emergency discussion on dealing with the fallout from the blast.The international community was quick to express solidarity with Lebanon. France, Iran and the US all offered assistance.
Israel, which last fought a war in Lebanon with Hezbollah in 2006, offered the Lebanese government "medical humanitarian aid", its Defence Ministry said.
A huge explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least 70 people and wounding thousands in the port area of the Lebanese capital, the country’s health minister said.
The blast, felt as far away as the island of Cyprus, shattered windows and caused buildings to collapse in the area as a huge pink-hued mushroom cloud rose into the sky. "It is a disaster in every sense of the word," Health Minister Hamad Hasan said while visiting a hospital in Beirut. Mr Hasan said nearly 4,000 people were injured in the blast. A civil defence official at the scene of the blast said his men had moved dozens of people to hospitals and that there were still bodies inside the port, many of them under debris. Mr Hasan said the blast had caused a "very high number of injuries". The country’s Red Cross, which appealed for blood donations, said there were hundreds of casualties. The cause of the blast has not been confirmed but officials indicated an accident involving chemicals.
Lebanon's internal security chief, Maj Gen Abbas Ibrahim, said authorities confiscated a large amount of ammonium nitrate, which was supposed to have been destroyed months ago.Gen Ibrahim said the chemicals caught alight, causing the huge second blast.“It was a big explosion and then my house ceiling came down and all the windows were wrecked,” a journalist who lives in the Gemmayze area told The National.
“I fell down on the floor and had to dig myself out of the apartment.”
Supermarket manager Bahij, 47, was driving in the Karantina area of the city, close to the blast site, when he was suddenly blown from the car, causing injuries to his head and hands. “This is insane. It is the first time I've come across such a massive explosion. I don’t know what it is,” he said.
“I only remember myself on the pavement being carried and attended to by two bystanders.”Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab appealed for international help after the “catastrophe”. Mr Diab said there would be a full investigation “to reveal facts regarding this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014".
He said “those responsible will pay the price for what happened today".
Mr Diab earlier met heads of the Lebanese security agencies, concerned ministries and other senior officials for an emergency discussion on dealing with the fallout from the blast. The international community was quick to express solidarity with Lebanon. France, Iran and the US all offered assistance.
Israel, which last fought a war in Lebanon with Hezbollah in 2006, offered the Lebanese government "medical humanitarian aid", its Defence Ministry said.
Hundreds of people wandered the streets in varying states of disarray late into the evening, many clutching elderly relatives and children injured by flying glass and debris.
The chaos was heightened by a lack of information on what caused the explosion.
They were heard as far away as Nicosia on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, 240 kilometres away.
"I was walking back home, me and my friend, in Hamra Street," said Lynn Darraj, 15, a pupil at Ali Ben Abi Taleb School in Beirut.
"Suddenly, out of nowhere, we heard a very, very strong explosion and the sky became filled with pink gas.
"It became all pink and the glass was flying, and there wasn't a single place left unshattered. "There was a man who let us inside his shop and he hid us inside. And there were children crying."
"It was horrific. We are used to seeing this in movies, not in real life. Old people, young people, all got burnt in the explosion. They became ashes."
The port was rebuilt and expanded after the 1990 civil war, under plans envisaged by the late Lebanese statesman, Rafik Hariri, and new cranes installed to handle the biggest container ships. But corruption has been a main impediment to the port resuming its prior role as a regional centre, businessmen said.
A huge explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least 70 people and wounding thousands in the port area of the Lebanese capital, the country’s health minister said.
The blast, felt as far away as the island of Cyprus, shattered windows and caused buildings to collapse in the area as a huge pink-hued mushroom cloud rose into the sky. "It is a disaster in every sense of the word," Health Minister Hamad Hasan said while visiting a hospital in Beirut.
Mr Hasan said nearly 4,000 people were injured in the blast.
A civil defence official at the scene of the blast said his men had moved dozens of people to hospitals and that there were still bodies inside the port, many of them under debris.
Mr Hasan said the blast had caused a "very high number of injuries".
The country’s Red Cross, which appealed for blood donations, said there were hundreds of casualties.
The cause of the blast has not been confirmed but officials indicated an accident involving chemicals.
Lebanon's internal security chief, Maj Gen Abbas Ibrahim, said authorities confiscated a large amount of ammonium nitrate, which was supposed to have been destroyed months ago.
Gen Ibrahim said the chemicals caught alight, causing the huge second blast.
“It was a big explosion and then my house ceiling came down and all the windows were wrecked,” a journalist who lives in the Gemmayze area told The National.
“I fell down on the floor and had to dig myself out of the apartment.”
Supermarket manager Bahij, 47, was driving in the Karantina area of the city, close to the blast site, when he was suddenly blown from the car, causing injuries to his head and hands. “This is insane. It is the first time I've come across such a massive explosion. I don’t know what it is,” he said.
“I only remember myself on the pavement being carried and attended to by two bystanders.”Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab appealed for international help after the “catastrophe”.
Mr Diab said there would be a full investigation “to reveal facts regarding this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014".
He said “those responsible will pay the price for what happened today".
Mr Diab earlier met heads of the Lebanese security agencies, concerned ministries and other senior officials for an emergency discussion on dealing with the fallout from the blast. The international community was quick to express solidarity with Lebanon. France, Iran and the US all offered assistance.
Israel, which last fought a war in Lebanon with Hezbollah in 2006, offered the Lebanese government "medical humanitarian aid", its Defence Ministry said.
Hundreds of people wandered the streets in varying states of disarray late into the evening, many clutching elderly relatives and children injured by flying glass and debris.
The chaos was heightened by a lack of information on what caused the explosion.
They were heard as far away as Nicosia on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, 240 kilometres away.
"I was walking back home, me and my friend, in Hamra Street," said Lynn Darraj, 15, a pupil at Ali Ben Abi Taleb School in Beirut.
"Suddenly, out of nowhere, we heard a very, very strong explosion and the sky became filled with pink gas.
"It became all pink and the glass was flying, and there wasn't a single place left unshattered. "There was a man who let us inside his shop and he hid us inside. And there were children crying.""It was horrific. We are used to seeing this in movies, not in real life. Old people, young people, all got burnt in the explosion. They became ashes."
Photos of the aftermath of the explosions showed huge damage to the city’s port wheat silos, a landmark of Beirut.
The port was rebuilt and expanded after the 1990 civil war, under plans envisaged by the late Lebanese statesman, Rafik Hariri, and new cranes installed to handle the biggest container ships.
But corruption has been a main impediment to the port resuming its prior role as a regional centre, businessmen said.
A senior Red Cross official told The National that more than 300 people were taken to the American University of Beirut Medical Centre, filling it and other major hospitals in Beirut. For those less seriously injured, it was first aid kits and the kindness of others. Marie, 86, sat on the street in the Gemmayze area having her wounds tended to. She lives on the third floor of a nearby building and was standing near the window when it shattered from the force of the blast, its glass slicing her skin. “I left my flat two hours ago and took my first aid kit with me to help people,” Dr Michael Aoun, 24, said while treating Marie.

Hundreds injured after massive explosion rocks Beirut Port
Jerusalem Post//Naharnet/August 04/2020
Multiple videos show plume of smoke rising from coastline and then a large blast and shockwave. IDF remains on high alert in the North. A massive explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday and a tall plume of smoke could be seen from a distance. The explosion took place at a warehouse at the Beirut Port. Ambulances transported hundreds of injured people to local hospitals and dozens are feared to have been killed in the incident. Multiple videos from the area showed a plume of smoke rising from near the coastline and then a large blast and shockwave. Buildings throughout the area were damaged in the blast, including media offices and Lebanon’s electrical company. Multiple videos show plume of smoke rising from coastline and then a large blast and shockwave. IDF remains on high alert in the North.
Video and pictures from the scene showed windows blown out and debris strewn in buildings and streets throughout Lebanon’s capital. Some buildings in the area collapsed and emergency forces rushed to rescue those trapped in the rubble. Electrical outages were reported throughout the capital hampering search and rescue efforts. "I saw a fireball and smoke billowing over Beirut. People were screaming and running, bleeding. Balconies were blown off buildings. Glass in high-rise buildings shattered and fell to the street," said a Reuters witness.
At least 17 people are dead and over 800 are wounded, a Red Cross source told the Independent Arab. The Secretary-General of the Kataeb Party was killed in the incident, according to Al-Hadath.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun called the Supreme Council of Defense for an emergency meeting on Tuesday evening. Ambulances were called in from around the country and the Lebanese Army sent reinforcements to the area. Some 30 Red Cross teams are operating in the area. Lebanese citizens were asked to donate blood if possible and doctors were asked to come immediately and help treat the wounded.
Hospitals in the capital ran out of room and began treating wounded people in hallways and transferring other wounded people outside of Beirut. Injuries, damage and deaths were reported on streets and in buildings throughout Beirut. The source of the explosion is unclear. Initial reports indicated that the fire occurred in a warehouse storing fireworks and video from the scene appeared to show fireworks igniting shortly before the blast. Additional reports claim that a nearby warehouse was storing explosive chemicals that had been confiscated at the port. Lebanon's General Security director told Al-Hadath that reports that the explosion was caused by fireworks were "ridiculous" and that the explosion involved high-quality explosives. The Interior Ministry stated that the explosive being stored at the warehouse was ammonium nitrate and that customs should be asked why it was being stored there. An odd smell was noticed in the area after the explosion, according to Al-Mayadeen.
Lebanese officials stressed that the cause of the explosion is still unknown and is under investigation. Sources from Hezbollah told OTV Lebanon that there was "no truth" to reports that the explosion was caused by an Israeli strike on Hezbollah weapons at the port. Israeli defense officials denied that Israel had any connection to the incident. Hezbollah operatives were seen at the port after the explosion, according to Al-Arabiya. Al-Arabiya reported that the explosion occurred at a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah. Fighter jets were spotted over Tel Aviv after the explosion, according to Channel 12 news. The IDF has been on high alert in the North ever since Hezbollah operatives tried crossing into Israel last week. Late Monday night, the IDF struck multiple targets throughout Syria in response to an attempt by a terror cell in Syria to plant an explosive device along the border fence with Israel.
The Trump administration is closely tracking the deadly explosion in Beirut, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told a news briefing on Tuesday, but she offered no details about the causes of the blast. The European Union, United States, Cyprus and a number of other countries offered support after the disaster. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced a national day of mourning on Wednesday for the victims of the explosion. A significant internet outage was reported in Lebanon following reports of the explosion, according to internet watchdog NetBlocks. It is unclear what caused the outage. The former home of the late Lebanese president Rafik Hariri, who was killed 15 years ago in an alleged Hezbollah-Iranian attack, is located near where the explosion took place. His son, former prime minister Saad Hariri, was in offices near the site, but was not injured in the incident, according to LBCI. A number of members of Hezbollah are being tried in absentia at the Hague for planning and arranging the attack in which a truck carrying 3,000 kg of high-grade explosives was blown up next to Hariri's motorcade, killing him and 21 others. A verdict is expected to be issued by the court on Friday.
*Reuters contributed to this report.

Massive explosion rocks Beirut Port causing damage to nearby buildings
Jerusalem Post/August 04/2020
Multiple videos show plume of smoke rising from coastline and then a large blast and shockwave. IDF remains on high alert in the North. A massive explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday and a tall plume of smoke could be seen from a distance. The explosion took place at the Beirut Port. According to Lebanese media, ambulances were transporting dozens of injured people to local hospitals.Multiple videos from the area showed a plume of smoke rising from near the coastline and then a large blast and shockwave. Nearby buildings were damaged in the blast. The Daily Star newspaper, for example, released a video from its offices showing extensive damage. The source of the explosion was unclear. LBCI Lebanon News claimed that a fire had broken out at the port and then triggered an explosion of a nearby warehouse storing fireworks. According to the Daily Star, two explosions were reported, one at the port and another near the former home of the late Lebanese president Rafik Hariri, who was killed 15 years ago in a Hezbollah-Iranian attack. Video and pictures from the scene showed windows blown out and debris strewn in shops and offices in the Hamra neighborhood of Beirut. The IDF has been on high alert in the North ever since Hezbollah operatives tried crossing into Israel last week. Late Monday night, the IDF struck multiple targets throughout Syria in response to an attempt by a terror cell in Syria to plant an explosive device along the border fence with Israel.

Beirut explosion shatters windows across Lebanese capital
Tamara Qiblawi and Ben Wedeman, CNN
Beirut, Lebanon (CNN)A large explosion ripped through the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, injuring people and smashing windows in buildings across the city.
The source of the explosion was a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port in Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported. Local news reported large numbers of wounded people.
Many buildings were damaged by the explosion, including the headquarters of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and CNN's bureau in the city. A red cloud hung over Beirut in the wake of the blast as firefighting teams rushed to the scene to try to put out the fire.Homes as far as 10 kilometers away were damaged, according to witnesses, and local media video showed cars destroyed and flipped over. One Beirut resident who was several kilometers away from the site of the blast said her windows had been shattered by the explosion. "What I felt was that it was an earthquake," Rania Masri told CNN. "The apartment shook horizontally and all of a sudden it felt like an explosion and the windows and doors burst open. The glass just broke. So many homes were damaged or destroyed." This is a breaking story, more to follow.

Netanyahu warns Hezbollah after Israeli strike in Syria
Associated Press/August 04/2020
Netanyahu, who toured a military base on Tuesday, said Israel would not hesitate to take further action.

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday warned the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group and others after Israeli forces said they thwarted an infiltration attempt from Syria by suspected militants. The Israeli military announced late Monday that it had struck targets in Syria after the militants tried to plant explosives in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israel struck the four suspects, who were believed to have been killed. Netanyahu, who toured a military base on Tuesday, said Israel would not hesitate to take further action. “We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers. We will do what is necessary in order to defend ourselves. I suggest to all of them, including Hezbollah, to consider this,” he said.
 

