LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 16/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.june16.19.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 06/16-21:”When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on June 15-16/2019
Blessed & Happy Fathers’ Day to all Fathers
Hezbollah Isn’t Just in Beirut. It’s in New York, Too
Bishop Abdel Sater appointed Archbishop of Beirut
Maronite Patriarch Urges Fortification of Lebanon, Bishops Demand More from Government
Bassil: Refugees’ Return is a Right, Need Not an International Decision
Report: Aoun, Hariri 'Agree' on Appointments in Key Po
Hariri Receives Fatah Delegation: Lebanon, Palestine Cannot Accept Less than the Arab Peace Initiative
Foucher aboard visiting amphibious helicopter carrier 'Dixmude': Lebanon is our privileged partner and we will support it in face of challenges
Absi visits President Aoun to discuss developments, appointments' dossier
Berri meets with AlAhmad, Palestinian Coalition Forces: Unanimous rejection of Deal of the Century"
Abu Faour to Industrialists: Trust in your capabilities and your country, a new path has been launched to protect the industry
Jumblatt: Is it a municipalities or racism conference?!
Kanaan says international contributions do not cover 50% of displacement cost
Makhzoumi meets French Prime Minister in Paris
Countess of Wessex Concludes Visit to Lebanon

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published  on June 15-16/2019
Iranian boat fired a missile at US drone: US official
Front Altair leaves Iran waters after Gulf of Oman attacks
UAE FM: Int’l community should work together to protect energy transportation
Saudi Crown Prince: We don’t want war but we won’t hesitate to deal with threats
Albanian PM says tanker attacks ‘engineered provocation by Iran’
Crew members of targeted Norwegian-owned tanker now in Dubai
Saudi air defense forces intercept Houthi drone targeting Abha
Arab Coalition strikes Houthi positions in Yemen’s Sanaa

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published  on June 15-16/2019
Blessed & Happy Fathers’ Day to all Fathers/Elias Bejjani/June 16, 2019
Hezbollah Isn’t Just in Beirut. It’s in New York, Too/Matthew Levitt/Foreign Policy/June 15/2019
Maronite Patriarch Urges Fortification of Lebanon, Bishops Demand More from Government/Kataeb.org/June 15/2019
Arab League chief tells Iranians to 'be careful'/Associated Press/June 15/2019
Can we make money out of waste/Basil M.K. Al-Ghalayini/Arab News/June 16/2019
Three things Western analysts get wrong about the Middle East/Sir John Jenkins/Arab News/June 16/2019
Trump deal with North Korea remains frustratingly elusive/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/June 16/2019
Hong Kong 1, China 0 (extra time being played)/Cornelia Meyer/Arab News/June 16/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published  on June 15-16/2019
Elias Bejjani: Blessed & Happy Fathers’ Day to all Fathers
June 16, 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/75816/elias-bejjani-blessed-happy-fathers-day-to-all-fathers/
”Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which The Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20:12 ).
“Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old”. (Proverbs 23/22).
Canadians observe Father’s Day on the third Sunday of June. It is a day for people to show their appreciation for fathers, grandfathers, godfathers and fatherly figures. Father figures may include stepfathers, fathers-in-law, guardians, foster parent, and family friends. Hopefully, all men will have the blessed grace of being fathers.
Being a father is a heavenly endowment, a great satisfaction, and a fulfilling Godly obligation as the Holy Bible teaches us: “Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.”
Almighty God has blessed both parents, fathers and mothers and recommended that they be honoured, respected, cared for, and obeyed by their children. God’s fifth commandment delineates this heavenly obligation and duty.
God is our Holy Father, and we all, men and women, are His beloved children. Fathers on Earth are God’s servants who are entrusted by Him to safeguard, raise, embrace, support, provide and teach their children.
Meanwhile fathers are required to carry their holy duties in raising their children in the fear of God, with the best of their knowledge, with all their resource and means, with full devotion and with all needed sacrifices.
Fathers are the cornerstone of their families upon which children depend on and learn from them how to run, control, and shape their lives.
Caring, devoted and righteous fathers are always given a hand by God and blessed by Him for their rearing duties and erection of ethical and right-wrong boundaries.
Today we are celebrating “Fathers’ Day”, with all those who cherish fathers, appreciate their sacrifices and honour their Godly role.
Best wishes to all fathers hoping they will be shown today all the due respect and gratitude from their sons and daughters.
On this very special day definitely our deceased fathers’ and mothers’ spirits are roaming around sharing with us our joy and happiness. May Almighty God bless their souls and ensure they all are embraced and hosted in His Holy Heavenly dwellings.
Attitudes of gratitude or ingratitude towards fathers on Fathers’ Day, are very sensitive issues that affect and touch the hearts and minds of many people.
These two contradicting attitudes exhibit how much a person is either appreciative or ungrateful.
The majority of people hold on dear to their fathers and do all that they can to always show them their great and deeply felt gratitude, while sadly there are those odd ones out who show no gratitude, abandon their fathers and even at times endeavour to ruin their lives and inflict harm and pain on them.
By doing so and negating God’s commandments that stress an utmost respect for parents, these people make themselves enemies of Christ Himself.
Definitely God shall not be pleased such condemned conduct. This deviation from all human norms occur because of ignorance, selfishness, lack of faith and hope.
These people fall into temptation, become proud of what they should be ashamed of, worship things that belong to this world and forget all about “Judgment Day”.
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord”.
(Colossians 3/20)
Fathers no matter what must be loved, honoured, dignified and respected. God Himself is a Father and He will not bless those who deny their fathers’ heavenly right of fatherhood and respect.
In this context, Billy Graham says: “A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.”
The Holy Bible in tens of its verses warns and puts on notice all those with callous hearts and numbed conscience who show no gratitude to their fathers and break their hearts.
“Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.” (Isaiah 46/04)
Even when fathers are abandoned by their children and denied their heavenly rights, they never ever hold any grudges, feelings of hatred or hostility against them. No matter what, fathers always wish their children health, prosperity and success.
Meanwhile, the Bible instructs parents to value the Godly delegation to them to raise their children with all means of righteousness, safeguarding, nurturing, protection and provision.
“Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!” (Lydia M. Child, U.S. Author)
Blessed & Happy Fathers’ Day to all Father

