LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 23.2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord
First Letter to the Corinthians 01/26-31/:”Consider your own call, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 22-23/2020
A New Hezbollah Government Per Excellence In Occupied Lebanon/Elias Bejjani/January 22/2020
Lebanon forms government with backing of Hezbollah and allies
Netanyahu Discusses Hizbullah 'Precision Missiles' with Macron
Macron Says Paris to Do 'Everything' to Help Resolve Lebanon Crisis
Fresh Clashes Erupt in Central Beirut after New Govt. Formed
Aoun Urges Govt. to Regain Int'l Confidence, Reassure Lebanese
Panel Drafting Govt. Policy Statement to Meet Friday
Diab Says New Cabinet Faces 'Catastrophe'
New Govt. Holds First Meeting as Protests Persist
Lebanon's New Govt. Faces Multiple Challenges, Growing Unrest
Skepticism over Lebanon's 'Technocratic' Cabinet
Banks Association Says Ready to Help Get Lebanon Out of Crisis
Berri: Govt. Has Capability to Overcome Current Crisis
Wazni: Impossible to Restore Previous Exchange Rate
Lebanon’s new Cabinet already on borrowed time/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/January 22/2020
Nasrallah as Khamenei’s secret troubleshooter in Iraq/DEBKAfile/January 22/2020
US Seeks to Corner Hezbollah in Latin America
UN chief says will work with new Lebanese govt on reforms
Lebanon faces economic ‘catastrophe’ says new PM Diab
France will do ‘everything’ to help resolve Lebanon crisis: Macron
Impossible for Lebanese exchange rate to return to what it was: Finance minister
Lebanon needs foreign support, decision on Eurobond: New finance minister
Lebanese protesters block roads in Beirut after new government announced
New Quds Force deputy is Iran’s missile man in Lebanon/Jerusalem Post/January 22/2020
Technocrats or autocrats? Lebanon's new cabinet meet as protesters slam 'government of failure'
Lebanon's divisive new cabinet faces a near impossible task amid heightened protests and increasing repression/Rami G. Khouri/The New Arab/January 22/2020
Lebanon gets a new Hezbollah-backed government amid mounting unrest/Liz Sly and Suzan Haidamous/The Washington Post/January 22/2020
Profile: Lebanon's new cabinet members, including the Arab world's first-ever female defence chief/The New Arab/January 22/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 22-23/2020
US will have a deal with EU before 2020 elections: Trump
Iraqi president, Trump meet in Davos, discuss foreign troops cut
Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons: French president Macron
Iranian police arrest child for ripping up poster of Soleimani
Iran will never seek nuclear arms, with or without nuclear deal: Rouhani
Iran could withdraw from 2015 nuclear deal in dispute with West: Official
Iran's local Basij milita commander gunned down at home: Report
At least 10 protesters killed over two days: Iraq human rights commission
Iraq activist shot dead as protesters block roads again
Saudi Arabia open to talks with Tehran: Saudi FM
Saudi Arabia asks US to remove Sudan from terror list
Turkey FM: Our troops in Libya for education, training only
Oman’s FM addresses regional challenges after Sultan Qaboos death
Tripoli airport closes again after rocket fire
Five Houthi militia leaders killed in confrontations with Yemeni army
China has ‘no intention to participate’ in arms talks
India’s top court gives govt more time to explain divisive citizenship law
US Senate approves Trump impeachment trial rules
Hamas chief to remain outside Gaza for months: Deputy
Hillary Clinton says ‘nobody likes’ Bernie Sanders
Hong Kong on high alert to tackle coronavirus outbreak

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 22-23/2020
Libya’s Haftar moving towards a military victory as Europe pushes for peace/Cyril Widdershoven/Al Arabiya English/January 22/2020
America’s unconventional energy revolution a hard act to follow/Sultan Althari/Al Arabiya English/January 22/2020
Turkey’s descent from ‘no problems’ to a series of conflicts/Joseph Dana/Arab News/January 22/2020
Turkey will suffer another failure if it expands Libya conflict/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/January 22/2020
Palestinians face bleak future as moderates sidelined/Ray Hanania/Arab News/January 22/2020
Royal drama representative of broader rejection of institutionsKerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/January 22/2020
Medical research an investment in people’s well-being/Sara Al-Mulla/Arab News/January 22/2020

Details Of The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorial publishedon January 22-23/2020
A New Hezbollah Government Per Excellence In Occupied Lebanon
Elias Bejjani/January 22/2020
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/82508/elias-bejjani-a-new-hezbollah-government-per-excellence-in-occupied-lebanon-%d8%ad%d9%83%d9%88%d9%85%d8%a9-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%ac%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%af%d8%a9-%d9%85%d9%86/
In reality and actuality it is worth mentioning that all The governments in Lebanon since 2005, and all those that took place during the entire savage-Stalinist Syrian occupation era were mere puppets, clowns, and masks no more no less.
Sadly the new so called falsely Lebanese government that was imposed by force today by the occupier Hezbollah has nothing that is Lebanese and practically it is not going to be different by any means.
It remains that Lebanon’s main problem and devastating cancer is the Hezbollah-Iranian occupation, and accordingly no solutions are possible in any field or sector as long as this occupier remains in control and have the upper hand in all domains and all levels.
In conclusion Lebanon is an Iranian occupied country, while all its officials and politicians from top to bottom are castrated in all domains of sovereignty, independence, decision making process, dignity, self respect, faith, and freedom.
All these clowns have no say in any matter and did actually sell themselves and the country with much less than thirty coins.
They are officials and politicians who shamelessly obey Hezbollah’s Faramens (orders and decrees) and happily serve its Iranian schemes of occupation, oppression, iranization and expansionism
Meanwhile the Hariri last government was a Hezbollah facade too and Hariri himself was a number one advocate for the Hezbollah occupation regionally and globally.
It remains that this third government during Michael Aoun’s presidency is a Hezbollah one per excellence while Aoun himself as a president was made by Hezbollah.
Unfortunately, Aoun and since year 2006 has been openly and boldly serving Hezbollah’s Iranian hegemony and Occupation on the account of every thing that is Lebanon and Lebanese.

Lebanon forms government with backing of Hezbollah and allies
Reuters/January 22/2020
But analysts said Hezbollah's role in the government's formation meant it might have difficulty convincing other states to provide urgently needed financial support.
Lebanon formed a new government on Tuesday under Prime Minister Hassan Diab after the Shi'ite group Hezbollah and its allies agreed on a cabinet that must urgently address the economic crisis and ensuing protests that toppled its predecessor.
The heavily indebted country has been without effective government since Saad al-Hariri resigned as premier in October, prompted by protests against a political elite seen as having caused the crisis through state corruption.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah and allies including President Michel Aoun nominated Diab as premier last month after efforts failed to strike a deal with Hariri, Lebanon's main Sunni leader and an ally of the West and Gulf Arab states.
Weeks of wrangling over portfolios among Hezbollah's allies held up an agreement until Tuesday, when the heavily armed group delivered an ultimatum to its allies to make a deal or suffer the consequences, sources familiar with the talks said.
The cabinet is made up of 20 specialist ministers backed by parties. Economist Ghazi Wazni was nominated finance minister with the backing of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Nassif Hitti, a former ambassador to the Arab League, was named foreign minister with the backing of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. Diab described his government as a technocratic "rescue team" that would work to achieve the goals of protesters who first took to the streets on Oct. 17. His first trip abroad would be to the Arab region, particularly the Gulf.
But analysts said Hezbollah's role in the government's formation meant it might have difficulty convincing other states to provide urgently needed financial support.
Hezbollah is designated a terrorist group by the United States, and Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states that have provided Lebanon with financial aid in the past have for years been deeply concerned by its rising influence in Beirut.
'NOT EASY FOR THIS GOVERNMENT'
"It will certainly not be easy for a government of this type to convince the outside world to help Lebanon," said Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief of the An-Nahar newspaper. The absence of a government had left Lebanon rudderless as ordinary people suffered in the crisis.
A liquidity crunch has led banks to restrict access to cash and the Lebanese pound to slump. Job have been lost and inflation has soared. Over the last week, hundreds have been injured in clashes between he security forces and demonstrators. Hariri and his Future Movement have stayed out of the government, along with the staunchly anti-Hezbollah Christian Lebanese Forces party and the Progressive Socialist Party of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Mohanad Hage Ali, a fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, said the new government of "one color" could further polarize Lebanese politics. Hariri's absence meant that old Sunni-Shi'ite tensions might be reactivated. In some parts of Beirut, protesters greeted the new government by burning tires. One of the government's first tasks will be to decide its approach to looming sovereign bond repayments, including a $1.2 billion Eurobond maturing in March.
Lebanon's union of exchange dealers said on Tuesday it had decided to set the exchange rate at a maximum of 2,000 pounds to the U.S. dollar in agreement with the central bank governor. The pound has been officially pegged at 1,507.50 to the dollar for more than two decades. Diab expressed hope that the currency would strengthen.

Netanyahu Discusses Hizbullah 'Precision Missiles' with Macron
Naharnet/January 22/2020
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to curb Iranian influence in Syria and French President Emmanuel Macron to push back against Iran in Lebanon at this week's 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, experts said. Pro-Iranian militia in Syria have stepped up their efforts to launch attacks against Israel, which has responded with air strikes -- including on Damascus. Iran also has considerable sway in Israel's northern neighbor Lebanon through its backing of the powerful Hizbullah. Last year, the Israeli army accused Hizbullah of building -- with Iranian support -- a facility where rockets could be converted into precision guided missiles. The Israeli army has warned that, once operational, such missiles would be more difficult to repel than standard rockets and could inflict substantial damage on Israel's soil. France, which as a colonial power held a mandate in Lebanon, still has influence in Beirut. Netanyahu raised "Hizbullah's project to manufacture precision missiles" during his closed door meeting with Macron on Wednesday, a statement from the prime minister's office said. Speaking alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin later on, Macron pledged "vigilance" against "any form of terrorist activity that could be carried out from Lebanon that would threaten Israel's security," without giving details. An Israeli security source who requested anonymity suggested to AFP that if Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was persuaded that the guided missile project was "too risky... he will stop it."

Macron Says Paris to Do 'Everything' to Help Resolve Lebanon Crisis
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 22/2020
France will do "everything" to help resolve Lebanon's "deep crisis," President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, as a new government in Beirut faces a tenacious protest movement and a nosediving economy. "We will do everything, during this deep crisis that they are going through, to help ... our Lebanese friends," Macron said, speaking alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin during a visit to Jerusalem. The comments came as new Prime Minister Hassan Diab convened his first cabinet, which donors hope can spearhead reforms, unlock foreign aid and help stabilize a plummeting currency.
While pledging support to France's "Lebanese friends," Macron also stressed that he would remain "vigilant" regarding any "terrorist activity" from Lebanon that could threaten either the Lebanese people or its southern neighbor Israel. Lebanon is technically still at war with Israel.

Fresh Clashes Erupt in Central Beirut after New Govt. Formed
Naharnet/January 22/2020
Security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at anti-government protesters in central Beirut on Wednesday afternoon, after some of them hurled stones firecrackers and uprooted trees and began dismantling a huge security barrier outside Nejmeh Square. The area had witnessed overnight clashes during a demo rejecting the country’s new government. As soon as protesters arrived at the site on Wednesday, some of them mounted the metallic wall and barricades outside Nejmeh Square as other started dismantling the security barrier. Protesters later torched a tent belonging to security forces on the edge of Nejmeh Square and smashed the facade of one of the shops. The clashes were still raging after around four hours from the eruption of the confrontation although riot police, assisted by commando forces from the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch, managed to clear protesters from the area around parliament and from the premises of the luxury Beirut Souks shopping complex. The protesters have since retreated to the area near Kataeb Party’s headquarters in Saifi. And as security forces fired tear gas heavily, protesters responded by hurling Molotov cocktails, firecrackers and stones.
More than ten people were injured in the fierce clashes. LBCI TV had earlier reported that security forces in Dahr al-Baydar stopped dozens of buses coming from the Bekaa and prevented them from heading to Beirut. Several arrests were also made.Internal Security Forces commandos also set up a checkpoint on the highway near the Casino du Liban where they searched buses and vans carrying protesters to central Beirut.
A new Cabinet was announced in crisis-hit Lebanon late Tuesday, breaking a months-long impasse. The new government, which comes three months after former Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned, was rejected by protesters who have been calling for sweeping reforms and a government made up of independent technocrats that can deal with the country's economic and financial crisis, the worst since the 1975-90 civil war. Even before the Cabinet was announced, thousands of people poured into the streets, closing major roads in the capital of Beirut and other parts of the country in protest. The protesters complained that political groups still were involved in the naming of the new ministers, even if they are specialists and academics. "We want a government of experts ... who are they kidding?" said one protester, Fadi Zakour. "We have been protesting for 90 days and we are not happy to close roads," he added.
Diab saluted the protesters in the street and vowed to "work to fulfill your demands." In a speech addressing the country following the government announcement. Although the government announced Tuesday is technically made up of specialists, the ministers were named by political parties in a process involving horse trading and bickering with little regard for the demands of protesters for a transparent process and independent candidates. Panic and anger have gripped the public as the Lebanese pound, pegged to the dollar for more than two decades, plummeted in value. It fell more than 60% in recent weeks on the black market. The economy has seen no growth and flows of foreign currency dried up in the already heavily indebted country that relies on imports for most basic goods.

Aoun Urges Govt. to Regain Int'l Confidence, Reassure Lebanese
Naharnet/January 22/2020
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday said the new government must seek to regain international confidence in Lebanon and reassure the anxious citizens. “The critical period requires doubling the efforts and work, especially that the government was formed amid very difficult economic, financial and social situations,” Aoun told ministers during the first session of Hassan Diab’s government which was formed overnight. “It is necessary to work on addressing the economic situations, regaining the confidence of the international community in Lebanese institutions and reassuring the Lebanese about their future,” the president added. Noting that the government will hold successive sessions, Aoun said the previous government had prepared an economic plan and financial reforms which should be “implemented, or amended if necessary,” by the new government.