Netanyahu Warns Hizbullah after Israeli Retaliatory Strike in Syria
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday warned Hizbullah and others after Israeli forces said they thwarted an infiltration attempt from Syria by suspected militants. The Israeli military announced late Monday that it had struck targets in Syria after the militants tried to plant explosives in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israel struck the four suspects, who were believed to have been killed. Syrian state-run news agency SANA said Israeli helicopters rocketed Syrian army positions near Quneitra in the south but caused only material damage. It also said air defenses had gone into action near the Syrian capital. Netanyahu, who toured a military base on Tuesday, said Israel would not hesitate to take further action. "We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers. We will do what is necessary in order to defend ourselves. I suggest to all of them, including Hizbullah, to consider this," he said. "These are not vain words; they have the weight of the State of Israel and the (military) behind them and this should be taken seriously," the veteran premier added. Several Israeli media outlets reported that Monday's actions were in response to an increased threat from Iran-backed Hizbullah, which has a significant presence in Syria.
The incidents come amid heightened tension on Israel's northern frontier following a recent Israeli airstrike that killed a Hizbullah fighter in Syria and anticipation that the Iran-backed Lebanese group would retaliate.
Following the airstrike, the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was hit by explosives fired from Syria and Israel responded by attacking Syrian military positions and beefing up its forces in the area. Last week, Israel also said it thwarted an infiltration attempt from Lebanon by Hizbullah militants, after which it reported a clash and bombed Lebanese border areas, in one of the heaviest flare-ups along the volatile Israel-Lebanon frontier since a 2006 war between the bitter enemies. Hizbullah denied involvement in those incidents but said that its retaliation to the killing of one of its fighters "will certainly come."Israel considers Hizbullah to be its most immediate threat. Since battling Israel to a stalemate during a monthlong war in 2006, Hizbullah has gained more battlefield experience fighting alongside the Syrian government in that country's bloody civil war.

New FM Assumes Duties at Ministry
Naharnet/August 04/2020
Newly-appointed Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe assumed his duties on Tuesday, which he was duly handed over by his predecessor Nasif Hitti who stepped down from office on Monday. At the Foreign Ministry, Wehbe vowed that his ministry would work on the government's plan to return Syrian refugees back to their homeland. He also highlighted commitment to rejecting the resettlement of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, as well as to securing their repatriation. Moreover, Wehbe stressed on Lebanon's commitment to the implementation of UN resolution 1701, condemning the Israeli violations of the Lebanese sovereignty.

Report: Hitti’s Resignation ‘Exposes’ Government
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Naharnet/August 04/2020
The resignation of Foreign Minister Nasif Hitti has deepened “distrust” in the government of PM Hassan Diab, aggravating the state of “diplomatic isolation” surrounding the “ruling authority as government and presidential term,” An Nahar daily reported on Tuesday. Hitti’s resignation “exposed” Diab’s government and came as a “condemnation” against its policies, said the daily.The government has struggled to implement reforms amid rapidly spiraling inflation and soaring unemployment and poverty, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic. Hitti, who resigned Monday, said he had decided to resign “due to the absence of a vision for Lebanon ... and the absence of an effective will to achieve comprehensive structural reform.”In spite of his brief resignation statement, he was keen to signal that the authority has failed to manage the crisis and implement the required reforms to save the country, added An Nahar. In a stark warning, the Minister said Lebanon was turning into a “failed state” and urged politicians to rally around the country's national interest. Nidaa al-Watan newspaper wrote that the resignation of Hitti is an “irrefutable confirmation” of the government’s “futility” to steer the country out of its crisis, while quickly driving it into a “failed state.”"It is a blow to the political group that first named Hitti for the post of foreign minister. That is President Michel Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement,” political sources commenting on the issue to al-Joumhouria daily. Diab's cabinet was formed with the backing of Hizbullah and its political allies, including the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by Aoun. Lebanese media cited several reasons for Hitti's resignation, including reports that he was displeased with how Lebanese officials were encroaching on his prerogatives and handling diplomatic ties. Hitti's resignation comes after France's top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian during a visit last month scolded Lebanon's leadership for failing to move to save the country from collapse. Hitti was reportedly sidelined from a meeting between Le Drian, Diab and several cabinet ministers.

President Aoun receives call of solidarity from Emir of Qatar
NNA - President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received this evening a phone call from the Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who expressed his sorrow for the incident that the capital Beirut was subjected to this afternoon, and offered his condolences to the victims who fell, wishing the speedy recovery of the wounded. During the call, the Emir of the State of Qatar expressed his readiness to put all the capabilities of his country at the disposal of the Lebanese to help them in this difficult circumstance, and to contribute to stand by their side to overcome the repercussions of this disaster at all levels.—Presidency Press Office

President Aoun asks armed forces to address repercussions of Beirut Port explosion
NNA/August 04/2020
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, followed up the details of the great explosion that took place at Beirut Port, and instructed all armed forces to work to deal with the repercussions of the explosion and to conduct patrols in the affected districts of the capital and suburbs to control security.
President Aoun also asked to provide first aid to the wounded and the injured at the expense of the Ministry of Health, and to provide shelter for families who were displaced as a result of the enormous damage to property.—Presidency Press Office

French, Iraqi Presidents contact President Aoun, express solidarity with Lebanon
NNA/August 04/2020
The President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received this evening a series of contacts from leaders and presidents from different world countries, who affirmed their solidarity with Lebanon after the ordeal caused by the explosion in the capital Beirut this afternoon.
In this context, French President Emmanuel Macron phoned President Aoun, during which he assured French support to Lebanon, and its intention to help him overcome this misfortune that befell. President Macron put all the capabilities of France at Lebanon’s disposal during this delicate period, expressing his solidarity, and the French people, with all the Lebanese who lost loved ones in the explosion, others were injured, and others lost their homes, stressing the determination to provide urgent assistance. President Aoun also received a call from Iraqi President Barham Salih, in which he expressed that Iraq makes every possible effort to stand with brotherly Lebanon and its people in this ordeal. President Saleh informed President Aoun of his country's keenness to support Lebanon, especially in this difficult circumstance.—Presidency Press Office

Diab delivers speech in wake of Beirut Port’s blast: Lebanon is facing a disaster
NNA/August 04/2020
In the wake of Beirut Port’s devastating explosion, Prime Minister Hassan Diab delivered the following speech:
“Dear Fellow Lebanese, Today is a deeply sad and painful day… Beirut is grief-stricken… Lebanon is facing a disaster. Yes. This is a great national disaster. The images and videos we see truly express this tragedy and translate the scope of the calamity that has affected Lebanon.
Beirut is grieving… All of Lebanon is disaster-torn. Lebanon is going through a quite ordeal that could only be faced with national unity and solidarity among all Lebanese from all backgrounds and regions. We are going through a disaster that could only be overcome with determination and tenacity to face this serious challenge and its destructive consequences. What happened today will not fly by without accountability. All those responsible for this catastrophe will pay the price.
This is a promise I make to martyrs and injured. This is a national commitment. Facts about this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014, i.e. for 6 years now, will be announced. I will not preempt the investigations. At the moment, we are focusing on handling the disaster, pulling the martyrs out, and treating the wounded. But, I promise that this catastrophe will not go unpunished and those responsible will be held accountable.
Dear Fellow Lebanese, We are facing a catastrophe. But I am confident that we will handle it with great responsibility. I implore you to be united in order to celebrate victory for our martyrs and heal our injured wounds and our nation’s wounds.
I now launch an urgent call for all the friendly and brotherly nations that love Lebanon to stand by Lebanon and help us heal our deep wounds.
We are facing a catastrophe; but we hold to the Almighty’s words: “Who, when disaster strikes them, say: Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.”—PM Press Office

UN’s Kubis says Beirut Port blast a “horrific tragedy”
NNA/August 04/2020
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Mr. Jan Kubis, said via twitter, “Such a horrific tragedy. Please accept , on behalf of the whole UN family , our sincere condolences to the families that lost their loved ones , our wishes for speedy recovery of all wounded. Our sympathies, our prayers are with you, with #Lebanon”

Minister Wehbe receives solidarity contacts from foreign counterparts
NNA/August 04/2020
Foreign Minister and Expatriates Charbel Wehbe received a series of phone calls from his counterparts in a number of countries, who expressed their countries’ solidarity with Lebanon after the massive explosion in Beirut.
The following contacted minister Wehbe: Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Ahmed Nasser Al-Muhammad Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi, Canadian Foreign Minister Francois Philippe Champaign and Cypriot Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides.
Minister Wehbe had visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, and had inspected the extensive damage that had been caused to it and destroyed large parts of its departments, including the Minister's office and the Secretary-General.—Presidency Press Office

Kettaneh to NNA: Red Cross is fully ready to transfer all Covid-19 cases to hospitals
NNA/August 04/2020
The Secretary General of the Lebanese Red Cross Georges Kettaneh, on Tuesday said in an interview with the National News Agency, that "the Lebanese Red Cross is still fully prepared to meet all incoming requests to transfer Covid-19 cases to hospitals," adding that the problem lies in the fact that some hospitals do not receive such cases since they are not equipped for COVID.
"When we encounter such situations, we contact the Ministry of Public Health and the National Disaster Management Operations Room to resolve the matter."
Kataneh added: "We are coordinating with the Ministry of Public Health and its Director General to have an operations room whose job would be to reserve places in hospitals for COVID-19 patients, and to draw up a list of government and private hospitals ready to admit such cases."

Coronavirus toll at 1100 GMT Tuesday
NNA/August 04/2020
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 694,507 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP at 1100 GMT on Tuesday. At least 18,324,580 cases have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 10,707,500 are now considered recovered.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.--AFP

Rafik Hariri Hospital Clarifies Number of COVID-19 Beds
Naharnet/August 04/2020
The state-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday denied reports claiming that it had stopped receiving coronavirus patients after running out of beds designated for COVID-19 treatment. “The hospital’s administration would like to clarify that it is still receiving coronavirus patients and suspected cases in coordination with the Ministry of Public Health and the Lebanese Red Cross,” it said in a statement.
It noted that it currently has 80 beds dedicated to COVID-19 cases of which 55 are occupied. It also has 23 beds for critical coronavirus cases of which 19 are occupied.

Police Scuffle with Protesters near Energy Ministry
Naharnet/August 04/2020
Scuffles erupted Tuesday between anti-government protesters and security forces near the Energy Ministry protesting extended power cuts amid a crunching economic crisis crippling Lebanon. The confrontation broke out after police tried to push the protesters away from the area. The demonstrators had headed to the ministry to protest “corruption and years of mismanagement” and what they called are “shady deals that cost the government’s coffre millions in dollars.”Lebanese suffers from power cuts lasting up to 20 hours a day in Beirut even as humidity climbs to above 80%, adding to public outrage over the country's severe financial crisis. Neighborhood generators have had to switch off to give their engines a break and to ration fuel, causing a run on candles and battery-operated lamps. Blackouts in Lebanon have been a fixture of life, largely because of profiteering, corruption and mismanagement, ever since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Lebanese Try to Storm Energy Ministry Amid Power Cuts
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 4 August, 2020
Dozens of Lebanese protesters tried to storm the Ministry of Energy on Tuesday, angered by prolonged power cuts as the country grapples with a crippling economic crisis. Security forces pushed back against the angry protesters, chasing away some who breached the ministry perimeter. Scuffles ensued as protesters pushed the metal barricade and said they plan to set up a sit-in at the ministry. "We came today and we will stay" said an unnamed protester who read a statement to the media, adding that they will liberate the ministry "from corruption ... and the management that plunged this country into darkness."
Lebanon's economic and financial crisis poses the most significant threat to the country since a devastating 15-year civil war ended in 1990. The highly-indebted government is facing a rapid inflation, soaring unemployment, and poverty, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.
Amid the crisis, recurrent power outage worsened as the government failed to secure essential energy sources. Lebanon has largely relied on fuel shipped in from neighboring countries and imported diesel for the powerful generators cartel that provides for the incomplete national grid, in shambles since the end of the war. For decades, the country struggled with power cuts and a huge public debt for the national electricity company that racks up a deficit of nearly $2 billion a year. But the rationing increased since June, and became so severe that residents reported only a couple of hours of electricity per day in some areas. Generator providers shut down their machines to ration existing fuel and raised prices because of a plunging national currency. Lebanese turned to traditional kerosene lamps and candles while hospitals warned their fuel stock was running out. Lebanon's problems are rooted in years of mismanagement and corruption. Nationwide protests that erupted last October subsided amid restrictions over the coronavirus pandemic and widening troubles. But limited protests have recently returned, particularly since prolonged power cuts in the summer heat. "We want to send a message that we are not leaving here until there is electricity" all day, said Ali Daher, another protester.

Hariri Meets Security Chiefs as STL Verdicts Loom
Naharnet/August 04/2020
Ex-PM Saad Hariri held talks Tuesday at the Center House with the country’s top security chiefs, four days ahead of the verdicts that will be issued by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon. A statement issued by Hariri’s press office said he met with Army chief General Joseph Aoun, military intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Tony Mansour, General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Imad Othman and the head of the ISF Intelligence Branch, Brig. Gen. Khaled Hammoud. It said the discussions tackled “the security situations in the country and the efforts that the security and military forces are exerting to preserve security and stability in the various regions.”The STL will give its verdict Friday on the 2005 murder of former premier Rafik Hariri, Saad’s father. Four alleged members of Hizbullah are on trial in absentia at the court in the Netherlands over the huge Beirut suicide bombing that killed Hariri and 21 other people. The judgment harks back to an event that changed the face of the Middle East, with Hariri's assassination triggering a wave of demonstrations that pushed Syrian forces out of Lebanon after 30 years.
Hariri's son Saad has said that he looks forward to a "day of truth and justice" while urging calm and patience.

Lebanon Govt. 'Stalling since Inception,' Say European Diplomats
Naharnet/August 04/2020
European diplomats reportedly told political figures in Lebanon their government is “wasting time” and that PM Hassan Diab made a “huge” mistake by picturing the French Foreign Minister as “ignorant” regarding his government’s reforms, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday. “There is a very big mistake made by Prime Minister Hassan Diab when he tried to endorse Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the ignorant position," European diplomatic sources told the daily. "He could have avoided making this mistake. He could have taken Le Drian’s visit as an opening for investment and assistance for Lebanon,” they added. The diplomats emphasized that Diab's government “refuses to listen” to international and local warnings against Lebanon’s “permanent fall” due to failed efforts to enforce reforms. “On the contrary, it continues to pursue paths far from reform. There is no trust in the government,” they reportedly said. “No foreign aid to Lebanon unless its government undertakes real reforms. All that the government has been doing since its formation is nothing more than a waste of time," al-Joumhouria quoted the sources as saying.