Hezbollah Isn’t Just in Beirut. It’s in New York, Too.
ماثيو لافت/فورن بولسي: حزب الله ليس متواجداً فقط في بيروت، بل هو موجود في نيويورك أيضاً
Matthew Levitt/Foreign Policy/June 15/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/75810/%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ab%d9%8a%d9%88-%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%81%d8%aa-%d9%81%d9%88%d8%b1%d9%86-%d8%a8%d9%88%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%8a-%d8%ad%d8%b2%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%87-%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d9%85%d8%aa%d9%88%d8%a7/
In recent years, Hezbollah has stepped up its activities beyond Lebanon’s borders. This uptick has been clearest in the Middle East—in Iraq, Yemen, and especially Syria—but plots have also been thwarted in South America, Asia, Europe, and now, possibly, the United States.
Reports of Hezbollah activity in North America are not new, though such reporting tends to focus on the group’s fundraising, money laundering, procurement, or other logistical activities from Vancouver to Miami. But last month, the criminal prosecution and conviction in New York of the Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani revealed disturbing new information about the extent of Hezbollah’s operations and activities in the United States and Canada.
Taken together, the arrests in 2017 of Kourani and another Hezbollah operative, Samer el-Debek, led the U.S. intelligence community to revisit its longstanding assessment that Hezbollah would be unlikely to attack the U.S. homeland unless the group perceived Washington to be taking action threatening its existence or that of its patron—Iran. Following Kourani and Debek’s arrests, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center said in October 2017, “It’s our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook.”
At the time, little of the underlying information leading to this new assessment had been made public, but on May 16, a New York jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts in the indictment against Kourani, including terrorist charges related to his surveillance of FBI and U.S. Secret Service offices, as well as a U.S. Army armory, all in New York City. (Debek has yet to stand trial.)
Kourani carried out other operational activities as a long-term sleeper agent, acting on behalf of Hezbollah’s external attack-planning component, the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), such as identifying Israelis in New York who could be targeted by Hezbollah and finding people from whom he could procure arms that Hezbollah could stockpile in the area.
Most of his activities occurred in the United States, but Hezbollah also sent Kourani to China, where the group had previously procured chemicals used to make bombs of the kind the group built in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Thailand. The 2012 bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria, left seven people dead including the bomber and 32 wounded, and bomb-making chemicals of the same type were found in Thailand in 2012 and in Cyprus in 2012 and 2015, when plots were thwarted there. Hezbollah also sent Kourani on operational assignments to Canada. Kourani described himself in interviews with FBI agents as being part of a “sleeper cell.”
“While living in the United States, Kourani served as an operative of Hezbollah in order to help the foreign terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United States,” said U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers. These included buildings housing the FBI and U.S. Secret Service in Manhattan, as well as New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and a U.S. Army armory.
Kourani comes from a family that’s well known in Hezbollah circles—he described them to the FBI as the “bin Ladens of Lebanon”—and he first attended a Hezbollah training camp as a teenager. But the group only recruited him into its elite IJO—Hezbollah’s external operations unit, also known at Unit 910—in January 2008, a month before the assassination of the IJO commander and longtime wanted Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh in what was later revealed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.
The timing is significant: It shows that that even before Mughniyeh’s death, Hezbollah was looking to rebuild its international terrorist networks. It is also significant because it put Kourani in the right place at the right time. In a video broadcast at Mughniyeh’s funeral, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah issued a not-so-veiled threat that attacks abroad would follow, saying, “With this murder, its timing, location and method—Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open.”
Trump’s Iran Crackdown Isn’t Enough to Stop Hezbollah
Unless Washington targets the group more effectively, it can outlive the pressure on Tehran.
Kourani held several meetings with FBI agents once they approached him in September 2016 saying they knew he was working for Hezbollah.Kourani held several meetings with FBI agents once they approached him in September 2016 saying they knew he was working for Hezbollah. Kourani claimed to seek a deal in return for being reunited with his wife and children, who had left him and were residing in Canada. No such deal was offered. Moreover, Kourani withheld key information and tried to use these meetings to elicit information from the agents interviewing him. The evidence at trial also included material from Kourani’s laptop, his email and Facebook records, and notes and other materials seized from his apartment.
His first step was to obtain U.S. citizenship and secure a U.S. passport, which he did at Hezbollah’s direction in 2009. Of course, he neglected to mention the circumstances on the form where it asked if he had ties to any terrorist organization. Kourani already had legal residency, obtained through his father. Later, in 2013, he applied for a passport card allowing him to cross the U.S.-Canadian or U.S.-Mexican border with an I.D. that fit in his wallet. This way, if authorities ever seized his U.S. passport while he was traveling abroad, he could still sneak back into the United States by flying to Canada or Mexico on his Lebanese passport and crossing back into the United States by land using the card.
Kourani warned FBI agents that Hezbollah’s IJO is “even more active in Canada than they were in the United States,” one of the FBI agents who interviewed him said during his trial. Indeed, Canada loomed large in Kourani’s operational plans. In 2012, he had married a Canadian-Lebanese dual citizen. Kourani later became estranged from his wife and children, but at the time, the FBI explained, he and his Hezbollah handler specifically discussed the operational utility of having family ties to Canada because “it wouldn’t appear suspicious or odd if he were to make travel to Canada with some regularity or frequency.”
Prosecutors concluded Kourani and his handler saw distinct advantages to Kourani having ties to Canada “so he could travel back and forth to Canada to conduct operations.”Prosecutors concluded Kourani and his handler saw distinct advantages to Kourani having ties to Canada “so he could travel back and forth to Canada to conduct operations.” The two discussed the possibility of Kourani transporting correspondence or operatives into Canada, which Kourani insists he never did. But the two did specifically discuss the spy tradecraft Kourani would employ to pass along messages for Hezbollah, using dead drops so he and local Hezbollah operatives would not be able to identify one another according to what Kourani described to the FBI as “the golden rule” of Unit 910: “the less you know the better it is”.
Kourani was well schooled in the ways of Unit 910, given that his Hezbollah IJO handler was none other than Fadi Kassab, the man FBI agents said Kourani had described as “responsible for IJO operatives in both the United States and Canada.” Even as he was running Kourani as an agent in New York, the Lebanon-based Kassab played hands-on roles in the Hezbollah attack in Bulgaria in 2012, according to Kourani’s statements to FBI agents.
One of the missions Hezbollah assigned to Kourani was to collect detailed information about two international airports: New York’s JFK and Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.One of the missions Hezbollah assigned to Kourani was to collect detailed information about two international airports: New York’s JFK and Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Based on documentation of his travel, U.S. prosecutors showed that Kourani traveled through JFK 19 times and through Pearson seven times.
Kourani told the FBI that he provided Hezbollah with details about security procedures, the uniforms worn by security officers, and whether the officers were armed. His surveillance, Kourani told the FBI, focused on exit points, security checkpoints, camera locations, baggage claim procedures, and what questions airport screeners asked passengers.
Aside from carrying out surveillance himself, Kourani also plied airport employees for information, some of whom understood they were providing information for Hezbollah while others were unwitting. For example, Kourani told the FBI about one airport employee in Canada, who appears to have unwittingly provided Kourani information about Canadian airport security. The two would smoke a hookah together, and the airport employee would casually answer Kourani’s questions about the locations of cameras and magnetometers. Kourani said he could ask the man to carry a bag onto an airplane for him, and he would do it.
According to a U.S. prosecutor’s statement during the trial, Hezbollah was “thinking about how to get terrorists, and weapons, and contraband through airports, from Lebanon into Canada, from Lebanon into the United States.”Hezbollah was “thinking about how to get terrorists, and weapons, and contraband through airports, from Lebanon into Canada, from Lebanon into the United States.”
During one of Kourani’s meetings with the FBI, an interviewing agent recalled, Kourani “sat back in his chair, squared his shoulders [to the interviewing agents] and stated, ‘I am a member of 910, also known as Islamic Jihad or the Black Ops of Hezbollah. The unit is Iranian-controlled.’” Within Hezbollah, the unit reports directly to Nasrallah, according to Kourani, but Iran oversees the unit’s operations.
In the 1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies downplayed the likelihood of Hezbollah attacking U.S. interests, unless Washington directly threatened Hezbollah. In the wake of 9/11, increased U.S. counterterrorism efforts began to impact Hezbollah. A year later, the FBI reported to Congress in 2002 that Hezbollah operatives “have reportedly been tasked with surveillance of potential targets in the United States.” But in those past cases, FBI investigations determined that “such taskings to date appear to have been intended as a vetting tool to establish the individual’s loyalty to Hezbollah and Iran.” Six years later, Mughniyeh was assassinated, just after Kourani’s IJO recruitment. By then, IJO preoperational surveillance missions took on much more practical implications because of Hezbollah’s desire to avenge Mughniyeh’s death.
The group’s goals changed considerably between 2002 and 2008. Kourani informed the FBI that “there would be certain scenarios that would require action or conduct by those who belonged to the cell.” Kourani said that in the event that the United States and Iran went to war, the U.S. sleeper cell would expect to be called upon to act.Kourani said that in the event that the United States and Iran went to war, the U.S. sleeper cell would expect to be called upon to act. And if the United States were to take certain unnamed actions targeting Hezbollah, Nasrallah himself, or Iranian interests, Kourani added, “in those scenarios the sleeper cell would also be triggered into action.”
The United States has, of course, taken actions adverse to Iranian and Hezbollah interests—withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, reimposing sweeping sanctions on Iran, sanctioning Hezbollah, and participating in the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, to name a few—and IJO operatives have never carried out a bombing or shooting in North America.
Hezbollah plots have been foiled over the past few years in Peru and Bolivia, but the revelation that Hezbollah conducted extensive surveillance activity in the United States and Canada over the past few years—explicitly tied to the group’s intent to exact revenge for the death of Mughniyeh—is deeply disturbing. Hezbollah has crossed a threshold and is, at a minimum, developing North American networks capable of executing attacks should the group’s leadership deem them necessary.
*Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism & Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God. Twitter: @Levitt_Matt
Click here to read the above report in the Foreign Policy site
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/14/hezbollah-isnt-just-in-beirut-its-in-new-york-too-canada-united-states-jfk-toronto-pearson-airports-ali-kourani-iran/?fbclid=IwAR1KHDISPtonxXsB5dcLreuZnrzmyJJs-p_C1rrxalQnrPDpEyDuycVuFGg