Panel Drafting Govt. Policy Statement to Meet Friday
Naharnet/January 22/2020
The new government on Wednesday formed a ministerial panel tasked with drafting the Cabinet’s Policy Statement. The committee is headed by Prime Minister Hassan Diab and comprise the deputy PM and the ministers of finance, foreign affairs, justice, economy and trade, environment and administrative development, information, youth and sport, telecom, industry, and social affairs. It will hold its first meeting Friday at 11:00 am at the Grand Serail.

Diab Says New Cabinet Faces 'Catastrophe'
Naharnet/January 22/2020
Lebanon faces a 'catastrophe', Prime Minister Hassan Diab said Wednesday after his newly unveiled cabinet held its first meeting to tackle the twin challenges of a tenacious protest movement and a nosediving economy. Hassan Diab, who replaced Saad Hariri as prime minister, vowed to meet the demands from the street but demonstrators were unconvinced and scuffled with police overnight. The 61-year-old academic, was thrown in at the deep end for his first experience on the political big stage and admitted that the situation he inherited was desperate.
"Today we are in a financial, economic and social dead end," he said in remarks read by the cabinet's secretary-general after the new cabinet's inaugural meeting in Beirut. "We are facing a catastrophe," he said. Diab also said that sacking the central bank governor was not on the table, adding that the new government will have a different financial and economic program. Diab did not elaborate about the program but some economists have called on Lebanon to work on improving production in the country that imports almost everything. Economists have also called for reducing interest rates so that people invest their money in businesses rather than keep it in bank accounts that offer high returns. "Government of last resort," was the headline on the front page of Al-Akhbar, a daily newspaper close to Hizbullah which gave its blessing to Diab's designation last month. Western sanctions on the Iranian-backed organization are stacking up and economists have argued the new government might struggle to secure the aid it so badly needs. But French President Emmanuel Macron, one of the first leaders to react to the formation of the new government, said he would "do everything, during this deep crisis that they are going through, to help."Hizbullah and its allies dominated the talks that produced the new line-up, from which outgoing premier Saad Hariri and some of his allies were absent. Hariri and his government resigned less than two weeks into the non-sectarian protests demanding the complete overhaul of the political system and celebrating the emergence of a new national civic identity. Protesters from across Lebanon's geographical and confessional divides had demanded a cabinet of independent technocrats as a first step to root out endemic government corruption and incompetence. Diab is a career academic from the prestigious American University of Beirut and he insisted Tuesday in his first comments that the government just unveiled was a technocratic one. "This is a government that represents the aspirations of the demonstrators who have been mobilized nationwide for more than three months," he said.
- Technocratic? -
Yet the horsetrading between traditional political factions during lengthy government formation talks was all too familiar to many Lebanese who met the breakthrough with distrust at best. "Instead of the corrupt politicians, we got the corrupt politicians' friends," said Ahmad Zaid, a 21-year-old student who joined a few hundred protesters in central Beirut after the announcement. Clusters of demonstrators burned tires and briefly blocked roads to express their displeasure at the new line-up but clashes with riot police were on a smaller scale than weekend violence that left dozens wounded. Similar rallies took place in Tripoli -- a hotbed of the protest movement -- in Sidon, Jbeil and other cities. The new cabinet is mostly made up of new faces, many of them academics and former ministry advisers.
It comprises 20 ministers and among its six women is Zeina Akar, Lebanon's first-ever female defense minister. To downsize the cabinet, some portfolios were merged, resulting in at times baffling combinations such as a single ministry for culture and agriculture. Anger at what protesters see as a kleptocratic oligarchy was initially fueled by youth unemployment that stands at more than 30 percent and the abysmal delivery of public services such as water and electricity.
- 'A little time' -
The long-brewing discontent was compounded by fears of a total economic collapse in recent weeks, with a liquidity crunch leading banks to impose crippling capital controls.Lebanon has one of the world's highest debt-to-GDP ratios and economists have argued it is hard to see how the near bankrupt country could repay its foreign debt. "Regarding the economic situation, I repeat that this is one of our priorities," Diab said Tuesday night."We need to be given a little time," he added. A looming default on Lebanon's debt, which has been steadily downgraded deeper into junk status by rating agencies, has sent the dollar soaring on the parallel exchange market. In a country where many transactions are carried out in dollars and most goods are imported, consumers and businesses alike have been hit hard by the national currency's free fall. Every morning, queues of people hoping to withdraw their weekly cap of 100 or 200 dollars form outside banks.

New Govt. Holds First Meeting as Protests Persist
Naharnet/January 22/2020
The newly formed government in crisis-hit Lebanon held its first meeting on Wednesday at Baabda Palace and was chaired by President Michel Aoun.
The government meeting was held directly after having the official commemorative photo taken. A meeting between Aoun, new Prime Minister Hassan Diab and Speaker Nabih Berri was held before the government convened. When asked about his opinion of the new government, smiling Berri who seldom makes comments to reporters, said: “The media are pessimistic, but we are optimistic.” The cabinet was formed Tuesday breaking a months-long impasse amid mass protests against the country's ruling elite and a crippling financial crisis, but demonstrations and violence continued overnight and early today. Diab, a 60-year-old former professor at the American University of Beirut, announced a Cabinet of 20 members — mostly specialists supported by Hizbullah and allied political parties. The new government, which comes three months after former Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned, was rejected by protesters who have been calling for sweeping reforms and a government made up of independent technocrats that can deal with the country's economic and financial crisis, the worst since the 1975-90 civil war.

Lebanon's New Govt. Faces Multiple Challenges, Growing Unrest
Associated Press/Naharnet/January 22/2020
Lebanon's new government, made up of members nominated by Hizbullah and its allies, got down to business Wednesday, a day after it was formed. Questions arose immediately about its ability to halt a spiral of economic and political collapse.
As the government headed by Hassan Diab held its first meeting, protesters briefly closed off major roads in and around the capital Beirut, denouncing it as a rubber stamp for the same political parties they blame for widespread corruption. Later on Wednesday, a few hundred protesters from northern and eastern Lebanon engaged in violent confrontations with security forces in downtown Beirut.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the young men, who ripped tiles off of buildings in downtown, breaking them up to use as stones to throw at police. Thick grey smoke hung over the city center as police fired volley after volley of gas canisters that left protesters wretching and gasping for breath. Diab vowed to tackle the country's crippling crisis -- the worst since the 1975-90 civil war -- saying his Cabinet will adopt financial and economic methods different than those of previous governments. But analysts said it was highly unlikely a government backed by Hizbullah and its allies would be able to drum up the international and regional support needed to avoid economic collapse.
Hizbullah is considered a “terrorist” organization by the U.S. and oil-rich Gulf countries whose support is badly needed for debt-ridden Lebanon. The European Union considers the military wing of Hizbullah a terrorist organization. "These ministers and this government will not be able to make independent decisions related to the economy or the political situation, so long as their decisions are up to the parties that formed this government, first and foremost Hizbullah," said political analyst Youssef Diab.
Protesters first took to the streets in mid-October in a mass uprising against the country's ruling elite, which they blame for decades of corruption and mismanagement that have brought Lebanon to the brink of economic collapse. Since then, the country has sunk deeper into a political crisis. The Lebanese pound, long pegged to the dollar, has lost up to 60% of its value against the dollar and banks have imposed unprecedented capital controls to preserve liquidity. Although the government announced Tuesday is technically made up of specialists, the ministers were named by political parties in a process involving horse trading and bickering with little regard for the demands of protesters for a transparent process and independent candidates. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials to the government formation.

Skepticism over Lebanon's 'Technocratic' Cabinet
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 22/2020
Lebanon's new prime minister claims to lead a government of technocrats but critics argue the line-up is window dressing for a set of ministers who are neither experts nor independent. Hassan Diab insisted the list of 20 ministers unveiled Tuesday night represented the demands of protesters who first took to the streets three months ago to demand change. But protesters reacted angrily to the line-up, arguing it fell short of a clean break from the sectarian-driven way of apportioning government jobs that has characterized Lebanese politics for decades. A self-proclaimed technocrat, the 61-year-old Diab is a university professor but also a former education minister who owes his political appointments to Hizbullah. Before his cabinet was even formed, many protesters rejected him as a pawn of the parties they want removed from the political landscape. The cabinet brought many new faces but the month-long political bargaining that led to Tuesday's announcement fueled deep-rooted suspicion that behind every technocrat is a party clinging to its share of influence and patronage. A closer look at the line-up confirmed that, with some exceptions, the government is nothing but another product of Lebanon's age-old political pie-slicing game.
'Cooking'
"Despite the presence of a few genuinely independent and reformist figures, the cooks who whipped up this government are the usual suspects," said Karim Bitar, a professor of international relations in Paris and Beirut.
Jebran Bassil, President Michel Aoun's son-in-law and arguably the politician most reviled by the protest camp, hands over the foreign ministry to Nassif Hitti, a respected career diplomat. Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm and Finance Minister Ghazni Wazni are also both considered to have strong credentials. But many of the new ministers are close to the stalwarts of Lebanon's hereditary ruling elite and will have little room for maneuver. "It feels as if the Lebanese political class wanted to show something more palatable to the public and international community," Bitar said.
"But there has been no in-depth change, just a bit of window dressing," he said. The newly appointed minister of public works, Michel Najjar, made no secret of his political debt. His first words were to thank not the prime minister but his sponsor Suleiman Franjieh for nominating him during government formation talks. The Lebanese press published articles giving a breakdown of each new minister's friendships and allegiances, painting a picture of a government team that will have its hands tied at a time when drastic economic measures are needed. MP Paula Yacoubian made it clear she felt "Diab did not keep his promise to form a government of independent" experts. The independence of the new government was always in doubt in a country where the ruling elite is desperate to cling to its privileges, but some of the new ministers' expertise was also coming under scrutiny Wednesday.
- Pipe dream -
When asked about the appointment of Zeina Akar -- a social scientist who runs a consultancy firm -- as defense minister, Diab fumbled his answer and questioned the need to have specialists for the job. Last-minute horsetrading between Lebanon's factions combined with a drive to downsize the cabinet also led to unlikely ministerial mergers. Social media was awash with wry comments and jokes on the appointment of Abbas Mortada, who has worked in hotel management and real estate, as the minister in charge of both culture and agriculture. His name was put forward by the AMAL Movement. After a three-month vacuum, a new government was eagerly awaited, at home and by Lebanon's donors, but fears are already high that it will not be in a position to deliver radical reforms needed to save the near-bankrupt country. Maha Yahya, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre, said a fully independent government of the country's brightest minds was the protest movement's pipe dream. "Ideally what you would have needed at this point in time, is a consensus by all political parties to allow an independent government to do its work and stabilize the country, prioritizing the economy over the politics," she said. "That didn't happen," she said.

Banks Association Says Ready to Help Get Lebanon Out of Crisis
Associated Press/Naharnet/January 22/2020
The Association of Banks in Lebanon said Wednesday that it expects from the new government a "clear financial and economic program that takes into consideration the big challenges that Lebanon is facing."
It added that the banking sector is ready to help in getting Lebanon out of its crisis. Also on Wednesday, the U.S. dollar was being bought at exchange shops around the country for 2,000 Lebanese pounds after hitting a record of 2,500 pounds to the dollar last week.The official rate remained at 1,507 pounds to the dollar. Panic and anger have gripped the public as the pound, pegged to the dollar for more than two decades, plummeted in value. It fell more than 60% in recent weeks on the black market.

Berri: Govt. Has Capability to Overcome Current Crisis
Naharnet/January 22/2020
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced Wednesday that the new government which was formed overnight Tuesday has the capability to pull the country out of its multi-faceted crisis. “With its competent and specialist ministers, the government has the ability to come up with visions and programs that can be a cornerstone for overcoming the current crisis on the condition that there will no time waste,” Berri said during his weekly Ain el-Tineh meeting with lawmakers. He also stressed that the new government “must prove that it is the government of all Lebanese.”

Wazni: Impossible to Restore Previous Exchange Rate
Naharnet/January 22/2020
Lebanon’s new finance minister Ghazi Wazni on Wednesday said that it will be “difficult, if not impossible,” to return the dollar exchange rate to its previous state on the parallel market. “The dollar exchange rate dropped to LBP 2,000 because a new government represents a confidence factor, but it will be difficult, if not impossible, to return to the official exchange rate” set by the central bank, Wazni, who is a well-known financial expert, said in remarks to al-Jadeed TV. He however noted that the central bank can “alleviate the impact of the discrepancy in the exchange rate” should the government “offer a salvation Policy Statement that would be convincing inside and outside the country, which would allow it to draw foreign support.”“Controlling the parallel market in the coming period is linked to the government’s work,” Wazni said in remarks to LBCI TV. “The situation is very difficult but halting the collapse we are going through is possible. The issue requires support from inside and outside the country and this is everyone’s responsibility,” the new minister added.