Record Temperatures, Pending Deals Inflame Lebanon, Iraq's Power Woes
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 04/2020
In Iraq's oil-rich south, the scorching summer months pose painful new choices in the age of the coronavirus: stay at home in the sweltering heat with electricity cut off for hours, or go out and risk the virus. This is Zain al-Abidin's predicament. A resident of al-Hartha district, in Basra province, al-Abidin lost his job due to pandemic-related restrictions. During the day he listens helplessly to his four-month old daughter cry in the unbearable heat, too poor to afford private generators to offset up to eight-hour power cuts. "I have no tricks to deal with this but to pray to God for relief," he said.
As temperatures soar to record levels this summer — reaching 52 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) in Baghdad last week — Iraq's power supply has fallen short of demand yet again, creating a spark for renewed anti-government protests. Iraq has imposed a strict lockdown and 24-hour curfew. So families have to pump fuel and money into generators or, if they can't, suffer in stifling homes without air conditioning.
State coffers were slashed because of an economic crisis spurred by falling oil prices and the pandemic, leaving little for investment to maintain Iraq's aging electricity infrastructure. Importing additional power is tied up in politics. On one side, Iranians demand overdue payments on energy they already provided Iraq. On the other, the U.S. is pushing Baghdad to move away from Iran and strike energy deals with Gulf allies, according to three senior Iraqi government officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Power cuts, coinciding with stay-at-home restrictions and scorching temperatures have extended into Lebanon and Syria, two countries also teetering on the brink of economic collapse. In Lebanon, residents suffer from power cuts lasting up to 20 hours a day in Beirut even as humidity climbs to above 80%, adding to public outrage over the country's severe financial crisis. Neighborhood generators have had to switch off to give their engines a break and to ration fuel, causing a run on candles and battery-operated lamps. Like Iraq, blackouts in Lebanon have been a fixture of life, largely because of profiteering, corruption and mismanagement, ever since the 1975-1990 civil war. In Syria, nearly a decade of war has left infrastructure in shambles and electricity cuts are frequent. Last week, power was off for hours even as temperatures in Damascus reached a record-breaking 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit).
In Baghdad, the roar of generators punctuates daily outages like clockwork. Iraqis find short-lived respite by using public showers set up on the street. The heat was blamed for an explosion at a federal police weapons depot. "We bring our children downstairs and spray them with a hose to cool them down," said Ahmed Mohamed, in Baghdad.
Reforms in the electricity sector have been stymied by protests and the vested interests of private generator companies, some with connections to political figures. Public reluctance to pay the state for electricity has long flummoxed Iraqi officials.
In the summer of 2018, poor service delivery prompted destabilizing protests in Basra. The following year, mass anti-government protests paralyzed Baghdad and Iraq's south, as tens of thousands decried the rampant corruption that has plagued delivery of services, including electricity. Two protesters were killed by security forces in Baghdad last week while demonstrating against power cuts.
Crumbling power lines mean there is 1,000 megawatts less power this summer. Supply now falls 10,000 megawatts short of demand, a senior official in the Electricity Ministry said. "You have to work very hard just to stand still," said Ali al-Saffar, the head of the Middle East a division of the Paris-based International Energy Agency. To survive the summer months, al-Saffar recommends an immediate audit of generators used in public offices to see what can be put toward the national grid, as fewer people come to work under lockdown measures.
The government has already implemented emergency measures to divert power used in operations in oil fields to add to the grid, officials in oil and electricity ministries said.
Iraq relies heavily on Iran for power especially during the summer. But budgetary shortfalls have thrown Baghdad into arrears. Two government officials said urgent allocations were being made to avoid a repeat of 2018, when Iran halted imports in the summer because of outstanding payments.
Dependence on Iranian energy has also complicated U.S.-Iraq relations. To qualify for successive sanctions waivers enabling imports to continue, Iraq must prove to the Trump administration that it is taking concrete steps to wean itself off reliance on Iran. The U.S. has pushed for deals with Gulf allies to diversify Iraq's power supply, three officials said. Two projects appear to be in advanced stages of negotiations. The first would provide an initial 500 megawatts of supply to southern Iraq by connecting the grid to a supergrid encompassing six Gulf countries. A framework agreement was signed last year with the Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority, but lack of financing to pay for 300 kilometers (187 miles) of transmission lines has slowed progress.
The Gulf has pledged to put up the money, but "they are worried about the political situation," said one senior government official. "They had a video-conference with the (Electricity) Ministry in early July — representatives from the U.S. were on the call to push them."The second is the development of a much-anticipated gas hub in southern Iraq to feed domestic power demands. Talks are ongoing to develop Iraq's Ratawi oil field and capture gas flared in nearby fields to generate electricity. Under the deal, Riyadh-based ACWA Power and U.S. firm Honeywell would construct the gas hub, financed by proceeds from the field, operated by Saudi Aramco. But the agreement has not been officially inked.
Meanwhile, Iraqis continue taking to the streets in protest. Activist Mohammed Ibrahim, who stages small sit-ins with his fellow activists in Basra said demonstrations would continue even if their calls for change fell on deaf ears in the halls of power. "The protests are the only way to show this injustice," he said.

Speculation and fear after massive explosion in Beirut
Seith J.Frantzman. J Jerusalem Post/August 04/2020
Many, dazed and awestruck, fearful and confused, wondered what had happened.
Hospitals in Beirut are turning away the injured from today’s massive explosion - there are too many. The scenes in the city look like a war zone. For many in Lebanon it may conjure up images from decades ago during the Civil War. But these scenes of destruction all occurred in a space of half an hour on Tuesday evening.
At least three explosions happened in Lebanon’s port. They began with one that caused smoke to billow into the sky in the fading afternoon light. Later a second seemed to create a reddish dark smoke. What looked like fireworks or other explosive material could be seen combusting before a massive third explosion kicked up a huge shockwave of vaporizing air, water and smoke that decimated areas around the port.
Hundreds of people had their cell phones out recording the explosions, wondering what was happening. From Dahiyeh to the hills around Beirut, they saw what looked more like a nuclear explosion from movies than something anyone thought they would see in real life. Many of the reporters based in Beirut have seen explosions and war before in places like Syria and Iraq. They were stunned too.
More than a kilometer away, Lizzie Porter, a correspondent, wrote of being knocked off her feet. Offices were destroyed as windows caved in from the force of the blast. People speculated about fireworks or fuel combusting. The Health Ministry, which is linked to Hezbollah, put out a statement after seven in the evening, blaming fireworks.
“I don’t buy the accident narrative,” wrote Ghanem Nuseibeh, an expert on the Middle East, on Twitter. Many, dazed and awestruck, fearful and confused, wondered what had happened. The elderly among them are saying that only the scenes from the Civil War era remind them of the streets covered in dust and rubble and broken glass like this.
Some sleuthing by Aurora Intel on Twitter found video of what clearly looks like a fireworks storage slowly going off in tiny explosions before the big one. Samir Madani, co-founder of Tanker Trackers, notes that two ships arrived recently, the cargo vessel Mero Star and the Raouf H. They both came from Ukraine. They could be transporting any number of things, including fireworks.
The question some are asking is whether there were other munitions in the area that caused the bigger explosions. Could a warehouse nearby have held fertilizer or nitrates? Could it be linked to Hezbollah weapons trafficking? These are the questions that the explosion brings to mind. Questions were raised also why anyone would store munitions so close to a civilian area. Others noted that Hezbollah has done this for years.
Beirut International Airport, ten kilometers from the blasts, was also damaged. Videos of bodies, at least three of them, closer to the blast site were also put online. It looked like the people had died instantly, it was not clear if their clothes had been shredded or ripped from their bodies by the extreme explosion, but they appeared to be lacking some clothing.
Some in Lebanon speculated that a missile or some kind of attack had caused the destruction. Ignorant people even suggested a “nuclear” attack. However, experts pointed out that is not possible and is just because people don’t understand what nuclear weapons do and look like. Non the missile theory continued into the evening hours with reports that people had “seen it,” even though there was no evidence of an airstrike. Tensions between Hezbollah and Israel no doubt underpinned this explanation.
Beirut is already suffering a financial crisis and electricity problems. It has had problems with garbage collection, protests and a seeming endless list of political crises. The scale of destruction in offices and other areas appeared to be in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. This will ravage a Lebanon that is already financially ruined. Nevertheless, within an hour of the explosion, as fires burned in the port, hundreds of cars were driving back and forth on Charles Helou avenue by the port.

Hezbollah looted Lebanon and it will cost $93b. to bail it out - analysis
Seith J.Frantzman. J Jerusalem Post/August 04/2020
The economy is in a tailspin, COVID-19 has taken away remittances the country needs, and Beirut is effectively defaulting on bonds, the study notes.
Lebanon is in the midst of a financial crisis which may not be possible to solve. It has racked up staggering debts and could need $93 billion to bail it out, according to a new report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The economy is in a tailspin, COVID-19 has taken away remittances the country needs, and Beirut is effectively defaulting on bonds, the study notes.
Written by lawyer and economics writer James Rickards, with a foreword by FDD’s chief executive, Mark Dubowitz, and senior vice-president for research Jonathan Schanzer, the new report presents a sobering picture of the challenges facing Lebanon. These are difficulties that are tied directly to the role of Hezbollah in looting the country and hijacking it. If a bailout doesn’t take into account extracting concessions from Hezbollah or the role it plays in the country this “risks transferring billions to a global terrorist organization and perpetuating one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history,” Schanzer and Dubowitz note.
What happened in Lebanon? Lebanese are generally credited with being successful and creative in diaspora businesses that span the globe, from Latin America to Africa. Lebanon used to be thought of as the Switzerland of the Middle East, or variously some kind of cross between Miami, southern France and the Gulf. But the country was badly harmed by civil war between 1976 and 1989, as well as a Syrian occupation. Then, with Syria’s withdrawal in 2005 after the assassination of prime minister Rafic Hariri, Hezbollah’s tentacles, backed by Iran, began to digest the country.
The FDD report notes that the government missed a $1.2 billion eurobond payment this spring. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are slowly working to “assess the problem.” The Rickards report asserts that restructuring Lebanon’s mounting debt will be difficult. Bondholders won’t likely take a “haircut” or reduction on what they are owed because Lebanon “has no net hard currency reserves and no prospects of receiving any significant amount in the near term.” But Lebanon does have 286 metric tons of gold in its reserves. This actually makes the tiny country wealthy in one way. The gold alone is worth $16 billion. The major problem in Lebanon appears to be the shadow economy controlled by Hezbollah. Referred to as “the system,” it appears that Hezbollah siphons off pieces of the economy, amounting to between $500 million and $1 billion a year. Hezbollah also increased its role in Lebanon in recent years with more clout in parliament and a stranglehold over the presidency. It also has a parallel terror army to the state, basically controls the country’s foreign policy and has an arsenal of 150,000 missiles, allegedly with new precision-guided munitions supplied by Iran.
The US doesn’t want to invest in this system and potentially fuel Iran’s economy or the Syrian regime. The US is trying to sanction all these Iranian allies and bailing out Lebanon without checks and balances or verifications that Hezbollah won’t benefit, is not palatable to the White House. Would Hezbollah cut ties with the Assad regime or Iran or reduce its stockpile of missiles? Unlikely, the report notes. Saudi Arabia, which has in the past been a guarantor of Lebanon under the 1989 accords that ended the Lebanese civil war, is also not interested in propping up Hezbollah, and has its own economic issues as well. In addition, a massive loan to Lebanon by the IMF would have to dwarf the $57 billion made available to Argentina in 2018. None of this looks likely.
However, if Lebanon falls deeper into crisis and default, it could destabilize the region, further empower Hezbollah and create an opening for China, Qatar or even other terrorist groups to infiltrate the country. This means Lebanon falling apart under the weight of its debts is a kind of catch-22. Funding the country’s bad habits fuels Hezbollah, not funding them might fuel Hezbollah as well. Schanzer and Dubowitz argue in a related article at Newsweek that the US could offer a short-term bailout, “but only on the condition that Hezbollah agrees to remove its arsenal of precision-guided missiles from the country.” That’s a short-term solution. Hezbollah and its system will continue to try to digest Lebanon. Beirut appears more and more like a shell company for an international terrorist, drug trafficking and money laundering organization in the form of Hezbollah, which has hollowed out the country. The latest report provides a stark reminder of what has happened.
 

Israel strikes at targets in southern Syria after attempted Golan attack/Damascus said air defences had gone into action near the Syrian capital.
The Arab Weekly/August 04/2020
JERUSALEM--Israel launched air strikes on Syrian military targets in southern Syria late Monday in retaliation for an attack attempt near the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights. In Damascus, the state-run news agency Sana said Israeli helicopters rocketed Syrian army positions near Quneitra in the south but caused only material damage. It also said air defences had gone into action near the Syrian capital. The Israeli army said its fighters jets, attack helicopters and other warplanes struck Syrian army positions after an attempt to lay explosives in the Golan Heights.
“The targets struck include observation posts and intelligence collection systems, anti-aircraft artillery facilities and command and control systems in SAF (Syrian Armed Forces) bases,” the Israeli army said in statement. It added that it “holds the Syrian government responsible for all activities on Syrian soil, and will continue operating with determination against any violation of Israeli sovereignty”. Last month, Israeli army helicopters struck military targets in southern Syria in retaliation for earlier “munitions” fire towards Israel.
Israel did not directly blame Syrian forces for the munitions fire, but said it held the Damascus government responsible. Earlier Monday, the Israeli army said it had killed four men laying explosives near the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights.
“They were inside Israeli territory but beyond the fence,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told journalists in a telephone briefing. He said an Israeli commando unit lying in wait attacked the intruders shortly after 11pm Sunday (2000 GMT) with assault rifles and sniper fire backed by air strikes. “Our estimate is that all four were killed,” Conricus said in English, adding that there were no Israeli casualties.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement Monday that “the army thwarted an attempted attack on the Syrian front.”“We don’t let our guard down,” he said, recalling an incident at the Lebanese border last week that prompted Israeli artillery fire across the frontier, as well as rocket fire Sunday evening from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip which led to retaliatory Israeli air strikes.Israel will “strike anyone who attacks us or tries to attack us,” he added.
Hezbollah-linked group
Several Israeli media outlets reported that Monday’s actions were in response to increased activity by the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has a significant presence in Syria. Last month, five Iran-backed fighters were killed in an Israeli missile strike south of Damascus, according to Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Then last Monday, Israel said it had thwarted an infiltration attempt from Lebanon by up to five Hezbollah gunmen, a claim denied by the Iran-backed group. Israel reported an exchange of fire that forced the “terrorists” back into Lebanon. It said it fired artillery across the heavily guarded border for “defensive” purposes. “We do not know at this stage and we cannot confirm a link between this terrorist squad and Hezbollah or Iranians,” Conricus said.
“We know that there are many different factions operating on Syrian soil.”
A 2019 file picture shows members of the Syrian army raising the national flag in the
The Syrian Observatory said it was likely, but could not be confirmed, that the attackers belonged to the Syrian Resistance to Liberate the Golan, a Hezbollah-linked group that was formed more than six years ago to launch attacks in the Israeli-occupied zone.
The Syrian Observatory said late Monday there were Israeli air raids on the southern province of Quneitra and on Boukamal city, near the Iraqi border in the north-east. Conricus said that Israel’s Maglan commando unit had been deployed at the attack site for several days. “We spotted irregular night-time activity in this specific location for the past week and we had a commando unit deployed in the area,” he said. Since 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria, targeting government troops and allied Iranian and Hezbollah forces and vowing to end Iran’s military presence in Syria.
 