Bishop Abdel Sater appointed Archbishop of Beirut
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - The Synod of the Maronite Church elected Bishop Boulos Abdel Sater as Archbishop of Beirut, replacing Archbishop Boulos Matar for his legal age, according to a statement by Bkirki Patriarchate Saturday afternoon.

Annual Synod meeting concludes its works in Bkirki
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - Upon an invitation by Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, the Synod of the Maronite Church Bishops concluded its works in Bkirki on Saturday, calling upon State officials, particularly the parliament and the government, to find a radical solution to end corruption in the country. In an issued statement following the Synod meeting, conferees urged officials "to set an economic rescue plan to improve the country's situation and to curb the widespread corruption in the State." The Synod members also called on the international communities to push their efforts regarding the return of Syrian refugees to their motherland and to help the displaced rebuild their homes. Finally, conferees urged concerned officials to maintain the coexistence between Muslims and Christians in the country.

Maronite Patriarch Urges Fortification of Lebanon, Bishops Demand More from Government
Kataeb.org/June 15/2019
Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi on Saturday said that the constitutional violations committed by the country's officials and the growing tensions in the region requires the fortification of the Lebanese State. “We pray for politicians so that they would regain their inner peace so that they can be able to establish political peace,” al-Rahi hoped during his sermon at the mass concluding of the Synod of Maronite Bishops in Bkirki.
“How can all the disputes, bickering, wrangling, the hurtful words being traded, the blatant attack on people’s reputation and dignity as well as the invasion of their privacy through social media be explained other than it is the result of the lack of inner peace?” the Patriarch asked.
“What is still taking the government, which is also an organized social body, to act like the church so that it no longer violates the Constitution and laws?” he added. In the closing statement of the Synod, Maronite bishops said that there are still a lot of things that the people is expecting from the government in order to build up trust in Lebanon, saying that they are aspiring to a sound and responsible political atmosphere that preserves the National Pact, coexistence and balanced partnership, as well as to corruption-free country.
Bishops called on political leaders to fulfill their duty in finding legal solutions to the financial crisis facing Catholic schools due to the salary scale law, stressing that any solution must safeguard the rights of both teachers and students. The synod also urged leaders to reactivate subsidized housing loans, deeming such a move as fundamental and key to the revitalization of most economic sectors. As for the Syrian refugee crisis, the Bishops expressed the need for unity, solidarity and coordination with the concerned parties, be it regional or international, so as to provide favorable conditions for the refugees to return to their homeland, and, therefore, lift this heavy burden off of Lebanon.

Bassil: Refugees’ Return is a Right, Need Not an International Decision
Naharnet/June 15/2019/Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on Saturday reiterated calls for the repatriation of refugees saying it is an innate right for Syrians that need not an international decision to implement.
“The international community is using the issue of repatriation of refugees as a pressure card. Lebanon is carrying a burden that no other country can bear. Countries hosting refugees are building walls and barriers,” to prevent the entry of refugees said Bassil in remarks at the 3rd Municipalities Conference. The Minister stressed that the return of displaced is an “innate right” for Syrians and that they do not need an international decision to make them go back to their hometowns.
“More than 600,000 Syrian refugees move back and forth between Lebanon and Syria and these hold refugee cards,” astonishingly noted the Minister, adding that the majority of areas in Syria are safe now and can receive back their populace. He stressed that Lebanon is keen on the repatriation of Syrian refugees for the benefit of Lebanon and Syria, “the return of refugees is a right of the Syrians and we will not accept distorting our words. Our approach of the Syrian displacement issue is humane and non-sectarian.” He concluded by saying: “Anyone who accuses us of racism is either a beneficiary or a conspirator.”

Report: Aoun, Hariri 'Agree' on Appointments in Key Positions
Naharnet/June 15/2019/President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Saad Hariri have reportedly agreed in their meeting last Wednesday to fill the vacancies in Grade1 posts in the public administration, most notably in the judiciary, the vice governors to the Banque du Liban governor and the Council for Development and Reconstruction, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Saturday. The two men have agreed that filling the vacant state posts should come either in a gradual manner or in one batch, according to the daily. Presidency sources and others close to the PM told the daily that the road map for the appointments, which includes 43 key positions, was to classify the positions between "urgent" and "less urgent.”Aoun and Hariri also “agreed” on the need to avoid turning the appointments into a controversial issue, with the need to appoint the “appropriate director at the appropriate position regardless of the sect allocated for a specific post.”It said the details will be discussed in the first meeting between Hariri and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil after his return from Ireland. Some of the public administration posts have reportedly been vacant for nine years, others for five and some for two months. Ministerial sources have however noted that the appointments issue will not be discussed during the upcoming Cabinet meeting on Tuesday in the Grand Serail, because the government has not yet decided on it, and in view of two conflicting opinions one calling for a one-batch- appointments and another calling for a gradual process, added Asharq al-Awsat. Some of the “urgent” vacant posts in the Ministry of Justice are: the State Prosecutor, the Director General of the Ministry of Justice, Chairman of the State Shura Council, the four Vice-Governors to Banque du Liban Governor Riad Salameh and vacant public administrations in both the presidency, government and the Council for Development and Reconstruction. According to Information International SAL, the vacant posts are classified as follows: 11 positions for the Maronite community, 4 for Catholics, 4 for Orthodox, 2 for Armenians and minorities, 13 for the Sunni community, 7 for Shiites and 2 for Druze.