Lebanon’s new Cabinet already on borrowed time
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/January 22/2020
A genuine effort could have been made to listen to popular grievances and forge a new, transparent model of governance. Instead, the same corrupt old cliques colluded together and then collectively spat in citizens’ faces. This is a leadership unwilling to countenance change — unwilling to loosen its teeth from Lebanon’s neck as it continues extracting the nation’s lifeblood.
If ministerial appointments were “non-partisan,” “independent” figures, as incoming Prime Minister Hassan Diab claims, what were the weeks of factional haggling, bidding and brinkmanship all about? If you want to appease citizens, instead of further provoking them, stop treating them as ignoramuses, unable to comprehend what is happening before their eyes.
Plucked out at random, today Diab is a useful, but impotent, place-filler — ticking the necessary sectarian boxes yet representing nobody. Tomorrow, when he has fulfilled his purpose, he will be summarily disposed of. The finalized list of appointees was submitted to Diab as a last-minute fait accompli by President Michel Aoun and Speaker Nabih Berri. I wonder who will pull the strings in this new administration.
This government is calculated to remind citizens — as if they needed reminding — why the corrupt, discredited old sectarian system must be allowed to die. Ministries will continue operating as private cash farms and employment providers for the benefit of key factions. The appointment of figures like Mohammed Fahmi — previously notorious for his extreme proximity to Damascus — tells us all we need to know.
There are fears that, once the ink is dry on the Cabinet agreement, there will be a purge of security personnel sympathetic to the protest movement, allowing for a definitive crackdown. Tehran has been telling Hezbollah that it is time to enforce order on Beirut’s streets — whatever it takes.
However, as Walid Jumblatt and other veterans have urged, this “rescue” government should be given a chance. New Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni, an economist, should be given space to perform open heart surgery on the nation’s finances. He should be allowed to introduce radical reforms — including measures that would anger vested interests — to open the door for support from the World Bank and other foreign donors and investors.
After decades of systematic theft from public sector budgets, Lebanon is the world’s third most indebted country, with a 152 percent debt-to-gross domestic product ratio. The ongoing crisis has harmed small businesses and the communities least able to bear the financial pain. Meanwhile, the elites withdraw their wealth unmolested, while profiting from sharp price rises and currency fluctuations.
It is, nevertheless, refreshing to see a Cabinet containing five women, including Zeina Akar, who will perform the not insignificant roles of defense minister and deputy prime minister.
The question is not whether this government will be rejected, it is how the key power brokers will react when a critical mass of Lebanese citizens have voiced their rejection. While it is in everybody’s interests to see new ministers stemming the bleeding from Lebanon’s financial system, citizens are already out on the streets making it crystal clear that this regime is on borrowed time.
The uprising is entering a new phase, requiring a more sophisticated approach. Vague demands for change and the rejection of sectarian factions are no longer sufficient. The lack of leadership within the protest movement initially made it beautifully democratic and inclusive, but also allowed it to be ignored and outmaneuvered by entrenched powers. The movement must now roll up its sleeves and enter the political arena as a post-sectarian, trans-communal force to sweep the old order away.
This government is calculated to remind citizens why the corrupt, discredited old sectarian system must be allowed to die.
Activists and intellectuals must conceptualize what a post-Taif Agreement governing system should look like. How can accountability, transparency and effective governance be enshrined within a new constitution? How can communities and minorities be represented without surrendering power back to white-haired warlords? How can Lebanon’s sovereignty and national identity be protected against hostile foreign interests? A plurality of nations regards Hezbollah as a terrorist movement. Its participation in government (directly or indirectly) is a red line for donors. If Hezbollah wants to avoid being swept away as Lebanon’s sectarian system is dismantled, it must abandon its weapons and dependence on Iran.Lebanon is an inherently diverse nation and no single faction or agenda can be allowed to monopolize its governing system — particularly sectarian parties that threaten its sovereignty, independence and civil peace. Lebanon’s geriatric leaders have proven their unwillingness to change; therefore they must be changed.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

Nasrallah as Khamenei’s secret troubleshooter in Iraq
DEBKAfile/January 22/2020
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei secretly asked Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah to act as his emissary for mending Shiite fences in Iraq. The community was stormily divided against Baghdad’s ties with Iran both before and since the US assassination of Qassam Soleimani on Jan. 3.
This step is disclosed exclusively by DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources. Nasrallah promptly assigned a shadowy Hizballah figure to take a hand.
Hussein Kawtharani is the central liaison officer between the Lebanese Shiite chief and Iraq’s pro-Iran Shiite militia leaders. He also controls the Iranian-Hizballah financial fund in Iraq. In the days of Soleimani and Iraq’s PMU (Popular Mobilization Units) chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – both of whom died in the US strike on Baghdad – it was Kawtharani who, in consultation with them both, doled out funds to the Iraqi militias. Soleimani used the size of their allowances to keep their leaders in line. The exceptional power the Hizballah chief wields as wire-puller in both Baghdad as well as Beirut has never before been revealed. Using him as a troubleshooter in Iraq was Iran’s comeback for the new sanctions the US imposed on Hizballah and Israel’s campaign for the world to designate the entire movement a terrorist organization.
Our sources reveal that Kawlharani set two processions in motion for putting the turbulent Iraqi Shiite house in order:
Finding an Iraqi prime minister acceptable to Tehran and Beirut.
A request to the supreme leader via Nasrallah to tone down the violent threats of revenge coming from Iranian Revolutionary Guards and other officials. He explained that the heated eve of war climate was not conducive to addressing the complicated problems of Iraq’s Shiites.
The outcome of his mission is as follows:
By Wednesday, Jan. 22, Iraq still had no prime minister, because the largest Shiite bloc in the Iraqi parliament headed by the unpredictable cleric Moqtada Sadr refuses to play ball with any of Tehran’s choices. While initially willing to call out an anti-US street demonstration in support of Tehran, the influential cleric has since reverted to his original demand for a nonpartisan government of experts to assume power in Baghdad.

US Seeks to Corner Hezbollah in Latin America
Washington – Muath al-Amri/Asharq Al Awsat/January 22/2020
The United States provided information to Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay and Peru about “support and financing networks” affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as part of its efforts to restrict the party’s activity in Latin America and to exert maximum pressure on Iran and its proxies.
Diplomatic sources in Washington told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a number of persons, who are involved with dealing with Hezbollah or suspected of planning to expand their activities inside the United States.
These moves came in parallel with the holding of the Third Regional Conference Against Terrorism in Bogota, Colombia, during which the US is seeking to unify the stance of 20 Latin American countries against the party. US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who is attending the conference, called on “all nations” on Saturday to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group. “We call on all nations to designate Hezbollah as the terrorist organization it is,” Pompeo wrote on his Twitter account.
The diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Honduras and Guatemala have indicated their intention to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization, following a similar move by Argentina and Paraguay. According to the US State Department, Pompeo met in Colombia on Monday with President Ivan Duque, stressing “the importance of uniting efforts in “fighting all forms of terrorism and “targeting the financial activity of Iranian proxy groups.”US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said that during the conference, Pompeo talked about the activities of pro-Iranian terrorist organizations in Latin countries, following the campaign of arrests carried out by Paraguay, Brazil and Peru against Hezbollah’s agents over the past few years, on charges of terrorism, money laundering and others. According to Ortagus, countries of Latin America have taken practical steps in combating terrorism and drying up its sources, hailing regulations adopted by Argentina and Paraguay to impose sanctions on Hezbollah and other terrorist groups during the past year.

UN chief says will work with new Lebanese govt on reforms
Reuters, Beirut/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the formation of a new Lebanese government on Wednesday and will work with the new premier to support reforms in the heavily indebted country grappling with an urgent economic crisis. A statement issued by Guterres’ spokesperson also said the United Nations was committed to supporting “Lebanon’s strengthening of its sovereignty, stability and political independence”. Lebanon formed a new government under Prime Minister Hassan Diab after the Shia Hezbollah movement and its allies agreed on a cabinet after weeks of wrangling over portfolios.

Lebanon faces economic ‘catastrophe’ says new PM Diab
Reuters/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Debt-ridden Lebanon faces an economic “catastrophe”, Prime Minister Hassan Diab said Wednesday as his newly unveiled cabinet met for the first time. “Today we are in a financial, economic and social dead-end,” he said in remarks read by a government official after the new cabinet's inaugural meeting in Beirut. President Michel Aoun told Lebanon’s new government it must tackle the country’s economic woes, win back international confidence and gain the trust of the Lebanese. “Your mission is delicate,” the president’s office cited him as saying at the cabinet’s first meeting. He also said the government would have to work to make up for lost time.

France will do ‘everything’ to help resolve Lebanon crisis: Macron
AFP, Jerusalem/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
France will do “everything” to help resolve Lebanon’s “deep crisis,” President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, as a new government in Beirut faces a tenacious protest movement and a nosediving economy.
“We will do everything, during this deep crisis that they are going through, to help ... our Lebanese friends,” Macron said, speaking alongside Israeli President Reuven Rivlin during a visit to Jerusalem.
The comments came as new Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab convened his first cabinet, which donors hope can spearhead reforms, unlock foreign aid and help stabilize a plummeting currency. While pledging support to France’s “Lebanese friends,” Macron also stressed that he would remain “vigilant” regarding any “terrorist activity” from Lebanon that could threaten either the Lebanese people or its southern neighbor Israel. Lebanon is technically still at war with Israel.

Impossible for Lebanese exchange rate to return to what it was: Finance minister
Reuters, Beirut/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Lebanon’s new finance minister Ghazi Wazni told local media on Wednesday it would be “impossible” for the Lebanese pound exchange rate to the US dollar “to return to what it was.”He told broadcaster LBC that reining in the parallel market, where the price of dollars has risen beyond the official pegged rate, would be “tied to the government’s work.”Wazni added that “stopping the collapse” of Lebanon’s economy was feasible and would also require foreign support.

Lebanon needs foreign support, decision on Eurobond: New finance minister
Reuters, Beirut/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Lebanon’s new government needs foreign support to help it rescue the country from an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, the finance minister said on Wednesday hours after he was named. The government must make a decision on a $1.2 billion Eurobond maturing in March, Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni also told local broadcaster al-Jadeed. He said the Cabinet has to restore confidence because the country was in a state of collapse. Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Hassan Diab vowed that his newly-unveiled government would strive to meet the demands of a three-month-old protest movement demanding radical change. One of the government’s first tasks will be to decide its approach to looming sovereign bond repayments, including a $1.2 billion Eurobond maturing in March. Lebanon’s union of exchange dealers said on Tuesday it had decided to set the exchange rate at a maximum of 2,000 pounds to the US dollar in agreement with the central bank governor. The pound has been officially pegged at 1,507.50 to the dollar for more than two decades. Diab expressed hope that the currency would strengthen.

Lebanese protesters block roads in Beirut after new government announced
Joanne Serrieh, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Lebanese protesters blocked roads in the capital Beirut on Wednesday morning, the day after the new government was formed, according to Lebanese media sources. Lebanon formed a new government on Tuesday under Prime Minister Hassan Diab, backed by the Iranian-allied Hezbollah and allies including President Michel Aoun. Demonstrators overnight Tuesday took to the streets in protest against the new government with people gathering in front of one of the entrances leading to the parliament in the center of the capital.Further protests are expected after protesters widely condemned the new government and continued to call for an end to corruption and the current sectarian system.

New Quds Force deputy is Iran’s missile man in Lebanon
Jerusalem Post/January 22/2020
Mohammad Hejazi led IRGC forces in Lebanon and worked with Hezbollah to improve precision guidance.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Quds Force has a new deputy commander and he was the key to Hezbollah’s precision missile project. Mohammed Hejazi was previously a high ranking IRGC commander, a suppressor of protests in Iran and had been under Qasem Soleimani’s command as the central figure in Iran’s operations in Lebanon. According to a public IDF report released in August 2019 Hejazi was involved in Hezbollah’s precision guided missile project in Lebanon. The report said that he was an IRGC operative, commander of Iran’s precision guided missile project in Lebanon and directly commands Iranian personnel in Lebanon.” He has been in Lebanon for years, according to Iranian media sources and reports online at various regional media. Prior to going to Lebanon for the IRGC he was involved in research and logistics, making him keenly aware of how Iran moves its missiles to groups like Hezbollah. Ynet reported he was also linked to the 1994 AMIA bombing of the Jewish community center in Argentina. Hejazi, whose name is sometimes given as Seyyed Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi, or Muhammad Hussein-Zada Hejazi, was born in 1956 in Isfahan. He fought in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and played a key role suppressing Kurds. Later he became a commander of the Basij militia in Iran and then rose through IRGC ranks to become a deputy commander and one of its most senior officers. He was sanctioned by the US in 2007 and the EU in 2011 for his role in human rights and other violations. He helped suppress protests for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. He faded from public view in 2014, and seems to have been in Lebanon during that time, helping Hezbollah stockpile and improve its estimated 150,000 missiles. Al-Ain media reports that he was Hezbollah’s key man linking them to the IRGC. He likely grew into this role after the death of Imad Mughniyeh who was assassinated in 2008. He helped supply arms to Hezbollah and help it with its precision guided missile programs. These programs have been spotlighted as a key threat to the region and Israel. Hezbollah wants to create local manufacturing bases for the precision guidance that would make its arsenal more dangerous. In March 2019 Israel said Hezbollah was seeking to set up an advanced missile plant in the Beka’a valley. In August Israel warned about the precision guidance. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also reportedly warned Lebanon about allowing Hezbollah to build precision guidance missile factories. Hejazi’s key role in Lebanon and his new role as deputy of the IRGC Quds Force shows that Iran has plans to strike abroad. Radio Farda reports that in the post-Soleimani era Hejazi’s new role is “a huge promotion because of [Ayatollah] Khamenei’s now openly expressed strategy of keeping the war with the United States and Israel outside Iranian borders.”