Charbel Wehbi: Who is Lebanon's new foreign minister?
James Haines/The National/August 04/2020
The unusual appointment of Lebanon’s new foreign minister risks undermining the government's independence, analysts say
Lebanese President Michel Aoun has appointed his diplomatic adviser Charbel Wehbi as foreign minister after the sudden resignation of Nassif Hitti. Mr Wehbi, 67, was a diplomat for 42 years before retiring in 2017 to advise Mr Aoun. He served as Lebanon’s ambassador to France, consul general in Los Angeles and was most recently the country’s representative to Venezuela between 2007 and 2012. The unusual move by the president, signed off by the prime minister, to issue a decree directly appointing the new minister – and to place a close aide in the position – raises questions over the apparent independence of the government. Formed in January by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, the current administration is made up largely of technocrats without direct political affiliation. However, critics point out that all 30 members were nominated by many of the political factions in parliament and many have held roles in parties before. Anti-government protesters carry Lebanese flags and burn tires as they block the main highway in north of Beirut during a protest over deteriorating living conditions. EPA. While there is precedent for a decree to appoint a minister, it is a “serious challenge to parliamentary democracy and the Lebanese consociationalism arrangement that was formulated in the 1989 Taif agreement,” said Imad Salamey, associate professor of Middle East political affairs at the Lebanese American University. The Taif Accord laid the foundation to end Lebanon’s 15-year civil war and re-balanced the share of power between the numerous Lebanese sects. It also strengthened the role of the prime minister and of parliament at the expense of the president. “There is no constitutional text that provides the president or the prime minister with such a power. On the contrary, the constitution provides Parliament with the power of approving government line up and executing oversight over the work of individual ministers or the council of ministers,” Mr Salamey said. He added that the move undermines the independence of the government. “Of course, this approach in replacing the FM lacks transparency and accountability, further politicising the executive appointments and undermining parliamentary oversight,” he said. Mr Hitti resigned on Monday and criticised the lack of progress in passing urgent reforms to begin fixing the country’s myriad crises from the worst financial meltdown in its history to piling rubbish, mounting power cuts, spiking unemployment and rising poverty. The new minister has said he will seek good relations with all friendly countries and did not rule out official visits to Syria – a contentious issue for past governments split between opponents of Damascus and its allies. "We should be open to visit any Arab country," Mr Wehbi said on the issue. Past Lebanese governments have pledged a policy of non-interference in regional affairs and ministers have not visited Damascus in an official capacity since the start of the war in 2011. On the issue of US sanctions on Hezbollah members and finances of the group, he said "These issues can be discussed with the concerned parties."

Lebanese FM abandons ‘sinking ship’, sees no reform intent
The Arab Weekly/August 04/2020

Nassif Hitti warned his country was “slipping into becoming a failed state.”
BEIRUT – Political sources in Lebanon revealed to The Arab Weekly that Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti decided to resign after he was told by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian during the latter’s visit to Beirut that Lebanon would not get any assistance from anyone to help it out of its crisis as long as the current government remained in place.
The French minister underscored, albeit in a blatant manner, that Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government has to leave to open the door for the international community to help Lebanon again.
A few days ago, Diab criticised the visit of Le Drian, who warned that Lebanon was “on the edge of an abyss” if the authorities did not rush to take measures to save it.
Diab said the French official “lacked information” about the reform process that his government had initiated but has yet to show results.
According to local media, the resigned minister resented being sidelined by Diab during the latter’s meeting with Le Drian, which was attended by three other ministers.
The sources indicated that that matter led Hitti to issue a clear warning in his letter of resignation: “I took part in this government with the idea of working for a single boss called Lebanon, then I found out that my country has multiple bosses and contradictory interests," Hitti said. "If they do not come together in the interest of rescuing the Lebanese people, God forbid, the ship will sink with everyone on it.”
The resigned Lebanese foreign minister considered that his country was “slipping into becoming a failed state.”
Hitti attributed his resignation to what he described as “the absence of an effective will” to implement the needed reforms that will prevent Lebanon’s financial meltdown which, he warned, might turn Lebanon into a failed state.
Foreign donors have made it clear that there will be no aid until Beirut implements reforms to tackle waste of state resources and corruption, which represent the roots of the crisis that poses the biggest threat to Lebanon’s stability since its 1975-1990 civil war. Political sources believe that the Lebanese political class should heed Hitti’s warning in light of his significant political experience and long career as ambassador of the League of Arab States in the French capital.
It is to be noted that, thanks to his close relationship with former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, Hitti was able to weave a significant network of relations with various countries.
The same sources indicated that the resigned minister had tried to maintain a degree of independence in performing his duties, but ended up finding himself surrounded by a group of senior ministry officials who take their instructions directly from former Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.
Given his long career as a diplomat, Hitti was one of the specialised cabinet ministers nominated by President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement Party.
Local media had reported Hitti’s criticism of Diab’s performance, especially regarding foreign policy issues.
After Hitti's resignation, Bassil quickly proposed his close friend Charbel Wehbe as a replacement. Wehbe is a retired ambassador who previously worked in Venezuela and was the diplomatic advisor to Aoun.
The Lebanese Presidency said on its Twitter account that the president and prime minister signed a decree accepting Hitti’s resignation and another one appointing Wehbe to the post of foreign minister.
Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces Party, wrote on Twitter that “the situation in Lebanon will not be fixed as long as Hezbollah, the Free Patriotic Movement and their allies maintain their grip over the necks of power" following Hitti's resignation.
On Monday, the Lebanese prime minister's office announced that Diab had accepted Hitti's resignation and begun making contacts to find a successor.
“Diab has accepted Hitti’s resignation during their meeting and he did it immediately,” said the PM’s office on its Twitter account.
“Right after accepting Hitti’s resignation, the prime minister started making contacts and assessing his choices for a new minister,” it added.
In another tweet, the prime minister’s office said that Aoun met with Diab on Mondayto consult about Hitti’s resignation and the required next steps.
Hilal Khashan, a political science professor, said “we all know that this government is ill-fated, and with or without Hitti’s resignation, nothing much is expected of it.”
He pointed out that the government is not the master of its decision, but rather “must always refer back to those who brought it to power before disposing of any case.” Hitti’s resignation “simply says that Lebanon is in a state of total confusion and that it is a country floating aimlessly without a rudder,” he added.
Lebanon is going through its worst economic crisis since the end of the civil war (1975-1990), causing ongoing social and political protests since October 17, 2019.
The protesters are demanding the departure of the political class that they hold responsible for the “rampant corruption” in state institutions, and which they see as the main cause of the country's financial and economic collapse.
The country’s talks with the International Monetary Fund had faltered in the absence of reforms and amid differences between the government and banks over the scope of financial losses in Lebanon.
Besides the economic crisis, Lebanon is suffering from severe political division and polarisation, especially since the formation of the current government, headed by Diab last January, to succeed the Saad Hariri government that resigned in October under the pressure of protests.
 

Lebanon is sliding into the abyss of a “failed state”
DebkaFile/August 04/2020
When he quit as Lebanon’s foreign minister on Monday, July 3, Nasser Hitti said his country was close to becoming a “failed state” due to “conflicting interests” and its weakened ties with the “Arab community” – a dig at the Shiite Hizballah’s iron fist on government as Iran’s tool.
Lebanon’s woes are the result of a compendium of troubles: a cold shoulder from oil-rich Sunni Arab friends, a collapsed economy, popular discontent that transcends sectarian divides, government corruption and ineptitude, and the disastrous spinoff from the Syrian civil war – all aggravated by the coronavirus outbreak. Last year, as Lebanon plunged deep into debt, Hizballah fighters came marching home from a successful campaign on Iran’s behalf in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Its leader Hassan Nasrallah, riding high, deepened his grip on government and parliament, after forging an alliance with President Michel Aoun. Lebanon’s formerly strong ties with Arab nations were soon derailed, especially with Saudi Arabia. They bitterly resent the Iranian Lebanese proxy’s growing role in furthering Tehran’s ambitions in its country and region and interference in its conflicts.
Hizballah’s increased clout in Beirut also tipped the scales of the fragile power-sharing arrangement among the country’s three main sects, based on a Christian president, a Sunni Muslim prime minster and a Shiite Muslim Parliament Speaker. They form the elite which maneuvers tirelessly for the high ground in Beirut and plum jobs for their cronies.
Not long ago, Beirut was the free-and-easy playground of well-heeled Arabs who kept the town buzzing and its banks swimming in abundant dollars. Today, Lebanon’s public debt-to-gross domestic product is the third highest in the world, unemployment is rife and a third of the population had sunk to below the poverty line. Transfers have dried up from the large Lebanese diaspora. The drop in remittances from Gulf-based Lebanese nationals and decline in oil prices keep on pushing Lebanon further into debt and widening the gap between the Lebanese pound and the dollar in a thriving black market.
The country’s weakness is further exacerbated by the added burden of 1,5 million Syrian displaced refugees displaced to Lebanon at the height of the war.
Furious protests starting last year over the breakdown of basic services – power cuts, shortages of clean water and public healthcare – spilled over in October when the government levied a tax on tobacco, petrol and the Whatsapp messaging service. This plan was scrapped but the protests continued against the ruling elite, which continues to be blamed for feathering their nests while failing to carry out essential reforms. Tens of thousands of angry Lebanese forced the Western-backed Sunni prime minister Saad Hariri to resign and his unity government to fall, bringing the country to a standstill.
The protesters will not have forgotten or forgiven Hizballah goons for wielding sticks to break up their demonstrations last year.
The current Prime Minister Hassan Diab subsequently announced that Lebanon would default on its foreign debt for the first time in its history, saying its foreign currency reserves had hit a “critical and dangerous” level and that those remaining were needed to pay for vital imports.
By the time the coronavirus restrictions began to be lifted in May, the prices of some foodstuffs had doubled, and Lebanon was at risk of a major food crisis. At a time of hyperinflation, meat, fruits and vegetables have become unattainable luxuries for most Lebanese; some can’t even buy bread.
Hours after Hitti resigned, President Michel Aoun and Diab signed a decree appointing Charbel Wehbe as the new foreign minister.
Hitti’s resignation was the biggest blow yet to Diab’s six-month-old government, which has struggled to make good on promises to implement wide-ranging reforms following the massive anti-establishment protests last year. Diab’s cabinet has already seen two high-profile resignations from a team negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. Both had cited the same lack of will to reform due to the interests of the country’s political-financial elite.
Hitti’s prediction that “If they don’t’ come together, then the ship will sink with everyone aboard.” is close to being realized. “Everyone” also includes Hizballah, whose response to this dire fate is keenly watched from neighboring Israe