Hariri Receives Fatah Delegation: Lebanon, Palestine Cannot Accept Less than the Arab Peace Initiative
Naharnet/June 15/2019/Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday afternoon received at the Center House Fatah Movement Central Committee member and general supervisor of the Lebanese arena Azzam al-Ahmad, accompanied by the Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Dabbour, Fatah Movement Central Committee member Samir Rifai and the Secretary of Fatah and Palestinian Liberation Organization factions in Lebanon Fathi Abou al-Ardat, in the presence of the chairman of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee Hassan Mneimneh, Hariri’s press office said.
After the meeting, al-Ahmad said: “We were honored to meet with Prime Minister Hariri in the framework of the permanent coordination between the Palestinian and Lebanese leadership. We discussed the political events in the region, especially those related to the Palestinian issue, which is the core problem of the region and its central cause, especially with the continued efforts of the US administration led by (US president Donald) Trump to impose its views on the Palestinian people and the Arab region, in the framework of the so-called deal of the century, in partnership with the Israeli right-wing government led by Netanyahu.”He added: “We reaffirmed the joint Palestinian-Lebanese position of rejecting the deal of the century regardless of the names it is given. Lebanon and Palestine cannot accept less than the Arab peace initiative adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut, which affirmed the establishment of an independent Palestinian state after ending the occupation with East Jerusalem as its capital, and solving the refugees issue according to UNSCR 194. This is a permanent position for Lebanon and Palestine, and any normalization of the relations is absolutely unacceptable before the implementation of the Arab peace initiative, which has become an integral part of the resolutions of international legitimacy and the road map. This was decided by the international community.”He added that the Palestinians and Lebanon would not participate in the Bahrain workshop “which will not succeed, and the boycott of Lebanon and Palestine of this workshop empties it of 90 percent of its substance”. He said: “Premier Hariri expressed his satisfaction with the ongoing dialogue between Palestinian factions and Lebanese parties and the progress achieved until now, and with the security and stability in the Palestinian camps. He also expressed his appreciation for the courage of the Palestinian man, Saber Mrad, who stood against terrorism in Tripoli and saved his Lebanese brothers.”

Foucher aboard visiting amphibious helicopter carrier 'Dixmude': Lebanon is our privileged partner and we will support it in face of challenges
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - French Ambassador to Lebanon, Bruno Foucher, affirmed his country's support to Lebanon, saying "France and Lebanon have very special ties, and Lebanon is our privileged partner in the region and we will always be ready to stand by it in carrying out the courageous and essential measures to address the many challenges it faces today."Foucher's words came during a reception held yesterday evening on board the amphibious helicopter carrier, Dixmude, which recently docked at Beirut Port for a few days.
Attending the reception was National Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab representing the President of the Republic, MP Henry Helou representing the House Speaker, Economy Minister Mohammed Shoukeir representing the Prime Minister, as well as US Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard, and a number of defense attachés in Lebanon. In his delivered speech, Ambassador Foucher referred to the "Blue Cedar" training program shared by the French and Lebanese Armies, saying: "Blue Cedar is a new symbolic and concrete expression of the unique connection between France and Lebanon, a connection of joint effort and work, ambition, boldness and long-term friendship between our two peoples." He added that the arrival of Dixmude to Lebanon is a new feature of bilateral cooperation within the "Blue Cedar" training prgram, noting that "France has spent more than half a billion Euros over the last five years to support the Lebanese army in terms of equipment, training and strengthening cooperation in some specific areas."
Foucher explained that the training is intended to enable Lebanon to acquire a strong ability to move at sea and to exercise its full maritime sovereignty, "which is the cornerstone of the project of building the air-to-sea capabilities declared at the Second Rome Conference and supported by France." "Our relationship has taken on a new dimension when the French President announced in 2018 a financial allocation of 400 million Euros for the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces during the Second Rome Conference," disclosed Foucher. He expressed his country's authorities' wish to quickly finalize the many talks conducted over the past months with their Lebanese counterparts on this subject, in order to begin implementation.
"Our commitment to the Lebanese army comes within the framework of our goal of strengthening the Lebanese state and ensuring its stability and independence," he maintained, "which is why France has mobilized its international partners to support the Lebanese economy through CEDRE." Foucher referred to the Lebanese government's "positive signals" sent to the international community through a proposed budget, emphasizing the need for the government "to continue its efforts to develop the reforms it has undertaken to launch CEDRE."
"The Blue Cedar training is possible thanks to a mutual understanding between our two countries of a common Mediterranean world...a Francophone Middle East which is geographically distant, but very close from the cultural aspect," the French diplomat concluded.

Absi visits President Aoun to discuss developments, appointments' dossier
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - The Press Office of the Melkite Catholic Church Patriarch of Antioch and All the East issued a statement Saturday indicating that Patriarch Joseph Al-Absi visited today President of the Republic Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace, with talks touching on local and regional developments and the state appointments' dossier. "On emerging, Patriarch Al-Absi disclosed that he raised with the President various national issues and matters of interest to the community, especially in relation to its effective role at different levels and its participation in the reconstruction of the state through public functions, in light of recent talk about possible appointments soon," the statement added. "The Patriarch was reassured by His Excellency on maintaining the balanced and effective role of all components of the nation," the statement underlined. "The Patriarch also briefed President Aoun on the outcome of his official visit to France and his meetings with French officials, including President Emmanuel Macron, French Prime Minister, Head of Senate, Foreign Minister and other officials," the statement continued. It concluded by stating that the situation in Lebanon was the focus of the Patriarch's meetings with French officials, "who showed every support for Lebanon, whether through the recommendations of the Cedar Conference or through bilateral Lebanese-French cooperation."

Berri meets with AlAhmad, Palestinian Coalition Forces: Unanimous rejection of Deal of the Century"
Sat 15 Jun 2019 /NNA - A unified Palestinian denouncing and refusing stance against the American-Zionist "Deal of the Century" was voiced on Saturday from the headquarters of the third Lebanese Presidency in Ain El-Teeneh by all forces within the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Alliance, declaring their boycotting of the Manama Conference. This came during House Speaker Nabih Berri's meeting with a member of the PLO Executive Committee and another of Fateh Movement's Central Committee and the official in charge of Palestinian affairs in Lebanon Azzam Al-Ahmad, accompanied by Palestinian Ambassador Ashraf Dabbour, followed by another meeting with a delegation of trustees of the Palestinian Coalition Forces. On emerging, Al-Ahmad said they were glad to meet with the House Speaker and deliberate with him over current developments, especially in light of the most critical stage facing the Arab nation due to the so-called "Deal of the Century." Al-Ahmad commended Speaker Berri's affirmation of the Lebanese authority and people's constant stand, saying,"The Lebanese stance is one."
He referred herein to "the position that was announced during my presence and before my arrival repeatedly that Lebanon will not participate in the Bahrain conference, which is not an economic conference but rather addresses the most critical side of the deal of the century." He added: "They wish to extort billions of dollars from Arabs to liquidate the Palestinian cause through the liquidating the refugee issue...They think they can bribe Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan to settle the Palestinians and close the refugee issue, and this will not be!"
"They began by failing to contribute to UNRWA's budget, but we all joined efforts together and managed to close UNRWA's financial gap for 2019. We will, God willing, be able to ensure its persistence in assuming its political responsibilities and defining who the refugee is," Al-Ahmad went on, adding, "The refugee is one who was expelled from Palestine along with his children and grandchildren, until they will all return to their homeland Palestine, in accordance with UN Resolution #194.""We are all against the deal of the century, and we shoulder the responsibility of how to fail the Manama workshop branching from the century deal and preventing its occurrence...or emptying it of its content before it is held," Al-Ahmad underscored.

Abu Faour to Industrialists: Trust in your capabilities and your country, a new path has been launched to protect the industry
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour reassured industrialists' on Saturday of a new dawn for the Lebanese industry through a newly launched path to protect it, calling on them to have faith in their capabilities and in their country. He indicated that the signed trade agreements between Lebanon and all the Arab countries are not being implemented, thus preventing the flow of Lebanese products into their markets. "Some are working to evade obligations and there are negotiations between the Ministry of Industry and the European Union to lift the injustice," he said. Abu faour also referred to underway negotiations with the United Kingdom and Arab states in the region regarding the mutual trade agreements, stressing on "the need to review these agreements and work on implementing the principle of reciprocity out of respect for ourselves and our industry." He called for "a friendly discussion and dialogue to protect the Lebanese industry," noting that "the Ministries of Economy and Industry must be given specific powers to take the appropriate measures.""Trust in your country and your industry, for there is a new dawn for Lebanon and we ought to be up to the responsibility," Abu Faour corroborated. The Minister's words came during his patronage of a gathering organized by the Administrative Board of the Industrialists' Association in the Bekaa earlier today.