Technocrats or autocrats? Lebanon's new cabinet meet as protesters slam 'government of failure'
The New Arab/January 22/2020
Lebanon's new cabinet met for the first time on Wednesday amid continuing anger from protesters who deem Prime Minister Hassan Diab's government doomed to fail. Diab's 20-strong cabinet, unveiled on Tuesday, faces the twin challenges of the country's nosediving economy and a tenacious protest movement in swing since 17 October last year. The former education minister has promised to meet the demands from the street but has so far failed to assuage widespread concerns that his government will represent the latest showing of a political elite Lebanese protesters have vowed to oust.
Diab takes over the role from Saad Al-Hariri, who resigned two weeks into the landmark protests. Lebanon's various political factions struggled to agree upon a replacement candidate, while demonstrators demanded a technocratic, non-sectarian government. The new premier has termed his government one of experts, but protesters are not so sure of that designation. Even before the cabinet was announced, thousands of people poured onto the streets, closing major roads in Beirut and other parts of the country. Later, a group of protesters near parliament threw stones, firecrackers and sticks at security forces, who responded with tear gas and pepper spray. On Tuesday evening, demonstrators burned tyres as they expressed their displeasure at the new line-up, with some singing "Yalla [come on], get out Hassan". "Instead of the corrupt politicians, we got the corrupt politicians' friends," said Ahmad Zaid, a 21-year-old student. Demonstrators have complained that political groups were still involved in the naming of the new ministers, even if they are specialists and academics.
Diab has rebutted that the new picks have no political loyalties despite being annointed in a process involving bickering between factions with little regard for the desires of protesters. "This government is going from one failure to another," 43-year-old Nouhad Salloum told The Daily Star. #GovernmentOfFailure was a trending hashtag on Twitter in Lebanon on Tuesday evening. "The people have been sacrificing themselves for 97 days demanding an independent government... but [the politicians] brought one that suits them." Karin, 18, added: "I am with the people and the revolution, I am not against anyone... I just wish someone would listen to us; that's all we want." Similar rallies took place in Tripoli - a hotbed of the protest movement - Sidon, Byblos and other cities. The 61-year-old former professor admitted on Wednesday he faces a number of stark challenges.
"Today we are in a financial, economic and social dead end," he said in remarks read by a government official after the new cabinet's inaugural meeting in Beirut. "We are facing a catastrophe," he said. "Government of last resort," was the headline on the front page of Al-Akhbar, a daily newspaper close to the powerful Hezbollah movement that backed Diab's designation last month. Western sanctions on the Iran-backed organisation are stacking up and economists have argued the new government might struggle to secure the aid it so badly needs. But French President Emmanuel Macron, one of the first leaders to react to the formation of the new government, said he would "do everything, during this deep crisis that they are going through, to help". The cabinet comprises 20 ministers and among its six women is Zeina Akar, Lebanon's first-ever female defence minister. The number is a record for the country.To downsize the cabinet, some portfolios were merged resulting in at times baffling combinations such as a single ministry for culture and agriculture.
Economy in freefall
Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said on Wednesday it would be "impossible" for the Lebanese lira exchange rate to the US dollar to "return to what it was". He told broadcaster LBC that "stopping the collapse" of Lebanon's economy was faesible but would require foreign support.
Lebanon has one of the world's highest debt-to-GDP ratios and economists have argued it is hard to see how the near bankrupt country could repay its foreign debt. A looming default on Lebanon's debt, which has been steadily downgraded deeper into junk status by rating agencies, has sent the dollar soaring on the parallel exchange market. On Tuesday evening, the Syndicate of Money Changers in Lebanon issued a statement saying it had agreed to set the exchange rate at a maximum of 2,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, after it reached 2,500 pounds to the dollar last week. The official price still stands at 1,507 to the dollar. The liquidity crunch in Lebanon has led banks to impose crippling capital controls, in turn seeing the banks themselves become a key target of protesters' anger. "Regarding the economic situation, I repeat that this is one of our priorities," Diab said Tuesday night.
"We need to be given a little time," he added. Alain Aoun, nephew of President Michel Aoun and a senior member of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), told Reuters on Wednesday that an International Monetary Fund programme could be an option for saving the economy.
The FPM, founded by the president, nominated six of the 20 new ministers. The new government may be wary to implement an IMF programme if its demands exert too much pressure on an already struggling public, however. "The top priority is to put in place a rescue programme for financing Lebanon's needs and one of the options is an IMF programme," Aoun said. "But we have to understand first what are the requirements and to see if they are bearable or acceptable to us as Lebanese, because we don't want to have a social problem in addition to the financial crisis... We have to be careful not to trigger social unrest," he said.  Agencies contributed to this report

Lebanon's divisive new cabinet faces a near impossible task amid heightened protests and increasing repression
Rami G. Khouri/The New Arab/January 22/2020
The fourth consecutive month of Lebanon's unprecedented political and economic crisis kicked off this week with three dramatic developments that will interplay in the coming months to define the country's direction for years to come: Escalating protests on the streets, heightened security measures by an increasingly militarising state, and now, a new cabinet of controversial so-called "independent technocrats" led by Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab. Seeking to increase pressure on the political elite to act responsibly amid inaction vis-a-vis the slow collapse of the economy, the protesters had launched the fourth month of their protest movement, which had begun on 17 October last year, with a 'Week of Anger', stepping up their tactics and targeting banks and government institutions. There was a step change in the tactics with violent clashes, outbreaks of small fires, and attacks on banks and government agencies.
Hundreds were injured, mostly protesters, but also some security personnel. Protesters openly called for the "downfall of the military state" and the "banker state" they blame for their economic and political misery. Beyond the large nationwide demonstrations, new tactics have included almost daily smaller protests at government agencies or officials’ homes, targeted and temporary street blockings, crowds picketing police stations to release detainees, and shaming officials by hounding them out of restaurants, concerts, meetings, and other public events. Despite this shift, however, the protesters' main aims have remained constant since the uprising started: Forming a new government of truly independent specialists who can tackle the country’s most pressing threats, led by the collapsing economy and services, then oversee transition towards a new accountable political system free of the corruption, inefficiency, and indifference that most people blame on the traditional sectarian spoil-sharing system.
The ruling class crackdown
Days before announcing the new cabinet, whose members have generated very mixed public reactions and were immediately rejected by the protest organisers, the ruling elites responded with intense security measures against protesters. Indeed, the new government has been announced in the midst of a security crackdown defined by greater violence and more arrests, and fences and walls erected around some government buildings. Some 500 people were treated for injuries in the past ten days, including a few who were hit in the face or body by tear gas canisters, water cannons, and rubber bullets. Two young men each lost an eye, a woman alleged that interrogators threatened her with rape, and others were filmed being beaten as they were taken from vans into police stations. Over 100 demonstrators were detained last week, but most were let go after crowds gathered at the detention centres to demand their release.
A few hurled firecrackers and stones at the police, tried to attack them with tree branches and uprooted metal street signs and security barriers, or smashed bank facades and ATM machines. Local analysts blame a variety of groups for the heightened violence, including extreme leftists, destitute youth with no future, middle class protesters whose patience had run out after 3 months of state inaction, or thugs from major political groups who sought to scare the citizenry into ending the protests. For its part, the authorities said they needed to maintain order and prevent the destruction of public and private property.
Questions of legitimacy
The new 20-member government was named essentially by only half the main political parties. It starts its work in this highly charged and polarised atmosphere that will persist, because most people see Diab’s government as simply a new formula for sectarian political chieftains to indirectly control state power.
Most of the ministers are not widely known political figures, and while a few are respected experts in fields like law and foreign policy, the majority were named by political parties and are close allies, subordinates, or advisers of some of the leading sectarian leaders who are the target of the protests in the first place. Activists feel deceived, angered, and humiliated by what they see as the ruling elite’s attempt to perpetuate its power through a smoke-and-mirrors operation that will not deceive the citizenry. Yet the government’s appointment and its anticipated approval by parliament create a new dynamic that could result in a shift in protest tactics. Many of the "revolutionaries" who blocked main and secondary roads throughout the country on Wednesday morning are debating two strategies: keep going with their street disruptions and open rejection of the government because it seems to perpetuate the sectarian elite’s control of power, or shift towards pressuring the ministers with transparent accountability mechanisms to ensure that they carry out the reform promises they expect.  The security agencies' more severe crowd control measures -- at one point army troops filed into central Beirut carrying RPG’s -- is widely interpreted here as a sign that the sectarian ruling elite fears it may be losing its grip in the face of growing and more defiant street protests by a citizenry that is ever more poor and hopeless.Political leaders who worry that their usual sectarian loyalty means of forcing citizen compliance with their policies are no longer effective may have decided to crush the protests by force.
Lebanon imports Arab regime dysfunctions
These local developments should also be seen against the backdrop of a much more troubling reality: Lebanon is especially noteworthy today because it has joined the wider arena of similar Arab dysfunction and protest, which has been defined by two troubling trends among Arab states in recent decades — the pauperization and helplessness of citizens, and the militarisation and detached arrogance of the government. Most Lebanese now mirror the political anger, economic stress, and psychological humiliation — even dehumanisation — that is so evident in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Egypt, and other Arab societies where protests of different scales have gone on for the past decade. Few of Lebanon’s stresses are unique in our distraught Arab region where many desperate and increasingly impoverished citizens struggle against their government’s negligence, criminality, and increasing militarisation.
Lebanon will soon reveal if it will persist in this direction, or pull back from the likelihood of more deaths in its streets which increasingly resemble those of Iraq, Sudan and even Syria.
*Rami G. Khouri is senior public policy fellow, adjunct professor of journalism, and Journalist-in-Residence at the American University of Beirut, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative.

Lebanon gets a new Hezbollah-backed government amid mounting unrest
Liz Sly and Suzan Haidamous/The Washington Post/January 22/2020
BEIRUT — Lebanon formed a government Tuesday that is controlled exclusively for the first time by Hezbollah and its allies, affirming the Iranian-backed movement's increasingly powerful role in the country and raising concerns about Lebanon's ability to halt a spiral of economic and political collapse.
Protesters, who have been demanding a government aligned with none of the existing political factions, called for fresh demonstrations against the new cabinet, which they said failed to meet their demands for substantial change.
The dominant role in the government’s formation played by Iranian-allied Hezbollah, which proposed the candidacy of Prime Minister Hassan Diab in December and has pushed forcefully in recent days for his lineup of ministers, risks alienating some of Lebanon’s traditional Western allies, including the United States, at a time when Lebanon’s collapsing economy urgently needs international assistance.
The announcement of a cabinet by Diab, a professor at the American University of Beirut, broke three months of political deadlock during which Lebanon had no functioning government and the country continued a slide toward economic and financial collapse. The previous prime minister, the Western-allied Saad Hariri, resigned in October in response to massive street protests demanding a complete overhaul of the country’s decades-old system of corrupt, sectarian rule.
Supporters of the new government are hoping that Diab, a relative unknown, can win over the protesters and convince foreign donors that he represents a new breed of politician capable of implementing reforms. The chief demand of the protest movement was for a cabinet of technocrats, devoid of political affiliation, who would break the vicious cycle of patronage and corruption that has pushed Lebanon into crisis.
Diab promised in a televised address that he would meet the protesters’ demands and carry out reforms.
“This is a government that represents the aspirations of the demonstrators who have been mobilized nationwide for more than three months,” he said.
But as the names of the new ministers leaked to the press in the days leading up to the announcement, it became clear that most, if not all, are proteges of the existing elites. Last-minute haggling among politicians over the final composition of the cabinet was played out in the media, giving another indication that this government offers neither a break from the past nor a reason to believe it can unite the dangerously fractured country, analysts said.
It is also a government representing only one of the two major blocs in the country’s parliament, meaning that Lebanon now has what people are calling a “one color” government for the first time since Syrian troops withdrew from the country 15 years ago.
Though Hezbollah has steadily increased its role in mainstream politics over the past 15 years and has held seats in many previous governments, this is the first time a government has been formed that does not include Western allies, calling into question its ability to win the support needed to secure international aid.
Even if the government turns out not to be Hezbollah-controlled, it will be seen as “a Hezbollah-directed government because of the way the prime minister was chosen,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “It’s going to be very hard to walk that one down.”
“It is a government that will have to walk a fine line between providing a protective cover for Hezbollah and being acceptable to the international community,” she added.
Hezbollah will control just two ministries in the 20-member cabinet, according to analyses of the ministers’ allegiances in the Lebanese press, by diplomats and by people close to Hezbollah. The lion’s share of seats goes to supporters of the group’s Christian ally, the Free Patriotic Movement headed by Gebran Bassil, the outgoing foreign minister and son-in-law of Lebanese President Michel Aoun. Others are distributed among other Hezbollah allies, including the Shiite Amal movement and other smaller parties belonging to the country’s Christian and Druze religious groups.
The government’s composition also signaled a return to influence in Lebanon for the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad for the first time since Syrian troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon under pressure from mass protests in April 2005. Several of the parties represented are known for their loyalties to Assad during the 9-year-old Syrian war, and Hezbollah fighters played a key role in ensuring Assad’s survival in the face of a nationwide rebellion.
Also on Tuesday, the Lebanese authorities freed an American freelance journalist who had been detained two days earlier on suspicion of sending footage of anti-government protests to an Israeli news outlet.
Nicholas Frakes, 24, said he is happy to be free and looking forward to “getting back to reporting the news.”
The Lebanese authorities had accused Frakes of live-streaming footage of violent protests to the Israeli news outlet Haaretz, in violation of Lebanese laws forbidding interaction with Israel, an enemy state. Haaretz issued a statement saying it had no contact with Frakes and had been using footage supplied by the international news agency Reuters.
*Haidamous reported from Washington.
*Liz Sly is The Washington Post’s Beirut bureau chief, covering Lebanon, Syria and the wider region. She has spent more than 17 years covering the Middle East, including the first and second Iraq wars. Other postings include Washington, Africa, China, Afghanistan and Italy.Follow