Crisis-weary Lebanon braces for Hariri tribunal verdict
Tom Perry/Reuters/August 04/2020
Fifteen years after a truck bomb killed Lebanon’s former Sunni leader Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut, triggering regional upheaval, a U.N.-backed court trying four suspects from Shi’ite Hezbollah delivers a verdict on Friday that could shake the country again.
The defendants, members of the powerful Iran-backed group, have been tried in absentia on charges of planning and arranging the 2005 bombing which killed the former prime minister who spearheaded Lebanon’s reconstruction after its long civil war. Hariri’s assassination prompted mass protests in Beirut and a wave of international pressure which forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon after the U.N. investigator linked it with the bombing.
The assassination also inflamed political and sectarian tensions inside Lebanon and across the Middle East, particularly when investigators started probing potential Hezbollah links to the death of a politician who was backed by the West as well as Sunni Gulf Arab states opposed to Tehran.
Hezbollah, which is both a political party in Lebanon’s government and a heavily armed guerrilla group, denies any role in Hariri’s killing and dismisses the Netherlands-based tribunal as politicised.
Few expect the defendants to be handed over if convicted, but any guilty verdicts could pose a problem to the government and deepen rifts unresolved since the 1975-1990 civil war. The country is already reeling from the worst economic crisis in decades and a deepening COVID-19 outbreak.
Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, Argentina and Honduras as well as the Sunni Muslim Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait. The EU classifies Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group, but not its political wing.
Hariri’s supporters, including his son Saad who subsequently also served as prime minister, say they are not seeking revenge or confrontation, but that the court verdict must be respected.
“We... look forward to August 7 being a day of truth and justice for Lebanon and a day of punishment for the criminals,” Saad Hariri said last week.
“AVOIDING STRIFE”
Hariri stepped down as prime minister in October after failing to address demands of protesters demonstrating against years of corruption by a ruling elite which has driven Lebanon to its current financial crisis.
His successor Hassan Diab, backed by Hezbollah and its allies, says the country must avoid further turmoil over the tribunal verdicts. “Confronting strife is a priority,” Diab tweeted last week.
In the Feb. 14, 2005 bombing, a truck laden with 3,000 kg of high-grade explosives blew up as Rafik Hariri’s motorcade passed Beirut’s waterfront Saint Georges hotel, killing him and 21 other people and leaving a huge crater in the road.
Salim Jamil Ayyash, Hassan Habib Merhi, Assad Hassan Sabra and Hussein Hassan Oneissi are charged with conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack. Ayyash is charged with committing a terrorist act, homicide and attempted homicide.
Prosecutors said data culled from telephone networks showed that the defendants called each other from dozens of mobile phones to monitor Hariri in the months before the attack and to coordinate their movements on the day itself.
The men have not been seen in public for years.
Hezbollah has often questioned the tribunal’s integrity and neutrality, saying its work had been tainted by false witnesses and reliance on telephone records that Israeli spies arrested in Lebanon could have manipulated.
“It is Hezbollah’s right to have doubts about the court, which transformed into political score-settling far from the truth,” said Salem Zahran, an analyst with links to Hezbollah leaders. Any verdict “has no value” to the group, he said.
Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of Lebanon’s An-Nahar newspaper, said neither Saad Hariri nor Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah wanted to escalate tensions.
But he expected Hariri to call for the defendants to be handed over if found guilty - which would leave Hezbollah on the defensive politically despite its military strength. If the group refused to surrender them it could put the government which it helped put together in difficulty.
As it tries to tackle the deep economic crisis, a guilty verdict could also jeopardise Lebanon’s efforts, which have been supported by France, to win international aid.
“France... will have to take a position on Hezbollah after the verdict comes out on Aug. 7,” Boumonsef said.
France hosted a donor meeting in Paris in 2018 when Beirut won more than $11 billion in pledges for infrastructure investment. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Lebanese leaders in Beirut last month that Paris was ready to mobilise international support if Lebanon moved ahead with reform.
*Writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Philippa Fletcher
*Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Often on brink, Lebanon hurtles toward collapse
Zeina Karam/The Times Of Israel/August 04/2020
Beirut speeding toward tipping point at alarming speed, driven by financial ruin, collapsing institutions, hyperinflation, rapidly rising poverty, and a pandemic
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Power cuts that last up to 20 hours a day. Mountains of trash spilling into streets. Long lines at gas stations.
It may seem like a standard summer in Lebanon, a country used to wrestling with crumbling infrastructure as it vaults from one disaster to another.
Only this time, it’s different. Every day brings darker signs Lebanon has rarely seen in past crises: Mass layoffs, hospitals threatened with closure, shuttered shops and restaurants, crimes driven by desperation, a military that can no longer afford to feed its soldiers meat and warehouses that sell expired poultry.
Lebanon is hurtling toward a tipping point at an alarming speed, driven by financial ruin, collapsing institutions, hyperinflation and rapidly rising poverty — with a pandemic on top of that.
The collapse threatens to break a nation seen as a model of diversity and resilience in the Arab world and potentially open the door to chaos. Lebanese worry about a decline so steep it would forever alter the small Mediterranean country’s cultural diversity and entrepreneurial spirit, unparalleled in the Middle East.
In the past, Lebanon has been able to in part blame its turmoil on outsiders. With 18 religious sects, a weak central government and far more powerful neighbors, it has always been caught in regional rivalries leading to political paralysis, violence or both. Its 1975-90 civil war made the word “Beirut” synonymous with war’s devastation and produced a generation of warlords-turned-politicians that Lebanon hasn’t been able to shake off to this day.
Since the war ended, the country has suffered a Syrian occupation, repeated conflict with Israel, bouts of sectarian fighting, political assassinations and various economic crises, as well as an influx of more than a million refugees from neighboring Syria’s civil war. The presence of the powerful Shiite group Hezbollah — a proxy army for Iran created in the 1980s to fight Israel’s 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon — ensures the country is always caught up in the struggle for supremacy by regional superpowers Iran and Saudi Arabia.
But the current crisis is largely of Lebanon’s own making; a culmination of decades of corruption and greed by a political class that pillaged nearly every sector of the economy.
For years, the country drifted along, miraculously avoiding collapse even as it accumulated one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens. The sectarian power-sharing system allotted top posts according to sect rather than qualifications, which in turn allowed politicians to survive by engaging in cronyism and patronage for their communities.
“One of the problems in Lebanon is that corruption has been democratized, it’s not sitting centrally with one man. It’s all over,” says Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Every sect has a sector of the economy that it controls and draws money from, so that it can keep their sect happy,” he said in a recent talk organized by the Center for Global Policy.
The troubles came to a head in late 2019, when nationwide protests erupted over the government’s intention to levy a tax on the WhatsApp messaging app, seen as the final straw for people fed up with their politicians. The protests touched off a two-week bank closure followed by a run on the banks and then informal capital controls that limited dollar currency withdrawals or transfers.
Amid a shortage in foreign currency, the Lebanese pound has shed 80% of its value on the black market, and prices for basic food items and other goods have seen a meteoric rise. Savings have evaporated, plunging many into sudden poverty.
Lebanon’s fall “represents an epic collapse with a generational impact,” wrote Maha Yehia, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
The pillars that long sustained Lebanon are crumbling, including its trademark freedoms and role as a tourism and financial services hub, and wiping out its middle class, she wrote in a recent analysis.
Left on its own, Lebanon could within months reach a point where it can no longer secure needs for its citizens like fuel, electricity, internet or even basic food.
Already, there are signs of the country being pushed toward a hunger crisis. Fears of a breakdown in security are real. The purchasing power of an ordinary soldiers’ salary has declined in dollar terms from around $900 to $150 a month. Public sector employees have similarly seen their salaries wiped out.
Unlike in previous crises when oil-rich Arab nations and international donors came to the rescue, Lebanon this time stands very much alone.
Not only is the world preoccupied with their own economic crises, traditional friends of Lebanon are no longer willing to help a country so steeped in corruption, particularly after the state defaulted on its debt in April. Moreover, the country is led by a Hezbollah-supported government, making it even more unlikely that Gulf countries would come to the rescue.
Lebanon’s only hope is an IMF bailout, but months of negotiations have led nowhere.
The French foreign minister, on a recent trip to Beirut, could not have been clearer that there would be no assistance for Lebanon before credible reform measures are taken. “Help us to help you!” he repeated.
The words appear to have fallen largely on deaf ears. Lebanese politicians can’t agree on the size of the government’s losses, much less carry out reforms to end the corruption from which they profit.
A complete breakdown of Lebanon threatens the wider region, potentially leading to security vacuums that could be exploited by extremists.
Writing in Washington-based The Hill newspaper, Mona Yaacoubian, senior adviser to the vice president for Middle East and Africa at the US Institute of Peace, said a total meltdown in Lebanon could also provoke new refugee flows to Europe and add yet more turmoil to the arc of instability stretching from Syria through Iraq, with negative implications for US allies in the region.
Given the stakes, the United States cannot afford to ignore Lebanon’s impending collapse, she argues.
“Lebanon is rapidly spiraling toward the worst-case scenario: a failed state on the eastern Mediterranean.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/often-on-brink-lebanon-hurtles-toward-collapse/

Experts warn Lebanon could be heading towards collapse
The Arab Weekly/August 04/2020
Lebanon’s fall “represents an epic collapse with a generational impact,” wrote Maha
BEIRUT--Power cuts that last up to 20 hours a day. Mountains of trash spilling into streets. Long lines at gas stations.
It may seem like a standard summer in Lebanon, a country used to wrestling with crumbling infrastructure as it vaults from one disaster to another.
Only this time, it’s different. Every day brings darker signs Lebanon has rarely seen in past crises: Mass layoffs, hospitals threatened with closure, shuttered shops and restaurants, crimes driven by desperation, a military that can no longer afford to feed its soldiers meat and warehouses that sell expired poultry.
Lebanon is hurtling toward a tipping point at an alarming speed, driven by financial ruin, collapsing institutions, hyperinflation and rapidly rising poverty — with a pandemic on top of that.
On Monday, the country’s foreign minister resigned, warning that a lack of vision and a will to implement structural reforms risked turning the country into a “failed state.”
The collapse threatens to break a nation seen as a model of diversity and resilience in the Arab world and potentially open the door to chaos. Lebanese worry about a decline so steep it would forever alter the small Mediterranean country’s identity and entrepreneurial spirit, unparalleled in the Middle East.
In the past, Lebanon has been able to partially blame its turmoil on outsiders. With 18 religious sects, a weak central government and far more powerful neighbours, it has always been caught in regional rivalries leading to political paralysis, violence or both. Its 1975-90 civil war made the word “Beirut” synonymous with war’s devastation and produced a generation of warlords-turned-politicians that Lebanon hasn’t been able to shake off to this day.
Since the war ended, the country has suffered a Syrian occupation, repeated conflict with Israel, bouts of sectarian fighting, political assassinations and various economic crises, as well as an influx of more than a million refugees from neighbouring Syria’s civil war. The presence of the powerful Shia group Hezbollah — a proxy army for Iran created in the 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation — ensures the country is always caught up in the struggle for supremacy by regional superpowers Iran and Saudi Arabia. But the current crisis is largely of Lebanon’s own making; a culmination of decades of corruption and greed by a political class that pillaged nearly every sector of the economy. For years, the country drifted along, miraculously avoiding collapse even as it accumulated one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens. The sectarian power-sharing system allotted top posts according to sect rather than qualifications, which in turn allowed politicians to survive by engaging in cronyism and patronage for their communities.
“One of the problems in Lebanon is that corruption has been democratised, it’s not sitting centrally with one man. It’s all over,” says Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Every sect has a sector of the economy that it controls and draws money from, so that it can keep their sect happy,” he said in a recent talk organised by the Center for Global Policy. The troubles came to a head in late 2019, when nationwide protests erupted over the government’s intention to levy a tax on the WhatsApp messaging app, seen as the final straw for people fed up with their politicians. The protests touched off a two-week bank closure followed by a run on the banks and then informal capital controls that limited dollar currency withdrawals or transfers.
Amid a shortage in foreign currency, the Lebanese pound has shed 80% of its value on the black market, and prices for basic food items and other goods have seen a meteoric rise. Savings have evaporated, plunging many into sudden poverty.
Lebanon’s fall “represents an epic collapse with a generational impact,” wrote Maha Yehia, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
The pillars that long sustained Lebanon are crumbling, including its trademark freedoms and role as a tourism and financial services hub, and wiping out its middle class, she wrote in a recent analysis.
Left on its own, Lebanon could within months reach a point where it can no longer secure needs for its citizens like fuel, electricity, internet or even basic food, experts says. Already, there are signs of the country being pushed toward a hunger crisis. Fears of a breakdown in security are real. The purchasing power of an ordinary soldiers’ salary has declined in dollar terms from around $900 to $150 a month. Public sector employees have similarly seen their salaries wiped out.
Unlike in previous crises when oil-rich Arab nations and international donors came to the rescue, Lebanon this time stands very much alone.
Not only is the world preoccupied with their own economic crises, traditional friends of Lebanon are no longer willing to help a country so steeped in corruption, particularly after the state defaulted on its debt in April. Moreover, the country is led by a Hezbollah-supported government, making it even more unlikely that Gulf countries would come to the rescue.
Lebanon’s only hope is an IMF bailout, but months of negotiations have led nowhere.
Lebanese economy
The French foreign minister, on a recent trip to Beirut, could not have been clearer that there would be no assistance for Lebanon before credible reform measures are taken. “Help us to help you!” he repeated.
The words appear to have fallen largely on deaf ears. Lebanese politicians can’t agree on the size of the government’s losses, much less carry out reforms to end the corruption from which they profit.
A complete breakdown of Lebanon threatens the wider region, potentially leading to security vacuums that could be exploited by extremists.
Writing in Washington-based The Hill newspaper, Mona Yaacoubian, senior adviser to the vice president for Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said a total meltdown in Lebanon could also provoke new refugee flows to Europe and add yet more turmoil to the arc of instability stretching from Syria through Iraq, with negative implications for US allies in the region.
Given the stakes, the United States cannot afford to ignore Lebanon’s impending collapse, she argues.
“Lebanon is rapidly spiraling toward the worst-case scenario: a failed state on the eastern Mediterranean.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 04-05/2020

Turkey works with Syrian regime to oppose US company oil deal in Syria
The Jerusalem Post/August 04/2020
However, reports indicate that the “deal” which was reported in some media may not even be finalized or as certain as it is depicted.
Turkey and the Syrian regime condemned reports of a deal by an American oil company linked to oil fields in eastern Syria. The Syrian regime claimed the deal was stealing Syrian oil. At the same time Turkey, which illegally occupies part of northern Syria and whose Syrian rebel allies have been accused of ethnically cleansing minorities from Afrin, slammed the deal as well. Ankara claimed the US was ignoring ‘international law” and that the US position would never be accepted or legitimized. Turkey is increasingly an ally of Iran and Russia on issues pertaining to Syria and opposes the US in Syria, even though the US and Turkey are both members of NATO. However, reports also indicate that the “deal” which was reported in some media may not even be finalized or as certain as it is depicted. This may be due to confidentiality agreements or not wanting to cause controversy or because the deal is not completed. More questions than answers now surrounded what is happening with oil in eastern Syria. Turkey and the Syrian regime joining together to condemn the deal appear to cast a shadow over what might come next. According reports at Al-Monitor the US might provide modular refineries to the autonomous administration in eastern Syria. Eastern Syria is run by the Syrian Democratic Forces and their civilian arm which is a multi-layered bureaucracy. The US had initially said it would leave eastern Syria in December 2018 and US President Donald Trump moved US troops away from the Turkish border in October 2019 after Turkish threats to attack areas where the US was supporting anti-ISIS operations by the SDF. Turkey then invaded and Russia and the Syrian regime sent troops, carving up areas that had previously been peaceful and under US influence. This was one of the first clear signs that Ankara prefers Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime to US forces in Syria. Ankara also bought the S-400 air defense system from Russia and has harassed US servicemen in Turkey and jailed a Turkish worker at the US embassy.
While Turkey and Damascus are outraged at the deal that Delta Crescent Energy reportedly signed, there are also questions about the deal itself. Politico notes that the firm is a little known company incorporated in February 2019. “It has been in talks with the Kurds for more than a year but only received a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets control for the work in April,” the report notes. “The arrangement is to refine and use some of the oil locally but also export some through northern Iraq and Turkey.” Clearly the last part of that sentence “and Turkey” would be problematic given Ankara’s opposition. Iraq’s position is also not clear. In the past Syrian oil has been smuggled to the Syrian regime and also smuggled out by ISIS when ISIS controlled parts of eastern Syria. Smuggling allegedly also took place to Turkey in the past. However, the oil fields which can produce hundreds of thousands of barrels a day are estimated to be producing only around ten percent of that, with smuggling accounting for thousands of barrels moving illicitly to areas such as Damascus. It’s not clear if the oil deal will be able to boost capacity or spend a year updating infrastructure. It’s not even clear how, during COVID-19 and amid ISIS threats and border closures, the company intends to do the work.What is actually taking place is more murky than reports indicate. While the announcement of the deal actually appears to have been mistakenly leaked by US Senator Lindsey Graham and with some support from the State Department’s Mike Pompeo and even the White House, it’s unclear if the deal is ready for prime time coverage. It is known that US CENTCOM head Frank McKenzie met with SDF leader general Mazloum in July. US State Department officials around William Roebuck, part of the US Syria team, have also been trying to get Kurdish groups to reconcile in eastern Syria in recent months. That means bringing the PYD and YPG elements together with the ENKS and other Kurdish groups. Basically it means they in turn will speak with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which have influence over constituent Kurdish groups in eastern Syria. What does this have to do with oil? Oil doesn’t move across the border into northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region with discussions that involve the KDP. And the US has long sought to ween the civilian leadership linked to the SDF from its direct links to the PKK. Turkey has vowed to destroy the PKK and launched an operation in July deep into northern Iraq. The US also put a bounty on the heads of the PKK in 2018.