Jumblatt: Is it a municipalities or racism conference?!
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - "Is it a conference of municipalities to dwell on balanced development and the waste crisis issue that is approaching once again, or a conference of racism and the implicit hatred and insults of the ruling party?" questioned Progressive Socialist Party Chief, former MP Walid Jumblatt, via his Twitter account today. He added: "We do not blame them, for this is their philosophy...but what is the position of the partner in settlement and in governance?"

Kanaan says international contributions do not cover 50% of displacement cost
Sat 15 Jun 2019/ NNA - "Strong Lebanon" Parliamentary Bloc Secretary, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, said Saturday that the international contributions do not cover 50% of the costs incurred by the Lebanese State due to the Syrian refugees' presence. "Syrian displacement has cost Lebanon up to $20 billion so far, and the shortage in municipal needs reached 350 million USD up till 2015 alone, according to the World Bank," he disclosed at the 3rd Municipalities Conference organized by the Free Patriotic Movement at the Forum de Beirut. "The joint cooperation between municipalities and central authorities is necessary in the Syrian refugees' dossier," Kanaan said, noting that the budget includes binding texts that govern this area. On another note, Kanaan criticized the huge spending by municipalities on the environmental issue, considering that municipal funds have been declared to 'Sukleen Company" for the coming generations. He added: "The total cost of the environmental massacre we are suffering has exceeded 4 billion dollars!"

Makhzoumi meets French Prime Minister in Paris
Sat 15 Jun 2019/NNA - National Dialogue Party Head, MP Fuad Makhzoumi, pursued his visit Saturday to the French capital, Paris, by partaking in the annual meeting of the non-governmental "Trilateral Commission" to promote close cooperation between North America, Europe and Asia, in the presence of a number of officials and businessmen. Makhzoumi also met with French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, with whom he tackled latest regional and international developments, particularly the social and economic conditions prevailing in Lebanon.
Makhzoumi thanked France and the European Union for "their interest in Lebanon and keenness on its stability," while counting on their role in establishing peace in the region. He reiterated herein "the need to reassure the international community, which is expecting Lebanon to implement the Cedar Conference that was patronized by France," pointing out that "the draft budget is now in the custody of the Parliament Council."Makhzoumi emphasized the need for the budget to be realistic and to achieve reasonable reform in the country, so as to rescue the Lebanese economy while ensuring that new job opportunities for the young are created and that no additional burdens are placed on the middle and underprivileged classes.

Countess of Wessex Concludes Visit to Lebanon
Naharnet/June 15/2019/The Countess of Wessex, ended a two day visit to Lebanon accompanied by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Foreign Office Minister, the Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the UK Embassy said in a statement.
Her Royal Highness’s first official visit to Lebanon and the Middle East reflects her commitment to women’s empowerment, promoting tolerance, and addressing gender-based violence in conflict. The Countess of Wessex saw the work of charitable foundations and NGOs in Lebanon offering support to the most vulnerable communities particularly women and children, added the statement. Accompanied by Lord Ahmad and British Ambassador to Lebanon Chris Rampling, the Countess met with President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. These discussions focused on the friendship and strong bilateral relations between Lebanon and the UK. In the Bekaa, the Countess visited an informal tented settlement and met with Syrian female heads of households and heard stories of their living conditions in Lebanon. The UN’s World Food Programme funded by DFID supports the most severely vulnerable families, meeting their most urgent needs of food, household supplies and medication. In Baysour, the Countess of Wessex met with Lebanese and Syrian women taking part in the Mechanism for Social stability programme part of the Lebanon Host Communities Support Programme (LHSP ), run by UNDP and the Ministry of Social of Affairs, aimed at building social peace and stability across communities. The Countess and Lord Ahmed met with staff of the British Embassy in Beirut, and visited the memorial olive tree of Rebecca Dykes at the Embassy’s garden. She later joined a roundtable discussion with Syrian NGOs working to improve women’s participation in the peace process. They discussed how the UK could help ensure women’s voices are heard in Syria and in the region. In parallel, Her Royal Highness visited a shelter run by Caritas supporting survivors of sexual violence. She spoke to the women and listened to their stories, and how the support they are receiving from Caritas and the British Embassy is helping them through legal support an improved access to justice.
At the end of the visit the Countess and Lord Ahmed were warmly received as guests of honour at the Queen’s Birthday Party reception hosted by Ambassador Chris Rampling at the Lebanese National Library. HRH met with a multitude of Lebanese guests and toured the inside of the Library where she saw an exhibition emphasising Lebanon and the UK’s strong friendship looking back into the past, present and future. It included WFP’s iris scanners, MAGs demining devices, beautiful artwork by Tom Young, 1000 year old artefacts from Sidon excavation, the Debbas Collection from the Sursock Museum amongst the exhibitors and more.
Her Royal Highness delivered a message on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen at the Queen’s Birthday Party:
‘I am delighted that my daughter-in-law is with you this evening.
The United Kingdom recognises Lebanon as a symbol of diversity, tolerance and resilience, and I hope that the strong bond of friendship between our two countries will continue for many years.
Prince Philip and I send our warmest good wishes to the people of Lebanon, and to all those attending this evening’s reception’.
At the end of the royal visit to Lebanon, British Ambassador to Lebanon Chris Rampling addressed more than 700 guests and said:
‘I am honoured and thrilled to welcome Her Royal Highness, The Countess of Wessex and Lord Ahmed of Wimbledon to Lebanon. This is a very special moment for the friendship between the UK and Lebanon. It is a testament to the strong bilateral relationships on several levels. I am pleased that HRH and Lord Ahmed saw firsthand how UK aid funding is supporting the most vulnerable communities and refugees across Lebanon: Lebanese, Syrians and others. Lebanon hosts more refugees per capita than any other country in the world. I am greatly honoured to have HRH as the guest of honour at this year’s Queen’s Birthday Celebrations which celebrate the best of Great Britain and Lebanon.’
Ambassador Rampling announced that the British Embassy will be making 2019 the ‘Year of Education’, creating a better tomorrow for youth through UKaid and British Council support.
He added: ‘I want to thank all the sponsors who have made tonight possible. And particular thanks to our hosts the National Library of Lebanon and the Minister of Culture. This is a fantastic venue, and we are looking forward to the partnership that is developing well with the British Library. The UK’s relationship with Lebanon is stronger than ever – we are spending more in 2019 than we did in 2018….
Of course, Lebanon is today facing many challenges. I pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the terrible attack in Tripoli last week, and commend our partners in the security agencies for the work that they do to keep Lebanon safe. The Economy is on everyone’s mind, and the Government’s recent steps have started the work of reform under CEDRE, which we hope in time will attract more investment, including from the UK. And we know the challenge of refugees for the country: we will continue to support the Lebanese people as well as the refugees themselves. And so tonight we celebrate what binds together the UK and Lebanon – the richness of our culture, our heritage, our shared history. Our modern, forward-looking, innovative societies. Our shared, exciting future’.Defence Minister Elias Bou Saab, MP Yassine Jaber and Interior Minister Raya El Hassan represented President General Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Speaker Nabih Berri respectively.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published  on June 15-16/2019
Iranian boat fired a missile at US drone: US official
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 15 June 2019/The official said the missile missed the MQ-9 drone and fell into the water.
The drone had observed the Iranian vessels near the tankers, the official added. The official also revealed that days prior to the tanker attacks, a US Reaper drone was shot down in the Red Sea, by what the US believes is an Iranian missile fired by Houthi rebels. The US released video footage on Friday showing an Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from one of the stricken vessels’ hulls. The US official also said that Iran was continuing its provocative behavior, and on Friday Iranian boats were preventing two privately-owned tug boats from towing away one of the damaged tankers - the Norwegian-owned Front Altair.