Profile: Lebanon's new cabinet members, including the Arab world's first-ever female defence chief
The New Arab/January 22/2020
Lebanon's new Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Tuesday appointed his purportedly "technocratic" cabinet of 20 ministers. Although at first glance the selection comprises of many previously unknown figures - the majority PhD holders and other specialists - several of the new appointees have ties to the "old guard".
This has watered down hopes for an entirely fresh-faced team to lead the country out of economic crisis and political stagnation. Some appointees have been hailed by the protesters, including the introduction of six women, such as Zeina Akar, the first female defence minister of an Arab country. Other candidate picked have been slammed for their close ties to corrupt elements of the previous administration and its economic policies which brought Lebanon to its knees.Comment: Lebanon's divisive new cabinet faces a near impossible task amid heightened protests and increasing repression
Prime Minister: Hassan Diab
An academic and former education minister, Diab was little-known in Lebanon until he was designated last month with the backing of the powerful Shia movements Hezbollah and Amal, we well as the right-wing Christian ruling party, the Free Patriotic Movement.
Although a Sunni, as the role of prime minister is designated to be, Diab lacks support from Lebanon's Sunni population.
Following his appointment, the 60-year-old was duly mocked by protesters for his 136-page CV available online, and the 1,315-page book he wrote on his achievements while education minister, between 2011 to 2014.
An engineering professor, when not in the political sphere Diab has held positions within the American University of Beirut (AUB).
In his first comments as premier, Diab insisted that his cabinet was a technocratic one that would strive to meet protesters' demands.
"This is a government that represents the aspirations of the demonstrators who have been mobilised nationwide for more than three months," he said.
He said his government "will strive to meet their demands for an independent judiciary, for the recovery of embezzled funds, for the fight against illegal gains".
Deputy PM and Defence: Zeina Akar
FPM pick/Greek Orthodox
Akar is the executive director of Beirut-based research and consultancy firm Information International, founded by her husband Jawad Adra, who is one of the country's most prominent businessmen.
According to Information International’s website, Akar leads the company’s survey research, database collection and project analysis for the Arab world and the Near East in the areas of health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure facilities.
The businesswoman, who holds a degree in social sciences from the Lebanese American University, was initially criticised by some for not having any specialist experience in defence or the military.
However, this was soon called out as sexist as many male defence and other ministers are far from experts in their ministerial portfolios.
Zeina Akar, minister of defense as part of FPM's share, is the wife of Jawad Adra who's known for stealing and dealing in historical artificats stolen from all over the region
Foreign Affairs: Nassif Hitti
FPM pick/Maronite
Replacing the reviled Gebran Bassil, Hitti is an academic specialised in International Relations, having obtained a doctorate in the subject from the University of South Carolina. He currently directs the political institute within the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, north of Beirut.
A seasoned diplomat, Hitti formerly served as the Lebanese ambassador the Arab League. Meanwhile, he writes regularly for Lebanese newspaper Annahar and Egyptian daily Shorouk.
Interior: Mohamed Fahmi
PM’s pick/Sunni
The appointment of former army general Fahmi has been met with ire by protesters, chiefly over his praise for the security forces' violent crackdown on protesters, on top of his tenure as Lebanon's director of military intelligence from 1997 and 2006.
In other words, he is very experienced in repression tactics, which is especially controversial given the past weeks' anger against the violent suppression of peaceful anti-government demonstrations, which has also included the forced disappearances and allegations of torture.
Fahmi studied management at James Madison University in Virginia, US before enlisting in the Lebanese Army in 1978, three years after the civil war began. More recently, he worked at an adviser on security affairs at Blom Bank since 2016.
Finance: Ghazi Wazni
Amal pick/Shia
A former economic advisor to Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, as well as an adviser to the parliamentary finance and budget committee, the appointment of Wazni has been wildly unpopular. Protesters do not trust someone with such close links to the establishment - deemed as corrupt - to take on the monumental task of lifting Lebanon out of its acute financial crisis.
Wazni is a former economics professor and consultant who runs his own research firm.
Justice: Marie-Claude Najm
FPM pick/Maronite
One of the six women in the cabinet, Najm serves as a professor of law at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, where she directs the Centre for Legal Studies and Research for the Arab World.
She is the niece of former culture minister Naji Boustani, who served in the shortlived Omar Karami government from 2004 to 2005.
Environment and Administrative Development: Damianos Kattar
PM’s pick, Maronite
An economist, Kattar previously served as finance minister and is an economist. He was briefly Lebanon's finance minister in Najib Mikati's very shortlived three-month long government in 2005.
Telecommunications: Talal Hawat
Consultative Gathering pick/Sunni
Hawat worked for 19 years for American technology company Cisco in the US and Lebanon.
More recently, in 2018, he was appointed regional vice president for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey with Canadian company Sandvine, a networking equipment company where he previously worked as sales director.
Energy Minister: Raymond Ghajar
FPM pick/Greek Orthodox
Ghajar has equally been reviled by protesters for being issue of the previous establishment. Serving as an advisor to Gebran Bassil, Ghajar has worked in the ministry since 1995.
As part of his role as senior energy policy adviser, he contributed to a electricity policy paper in 2010 that failed to deliver round-the-clock power to the country.
Ghajar holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and has been a professor of electrical engineering at the Lebanese American University since 1995.
Information Minister: Manal Abdel Samad
LDP pick/Druze
Samad holds a doctorate in law from the esteemed Sorbonne University in Paris.
Although a relatively unknown name, Samad worked in the Finance Ministry since 1997, leading the Tax and Auditing Authority, eventually working in the government group that first created and implemented VAT in Lebanon.
She later became a lecturer at AUB and Saint Joseph University, teaching administrative leadership, public finances and fiscal studies. She is currently also affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Policy.
Economy Minister: Raoul Nehme
FPM pick/Greek Catholic
Nehme’s appointment has been met with disappointment from protesters, over his close ties to many of Lebanon’s banks which are blamed for mismanaging the country’s money, including serving as Chairman at ASTROBank and Executive General Manager at BankMed, Nehme previously managed BLC Bank.
Nehme originally studied engineering at France's Ecole Polytechnique.
Public Works: Michel Najjar
Marada Movement/Greek Orthodox
Having obtained a PhD in civil engineering in the US, Najjar later returned to Lebanon to work at Balamand University as a lecturer.
He now serves as vice president for academic and administrative affairs at the American University of Technology in Lebanon.
Health Minister: Hamad Hassan
Hezbollah pick/Shia
The former mayor of Baalbek and president of Baalbek Municipalities Federation, Hassan is widely distrusted due to his ties to Hezbollah.
Hassan has a PhD in Molecular Biological Sciences from Moscow’s Institute of Biological and Environmental Research in Moscow. He serves as a professor at the College of Public Health at the Lebanese University, directing the department of laboratory sciences.
Labour Minister: Lamia Yammine
Marada Movement/Maronite
At 45, Yammime is among the younger of the cabinet appointees, as well as being a relative outsider. An architect and professor at the Lebanese University in Tripoli, she is a board member of a wood design company in Lebanon.
Social Affairs and Tourism Minister: Ramzi Mousharrafiyeh
LDP pick/Druze
A less straightforward appointee, Mousharrafiyeh is a professor of orthopaedic surgery.
Youth and Sports Minister: Varti Ohanian
Tashnag pick/Armenian Christian
A social worker, Ohanian directs a Beirut-based education centre for children with special needs.
Education Minister: Tarek Majzoub
PM’s pick, Sunni
A judge at State Shura Council, Majzoub teaches law at Lebanon’s Sagesse University.
Agriculture and Culture Minister: Abbas Mortada
Amal pick/Shia
A seemingly mismatched dual portfolio, Mortada managed a real estate company as well as a hotel until 2019. He holds a master’s degree in history from the Lebanese University of Beirut and is currently studying for a PhD.
Minister for the Displaced: Ghada Shreim
FPM pick/Greek Catholic
Shreim, the sixth and final female minister, is a professor at the Lebanese University, according to Lebanese media.
Industry Minister: Imad Hoballah
Hezbollah pick/Shia
Hoballah, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering, has been the provost of the American University of Dubai since 2017, teaching across the US and Lebanon.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 22-23/2020
US will have a deal with EU before 2020 elections: Trump
Reuters/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he thinks he will have a deal with the EU before the US presidential election.
Speaking about his impeachment trial, he said that it was up to the Senate to decide how to handle the trial over his handling of Ukraine and that he would rather have a long trial with witnesses but that there are national security issues. “I’ll leave that to the Senate,” Trump told a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, adding that he would watch the proceedings after leaving the summit. “I’d rather go the long route.”

Iraqi president, Trump meet in Davos, discuss foreign troops cut
Reuters, AFP/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Iraqi President Barham Salih met US President Donald Trump in Davos on Wednesday and discussed reducing foreign troops in the country, the Iraqi presidency said, after Washington spurned an Iraqi request earlier this month to pull out its troops. “During the meeting, reducing foreign troops and the importance of respecting the demands of Iraqi people to preserve the country’s sovereignty were discussed,” the statement said. The White House also issued a statement saying that President Trump and his Iraqi counterpart agreed during their meeting on Wednesday on the need for a continued US military role in the country. “The two leaders agreed on the importance of continuing the United States-Iraq economic and security partnership, including the fight against ISIS,” the White House said. “President Trump reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering commitment to a sovereign, stable, and prosperous Iraq.”Iraq’s parliament passed a non-binding resolution on Jan. 5 requesting the government to end the presence of foreign troops in Iraq following US air strikes that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
The killing of Soleimani, to which Tehran responded with a ballistic missile attack on two Iraqi military bases housing US forces, has highlighted the influence of foreign powers in Iraq, especially Iran and the United States. Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi asked Washington to prepare for a US troop withdrawal in line with Iraq’s parliament decision, but Trump’s administration rebuffed the request. Washington said later it was exploring a possible expansion of NATO’s mission in Iraq, a plan to “get burden-sharing right in the region.”

Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons: French president Macron
Reuters, Jerusalem/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
French President Emmanuel Macron said France was determined Iran would never gain a nuclear weapon but it wanted to avoid any military escalation in the Middle East, after he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. Macron started his visit with a morning meeting with Netanyahu at his official residence in Jerusalem, where the two discussed Iran’s nuclear program and regional security issues from Libya to Turkey, according to Netanyahu’s office. “In the current context, France is determined that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, but also that we avoid all military escalations in the region,” Macron said afterwards. Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader urged Macron to put pressure on Iran over what he called its aggression in the region. France, along with Britain and Germany, declared Iran in violation of the 2015 nuclear pact last week and they launched a dispute mechanism that could see the matter referred back to the Security Council and the re-imposition of UN sanctions. The nuclear dispute has been at the heart of an escalation between Washington and Tehran which blew up into military confrontation in recent weeks.

Iranian police arrest child for ripping up poster of Soleimani
By Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Iranian police officers arrested a child in Tehran simply for ripping up a poster of slain military commander Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday. “This individual was under 18 years of age, and was identified by the police within 24 hours,” said Tehran’s police chief Hossein Rahimi. Rahimi claimed the child admitted to being influenced by “online propaganda” during interrogation, “regretted” the action and was then released on bail. Anti-government protests, largely led by students, broke out in several Iranian cities after Tehran admitted it shot down a Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 passengers, despite vehemently denying responsibility several days before the announcement. The protesters chanted slogans against the country’s highest authority Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Protesters were also filmed chanting slogans against Soleimani and ripping posters of his face off walls. Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the overseas arm of the IRGC, was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport earlier this month.

Iran will never seek nuclear arms, with or without nuclear deal: Rouhani
Reuters, Dubai/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Iran will never seek nuclear weapons, with or without nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, calling on the European powers to avoid Washington’s mistake of violating Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with major powers. “We have never sought nuclear weapons ... With or without the nuclear deal we will never seek nuclear weapon ... The European powers will be responsible for the consequences of violating the pact,” said Rouhani, according to his website President.Ir. In reaction to Washington withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and the reimposition of sanctions, Iran has gradually rolled back on its commitments. Rouhani said Iran remained committed to the deal and could reverse its steps away from compliance if other parties fulfilled their obligations.

Iran could withdraw from 2015 nuclear deal in dispute with West: Official
Reuters, Dubai/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Exiting the 2015 nuclear deal is one of Iran’s options, the Iranian president’s chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, said on Wednesday, according to the official IRNA news agency.“It was discussed that it’s possible some may take Iran’s file to the [UN] Security Council ... If this happens we will take tougher decisions such as leaving the nuclear deal,” said Vaezi, adding that President Hassan Rouhani had previously raised the possibility in a letter to the European powers.

Iran's local Basij milita commander gunned down at home: Report
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Two unidentified gunmen killed the local commander of the Iranian Basij militia in Khuzestan province early on Wednesday, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported. Abdolhossein Mojaddami, the Basij commander of the Arab-populated southwestern city of Darkhovin, was shot and killed at his home by assailants on motorcycles. The Basij are a volunteer militia which falls under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). Director of public relations office of the IRGC in Khuzestan, Mohammad Reza Nemati, said that the attackers fired four bullets at Mojaddami, according to IRNA. Mojaddami's murder comes almost 3 weeks after IRGC's Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani's killing by US airstrikes targeting him in Baghdad. Mojaddami had fought in Syria and was close to Soleimani, according to Iran’s semi-official YJC news agency.

At least 10 protesters killed over two days: Iraq human rights commission
Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
At least 10 protesters were killed in Iraq on Monday and Tuesday, the country's semi-official human rights commission said on Tuesday evening. Another 88 people were arrested as protesters blocked main roads in the capital Baghdad, as well as in Basra and Nassirieh. Clashes erupted for the third consecutive day in Baghdad's Aviation Square and in a number of southern cities, including Basra, Karbala, and Najaf. The protesters, mostly young men, threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. In a speech during a parliamentary session, the caretaker Prime Minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, said that his country is in a complex regional and international situation, pointing out that the state is in an embarrassing situation with its "citizens and other countries." Abdul Mahdi also stressed that the security forces do not want to enter into contexts where violence is used.

Iraq activist shot dead as protesters block roads again
AFP, Basra/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
An Iraqi anti-government activist was gunned down in the southern port city of Basra, a police source told AFP on Wednesday, amid resurgent rallies demanding authorities implement long-awaited reforms. “Civil society activist Janat Madhi, 49, was shot on Tuesday night around 11:00pm (2000 GMT) by armed men in an SUV,” the police source said, adding that five people including at least one other local activist were wounded in the shooting. A source at the city’s forensics lab confirmed to AFP that Madhi suffered gunshot wounds. An AFP reporter said she was part of an activist group giving medical care to demonstrators. The group departed the main protest camp in Basra late Tuesday, the reporter said, after which they were fired upon by unknown gunmen. The killing is the latest in a new wave of violence against Iraq’s anti-regime protests, which had waned in recent weeks amid growing tensions between Baghdad’s two main allies, Tehran and Washington. Demonstrators this week began ramping up pressure on authorities to implement their long-standing demands: early elections under a new voting law, an independent premier and accountability for protester deaths and corruption. More than 460 protesters have died since the rallies first erupted in early October, fueled by anger over graft and lack of jobs that grew into demands for systemic reform. On Monday, three protesters were killed in clashes with security forces in Baghdad and another demonstrator died on Tuesday after a tear gas canister punctured his skull. Rights groups accuse security forces of improperly using military-grade gas canisters – which are up to 10 times heavier than those designed for use against civilians – by firing them directly at crowds rather than into the air. Demonstrators are outraged that only a handful of security force members have been charged with excessive violence and none of the perpetrators of hit-and-run attacks have been pursued, whereas protesters have been swiftly arrested for shutting down streets with burning tires. Blocking roads has become prevalent this week, with protesters cutting streets and national highways around Baghdad and the Shiite-majority south on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia open to talks with Tehran: Saudi FM
Reuters, Al Arabiya Engish/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia was open to talks with Tehran “but it is really up to Iran.”He also said, in an interview with Reuters at Davos, that Iran would have to accept it “cannot further its regional agenda through violence” as a condition for any talks. Prince Faisal briefly mentioned media reports that claimed that the Kingdom had been involved in a plot to hack the phone of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and called them “absurd.”The Kingdom would investigate if it were presented with evidence “that substantiated these claims,” he added.
Prince Faisal also said he was not concerned that the UN statement would hurt foreign investment. “If there are concerns by some people, we will try to address those,” he said.