Fire breaks out at Iranian industrial area, no casualties: state TV
DUBAI (Reuters)/August 04/2020
A fire broke out at an Iranian industrial area near Tehran on Tuesday, Iran’s state TV reported, the latest in a string of fires and explosions, some of which have hit sensitive sites. “The fire broke out at the industrial area of the Jajrud district in the Pardis county this morning ... there were no casualties ... firefighters are trying to contain the fire,” it said. A fire department official told state TV that the cause of the fire was under investigation. There have been several other incidents at facilities in the past weeks, including a fire at the underground Natanz nuclear facility last month which caused significant damage, but Iranian officials said operations were not affected.In an explosion at a medical clinic in the north of the capital Tehran in July, 19 people were killed. Officials said it was caused by a gas leak. On June 26, an explosion occurred east of Tehran near the Parchin military and weapons development base that the authorities said was caused by a leak in a gas storage facility in an area outside the base.

North Korea has 'probably' developed nuclear devices to fit ballistic missiles, U.N. report says
Michelle Nichols/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) /August 04/2020
North Korea is pressing on with its nuclear weapons program and several countries believe it has “probably developed miniaturized nuclear devices to fit into the warheads of its ballistic missiles,” according to a confidential U.N. report.
The report by an independent panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions said the countries, which it did not identify, believed North Korea’s past six nuclear tests had likely helped it develop miniaturized nuclear devices. Pyongyang has not conducted a nuclear test since September 2017.
The interim report, seen by Reuters, was submitted to the 15-member U.N. Security Council North Korea sanctions committee on Monday. “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is continuing its nuclear program, including the production of highly enriched uranium and construction of an experimental light water reactor. A Member State assessed that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is continuing production of nuclear weapons,” the report said. North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said last week there would be no more war as the country’s nuclear weapons guarantee its safety and future despite unabated outside pressure and military threats.
The U.N. report said one country, which it did not identify, assessed that North Korea “may seek to further develop miniaturisation in order to allow incorporation of technological improvements such as penetration aid packages or, potentially, to develop multiple warhead systems.”North Korea has been subjected to U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. While the Security Council has steadily strengthened sanctions in a bid to cut off funding for those programs.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have met three times since 2018, but failed to make progress on U.S. calls for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and North Korea’s demands for an end to sanctions. In May 2018 North Korea followed through on a pledge to blow up tunnels at its main nuclear test site, Punggye-ri, which Pyongyang said was proof of its commitment to end nuclear testing. But they did not allow experts to witness the dismantlement of the site.The U.N. report said that as only tunnel entrances were known to have been destroyed and there is no indication of a comprehensive demolition, one country had assessed that North Korea could rebuild and reinstall within three months the infrastructure needed to support a nuclear test. The U.N. experts said North Korea is violating sanctions, including “through illicit maritime exports of coal, though it suspended these temporarily between late January and early March 2020” due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year the U.N. experts said North Korea has generated an estimated $2 billion using widespread and sophisticated cyberattacks to steal from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges.
“The Panel continues to assess that virtual asset service providers and virtual assets will continue to remain lucrative targets for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to generate revenue, as well as mining cryptocurrencies,” the latest report said.
*Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Brown

WHO Urges Russia to Follow Guidelines on Virus Vaccine
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
The World Health Organization on Tuesday urged Russia to follow the established guidelines for producing safe and effective vaccines after Moscow announced plans to start swiftly producing COVID-19 jabs. Russia said Monday it aims to launch mass production of a coronavirus vaccine in September and turn out "several million" doses per month by next year. Russia is pushing ahead with several vaccine prototypes. Officials claimed that one trialed by the Gamaleya institute in Moscow has reached advanced stages of development and is about to pass state registration.
"We are very much counting on starting mass production in September," Industry Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview published by state news agency TASS.
Asked about the developments in Russia, the WHO stressed that all vaccine candidates should go through the full stages of testing before being rolled out.
"There are established practices and there are guidelines out," WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters at the United Nations in Geneva. "Any vaccine...(or medicine) for this purpose should be, of course, going through all the various trials and tests before being licensed for roll-out," he said. "Sometimes individual researchers claim they have found something, which is of course, as such, great news.
"But between finding or having a clue of maybe having a vaccine that works, and having gone through all the stages, is a big difference."
Race for vaccine
The pandemic has seen an unprecedented mobilization of funding and research to rush through a vaccine that can protect billions of people worldwide. Scientists in the West have raised concerns about the speed of development of Russian vaccines, suggesting that researchers might be cutting corners after coming under pressure from the authorities to deliver. The WHO's overview of COVID-19 candidate vaccines, published on Friday, lists 26 candidates in clinical evaluation -- of which six have progressed as far as wider Phase 3 levels of testing. The Gamaleya candidate, which is among the 26 being tested on humans, is listed as being in Phase 1.A further 139 candidates worldwide were listed as being in pre-clinical evaluation.
Lindmeier said the WHO had not been officially notified of any Russian vaccine on the verge of being deployed. "If there was anything official, then our colleagues in the European office would definitely look into this," the spokesman said. "In general terms, there are a set of guidances and regulations, rules, how to deal with safe development of a vaccine."These should be definitely followed in order to make sure that we know what the vaccine is working against, who it can help and, of course, also if it has any negative side effects."

Philippines Orders Millions to Stay Home as Global Virus Cases Soar
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 04/2020
Millions of people in the Philippines were ordered to stay home Tuesday as global coronavirus infections kept soaring, with the World Health Organization warning against relying on a vaccine "silver bullet" to end the pandemic. More than 18 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus since it first emerged in China late last year and it shows no sign of slowing down. Brazil is driving a surge in Latin America and the Caribbean where infections have topped five million. South America's largest country has recorded 2.75 million cases, and close to half the region's more than 202,000 deaths. Only the United States has been worse affected. Desperate to contain the spread and relieve pressure on overwhelmed hospitals, some countries such as the Philippines have resorted to reimposing economically painful restrictions on travel and businesses. More than 27 million people on the main island of Luzon, including the capital Manila, went back into a partial lockdown for weeks from Tuesday. People have been told to stay home unless they need to go out to buy essential goods, for exercise or for work after the number of recorded infections surged past 100,000. With only 24 hours' notice of the shutdown, many found themselves stranded in Manila and unable to get back to their hometowns after public transport and domestic flights were halted. "We've run out of money. We can't leave the airport because we don't have any relatives here," said Ruel Damaso, a 36-year-old construction worker trying to return to the southern city of Zamboanga."We will have to stay here for two weeks until we get our flights back."The world's hope of ending the current cycle of outbreaks and lockdowns rests on a vaccine.Russia said Monday it aimed to launch mass production of a vaccine in September and turn out "several million" doses per month by next year. But Vitaly Zverev, laboratory chief at the Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Sera, said it was "impossible to ensure a vaccine's safety in the time that has passed since the beginning of this pandemic"."You can make anything, but who is going to buy it?"The WHO warned that governments and citizens should focus on what is known to work: testing, contact tracing, maintaining physical distance and wearing a mask. "We all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference."However, there's no silver bullet at the moment -- and there might never be."
'Extraordinarily widespread'
Despite months of crippling restrictions, the pandemic is gathering pace with the worldwide death toll nearing 700,000. As the number of fatalities in the United States surpassed 155,000, President Donald Trump lashed out at his coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx after she warned the virus was "extraordinarily widespread" in the country where more than 4.6 million infections have been recorded. Trump -- angered by what he sees as overly pessimistic media coverage of his handling of the epidemic -- called her remarks "pathetic" and accused her of giving into pressure to sound negative about the new surge. "Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!" Trump said on Twitter. Despite rising infection numbers in Europe, some countries are pushing ahead with plans to reopen schools and finding ways to keep their battered tourism sectors functioning. Germany watched anxiously Monday as 150,000 children returned to school in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the country's first state to restart full-time classes after the summer holidays. In France, Prime Minister Jean Castex urged the nation "not to let down its guard" as surging cases led the Riviera resort city of Nice to become the latest to mandate outside mask-wearing. "The virus has not gone on holiday and neither have we," Castex said.

Kuwait emir's health shows "significant improvement" PM
NNA/August 04/2020
The health of the Kuwait's 91-year old emir has shown "significant improvement", parliament quoted the prime minister as saying in a tweet Tuesday. "There is a significant improvement, thank God," Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah was quoted as saying. Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah is in the United States completing medical treatment following surgery.--Reuters

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 04-05/2020
It’s time for a third special operations revolution
David Maxwell/Military Times/August 04/2020
The Senate Armed Service Committee report on the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) expresses the committee’s persistent concern with U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the need for stronger civilian oversight. Beginning with the 2017 NDAA, Congress has tried to improve the capability of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict (ASD SO/LIC) to provide this oversight but the Department of Defense (DoD) has failed to implement Congress’ intent. This led the committee to mandate a comprehensive review of SOF professionalism and ethics in the 2019 NDAA (Sec. 1066) , with a new requirement this year (2021 NDAA, Sec. 544) for quarterly reports on measures to implement the review’s findings.”
The 2017 NDAA (Sec. 922) formally established the Special Operations Policy and Oversight Council (SOPOC) and directed the transfer of billets from the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to ASD SO/LIC to enhance civilian oversight of special operations. Congress also inserted ASD SO/LIC into the administrative chain of command — which now includes the president, secretary of defense, ASD SO/LIC, and the commander of USSOCOM. This made the ASD SO/LIC the de facto equivalent of a service secretary, but without the resources and authorities necessary to effectively execute service responsibilities.
For three years DoD has neglected to transfer all the necessary billets to ASD SO/LIC and has not improved civilian oversight to the satisfaction of Congress. In an attempt to improve the situation, the Senate version of the 2021 NDAA (Sec. 901 ) would direct the establishment of a “secretariat of special operations” to lead the SOPOC that would fall under the ASD SO/LIC.To date, this piecemeal and evolutionary process has not met Congress’ intent and the directive in the 2021 NDAA is unlikely to solve the problem. A secretariat for special operations is a step forward, but a timid one at best. It is time for another special operations revolution.
The first such revolution entailed the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942 by President Roosevelt with William J. Donovan in command. The OSS was America’s first national intelligence service and formal special operations force; in effect it operated as a separate service. FDR established the OSS to support the U.S. war effort against the Axis powers with units such as the Jedburghs and operational groups in France; Merrill’s Marauders in the China-Burma-India theater; and intelligence, counterintelligence, and “morale operations” (psychological operations) around the world. Although Harry Truman disbanded the entire OSS at the end of World War II, its legacy lives on among intelligence and special operations professionals.
While the National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA to provide the intelligence capabilities the OSS stood up during the war and the intelligence community writ large grew in stature and importance to U.S. national security, the U.S. military’s special operations capabilities ebbed and flowed over the years. SOF can be best described as an orphan or step child. As Rep. Dan Daniel noted, the conventional military was apt to “commit mischief” toward SOF. While SOF have periodically had presidential patrons, such as Kennedy and Reagan, there were never sufficient command and control capabilities, support, or integration into national security and defense strategies. This led to the seminal failure of Operation Eagle Claw at Desert One in Iran in 1980. The lack of a unified organization to ensure readiness and proper execution of special operations was a major reason for the derailment of the mission to free American hostages in Tehran.
Learning from that failure, Congress led the second special operations revolution when it passed the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. This amendment established a unified command, USSOCOM, on April 16, 1987. It brought together the special operations capabilities of the Army, Navy, and Air Force under a single unified functional combatant command. Notably this was done over the objections of the services. Without congressional action there would be no unified special operations command today.
This action was revolutionary because Congress created a hybrid command, one with combatant command warfighting capabilities but also “service-like” responsibilities and authorities for manning, training, and equipping, a unique funding line in Major Force Program 11 (MFP 11), and its own research and development program. From 1987 until 2001, USSOCOM exercised its service-like responsibilities to develop a world-class special operations force. Although it had to overcome friction with the services (which continues to persist), the successful conduct of SOF missions since 9-11 demonstrated why this aspect of USSOCOM should be considered a success. However, in 1987 Congress did not go far enough and only created a military command structure but no civilian service infrastructure, leaving the exercise of effective oversight to the four parent services and an ASD SO/LIC that lacked the necessary resources and authorities.
Since 9-11, special operations forces have come under tremendous stress operating at the very highest operational tempo with proportionally the highest casualty rates among all the services. These exorbitant levels of stress yielded numerous problems, such as high suicide rates and other behavioral and ethical issues and leadership failures while deployed on various operations in Afghanistan, Mali, and Niger, among others, that raised Congress’ level of concern. This led Congress to demand stronger civilian oversight of SOF because it deemed it such oversight necessary to correct the identified shortfalls and effectively advocate for the SOF community and its missions.
In order to meet congressional intent, as stated in the 2017 NDAA and 2021 Senate draft, to have strong and empowered civilian oversight over U.S. special operations forces, it is time to consider a third revolution in SOF history. The evolutionary and piecemeal changes to date have not achieved the desired effects. Therefore, Congress should consider taking the following three bold actions.
1. Disestablish USSCOM headquarters in Tampa. Eliminate the ASD SO/LIC position. Establish a new Department of Special Operations in Washington. Appoint a secretary of special operations (SSO) with a fully manned service staff to serve as a service secretary equivalent to the existing service secretaries. Appoint a four-star as the chief of special operations (CSO). The CSO would become a permanent member of the Joint Chiefs. The SSO and CSO would be responsible for ensuring SOF is organized, trained, educated, equipped, and optimized to provide strategic support to the national security and defense strategies through the full spectrum of special operations activities as outlined in Title 10 of the U.S. Code (Sec. 167).
2. Designate the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) a combatant command with a four-star commander with the mission to counter violent extremist organizations and conduct counter-terrorism operations. JSOC is, in fact, already functioning as a de facto combatant command and this would simply codify its status.
3. Reorganize and properly resource the theater special operations commands (TSOC) to conduct special operations under the operational control of the GCC. Designate the TSOC a three-star command to elevate it to same level as the other service components in theater.
The SOF service components and the TSOCs would be assigned to the Department of Special Operations under the command of the chief of special operations and his department staff headquarters. The Army Special Operations Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, Naval Special Warfare Command, and Marine Special Operations Command would maintain the same relationship with their aligned service components. The SSO and CSO would have better oversight of that relationship and weigh in with the Army, Navy, etc., as a fellow service secretary and a member of the Joint Chiefs, to ensure the proper service common support is provided to the SOF components. The SSO would maintain MFP-11 funding for all SOF components and the TSOCs. The DSO would provide SOF capabilities and units to the TSOCs and JSOC as required.
This revolutionary proposal would meet the intent of the current Congress for strong civilian oversight and the vision of many in Congress since 1986. Rep. Daniel, who strongly supported the Nunn-Cohen Amendment in the House, advocated for SOF as a “Sixth Service.” Congress wanted the USSOCOM HQ to be in Washington. However, the services continued to conduct their “malicious implementation” as noted in a seminal work on the origins of USSOCOM, and DoD reflagged the Readiness Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, to be the new headquarters. Today, the proven capabilities and importance of SOF and the need to correct the ethical and leadership shortfalls demand a radical change such as being designated a department co-equal to the traditional services. It could be designated the “Department of Special Operations” or, given its heritage and connection to the first SOF revolution, the “Department of Strategic Services.”
This third revolution in special operations would place this critical capability at the right level of command, with the right organization, with empowered leadership, authority, and influence providing civilian oversight to most effectively support the national security and defense strategies.
*David Maxwell, a 30-year veteran of the United States Army and retired Special Forces colonel, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from David and CMPP, please subscribe here. Follow David on Twitter @davidmaxwell161. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Biden Should Give Maduro Reason to Worry
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
America’s support of a democratic Venezuela would be more steadfast under a new administration.
One of the defining features of the Trump years has been the collapse of bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. There is at least one notable exception, however: support for a democratic transition in Venezuela.
When Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s national assembly and the man recognized by the U.S. and more than 60 other nations as the country’s interim president, attended the State of the Union address in Washington this year, he received a standing ovation from Democrats and Republicans. The next day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saluted his courage. “We believe the plight of the people of Venezuela is a challenge to the conscience of the world,” she said.
Democratic support for President Donald Trump’s initial 2019 Venezuela policy — support for Guaido and sanctions against President Nicolas Maduro — is particularly important now. In December, Venezuela is scheduled to hold a rigged election for the legislature that Guaido now leads. If Joe Biden wins the U.S. election in November, he will have to decide how best to respond to what happens in Venezuela a month later.
Early signs are that he will do the right thing. Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate in 2019 to support Guaido as interim president, tweeting three weeks after Guaido was recognized by Trump: “It is time for Maduro to step aside and allow a democratic transition.”Biden has been careful to say he does not support “regime change” for Venezuela, the phrase used to describe the George W. Bush administration’s approach to Iraq. But he has come close to endorsing the concept in substance. As he told the Americas Quarterly in March, Maduro “is a dictator, plain and simple, but the overriding goal in Venezuela must be to press for a democratic outcome through free and fair elections, and to help the Venezuelan people rebuild their country.”
To be clear: The elections in December will not bring Venezuela closer to democracy. They will have the opposite effect of purging Maduro’s opposition from the country’s parliament. That’s because the national assembly is supposed to choose the body to manage elections. The country’s supreme court usurped this power this year and appointed its own electoral commission of cronies. In addition, Venezuela’s top court has also disqualified the leaders of most opposition parties.
Biden has not gotten into much detail on this matter. But Trump’s special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, has. Speaking to reporters last week, he said the supreme court’s recent shenanigans are “yet another demonstration that with Maduro still in power and in a position to manipulate the elections and their outcome, there can be no free and fair election in Venezuela.”
Abrams and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were clear last week that the U.S. does not support any kind of negotiation with Maduro, other than one over the terms by which he would leave power. That stands in contrast to Trump’s musings in June that he may be open to meeting with Maduro, undermining the policy his administration had been building for the past 18 months. For now at least, it appears that negotiations with Maduro are off the table.
So Biden has an opportunity. He would weaken the dictator’s hand simply by saying that, if elected president, he would not recognize the results of the rigged election Maduro has planned for December.
Such a message would be particularly effective for two reasons, one having to do with interpersonal relations and the other with international relations. First, Biden’s rejection of the upcoming elections could confirm Maduro’s already paranoid impression that the former vice president has long sought his demise. Back in 2015, Maduro publicly accused Biden of fomenting regime change in Venezuela after meeting with leaders of Caribbean countries. At the time, Biden’s office said Maduro’s statements were an effort to distract Venezuelan citizens from the worsening political and humanitarian crisis in their country. Five years later, Biden could cause Maduro to doubt himself all over again.
Second, and more important, a statement about the elections would strengthen the resolve of Venezuela’s neighbors that have supported Guaido’s elevation and Maduro’s ouster. For Latin American countries that have followed Trump’s lead, a faux election in December would be an attractive excuse to improve relations with Maduro’s regime. Biden should make it clear now that if he wins, they will be expected to stay the course that Trump set in 2019.