Front Altair leaves Iran waters after Gulf of Oman attacks
AFP, Tehran/Saturday, 15 June 2019/The Norwegian-owned Front Altair oil tanker has left Iran’s territorial waters and was under tow to the UAE two days after it was attacked in the Gulf of Oman, shipping officials said on Saturday. The tanker was one of two vessels that were rocked by explosions as they passed through Gulf of Oman waters on Thursday. The Front Altair is “heading toward the Fujairah-Khor Fakkan area in the United Arab Emirates,” head of ports of Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan told the semi-official news agency ISNA. The tanker “has left Iran’s territorial waters,” he said, adding that it was being towed and sprayed with water to cool the hull. The Norwegian company which owns the ship confirmed it had left Iranian waters and said specialists would board the vessel on Saturday to assess the damage. “The 23 crew members of the ‘Front Altair’ remain safe and well, with plans being made for their repatriation soonest,” Frontline Management said. The crew, who were rescued by Iran after the vessel caught fire and transferred to Bandar Abbas, were to fly to Dubai on Saturday night, ISNA said.

UAE FM: Int’l community should work together to protect energy transportation
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 15 June 2019/UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Abdullah bin Zayed says the international community should work together to protect shipping and secure energy transportation. “We are in a complex region that has many resources, whether gas or oil, that are necessary for the world. We want the flow of said resources to remain safe, and to ensure the stability of the global economy. We must also secure our peoples and our economies,” the minister affirmed at a press conference in Sofia, Bulgaria on Saturday. Earlier last month, four commercial vessels were targeted by “acts of sabotage” near the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates, the UAE foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that there were no victims. “So far, we have not decided that there is enough evidence to point to a specific state in relation to the attack on tankers off the coast of the UAE,” the minister added. He noted that the area in which the incidents took place has vital economic and geopolitical significance and that interruptions like the four attacks can lead to impeding the global supply of oil. According to the UAE official, actors that seek to destabilize the Middle East and North Africa with their backwards, extremist stances, impede the region’s ultimate development goals. “Real regional security and stability will only be attained when regional actors work together. Our region is the main energy supplier to the world; our safety and security is key to ensuring prosperity and stability for all,” he said. (With WAM)

Saudi Crown Prince: We don’t want war but we won’t hesitate to deal with threats
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Sunday, 16 June 2019 /In an interview with Asharq al-Awsat, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that the Kingdom does not want war but will not hesitate to deal with any threat. “The kingdom does not want war in the region ... but we will not hesitate to deal with any threat to our people, our sovereignty and our vital interests,” he said in the interview. “The Iranian regime did not respect the presence of the Japanese Prime Minister as a guest in Tehran. During his presence, they responded to his efforts by attacking two tankers, one of which belongs to Japan,” the Saudi Crown Prince added. During the interview, the Saudi Crown Prince added that Iran’s recent attacks in the region required a firm stance from the international community. “Iran reaped the economic benefits of the nuclear deal in order to support its hostile acts in the region and to spread chaos and destruction,” he said. On the situation in Yemen, the Saudi Crown Prince said that Saudi Arabia supports "all efforts in reaching a political solution to the Yemeni crisis, but unfortunately, the Houthi militias are advancing Iran's agenda instead of the interests of Yemen and its people."
“We in the Kingdom cannot accept the presence of militias who operate outside of state institutions on our borders,” the Crown Prince said while adding: “We recently saw the malicious Houthi terrorist attacks on the oil facilities and Najran airport and the arrogance of the Houthi leaders who claimed the attacks. This proves once again that these militias do not care about the interests of the Yemeni people and in any political process to resolve the Yemeni crisis. Their actions reflect Tehran's priorities and needs, not Sanaa’s.”Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Asharq al-Awsat that Riyadh sees the importance for strategic relations with the United States as “a key factor in achieving security and stability in the region.”“Our strategic relations with the United States will not be affected by any media campaigns or positions from here and there,” he said. Regarding Sudan, the Saudi Crown Prince said the Kingdom cared about Khartoum’s security and stability and “will continue to support our Sudanese brothers in various fields until Sudan reaches what it deserves in prosperity, growth, and progress.”The Saudi Crown Prince also spoke to Asharq al-Awsat regarding the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, describing the killing as a “very painful crime.” “We seek full justice and accountability. Any party seeking to exploit the issue politically should stop and provide to the court in the Kingdom any evidence which will contribute toward achieving justice,” he said.

Albanian PM says tanker attacks ‘engineered provocation by Iran’
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 15 June 2019/Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the attacks on the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman seem “to be a typical engineered provocation by Iran to escalate tensions.” “These attacks in the Gulf of Oman are a serious threat to international peace and energy security. Albania stands firm with United States, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and UAE against what it seems to be a typical engineered provocation by Iran to escalate tensions,” he tweeted. Two tankers were hit in attacks in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, a month after a similar incident in which four tankers in the region were struck.

Crew members of targeted Norwegian-owned tanker now in Dubai
The Associated Press/Saturday, 15 June 2019/Crew members of the Norwegian-owned oil tanker that was attacked in the Gulf of Oman landed on Saturday in Dubai after two days in Iran. Associated Press journalists saw the crew members of the MT Front Altair after their Iran Air flight from Bandar Abbas, Iran, landed in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The Front Altair caught fire after the attack Thursday, sending a thick cloud of black smoke visible even by satellite from space. The US has blamed Iran for the attack, saying they suspect another limpet mine attack on oil tankers by Iran. Tehran has denied being involved and accused America of promoting an “Iranophobic” campaign against it. The suspected attacks occurred at dawn Thursday about 40 kilometers (25 miles) off the southern coast of Iran. The Front Altair, loaded with naphtha from the United Arab Emirates, radioed for help as its cargo of flammable chemicals caught fire. The Kokuka Courageous, carrying methanol from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, called for help a short time later. The US Navy sent the USS Bainbridge, which picked up 21 mariners from the Kokuka Courageous, and they stayed overnight on the destroyer, returning to their vessel Friday to help in it being towed. Iran ended up taking the 23 mariners from the Front Altair. They initially ended up in the port city of Jask before being taken to Bandar Abbas. Its crew is comprised of 11 Russians, 11 Filipinos and one Georgian. On Saturday, the Kokuka Courageous arrived off the coast of Fujairah in the UAE. That was the site of a similar suspected limpet mine attack in May on four other oil tankers. Tensions have risen as Iran appears poised to break the nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew America from last year. In the deal, Tehran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of crippling sanctions. Now, Iran is threatening to resume enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels if European nations don’t offer it new terms to the deal by July 7.

Saudi air defense forces intercept Houthi drone targeting Abha
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 15 June 2019/Saudi Arabia's air defense forces intercepted a drone launched by the Houthi militias targeting the southwestern city of Abha on Saturday, the Arab Coalition confirmed in a statement. Arab Coalition Spokesperson Col. Turki al-Maliki said that the Houthis were “trying to target civilian facilities and civilian objects in desperate and repeated attempts.” “We affirm our legitimate right to take the appropriate deterrence measures, with such hostile acts and in conformity with international humanitarian law and its customary rules,” he said. Earlier reports had said that the attack on Saturday was in the form of a ballistic missile. Saudi forces on Friday intercepted five drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi militias, an Arab-led military coalition said. The drones targeted Abha airport, where a Houthi missile on Wednesday left 26 civilians wounded, and the nearby city of Khamis Mushait, which houses a major airbase, the coalition said.