Saudi Arabia asks US to remove Sudan from terror list
Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for African Affairs Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Kattan stressed on Wednesday the need to remove Sudan from the American list of terrorism-sponsoring countries during a meeting with the US Special Envoy for Sudan Ambassador Donald Booth.
Kattan noted the positive American statements in this regard. During the meeting, Kattan affirmed the Kingdom’s support for Sudan’s security and stability and the fulfillment of the aspirations of its brotherly people. Kattan stressed the necessity of coordination and cooperation with all regional and friendly countries to prevent those who are obstructing the transitional period from achieving its goals and to provide full support to Sudan. The US government added Sudan to its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1993 over allegations that then-President Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist government was supporting terrorist groups. The designation makes Sudan technically ineligible for debt relief and financing from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Congress needs to approve a removal. Al-Bashir was toppled by the military last year. A civilian transitional government, formed in August, agreed with the United States that it could start engaging with international institutions while still on the list. (With Reuters)

Turkey FM: Our troops in Libya for education, training only
Tommy Hilton, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Turkish troops are only in Libya for education and training purposes, said Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. “Our personnel is there for training and education, nothing else,” he said. Turkey has sent troops to Libya to support the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been accused of accomodating extremist groups. Cavusoglu also blamed Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar for allegedly undermining efforts to reach a truce in Libya's long-standing conflict. Libya is currently in turmoil, with oil output grounding to a halt after the failure of the recent conference in Berlin, which sought to bring together the GNA's Prime Minister Fayyez al-Sarraj with rival commander Haftar to sign a peace treaty. “In Berlin, we gathered together with all the actors including P5 countries, and we all committed there for a sustainable truce or ceasefire. Al-Sarraj also did, but [Libyan commander Khalifa] Haftar didn’t make any announcement,” he said. When prompted that Turkey and Russia were on different sides in Syria and Libya, Cavusoglu said that it shows Turkey's capacity to work together with other actors, but that Turkey is opposed to Russia in other conflicts including Georgia and Ukraine. Cavusoglu was speaking at the Geopolitical Outlook: The Middle East and North Africa panel alongside the Omani foreign minister and Jordanian prime minister.

Oman’s FM addresses regional challenges after Sultan Qaboos death
Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Oman’s Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah called for regional actors to “think about the future” and cooperate on all major issues, signalling a continuation in Oman's role as a mediator. “We in Oman don't have any major agenda,” he added, while criticising countries that deploy negative tactics.
Abdullah was speaking alongside Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Al Razzaz, and Jane Harman the Directo of The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A central theme of the panel was the fight against extremism. “We’ve won battles, but we did not win the wars,” said Jordan’s Al Razzaz. “We need to change the environment that extremism operates in, so that we don’t see ISIS version 3, or ISIS version 4,” he added. Turkish FM addresses Libya, Syria .When asked about Turkey’s expanding role in the region, Turkey’s Cavusoglu discussed Israel and Palestine, Syria, and Yemen. On Syria, Cavusoglu described the situation on the ground as “not very promising” and said that the Syrian regime had been increasing its aggression in Idlib province. “We have been working with the Russians and others to accomodate the ceasefire there, but it has not been easy,” he said. On Liyba, Cavusoglu said “since Haftar attacked, the situation on the ground is bad.”Libya is currently in turmoil, with oil output grounding to a halt after the failure of the recent conference in Berlin, which sought to bring together the warring Prime Minister Fayyez al-Sarraj and commander Khalifa Haftar to sign a peace treaty. “In Berlin, we gathered together with all the actors including P5 countries, and we all committed there for a sustainable truce or ceasefire. Al-Sarraj also did, but Haftar didn’t make any announcement,” he added. Cavusoglu also repeated Turkey's reasoning for sending troops to Libya. “Our personnel is there for training and education, nothing else,” he said. Turkey has sent troops to Libya to support the UN-recognized Government of National Accord, which has been accused of accomodating extremist groups. When asked that Turkey and Russia were on different sides in Syria and Libya, Cavusoglu said that it shows Turkey's capacity to work together with other actors.

Tripoli airport closes again after rocket fire
Reuters, Tripoli/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
The only functioning airport in Libya’s capital Tripoli closed on Wednesday after rockets were fired towards it, the airport said in a statement. A plane coming from Tunis trying to land at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport had been diverted to Misrata, a city about 200km (125 miles) east of Tripoli, the airport said on its website. Mitiga had only reopened on Jan. 14 after months of closure following repeated air strikes, part of a nine-month campaign by the Libyan National Army by led Khalifa Haftar to seize Tripoli from the UN- recognized Government of National Accord.

Five Houthi militia leaders killed in confrontations with Yemeni army
Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
At least five Houthi militia leaders were killed during confrontations with the Yemeni army, most of whom are related to the group's ambassador in Iran, according to Al Arabiya sources. No further details were provided. Major General Sagheer Bin Aziz, the commander of joint operations at the Yemeni Ministry of Defense, called earlier on Wednesday on the National Army to advance towards Sanaa to recover it from the Houthi militia.The call for the commander of joint operations comes at a time when the Yemeni army, with the support of the Arab Coalition, is fighting battles against the militias and achieving landslide victories along the Nehm front, amid major Houthi reverses and losses.

China has ‘no intention to participate’ in arms talks
AFP, Beijing/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
China said Wednesday it has “no intention to participate” in trilateral arms control negotiations, a day after Washington called on Beijing to join its nuclear arms talks with Moscow. The United States has held two rounds of talks with Russia, aimed at reducing misunderstandings around critical security issues since the collapse of a Cold War nuclear pact last year – which triggered fears of a new arms race. Washington has hinted that Beijing should also join the discussions. But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang accused the US of using Chinese involvement as “a pretext to shirk and shift its own nuclear disarmament responsibilities”.“China has no intention to participate in the so-called China-US-Russia trilateral arms controls negotiations,” Geng said at a regular press briefing in Beijing. Washington has warned about a lack of transparency around China’s growing nuclear arsenal, and US President Donald Trump has insisted that any new disarmament pact would need China to come on board. Geng said that “the country with the largest and most advanced weapons arsenal in the world should earnestly fulfil its special responsibilities for nuclear disarmament”, referring to the US. According to US Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva Robert Wood on Tuesday, China’s nuclear stockpile is expected to double over the next decade. “We have to deal with this serious threat to strategic stability, which is the lack of transparency around China’s nuclear stockpile enhancement,” he said. Washington and Moscow walked away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in August last year, after each accused the other of violating the terms of the deal.

India’s top court gives govt more time to explain divisive citizenship law
Reuters, New Delhi/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
India’s Supreme Court declined calls to suspend the implementation of a new citizenship law on Wednesday, deciding that a constitutional bench of five judges was needed to hear all the challenges to legislation that critics say discriminates against Muslims.
The court gave Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government four weeks to respond to 144 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law which has ignited protests across the country. The law, which came into effect on Jan.10 after being passed by parliament in December, lays out a path for citizenship for six religious minorities in neighboring mostly-Muslim countries - Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Critics say that the omission of Muslims is discriminatory, and that basing the right to citizenship on religion violates the secular principles of India’s constitution. Opposition leaders, Muslim organizations and student groups had petitioned the court to hold off implementation of the law until the challenges to the legislation were settled. But Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde heading a three-bench panel told a packed courtroom that only a constitutional bench of five judges could rule on the matter and in the meantime gave the government more time to explain its stance. “We will give you four weeks to file reply to all petitions,” Bobde told the government’s top lawyer, indicating that the next hearing will be held in late February. The government says the law is for the benefit of religious minorities such as Hindus, Sikhs and Christians who face persecution in India’s Muslim majority neighbors. The biggest student organization in the northeastern state of Assam, where some of the worst violence was seen last month during widespread protests against the law, said it would keep up its opposition. “Non-violent and democratic protests will continue alongside the legal battle,” All Assam Students Union general secretary Lorinjyoti Gogoi told Reuters.

US Senate approves Trump impeachment trial rules
Reuters, Washington/Wednesday, 22 January 2020Text
The US Senate voted early on Wednesday to approve rules governing the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, including delaying a debate over whether to call witnesses until the middle of the trial. With Republicans banding together, the Senate voted 53-47 to adopt the trial plan, which allows opening arguments from House lawmakers prosecuting the case to begin later on Wednesday. By the same tally, senators also rejected requests for subpoenas seeking the testimony of acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former national security adviser John Bolton, White House aide Robert Blair and White House budget official Michael Duffey. As the third presidential impeachment trial in US history began in earnest, Trump’s chief legal defender argued the Democratic case was a baseless effort to overturn the 2016 election but a top Democratic lawmaker said there was “overwhelming” evidence of wrongdoing. Trump was impeached last month by the House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for pressuring Ukraine to investigate former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival, and impeding the inquiry into the matter. The president denies any wrongdoing. After US Chief Justice John Roberts convened the proceedings, the two sides began more than 12 hours of squabbling that lasted into Wednesday morning over Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s proposed rules for the trial. Under McConnell’s hastily revised set of procedures for the trial, there will be 48 hours of opening arguments - 24 hours for each side - over six days, easing off an earlier plan to keep them to two days each. It also allows the House’s record of the probe to be admitted as evidence. The arguments will begin when the trial resumes at 1 pm (1800 GMT) on Wednesday. Republican senators have not ruled out the possibility of further testimony and evidence at some point after opening arguments and 16 hours of senators’ questions, but they held firm with Trump’s lawyers to block Tuesday’s Democratic requests for witnesses and evidence - a potentially good sign for the White House. White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who is leading Trump’s defense, attacked the foundation of the charges against the Republican president and said Democrats had not come close to meeting the US Constitution’s standard for impeachment. “The only conclusion will be that the president has done absolutely nothing wrong,” Cipollone said, arguing in favor of McConnell’s proposal to wait until later in the trial to decide whether to allow further witnesses or documents. “There is absolutely no case,” he said. After a particularly heated exchange over whether Bolton should testify, Roberts admonished both parties to remember they were addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body. “I do think those addressing the Senate should remember where they are,” he said.

Hamas chief to remain outside Gaza for months: Deputy
AFP, Gaza CityWednesday, 22 January 2020
The leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas will remain outside the Gaza Strip the group runs for up to a year, a senior official said Tuesday. Ismail Haniya left Gaza in December on his first major foreign tour since taking over as the group’s leader in 2017. He has since visited Turkey, Egypt, and Malaysia as well Iran, for the funeral of Iranian general Qasesm Soleimani, killed by a US air strike in Iraq. “Haniya will remain abroad and continue to run Hamas until he has completed all the tasks and all the goals of his foreign tour,” the movement’s deputy chief Khalil al-Hayya told journalists. The trip could last up to a year, he said. Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 but an uneasy truce has taken hold of late. Haniya is currently in the Gulf state of Qatar, which is a longtime Hamas ally and allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, in which Hamas has its ideological roots. The Hamas leader left Gaza via Egypt, the only state apart from Israel to border Gaza. Hayya admitted the Iranian visit had caused tensions with Egypt, which is allied with Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia. “Our brothers in Egypt rebuked us for visiting Iran, but (Hamas) has its own independent stance,” Hayya said, saying the visit strengthened “the relationship between Hamas and Iran.”Hamas has controlled the impoverished Gaza Strip since ousting loyalists of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Hillary Clinton says ‘nobody likes’ Bernie Sanders
AFP, New York/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has launched a scathing attack on presidential hopeful and 2016 Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, telling a documentary that “nobody likes him.” Clinton also refused to say whether she would endorse and campaign for Sanders if he becomes the Democrats’ choice to take on President Donald Trump in November’s election. “He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him,” Clinton, 72, says in a four-part series due to air on streaming site Hulu in March. “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it,” he adds. Sanders, a leftist senator from Vermont, is among the leaders in the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination. He sits second in national polls behind centrist Joe Biden and ahead of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, two weeks before the first nomination vote in Iowa. Sanders, 78, pushed Clinton to the wire four years ago in an acrimonious, months-long battle for the party’s nomination. Clinton won that race but lost to Trump in November. Asked whether she would back Sanders if he won the nomination this time around, Clinton said: “I’m not going to go there yet. We’re still in a very vigorous primary season.”Warren has accused Sanders of telling her privately in December 2018, as they contemplated White House runs, that he did not believe a woman could win a presidential election. Sanders denies the claim but Clinton said the comment was “part of a pattern.”“If it were a one-off, you might say, ‘OK, fine.’ But he said I was unqualified,” she recalled. “It’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women,” she added. Sanders was forced to apologize to Biden on Monday after one of his supporters, Zephyr Teachout, wrote an opinion article in The Guardian accusing the former vice-president of having “a big corruption problem.”