Like the IRGC, Iran’s army should be a designated terror organization
Reza Parchizadeh/Al Arabiya/Tuesday 04 August 2020
Hopes in the Iranian army as a force for change are misplaced – just like the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the army should be sanctioned for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
With the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic in full swing and the regime teetering on the verge of collapse, some are hoping that the Iranian military could bring about change with a coup. In this scenario, the military ousts the Supreme Leader and puts an opposition figure in his place while retaining much of the regime’s security apparatus and military structure. This approach has been advocated by Iran’s former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose endearing tweets to the Islamic Republic of Iran Army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are well known on the Farsi web.
After the IRGC’s designation as a state terrorist force by the US in 2019, the army is increasingly being considered as a possible instrument of change in Iran. However, the army’s record clearly demonstrates that when it comes to ideology and oppression, there is hardly any difference between it and the Revolutionary Guards. In fact, like the IRGC, the army has been an instrument of imperialism in the Middle East and of oppression inside Iran, and as such is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Immediately after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the mass purges by the revolutionary government devastated the toppled Shah’s Imperial Army high command. A great number of army generals were either immediately eliminated or first prosecuted in kangaroo courts and then executed on the vague charge of “sowing corruption on earth.” On the other hand, the commanders who cooperated with the new regime were initially saved from prosecution and served the Islamist regime for a few years, but were gradually removed from command or killed under highly suspicious circumstances.
After the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the regime’s second Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed IRGC officers as army commanders. Khamenei has since promoted and given command to army officers who are close to him and are ready to publicly promote the regime’s ideology and expansionist agenda. Over four decades, this process has increasingly stripped the army of its existential philosophy and practical functionality as the classic defense force of Iran. As a result of such systematic restructuring and appointments, the army has become an unofficial subsidiary branch of the IRGC.
Both the army and the IRGC supported the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad during the ongoing bloody war in Syria that has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions. In April 2016, General Ali Arasteh, deputy coordinator of the Army Ground Force, announced that Brigade 65 of NOHED, the so-called green beret elite forces of the army, has been stationed in Syria to bolster Assad’s regime, adding that other army units have also been deployed in unspecified locations in Syria. The regime has largely avoided publicizing the deployment of the army in Syria because the Islamic Republic’s constitution forbids the deployment of the Iranian defense forces outside Iran’s borders for any purpose.
On top of this overseas military adventurism, the army has been instrumental in suppressing popular protests in Iran. Army commanders have publicly defended crackdowns against peaceful protests, and army units were seen suppressing the more recent uprisings. In January 2018, the army Commander-in-Chief Abdorrahim Mousavi wrote a strongly worded open letter to the police commander Hossein Ashtari in which he praised the police force for suppressing the ongoing protests and said that the army is ready to suppress this “sedition” alongside the police, the IRGC, and the Basij, at the behest of the Supreme Leader.
During a new round of protests in November 2019, the army joint chiefs of staff issued an announcement that praised the police and the security forces for suppressing what they called a “conspiracy” by the enemies of the Islamic Republic. During the same protests, in which the regime is accused of massacring thousands of civilians, mechanized army vehicles and helicopters were deployed in cities across Iran. In December 2019, the police chief Ashtari praised the army for helping suppress the protests.
The idea that the Islamic Republic Army will stage a coup against the Islamist system and install a secular opposition figure in its place is therefore wishful thinking. This plan demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation on the ground. Just as the Wehrmacht and the Red Army did not oust Hitler and Stalin despite their enemies’ hopes, the Iranian army will not oust the Supreme Leader.
Indeed, the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards are one and the same. In response to President Trump’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization in 2019, Iranian army generals publicly appeared in IRGC uniforms to express solidarity with their branded brothers-in-arms. In view of all this, along with the Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic Army should be designated and sanctioned by individual nations and international organizations for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Rich Still Want to Buy Their Ferraris
Chris Hughes/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
The business of making Ferraris is doing embarrassingly well in the pandemic.
COVID-19 has affected the production and delivery of luxury cars, but not demand from the wealthy to acquire them, as analysts have noted. The financial impact of the virus on Ferrari NV’s performance is, for now, looking like only one quarter of lost earnings. Management has handled the crisis well.
Revenue fell 42% year-on-year in the second quarter, with vehicle shipments dropping 48%, Monday’s results revealed. Production slipped after factories were closed to protect workforces, and the shuttering of dealers hampered deliveries. The company decided against taking the axe to capital expenditures and costs, choosing instead to continue paying staff and to accelerate bonuses for dealers. Hence earnings per share fell 95%, while free cash flow was negative.
Meanwhile, the order book for new cars is “as strong as ever.” The group says its customers’ morale is high. The pandemic supports private car use at all budgets, and Ferrari believes many see a purchase of one of its vehicles as a reward during a time of difficulty.
This has given Ferrari the confidence to be more precise in its guidance for the year. Underlying Ebitda, a measure of profit, is expected to be down just 13%, at around 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). Second-half Ebitda is expected to be up year-on-year, with the performance weighted toward the end of 2020.
There’s a debate about whether Ferrari’s peers are the mainstream carmakers or the luxury houses. Its strong pricing power, and skill in controlling volumes and squeezing demand to maintain cache, reinforce the argument it belongs with the latter. The second-quarter fall in sales was in line with that of Hermes International, and only slightly less severe than the drops announced by Kering SA and Richemont in their latest quarterly updates. Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy SE fared somewhat better, with a revenue drop of 38% in the second quarter.
Hence Ferrari’s luxury valuation. The company’s shares are 5% higher than when they started the year, whereas European stocks are down over 10%. On an enterprise value basis, the stock is worth 20 times next year’s estimated Ebitda. Hermes’ multiple is 25, while the rest trail on 13 at best.
Although Ferrari is demonstrating its resilience to the pandemic, it would be wrong to think the crisis brings no threats to its business. Some challenges may have yet to emerge. As governments look for ways to pay for the costs of the coronavirus, expect a raft of policies seeking to tax those who can afford a Ferrari as a pick-me-up in miserable times.

100-Year-Old Antitrust Laws Are No Match for Big Tech
Tara Lachapelle/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
When US antitrust laws were first written more than a hundred years ago, the word “data” had a slightly different meaning, referring mainly to facts and manually-compiled information. You didn’t hear it much in everyday language, and it certainly wasn’t associated with trust-busting. In the digital world of today, it’s come to mean the measurable tidbits and inputs that add up to make every program and app — and thus much of the world’s economy — function. And the fact that it isn’t anywhere to be found in antitrust rules is a big problem.
To have data is to have power, and collecting it is the lifeblood of four of the most valuable companies in America: Facebook Inc., Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. Together, they are worth more than $5 trillion by market cap. That’s like adding up the market values of Walmart Inc., Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Procter & Gamble Co., Pfizer Inc., Coca-Cola Co., Exxon Mobil Corp., Nike Inc., McDonald’s Corp. and Walt Disney Co. — and then multiplying that sum by two. Calling it “Big Tech” doesn’t even do it justice.
These leaders of social-media, online-search, e-commerce and smartphones are so embedded in consumers’ lives that it’s nearly impossible to avoid interacting with them on a given day and handing over reams of data, all for free, in the process: Checking emails, “liking” a post about Taylor Swift, clicking on an enchiladas recipe, joining a group for novice knitters, searching for bug spray and new eyeglass frames, looking up the UPS store’s hours and directions to it, downloading a fitness app and geo-tagging a selfie at the beach — innocuous activities that are meticulously tracked to build a profile of who you are and predict how you’ll spend your money.
That power hasn’t gone unnoticed by regulators, Congress and other critics, many of whom wonder whether the companies’ dominance is a sign that current antitrust laws have come up short in regulating this relatively new industry. The answer is, they have — and that’s not all that surprising considering current laws were written with largely traditional businesses in mind, in which a tangible product or a service is built using suppliers and then sold to an end user. How Big Tech makes money can feel a bit more nebulous to an outsider, as well as who exactly is hurt by some of the industry’s practices. Their customers are advertisers and other large and small businesses. The product is, well, you.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, appeared last Wednesday over video chat before a Congressional committee that’s investigating whether the industry has a monopoly problem. The Federal Trade Commission is also examining whether past acquisitions by these companies were anticompetitive. The industry doesn’t see it that way; when the members of Congress pointed to known instances of data misuse or overreach, the CEOs often chalked it up to one-offs or minor mishaps, rather than patterns of harmful business practice aimed at squelching competition. Where critics see an anticompetitive move, Big Tech sees a noble effort to improve service for consumers.
It’s time that antitrust laws were updated so that regulators can better chaperone the industry — and its treasure trove of data — for it is both an immense intellectual and economic national asset and an opaque force with the power to capitalize on unknowing consumers and suppress rival businesses. Even with the best of intentions to create beneficial services that keep the world connected and informed, the result of Big Tech having such unchecked power over reams of valuable information has been to leave consumers and third-party partners comparatively powerless.
Amassing so much data isn’t inherently anticompetitive — nor does it directly hit people’s wallets — but regulators need to look at how it’s collected and used and take action when competition is harmed in the process. Amazon makes for the simplest example of how it can become problematic: The company has been accused of using the highly detailed information it gathers from sellers on its marketplace to inform what products to make for its own private label, AmazonBasics, and to undercut the competition. That’s a major conflict of interest and an unfair advantage over third-party sellers, but there’s nothing those sellers can really do about it — Amazon is practically the only game in town. (Would any reasonable person consider Etsy Inc. or even EBay Inc. to be substitutes?) Bezos said using seller data to aid Amazon’s own brand would be a company violation, but he didn’t deny that it happens and said he’s looking into the issue.
This type of accusation against Amazon is the clearest example of monopoly power. Others aren't so clear-cut. My colleague Tae Kim summarizes more of the complaints about the companies here and explains why issues around Google are particularly thorny. This is precisely where the US antitrust framework gets tripped up by the digital-data industry. Take the US guidelines on mergers, which state:
A merger enhances market power if it is likely to encourage one or more firms to raise price, reduce output, diminish innovation, or otherwise harm customers as a result of diminished competitive constraints or incentives.
Rising prices are the most obvious way mergers can be harmful. But small acquisitions by Big Tech tend to fall into that all-encompassing “otherwise harm” category described above. Facebook’s 2012 takeover of Instagram was harmful because it left social-media users with few alternatives, forcing them in effect to accept the company’s terms and further widening its lead over newcomer apps. Even if regulators couldn’t have predicted this at the time, it’s indisputable now that Facebook dominates social media and that spinning off Instagram would restore competition. (It would probably be good for shareholders, too, as Tae Kim has argued.)
The FTC says that antitrust laws were intentionally written in general terms, allowing them to be broadly applied and interpreted in changing times on a case-by-case basis. But it may be that they are overly broad to the point of being antiquated, or at least not specific enough to effectively govern Big Tech. For example, the idea of “prices” should also include the price social-media users pay — the level of data they must fork over and the loss of control they have over that data. Another steep price that can be paid in the digital era is a privacy breach. Facebook’s controversies involving its data aren’t merely public-relations matters — they stem from competitive dominance and insufficient regulatory oversight.
Antitrust enforcement also comes down to how regulators define markets. “In the absence of price competition, market definition can be difficult,” Makan Delrahim, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in a November speech regarding the data industry. “Antitrust enforcers may need to play an even greater role in zero-price markets,” he said. Rather than a zero-price market, Google and Facebook would argue that they compete healthily in the $333 billion global digital-advertising space, with Amazon nipping at their heels in the U.S. and Apple’s devices serving as conduits. But the ad market provides an incomplete picture, and that framing implies these companies are merely a powerful foursome. Defining the market more narrowly — and more accurately — shows how each one has instead become a monopoly of sorts, having carved out its own silo with few, if any, true competitors.
Advertisers may regularly adjust how much money to allocate to each site, but they generally need to be present on all of them. Facebook provides the ability to target ultra-specific subsets of people. Google isn’t just a search engine, it’s the primary verb people use for search, and it further feeds that dominance by scraping useful information from other pages, making its products priority destinations. For sellers of goods, Amazon’s marketplace offers the best reach. App developers don’t have much choice than to agree to the Apple app store’s onerous terms and fees. Consumers don’t pick and choose between these products and services either — they must use them all or accept life under a rock.
Regulators would also be more effective if antitrust laws specified how data can be used and with what limitations, as well as requirements for safeguarding it. That would prevent Amazon from having such porous walls between its marketplace and internal brand. It could put an end to Google’s practice of paying to keep its search engine dominant and being able to direct so much traffic toward its own sites.
Data should no longer be thought of as just an input for effective advertising, but rather the focal point of the question of whether Big Tech has too much power. If the answer is yes, and the remedy is creating an environment that would allow more Instagrams and Googles to flourish, wouldn’t everyone benefit?