Arab Coalition strikes Houthi positions in Yemen’s Sanaa
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 15 June 2019/The Arab Coalition backing the Yemeni legitimate government struck on Saturday Houthi military targets in the capital Sanaa, including air-defense systems. The assault followed a missile attack by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport on Wednesday that injured 26 people. On Friday, Saudi Arabia’s air defense forces intercepted five drones launched by the Houthi militia in Yemen, targeting the Abha airport and the nearby city of Khamis Mushait, the Arab Coalition said.
(With Reuters)

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published  on June 15-16/2019
Arab League chief tells Iranians to 'be careful'
Associated Press/June 15/2019
DUBAI: The head of the Arab League is calling on the Iranians to “be careful and reverse course.” Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit noted after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at U.N. headquarters in New York on Friday that there are conflicting reports about how Thursday’s tanker incidents occurred.
“We believe that responsibilities need to be clearly defined,” he said. “The facts will be revealed, I am sure, it’s only a matter of time.”
The U.S. said the Iranians are responsible for the attacks near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians said they were not involved.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the attacks “build on a pattern of destabilizing Iranian behavior and pose a serious danger to the region.” He said Britain “remains in close coordination with international partners to find diplomatic solutions to de-escalate tensions.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is calling for an independent investigation into the suspected attacks on two tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, saying it’s important to know the truth about what happened.
The U.N. chief reiterated to reporters after meeting Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit at U.N. headquarters in New York on Friday that “we believe it is very important to avoid, at all costs, a major confrontation in the Gulf.”
Guterres said U.N. officials have been “talking to everybody” but “at the present moment, we don’t see a mechanism of dialogue possible to be in place.”
Aboul Gheit said he is very worried at recent developments in the Gulf, and said: “We believe that the truth needs to be clearly established in relation to these attacks.”
Aboul Gheit said: “My call to my Iranian — and I call them Iranian brothers: Be careful and reverse course because you’re pushing everybody towards a confrontation that no one would be safe if it happens.”In its turn, the British government said it agrees with a U.S. conclusion that Iran attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
The Foreign Office said in a statement that its own assessment concluded “it is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, attacked the tankers. It said it also believed Iran was behind an attack last month on four tankers near the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has condemned the suspected attack on a Japanese-operated tanker near the Strait of Hormuz this week as a threat to safe maritime navigation.
Abe, speaking to reporters Friday, said: “Japan adamantly condemns the act that threatened a Japanese ship, no matter who attacked.”
The tanker, Kokuka Courageous, was attacked by what its crewmembers described as “flying objects” near the Strait of Hormuz, carrying methanol to Singapore and Thailand. All 21 Filipino sailors were safely evacuated.Abe urged “all related countries” to avoid an accidental confrontation and refrain from any action that may escalate tensions. He pledged to help de-escalate tensions in the region.
Abe made the remarks after telephone calls with U.S. President Donald Trump, briefing him on his Iran visit this week, without elaborating. He pledged to keep cooperating with Trump.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has warned against rushing to assign blame for attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman and accused the U.S. of stoking tensions in the region with its accusations against Iran.
The ministry said in Friday’s statement that the U.S.’s “Iranophobic” stance has “artificially” fueled tensions. It urged all parties involved to show restraint. The Russian statement came after President Donald Trump blamed Iran for the attacks and called it “a nation of terror.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow strongly condemns the attacks in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but warned against blaming anyone until the completion of a “thorough and unbiased international probe.”
It thanked Iran for helping rescue 11 Russian nationals who were part of one of the tankers’ crew. Osuga , in a statement Friday, didn’t identify a suspected attacker and pledged to continue gathering information and secure the safety of maritime navigation. He said: “Japan firmly condemns such attacks which threaten the safety of ships.”
Osuga said safety in the Strait of Hormuz is crucial to Japan’s energy security as well as to the peace and prosperity of the international community, including Japan.
The Norwegian owner of an oil tanker that caught fire after a suspected attack in the Gulf of Oman said the blaze has been extinguished.
Frontline said the fire was put out on the Front Altair and did not cause any pollution. The company added that its 23 crew members are still In Iran at Bandar Abbas, though they’ll be repatriated soon.
Frontline CEO Robert Hvide Macleod separately said the company still doesn’t know the cause of the explosion and the fire “but we can exclude that a fault with the ship that has caused this.”
President Donald Trump is calling Iran “a nation of terror,” saying Iran’s responsibility for attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman was “exposed” by the United States.
Calling into “Fox & Friends” on Friday, Trump said of the Thursday attacks, “Iran did do it.” He cited video purporting to show an Iranian boat removing what the U.S. says is an unexploded mine from one of the vessels. Iran has denied any role in the attacks.
Trump cites no new potential U.S. responses, saying the U.S. has been “very tough on sanctions.” He said, “They’ve been told in very strong terms we want to get them back to the table.”
Trump is warning Iran not to close off the strategic Strait of Hormuz, saying if it is closed it won’t be closed for long.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has called for closer cooperation between Tehran and Moscow amid rising regional tensions.
Speaking Friday during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a summit of a regional security grouping in Kyrgyzstan that includes Russia, China and India among others, Rouhani said “the situation in the region requires stronger interaction between our nations.”
The Iranian leader added that “external pressure and foreign sanctions” have made such cooperation “even more acute.”
Putin hailed economic and security ties between Russia and Iran, noting their joint action in Syria. The Dutch company, Boskalis, said it has been appointed to salvage the two tankers in the suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Royal Boskalis Westminster said on Friday that the insurers of the two tankers, the Front Altair and the Kokuka Courageous, have appointed its subsidiary SMIT Salvage to salvage both vessels and their cargoes.
Boskalis said the situation of the Front Altair, which was carrying a petroleum product known as naptha, “is still worrisome.”
Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, told reporters in Berlin on Friday that a “spiral of escalation” must be avoided. She said that “what’s important now is to continue investigating the background of the incidents in depth,” and added that Germany “is in contact with all our partners” on the matter.
The U.S. military has released a video it says shows Iran’s Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the oil tankers. Iran denies being involved.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has assailed the Trump administration, accusing it of radicalizing the situation in the Mideast and pursuing an aggressive policy against his country. Rouhani said the U.S. is “using all opportunities for radicalizing the situation, which undermines the stability not only in our region but in the whole world.”He added that America has been “carrying out an aggressive policy and posing a serious threat to regional stability.”Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday that countries should “avoid further escalation of tensions.”Geng said that a “war in the Gulf region of the Middle East is something that no one wants to see.”
China is the world’s largest buyer of Iranian oil and has maintained its support for the Iran nuclear deal.
Geng said that “China will continue to protect its energy security” and oppose unilateral sanctions.Saudi Arabia said its military intercepted five drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeting the kingdom.
Military spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki said early Friday that the drones targeted Abha regional airport and Khamis Mushait.
Al-Maliki in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency said that the drone attack showed the Houthis were targeting civilian infrastructure in the kingdom.
U.N. experts, the West and Gulf Arab nations said Iran arms the Houthis with weapons. Tehran denied that.
The kingdom says a similar attack Wednesday on the Abha airport wounded 26 people. It is just the latest in a wave of rebel drone and missile attacks targeting the kingdom, which has been mired in a yearslong war in Yemen that has killed an estimated 60,000 people and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.
The development comes as tensions are rising in the Persian Gulf region.