Hong Kong on high alert to tackle coronavirus outbreak
Reuters, Davos/Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Hong Kong’s government is on high alert to deal with a new flu-like coronavirus that has killed nine people in mainland China, the city’s commerce secretary, Edward Yau, said on Wednesday.
The outbreak has rattled financial markets as investors recall the huge impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China. Yau is part of a delegation on a mission to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos to convince global business and political leaders that the Asian financial hub is back on track after more than seven months of protests, even as it faces a potentially more damaging crisis. “The whole world is watching this new epidemic ... We are also getting fully prepared for this because of such close proximity between Hong Kong and the mainland, and very hectic travel,” Yau told Reuters. During the Lunar New Year celebrations, tens of millions of Chinese travel domestically, starting from this week. “Policy is on high alert, making sure that we can contain and prevent the spreading of the disease.”The virus, originating in Wuhan at the end of last year, has spread to Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai, as well as the United States, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. There have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Hong Kong, although the Chinese-ruled gambling hub of Macau confirmed on Wednesday its first case of pneumonia linked to the coronavirus. Yau also said the former British colony was well placed to address any cyclical and structural challenges, just days after Moody’s downgraded the financial hub, blaming the government for failing to deal with the sometimes violent protests.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 22-23/2020
Libya’s Haftar moving towards a military victory as Europe pushes for peace
Cyril Widdershoven/Al Arabiya English/January 22/2020
General Khalifa Haftar and the Libya National Army (LNA) is edging ever closer to a military victory in the civil war even as world powers push the warring parties towards peace.
Haftar, the 76-year-old leader who has vowed to remove the extremist militias from power and unify the war-torn country, played a masterstroke in blocking off oil production last week. In one stroke, he cut off the main source of revenue to his enemies in the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.Haftar’s forces have almost total control over the vast oil and gas reserves in the country. Until now, the revenues from these operations were flowing into the coffers of the embattled government in Tripoli, which is recognized by the UN and backed by a plethora of militia including extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a desperate move to hold onto power, the Government of National Accord (GNA) signed in November an illegal annexation agreement to modify sea borders between the two countries, giving Ankara ownership of gas fields in that area. Turkey also decided to send hundreds of mercenaries from Syria to fight against Haftar’s forces as they advance on the capital.
The Berlin summit, which included representatives from all sides in the conflict and several international observers, ended with a call on both sides to de-escalate, paving the way for a permanent ceasefire, and to abide by the arms embargo put forth by the United Nations Security Council in 2011.
However, the conference and its nine-page conclusion were mere political theatre, with each country vying to protect its interests. It is unlikely that either Libyan party will back down or stop seeking military support to fight its corner.
A major military conflict is brewing. The call for a much stricter arms-embargo, restricting or blocking military supplies to the GNA or LNA, should be taken with a truckload of salt. Even during the conference official statements and meetings, military clashes and bombardments continued in and around Tripoli and other areas in the country. Haftar and al-Sarraj are not looking for a status-quo, but military victory.
Ideas about power-sharing agreements or ceasefires might please Western ears, but Libya’s power players have their own objectives embedded clearly into a military strategy. Haftar’s LNA, which is backed by Egypt and the UAE and also gets support from Russia, France and others, is heading for all-out victory, uniting the country again under one rule. The Turkish-backed GNA is heading for a defeat, even if Ankara puts its military weight behind it.
Ankara’s main constraint at present is that no North African or European country supports any Turkish involvement in the conflict. Ankara’s ongoing conflict with its neighbors in the Eastern Mediterranean is pushing France, Greece and Italy to side with Haftar.
Turkey’s illegal agreement with Tripoli and its mobilization of forces to Libya have further alienated Ankara, which plays host to the Muslim Brotherhood and has already distanced itself from the NATO by installing Russian missile defense systems.
The only glimmer of light after Berlin is that Greece appears to be taking a more flexible position. Before the weekend, Athens threatened to veto any European agreement on Libya, as they were not invited to attend the Berlin conference while Turkey was prominently at the table.
The Greek Prime Minister’s office stated to the press it was a “positive step” that the conference affirmed the need for a political solution and that all sides agreed to maintain an arms embargo.
Still, a major escalation is still the most likely option, as the Berlin conference has not discussed the bilateral agreements between the GNA government of Libya and Turkey delineation of maritime borders in the Mediterranean.
Even with Ankara’s military might behind al-Sarraj, Haftar is most likely to emerge victorious through military confrontation, leaving plans for a peaceful power-sharing agreement in tatters.
*Cyril Widdershoven is a Middle East defense energy analyst and the Director at Verocy B.V., a consultancy based in the Netherlands.

America’s unconventional energy revolution a hard act to follow
Sultan Althari/Al Arabiya English/January 22/2020
Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking propelled the United States into a state of energy abundance. These technological advances radically transformed the global energy landscape, granting the US the ability to effectively exploit untapped reserves of oil and natural gas. The unconventional energy revolution triggered a series of positive effects on US economy, foreign policy and energy security.
Economically, the fracking boom reduced the country’s trade deficit, added over $430 billion to annual GDP, while generating approximately three million American jobs that pay double the median US salary. These figures are expected to increase to $590 billion in GDP contribution and 3.8 million jobs by 2030.
The dramatic shift from energy paucity to energy abundance entails geopolitical implications: in particular, an increase in US soft and hard power by granting the US greater freedom in the realm of foreign policy. This freedom has given the US the ability to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities and support for militant proxies through aggressive economic sanctions and a robust reset to deterrence.
In doing so, the United States is able to continually support regional stability, affirm its commitment to regional allies and deter Iran’s malign influence. Conversely, a state of energy scarcity would severely impede the US’s ability to enjoy energy security while checking Iran’s destabilizing behavior, ultimately risking the regional stability at large.
Considering the extent to which these positive effects have benefitted the US, is it possible for other nations – with similar resources – to emulate the unconventional energy revolution on their own terms?
Resource availability does not equal effective exploitation. A favorable industrial environment is an indispensable element of a successful shale revolution. A conglomeration of favorable industrial conditions led to a successful shale boom in the United States—conditions absent to varying degrees in most other countries. These conditions include: technological prowess, favorable geology, an investor-friendly industrial environment, reliable data on national subsurfaces, competitive and fluid markets, robust infrastructure, steady support from three successive presidential administrations, and property rights that permit private subsurface ownership.
Various nations – like Argentina, Algeria, China, Poland and Australia – possess large unconventional energy resources, but lack the foregoing conditions, and are therefore unable to emulate the American model. Comparatively analyzing the impediments to a successful revolution in unconventional energy will help elucidate this dilemma.
In Algeria, a lack of demand for shale gas and unreliable state state-owned oil companies stymied shale progress. Although Russia suffers from a similar demand problem, it also lacks the expertise and technological prowess to exploit Bazhenov shale.
Shale development has failed in Europe, and especially the UK, due to higher environmental standards, higher population density and public opposition. With arguably the greatest potential to develop a successful shale revolution, China still falls short. This failure is attributable to deeper reserves, ubiquitous state-owned oil companies, water scarcity, a lack of mineral rights, unfavorable political and legal conditions and the remote locations of its shale regions.
A plate analogy by Guo Xusheng – chief geologist at China Petroleum & Chemical Corp – can help explain China’s struggle to emulate the American Shale revolution: “US shale reserves are like a plate, in relatively good shape and buried evenly close to the surface … For China’s shale reserves, it’s more like a plate that was smashed on the ground, and then stomped on. We’re trying to identify those scattered reserves and trying our best to get to the bigger ones.”
Although shale gas serves as the most efficient, reliable and affordable bridge to renewables, fracking triggers a series of environmental risks. These include stress-induced earthquakes, greenhouse-gas emissions (i.e. methane), community exposure to harmful substances (i.e. benzene), and groundwater contamination.
To leverage its competitive advantage, the US should focus on policy interventions that improve energy efficiency, while accelerating investments in cleaner energy technologies. Short-term regulatory mitigation is also imperative: regulation should work in concert with innovative technology to minimize the harmful effects of fracking. Energy is therefore generated in a manner that is both environmentally sustainable and economically feasible. This course of action would place the United States on the fastest – and safest – route to green energy.
*Sultan Althari (@Sultanalthari) is a Masters Candidate in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Student-Affiliate at the Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative.

Turkey’s descent from ‘no problems’ to a series of conflicts
Joseph Dana/Arab News/January 22/2020
What happened to Turkey’s soft foreign policy? Not so long ago, Ankara’s famed “no problems with neighbors” policy was the darling of international geopolitics. In the 2000s, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spent a decade building Istanbul into a global nexus point of travel, trade and influence. The state-owned Turkish Airlines began flying to places like Mogadishu to project the country as a unifying force on the international stage. At home, Turkey invested in energy infrastructure to position itself as a vital transit hub linking hydrocarbon-rich areas in the Middle East with Europe.
Everything was going so well — until it wasn’t. Turkey backed the wrong side in the Arab Spring and then found itself isolated after the Muslim Brotherhood was crushed in Egypt and elsewhere. This geopolitical isolation was compounded by Erdogan’s increasing aggressiveness. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the complex sphere of hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean.
This week, Turkey sent a maritime drilling vessel, flanked by military ships, to start exploring for natural gas in contested waters off the coast of Cyprus. Ankara responded to the international outcry by stating that the move was in line with a new agreement between Turkey and Libya to establish maritime corridors between the two countries. Any natural gas in the area, in Turkey’s view, belongs to citizens of Turkish Cyprus — a country recognized by nobody apart from Turkey and the source of deep tension between Ankara and the rest of Cyprus.
A number of overlapping narratives underline Turkey’s unusually aggressive actions here.
In the late 1990s, Israel discovered a rich natural gas field off its northern coast. While Turkey is blessed with an ideal geographic location, it has no hydrocarbon resources of its own. Therefore, the Israeli natural gas discovery presented the perfect opportunity for Turkey to transform itself into a vital energy hub, shuttling natural gas from Israel and oil from Iraq into Europe. That required a complex agreement between Israel, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus to build a pipeline under the Eastern Mediterranean. After years of negotiation and deadlock, the deal was signed in late 2019 — but without Turkey. Ankara reacted by making a deal with Libya to create sea corridors and eventually a pipeline from the North African coast straight through the gas-rich waters of the Eastern Mediterranean and on to Turkey. Until this week, few parties, including the EU, thought Turkey would actually push ahead and attempt to take ownership of these sea lanes. Well, everyone was wrong. Turkey’s “no problems with neighbors” policy appears to have gone out of the window. If we look at these events from the larger perspective of Erdogan’s rule over Turkey, we see a leadership strategy in tatters. Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) consolidated power through sound economic policy, infrastructure development and soft power foreign policy. There was also a good deal of religious conservatism attached to this platform but, as long as the economy and Turkey’s standing in the world was not affected, the majority of Turks didn’t seem to mind.
That changed, however, with the anti-government protests in 2011. It became clear that Erdogan had ambitions of creating a “new Ottoman empire,” as he crushed dissent at home and assumed the Arab Spring would present a unique opportunity to drastically re-engineer the region, with Turkey — the emerging regional superpower following a decade of growth — at the center.
When it became clear that he had presumed wrongly, Erdogan, instead of changing course, was more concerned about consolidating his own power. He changed the political system to grant himself almost absolute authority. As a consequence, the Turkish economy is struggling, the AKP has lost control in Istanbul and the natural gas pipelines of the Eastern Mediterranean are gone. Instead of flouting international law, Turkey needs to get back to what it does best.
It is hard to overstate how critically important those pipelines were to both Turkey’s economy and its self-image. They would have given the country a regular source of capital with which to fund ostentatious projects, such as a new canal in Istanbul. Instead of flouting international law, Turkey needs to get back to what it does best. For example, the country has a booming agricultural and agritech sector thanks to its bountiful water supply. Focusing on strengthening that sector would benefit the country far more than getting involved in futile geopolitical adventurism.
Of course, such a shift would require Erdogan and his party acolytes to drop their neo-Ottoman ambitions. If the latest misadventures in Libya are any guide, this will be a very tall order.
*Joseph Dana, based between South Africa and the Middle East, is editor-in-chief of emerge85, a lab that explores change in emerging markets and its global impact. Copyright: Syndication Bureau

Turkey will suffer another failure if it expands Libya conflict
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Arab News/January 22/2020
Two weeks ago, the Libyan National Army (LNA) launched its most assertive battle yet, resulting in the taking of Sirte and the siege of Tripoli. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan thus found himself on the verge of losing the war, so he decided to go to Berlin, where the final battle was to be fought. There, the victors and losers negotiated, hoping that realism would push everyone to an agreement that would end the years of violence. A UN-sponsored agreement was signed by the parties concerned, but it is more than likely that they will return to fight for the last few miles.
The war in Libya has passed through some painful stages. In 2015, hopes of reconciliation were wiped out, with embassies closing their doors in Tripoli, the UN withdrawing its forces, and chaos taking over the capital. Rivalries of regional and major powers have caused the war to continue, with Turkey among them, fighting on Libyan territory through militias whose members are mostly foreigners. The Turks justify their involvement in the war by claiming that Libya owes them huge amounts of money after they financed projects during the late Qaddafi era. Turkey is also claiming that millions of citizens of Turkish origin are living in Libya, which of course is not true.
Why is Turkey insisting on fighting in Libya? If it is out of a desire to build an empire, this is not possible because it does not have the resources, even with Qatar’s unlimited support. The truth is that Turkey has been left with just Libya when talking about the gains of the so-called “Arab Spring.” Libya is a dangerous corridor with the potential to destabilize Egypt’s security, and it could even be used to threaten Europe.
Turkey has bet on the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, but these groups lost power, and with them Turkey lost all of these countries, except for Libya. Even in Libya, the Turkey-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) controls only 15 percent of Libyan territory, mainly in Tripoli and Misrata. It had previously lost the oil-producing areas to the LNA.
Amid this bad situation, Ankara is threatening to send more troops to defend Tripoli. It must be noted that the Turkish experts and forces are foreign fighters who were involved in the war in Syria. After coming to an agreement with the Russians in Idlib, Turkey wants to get rid of one legacy of the Syrian war, which includes having to deal with thousands of foreign fighters on its territory.
In case the Berlin deal fails, these fighters will fight alongside the GNA’s forces; and if they lose and the LNA takes Tripoli, they will sow chaos. Thus, they will be Erdogan’s bargaining tool to put pressure on European countries. This perception has been created by the threats of the Turkish president himself, who clearly said that Europe will not be safe if his allies in Libya fall.
Egypt is the other target for the Turks in Libya. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi recently said Egypt is concerned about Libya’s stability, and regards Turkey’s intervention as a major threat to it. He added that Egypt may be the next target, which is why we see Cairo raising the tone of its speeches, declaring that it will not remain a spectator if the Turks go to war.
Everyone is trying to push Ankara to be realistic and cooperate with any joint government that is formed in accordance with the Berlin agreement.
Erdogan can prolong and widen the chaos in Libya, but he will not be able to rule the country. Thus, everyone is now trying to push Ankara to be realistic and cooperate with any joint government that is formed in accordance with the Berlin agreement, until this absurd tragedy is over. Let us not forget that the current war is the result of the failure of an earlier opportunity to share power, when the extremists backed by Turkey coveted sole rule.
The Turks, who want to use Libya to strengthen their status and make up for their failure in Syria, must know that Libya will become, for them, an additional burden, as well as a failure if they insist on supporting the war.
*Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat. Twitter: @aalrashed