Goodbye Weak Dollar, Hello Emerging Market Crisis?
John Authers/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
Is the decline of the dollar over? The US currency has been falling steadily ever since the world exited the initial stage of the Covid-19 crisis. It has done so in line with the spectacular decline in real yields. This makes perfect sense. With lower yields, there is lower “carry” to be earned by parking in the dollar, so the currency would be expected to weaken.
But last week ended with a distinct variation of the theme. The 10-year real yield dropped below minus 1% for the first time since inflation-protected Treasury bonds have been on issue. Meanwhile the popular dollar index, which compares the currency to a group of leading counterparts, suddenly enjoyed its strongest rally in months, gaining almost 1% into the close.
A weaker dollar is generally regarded as a desirable for a number of reasons. A strong dollar tends to mean that money has gone into the US seeking a haven, so the slide of the last few months shows a return of risk appetite, even as the virus remains unbeaten. Also, a strong dollar causes problems for emerging markets. The depreciation of the last few months should have relieved pressure on a number that had taken on too much dollar-denominated debt.
The only problem is that this hasn’t in fact happened. The following chart, from NatWest Markets, shows that the dollar’s weakness of June and July has been almost solely about the strength of other developed-market currencies, particularly the euro. Against Asian currencies it has held steady. And against “high-yield” emerging market currencies, it has actually strengthened. Those high-yield currencies enjoyed a recovery as the worst of the crisis appeared to pass in May — they have fallen over the past two months.
The weaker dollar may not, then, have been as positive a sign as was hoped. The main reason the high-yielding currencies remained weak was because their central banks had no choice but to cut rates in the face of the pandemic. That substantially reduced the advantages to holding money in those currencies. This NatWest Markets chart shows that despite the precipitous fall in US real yields, emerging markets rates are at the narrowest spread over rates in the G-10 since the taper tantrum of 2013. Potential pressure on emerging markets remains considerable if the dollar begins to regain strength. The greatest hope to avoid a classic emerging markets debt-and-devaluation crisis is that central banks’ actions haven’t spurred inflation, yet. Citibank’s inflation surprise indexes suggest that investors were unprepared for the scale of the slowdown.
In the week ahead, which has the customary glut of macro data to accompany the beginning of the month, the central banks of Brazil and India will meet. Both are expected to continue easing, as they deal with what appear to be serious virus outbreaks. Those meetings, along with Tuesday’s gathering of the Reserve Bank of Australia, another country that is grappling with a serious Covid resurgence, will be more closely watched than usual.
What will drive the dollar from here? After such a prolonged downdraft, it looked oversold on plenty of measures, so we might well see it bounce back further aided by technical factors. But the virus, as ever, may have most to do with it.
The critical flaw in the dollar over the last two months has been the deterioration in the public health situation in the US, while other countries continued to have the virus under some kind of control. As Marc Chandler, foreign exchange strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York, puts it:
There is no reason to expect the investment climate is going to change next week. The key drivers remain the same. The resurgence being seen in the virus is posing a speed bump in the re-opening and recovery process. The work of monetary and fiscal policy is not over. The low real and nominal interest rates are encouraging risk-taking by savers, and this means equities, commodities, and emerging markets.
Until there is a vaccine that is widely available, flare-ups seem inevitable. The issue is how long it takes to bring it back under control. Even without new national lockdowns, the economic impact can be palpable. It may provide a speed bump of sorts to the pace of the recovery.

Good Covid-19 News From Italy...and Sweden
Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
The lifting of Covid-19 lockdowns around the world was never going to be easy. But as infections are flaring up from Spain to Australia, it’s worth noting that two of the hardest-hit countries at the pandemic’s peak — Italy and Sweden — are keeping the virus’s spread under control.
Daily confirmed cases in both nations are now averaging at around 200 each, well below their respective peaks, with no rebound in sight and no strain on hospitals. By contrast, the daily case count in Spain rose past 2,000 last week and France’s surpassed 1,000. This is by no means a second wave, but it’s worth asking what Italy and Sweden might be doing differently to manage the virus.
These countries once stood out for the wrong reasons. Italy was the first European country hit by a Covid-19 surge and the first to impose a draconian lockdown. Sweden took a more liberal and controversial approach — at odds even with other Nordic countries — that kept schools open and broadly stuck to recommendations on social distancing and self-isolation rather than forced quarantine.
While Italy’s lockdown arguably saved lives, it came late. Sweden’s, meanwhile, never came at all. On a per-capita basis, Italy’s death toll of more than 35,154 comes to about 600 per 1 million people, as does Sweden’s 5,743.
Still, in the current post-peak phase, with Italy gradually reopening its economy and Sweden maintaining its policy, both countries seem to have found their stride in living with the virus.
In Italy, top-down, public-health management of life after lockdown seems to be winning the day. As in other countries, social-distancing rules require people to keep one meter (3.3 feet) apart and to wear face masks in public indoor spaces or on public transit, but there’s a particularly high level of enforcement and rigor.
Taking a train or going into an office building in Italy involves having your temperature checked. Going out to dinner means giving the restaurant your full contact details to ensure a potential infection transmission can be traced. Special forms must be filled in for access to tourist hot spots like Sardinia, Sicily and Puglia. In the northern region of Lombardy, the country’s original epicenter, masks have even been required outdoors. Breaking Covid-19 quarantine is a crime nationwide, with possible sanctions including fines or jail time.
The effectiveness of these rules is a testament to people’s willingness and ability to follow them, says Rosanna Tarricone, associate professor in health-care management at Bocconi University. Regulations extend to how people dance in a nightclub or sunbathe on the beach. Without some level of buy-in, they wouldn’t get very far. Memories of the harrowing scenes as hospitals were overloaded with Covid-19 patients are also a motivator. There’s a feeling of collective responsibility mixed in with fear. If the lesson from Italy is that bureaucracy, enforcement and obedience are key to controlling Covid-19 outbreaks, Sweden appears contradictory at first glance. After much hesitation and questioning of its hands-off approach, especially after a grim death toll in nursing homes and a continued rise in infections in June, the country has stuck to it. There’s no mandatory mask-wearing in Sweden, social distancing is recommended rather than enforced, and people are generally advised to stay home if they’re feeling unwell. That the country’s curve has flattened will no doubt comfort anti-lockdown protesters in the US who once exhorted: “Be more like Sweden.”
But that would miss the point. Swedes haven’t benefited from simply “letting the virus rip” — their immunity levels are still low, antibody tests indicate — and they aren’t being told to throw caution to the wind. Behavioral changes have taken place: The flow of human traffic is still not back to normal in many areas, according to Google mobility data, and officials have regularly warned people that failure to respect social distancing would lead to tougher rules. Some rules have been tightened, from a ban on visits to elderly care homes to the shutdown of restaurants in Stockholm that weren’t following guidelines. Social distancing is paying off.
This isn’t a model that can be easily reproduced elsewhere. Swedes are young, their country is sparsely populated, and a high proportion already live relatively isolated lives by working from home in single-occupancy households. But the secret here might be consistency.
That’s a key component for ensuring Covid-19 policies are sustainable in the long run, according to Italian academic Giuliano Di Baldassarre, a professor of crisis management at Sweden’s Uppsala University. If the aim is to live with the virus until a treatment or vaccine is found, a stop-and-go approach to rules — such as the flip-flops most everywhere on whether face masks should be worn and where — might be counterproductive and make them impossible to enforce.
So while Italy shows that alertness and intervention pay off, Sweden is a reminder that this is a marathon more than a sprint.
There’s no quick fix or perfect template for Covid-19, and everyone makes mistakes. Italy’s closure of schools came with a huge cost that brought little benefit, while Sweden’s botched handling of care homes for the elderly probably led to deaths that could have been avoided. But as we move into a new phase of this pandemic the two countries are clearly worth watching.

Developing Nations Are Dealt a One-Two Hit to Growth
Noah Smith/Bloomberg/August 04/2020
Recent decades have been glorious for developing countries, where rapid growth has lifted millions of their citizens out of crushing poverty. But the coronavirus pandemic is threatening to halt their gains. And in the long term, the decline of the US may pose an even bigger obstacle for developing nations.
Starting in about 1990, poor countries started catching up to rich ones. South Korea, Taiwa.
n and some countries in Europe reached a fully developed state. China has powered ahead with one of the most impressive and rapid industrializations in world history. And countries such as Malaysia, Turkey, Poland, Romania and Thailand have also reached the cusp of developed status.
Other nations like Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Vietnam are starting out on the path to industrialization, while poor countries that mainly export natural resources have benefited from a boom in demand. This worldwide growth has coincided with a wave of migrant remittances. Together, growth and remittances have cut global extreme poverty dramatically, lowering global inequality
Unfortunately, this happy trend is in big danger. In the short term, the biggest threat by far is the coronavirus pandemic. The virus has sent the world into an economic tailspin; the International Monetary Fund expects global economic output to fall 4.9% in 2020, the largest drop since before World War II. And with many migrants out of work, remittances have plunged.
Although the IMF predicts a rapid return to growth in 2021, there are many reasons that might not happen. For one thing, even if an effective vaccine arrives in early 2021 -- the most optimistic scenario -- it will take a long time to get it to everyone in the world who wants it. That means some countries will continue to see their economies hobbled by social distancing. International travel will be difficult and dangerous, crimping trade relationships further. And once those trade relationships deteriorate, it could take a while for them to build back up again, especially with much of the world edging toward protectionism. The pivotal relationship between the US and China has already partially unwound since 2016. The World Trade Organization predicts a 32% fall in global trade in 2020, with only an incomplete rebound next year.
Disrupted trade relationships will make it hard for industrializing countries like Malaysia, Turkey, and Thailand to continue their strategy of export-led growth. These countries now export a lot of electronics, vehicles and other manufactured goods, often to developed markets. In addition to depressing sales, crimping production and inhibiting travel, coronavirus may cause those developed countries to reevaluate their supply-chain strategies. Already, US presidential candidate Joe Biden is promising to consolidate supply chains within the country to protect against national security threats. If this becomes the norm, it could make it more difficult for industrializing nations to promote exports to grow and raise productivity levels. A general retreat of world trade could end up looking like the Great Depression, with protectionist policies and economic stagnation reinforcing each other for years to come.
But whether in one year or five, eventually economies will recover from coronavirus. As confidence returns and the memory of the pandemic fades, nations and companies will once more look toward expanding global trade. The problem is that at that point, developing countries will face a new problem -- the diminished global role of the US
The US has traditionally functioned as a buyer of last resort for countries that wanted to engage in export-led growth. It bought large amounts of manufactured products from Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, helping those countries grow. The US maintained open capital markets, allowing the dollar to become the reserve currency, even though this contributed to domestic trade deficits. And it pushed for free-trade agreements, including China’s entry into the WTO. Recently, countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam have had currencies that were cheap against the dollar, helping their businesses sell to the US Furthermore, the US ’s openness has allowed developing nations to absorb first-world technology and management practices via joint ventures, overseas study and supply chains, thus boosting those countries’ productivity.
But the US is a nation in decline. It has had the worst coronavirus response among developed nations, exposing deep institutional decay. It’s also suffering from bitter divisions and continued unrest. And it continues to lose economic ground to China in terms of economic size, exports and high-tech export industries. The dollar’s status as the reserve currency also may be on shaky ground.
That could pose a huge problem for developing nations. China, with its government-dominated economy, capital controls and mercantilist instincts, is unlikely to be willing to let upstart rivals sell freely into its markets. Nor will China be as eager to allow its technology to leak through its national borders.
The replacement of a US -centric global economy with a China-centric one thus spells trouble for the happy trend of global development that has prevailed for the past three decades. In a newly closed-off, competitive world, it probably will be harder for the underdogs to catch up.