Palestinians face bleak future as moderates sidelined
Ray Hanania/Arab News/January 22/2020
The boycott of Israeli settlements and products grown or produced there is a principled and justified stance led by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that aims at forcing Israel to stop exploiting properties taken from non-Jews in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967 and has, ever since, been stealing land from Palestinians, evicting the owners and then building racist, Jewish-only settlements. That many people in the West do not understand this simple fact is the result of Israel’s pernicious propaganda, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars freed up because America gives Israel’s government more than $3 billion every year from the pockets of US taxpayers.
But there are other boycotts that are just naive. The most self-destructive for the Palestinians is the political boycott, in which they refuse to engage with the very people who have the power to control Palestinian lives and support Israel’s ongoing brutal military campaign. Two years ago, for example, newly elected American Vice President Mike Pence visited Israel and Palestine, but the Palestinians, angry with President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, boycotted Pence’s visit. And, last year, Palestinians refused to attend the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop organized by Trump’s special Middle East adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, leaving the conference of 200-plus corporate and business investors to hear only one side of the story.
This week, Pence, along with other leaders of the US Congress from both sides of the aisle, will visit Israel to participate in a Holocaust remembrance ceremony. However, they won’t be meeting with Palestine’s subjugated government or besieged President Mahmoud Abbas. Ironically, many Palestinians are calling that a “snub” by Pence and the visiting House members, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while not acknowledging that, when Pence arrived in Israel in January 2018, they refused to meet with him.
This practice of blanket rejectionism is self-destructive, as it empowers Israel to advance its goal of removing non-Jews from many areas of Palestine. Rejectionism is not a strategy — it is a symptom of division. The Palestinians are extremely divided. Activists who embrace the total boycott of Israel and oppose “normalization” are extremists, and they spend too much time and energy attacking the moderate Palestinians who urge compromise and support dialogue with Israeli moderates.
The real tragedy is that the extremists’ actions are self-fulfilling. By boycotting everything, they strengthen the anti-Palestinian movement in Israel and in the West, which, for example, falsely calls the BDS movement “anti-Semitic” and provides fuel to efforts to impose restrictions on pro-Palestinian voices, such as the anti-BDS laws that have been approved in more than half of America’s 50 states.
Worse, boycotts allow pro-Israel extremists to dominate the international dialogue where it counts the most: In the West and especially in countries like the US, which played a more than significant role in helping to create Israel in 1948. Never mind that the extremists’ efforts to silence the moderates divide Palestinian voices, activism and resources, weakening the effort to confront Israel’s propaganda lies. The rejectionists — who often embrace violence, as Hamas did in launching a wave of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians following the signing of the Oslo Accords at the White House in 1993 — have also inadvertently redefined the Palestinian cause in many circles from being one of championing human rights and justice to being perceived and described as an anti-Semitic campaign of hate. That is not the real face of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians who languish under Israeli oppression, whether as Israeli citizens or as occupied victims of Israel’s annexationism.
The longer this campaign of rejectionism continues, the more it undermines Palestinian self-confidence in terms of achieving statehood through political compromise and the more it empowers the extremists. Since the late 1980s, when Hamas was founded, the militant Islamic movement has grown in strength and popularity, taking over the Gaza Strip — as was sought by the Israelis — and countering the efforts of Palestine’s legitimate government to engage in the peace process. The moderate leadership has been relegated to the sidelines, marginalized not only by Israel’s extremist policies but by the weakness of a Palestinian voice that is divided, disorganized and effectively dysfunctional.
As Abbas’ leadership seemingly comes to an end, brought on as much by Palestinian rejectionism and violence as it was undermined by Israel’s extremist right-wing governments and racist apartheid policies, the Palestinians face a dismal future in which moderate secular voices are replaced by extremist and narrowly focused religious activism from groups like Hamas.
The longer this campaign of rejectionism continues, the more it undermines Palestinian self-confidence.
If Pence really cared about Israel, as he claims, he would recognize that the collapse of Palestinian moderation is just as destructive to the future of Israel as it is to the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. The truth is that, without two states, Israel will almost certainly one day be destroyed, not by moderates who embrace compromise based on the two-state solution, but by violent extremists on both sides, who will turn Israel and the Occupied Territories into battlefields.
Both sides will suffer because rejectionism and political bias against the rule of law and Palestinian human rights will only serve to empower the fanatics. Pence should show courage and extend a hand to the Palestinians, even if he believes the Palestinians will, through the expansion of their suffering and hopelessness, reject that hand.
Victims of apartheid and oppression should not be condemned because they suffer from an absence of hope, which Pence and others have failed to provide.
*Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. He can be reached on his personal website at www.Hanania.com. Twitter: @RayHanania

Royal drama representative of broader rejection of institutions
Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/January 22/2020
Earlier this month, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — otherwise known as Harry and Meghan — shocked the British royal establishment with an announcement revealing their plans to “carve out a progressive new role within this institution.” Following emergency discussions, Buckingham Palace on Saturday issued a statement saying that the duke and duchess will “step back from royal duties,” no longer represent the Queen, and will no longer receive public funds for “royal duties.”
While Harry and Meghan appeared to have wanted to create a new, hybrid role within the monarchy, it seems they were instead given a choice that was more clearly in or out. They appear to have chosen out. In so doing, they are turning their backs on their senior positions within one of the world’s oldest, most privileged institutions. The royal institution offered them unmatched levels of global influence and wealth, but came with intrusive media scrutiny, often racist and sexist portrayals of Meghan, and intense restrictions.
Their high-profile attempt to reform an institution — and, when that failed, to opt out — is perhaps the most interesting element of their story. It is representative of a global trend in which people, especially young people, are opting out of and challenging traditional institutions. This is happening around the world, with potentially positive and negative consequences. “Institutions” in this sense can be defined broadly, as an organization founded for religious, social or other purposes, as an established custom or, in the political science approach, as a set of formal rules and informal norms that shape political environments.
There are many examples of this trend from different parts of the world. In the UK, Brexit is far more consequential than “Megxit.” At the end of this month, the country is expected to formally leave the EU — one of the world’s most significant multilateral institutions. Meanwhile, on continental Europe, there has been a strong trend of voters turning against the centrist parties that, in many cases, had governed since the end of the Second World War. In the US, multiple sources have documented how the younger, millennial generation is turning away from organized institutions. Polling suggests that older Americans are also questioning everything from religion to the nuclear family, but these trends are much stronger among younger adults. Polls show younger Americans increasingly turning away from any religious affiliation, holding liberal political beliefs while being less likely to identify with a political party, and generally distrusting authority. Polls show millennials as less likely to marry and less likely to value having children.
In India, multiple commentators have raised concerns about the decline of the independence of the judiciary, the media and the central bank — key institutions of Indian democracy. This trend has accelerated under the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has also actively eroded the institution of secular democracy.
The Middle East and North Africa experienced a new wave of protest in 2019, as young people in many countries across the region rejected traditional political institutions as corrupt and ineffective. The region was not alone, with significant protests also being seen from Hong Kong to Chile in 2019. A recent report from a political analysis firm forecast that civil unrest across the world will increase in 2020, with nearly 40 percent of the world’s countries experiencing some degree of unrest and protest.
The sense that old institutions are failing or crumbling is so widespread that the 2019 fire that destroyed part of the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris resonated with many people beyond the damage caused to this particular cultural treasure. More broadly, it was the physical embodiment of a sense that old institutions are collapsing.
Multiple factors are driving this trend. One is a sense that institutions are failing to meet people’s needs. Millennials’ attitudes in the US are deeply shaped by the 2007 to 2009 Great Recession. The economic and political failures of many Middle Eastern and North African governments are the key factors behind regional protests. Growing inequality has been a major factor in protests in many parts of the world.
In some cases, institutions were based on assumptions that held true in the past but are no longer as relevant. For example, religious, business and social institutions in developed countries that were based on a model of a working father and homemaker mother have had difficulty adjusting to the realities of families with two working parents. Societies with large youth populations may struggle to maintain traditional hierarchies that place authority with elders. A worldwide trend is anger toward political, economic, cultural and intellectual elites.
These and other factors have led to a fundamental questioning of authority. A worldwide trend is anger toward political, economic, cultural and intellectual elites. Many countries are experiencing a rejection of expertise, as people seek simple, relatable solutions rather than complex, technocratic ones. In many cases, authority figures in institutions behaved corruptly, hypocritically or immorally and lost the trust of those they purport to guide.
Such threats to institutions have negative and positive implications. Alienation and loneliness are increasing as people turn away from institutions that have long provided community, meaning, identity, and support. The erosion of political and economic institutions increases the risks of instability within countries and globally. However, it is healthy to question the value of institutions that have failed to adjust to changing realities or to meet people’s needs. Furthermore, for individuals with the necessary resources and personalities, change offers opportunities to forge new paths and escape old strictures.
Wise leaders will recognize the need to reform many institutions and even jettison others. At the same time, institutions are essential to ensuring just and effective political and economic systems and to providing people with community and meaning. The societies that find a way to balance change, reform and preservation will be best equipped to manage an era of institutional transformation.
*Kerry Boyd Anderson is a writer and political risk consultant with more than 14 years’ experience as a professional analyst of international security issues and Middle East political and business risk. Twitter: @KBAresearch

Medical research an investment in people’s well-being
Sara Al-Mulla/Arab News/January 22/2020
It is not every day a film resonates deeply with me, but recent Bollywood release “The Sky Is Pink” takes a bitter lemon slice from real life and turns it into something saccharine and memorable. Based on true events, viewers meet the boisterous Chaudhary family of New Delhi, who discover that their baby girl, Aisha, has severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). This rare genetic disorder leaves her susceptible to life-threatening infections. Aisha’s parents travel all the way to London so that she can receive a bone marrow transplant at the renowned Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children at just six months old. Aisha was able to live well into her teenage years, until she developed a serious illness called pulmonary fibrosis, which was a side effect of the bone marrow transplant, and she sadly died aged 18. The film portrays the mental, physical and financial tolls of caring for an ill child, who had little hope of living a long, healthy life.
For those who live with a chronic illness or care for a family member with one, we are constantly hoping for new breakthroughs in medical treatment that will allow individuals to live longer, healthier lives. It is, therefore, imperative that we shed light on the importance of funding medical research to support the discovery of treatments for complex illnesses. The returns on medical research investment go beyond saving lives; extending into economic and social returns, enhancing productivity, increasing employment levels, reducing the costly burden of disabilities and illnesses, cutting health care expenses, and boosting well-being levels. Many governments, such as those in France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, offer universal health care to their populations, and yet the challenge remains on how to offer excellent medical services in the face of increasing populations, the presence of complex diseases, and tight government budgets.
Countries that invest in medical research and development activities have gained tremendous and lasting economic and social benefits. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US is the largest government funder of biomedical research in the world, devoting more than $30 billion annually to discovering new treatments and preventative solutions, consequently driving economic growth and improving citizens’ health. It boasts an impressive repertoire of achievements and discoveries that have transformed the way we live for the better. Research conducted by the NIH has led to breakthrough treatments for a number of diseases, ultimately helping to increase the average lifespan of Americans by eight years, halving the death rate from all causes, reducing neonatal mortality, preventing and treating heart disease, diabetes and cancer, fighting dangerous infections, treating impaired vision and hearing loss, improving recovery rates from major injuries, and offering a number of treatments for rare diseases. These noble achievements have also spilled over to the economy and wider community. For example, the NIH’s Human Genome Project has resulted in nearly $1 trillion of economic growth. On top of that, the economic gains of increased longevity have been estimated at about $3.2 trillion per year.
Similarly, the UK government and a number of medical research charities have analyzed the potential rates of return of medical research funding. The study proved that medical research yields significant yearly health gains, ranging from 7 to 10 percent, in addition to a boost in economic returns estimated to be more than 15 percent. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is a UK government agency responsible for funding medical research. In 2017, it funded 302 pioneering research projects with a budget valued at £227 million ($296 million). Recently, the institute has focused on research relevant to brain tumors, mental health treatment, dementia, maternal care, and palliative care. Findings are rapidly shared in peer-reviewed journals and the National Health Service network to disseminate its value to the professionals and the public. The NIHR has also worked on raising public awareness about the importance of medical research via free online courses, grassroots events and social media.
Countries that invest in medical research and development activities have gained tremendous and lasting economic and social benefits.
The UN expects the Arab region to double in population to about 700 million by the end of the century. With increasing lifespans and rising incidences of physical and mental health conditions, we need to design a sustainable way to improve our health status. By promoting medical research, we can start focusing on prevention as a first step toward improving health care, in addition to advancing medical discoveries that are pertinent to the region. This will also allow us to expand access to medical treatments closer to home, thus reducing health inequalities.
Governments, companies and individuals can make an enduring change in people’s well-being by investing in medical research. Together, we can support the scientists who make the pioneering discoveries that serve to help us live healthier, longer and more fulfilling lives.
*Sara Al-Mulla is an Emirati civil servant with an interest in human development policy and children’s literature.