Can we make money out of waste?
Basil M.K. Al-Ghalayini/Arab News/June 16/2019
Saudi Arabia has been witnessing rapid industrialization, high population growth rate and fast urbanization, resulting in increased levels of pollution and waste. Solid waste management is becoming a big challenge for the government and local bodies with each passing day, but the Kingdom is looking for solutions, which will alleviate the issue and create jobs and opportunities. Saudi Arabia as the largest waste generator in the region (15 million metric tons a year, doubling by 2033). Much of its solid waste is organic matter, followed by paper and plastics. Solid waste management is becoming a big challenge in the largest cities — Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. Jeddah alone produces 4.5 million tons of solid waste a year.
It is worth mentioning that municipal solid waste (MSW) in the country is collected from individual or community containers and sent to landfills after partial segregation and recycling. The major portion of collected waste ends up in landfills untreated.
Backed by ambitious targets for diverting waste away from these sites, the Saudi government is willing to do more about waste management in both the private and public sectors. This has led to a flurry of recent announcements regarding new legislation and initiatives to tackle the problem through a variety of means. While some of these measures involve greater education and support for recycling at home, many of them are in direct support of “cleantech” investments, and the exploration of innovative new green waste management solutions.
Recycling, reuse and energy recovery are still at an early stage. Waste sorting and recycling are driven by an active informal sector. Recycling activities are mostly manual and labor intensive. Composting is also gaining increased interest in Saudi Arabia due to the high organic content of MSW (around 40 percent).
Responding to this growing issue, in 2017 the Public Investment Fund established the Saudi Investment Recycling Co. (SIRC) to develop, own, operate and invest in various activities across all waste management in the Kingdom, including cutting-edge treatment and recycling facilities, and “waste to energy” solutions that will support the National Renewable Energy Program. In addition, SIRC will act as the national champion in the waste management sector by creating a range of opportunities for private sector participation, investing in companies and identifying opportunities to invest in and localize proven and scalable technologies.
Upgrading the sector will yield significant environmental, social and economic benefits for the Kingdom, as SIRC aims to contribute over SR37 billion ($10 billion) to gross domestic product, attracting up to SR6 billion in inward investments and creating around 23,000 new jobs by 2030.
*Basil M.K. Al-Ghalayini is the Chairman and CEO of BMG Financial Group.

Three things Western analysts get wrong about the Middle East
Sir John Jenkins/Arab News/June 16/2019
In 1870, that great Victorian, John Henry Newman, published his “Grammar of Assent.” It was — and is — a justification for religious faith in a skeptical world.
My aim is less noble: To provide the outlines of a “Grammar of Dissent” — a justification for skepticism about many of the non-religious claims commonly made by Western commentators about the recent history of the Middle East and North Africa.
It has become almost standard for anyone who wants to criticize US policy on Iraq or Iran, or the actions of some regional states, to create “straw men.” In other words, they attribute positions or beliefs to Western states or individual commentators that they then proceed to discredit and so — as if producing a rabbit from a conjuror’s hat — win an argument rigged in their favor. This is disreputable. Here are some examples.
1. “Many of the problems we see in Iraq today lie in the US decision in 2010 to withdraw its troops from the country.”
This is the classic straw man argument. It is used to criticize presidents Obama and Trump together — but for entirely the wrong reasons.
The US would have liked to keep troops in Iraq for training and support. The problem was that they could not because prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki would not allow any further extension of the Iraq/US Status of Forces Agreement, which provided legal cover for the continued presence of US troops.
It was well known that the Iranians wanted Al-Maliki to ensure the removal of all Western troops in return for their support in his bid to overturn the election victory of Dr Iyad Al-Allawi’s Iraqiyya list. He had already made it clear that the British would not get an extension to their agreement.
In any case, it is not obvious what Britain or the US could have done even with troops on the ground, given Al-Maliki’s increasing authoritarianism and his decision to replace virtually all divisional military commanders with incompetent loyalists (a large part of the reason for the collapse of the Iraqi military five years later).
The real problem was political; letting Al-Maliki get away with the theft of the elections, which left in charge of Iraq a man driven not by concern for the national interest but a vindictive sectarianism, benefiting himself and Iran above all.
And behind it sits a deeper cause; the sheer inability of the Obama administration to take Middle Eastern politics seriously enough or to understand what you should do with political — not military — power when you have it. After all, it was the Obama administration that launched a thousand drone strikes against its enemies in Al-Qaeda and Daesh. It simply failed to see the bigger political threat: Iran and its allies.
2. “Hawks in Washington and elsewhere think Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Shiite militias in Iraq are no more than puppets of Iran.”
This is a corollary to the above. Those who use this trope also often argue that Al-Maliki was not simply a puppet of Iran either, and that treating him and them as if they were, and are, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the region and simply fans the flames of conflict.
The problem is that no one serious has ever argued that these groups or individuals are simply puppets of Iran. We all know the truth is much more complex. But Hezbollah, Badr, Asa’ib Ahl al Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba’, Liwa Abu al Fadl al Abbas, Kata’ib Hezbollah and so forth all share an underlying ideological orientation; they are committed Shiite Islamists who ultimately want to overthrow what they consider an unjust and illegitimate colonial order in the Middle East to usher in the reign of the saints, or more precisely the reign of the qualified Shiite jurisprudent who will act as the regent of the Imam on earth during his occultation. This was Khomeini’s position.
So if you are a Hezbollahi — as all these groups are in one way or another — you follow the line of the imam, which in practice means Khomeini or his successors, who claim uniquely to be able to interpret the divine will, save the oppressed and dispense righteous justice in this world.
This interpretation serves the interests of Iran because that is the state where the doctrine arose, which adopted it as its governing principle and which claims to be the protector of Shiites everywhere, providing national Shiite movements (as we know from exhaustive studies) with extensive funding, military support and political cover.
This is a highly unorthodox claim in the context of Shiite tradition. It has powerful opponents, including Ayatollah Sistani and some prominent clerics in Qom. And there is, of course, such a thing as Iraqi, Lebanese or Yemeni Shiite nationalism (though it is not much like classic 19th-century French or German nationalism).
It was well known that the Iranians wanted Al-Maliki to ensure the removal of all Western troops in return for their support in his bid to overturn the election victory of Dr Iyad Al-Allawi’s Iraqiyya list.
But Khamenei has woven this doctrine into the fabric of the Iranian state using massive state funding and the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij. And everything that Hezbollah, for example, has done since its foundation in the early 1980s suggests that it is determined to harness this particular form of “asabiyya,” or social solidarity, for its own purposes and to undermine any potential rivals (such as Amal or more secular Shiites) to continue to benefit exclusively from Iranian support.
In return, if Iran were attacked (which I very much hope does not happen; though Tehran continues to provoke, as we saw again last week), do I think Hezbollah would attack Israel? You bet I do. Do I think this serves Hezbollah’s interests or those of the Lebanese Shiites as a whole? You bet I do not. Do I think they would do it because Iran wanted them to do so? You bet I do.
Equally, do I think the Da’wah party in Iraq is an Iranian tool? No. It grew out of clerical circles in Najaf in the late 1950s, well before Khomeini became prominent, and was analogous to the religio-political movement seen among its predecessors in the early 1920s.
But the politics of the anti-British and Hashemite movements in Najaf and Karbala in 1922 are not the same as the politics of the post-revolutionary, significantly leftist Iraq of 1958, the hijacked revolution in Iran in 1979, or the collapsed Iraqi state after 2003. Da’wah has itself changed over the years and Iran’s patronage has become much more significant.
The same goes for the Houthis. Zaidi political theology is historically closer to Sunni practice in its preference for a ruler to be selected by the community, not simply imposed by clerics. We know that. But the Houthi relationship with Iran, too, has evolved over the years. The current conflict in Yemen gives them an opportunity to cause trouble for everyone. Iran likes that, Iran helps them, and that helps Iran.
This particular straw man is, of course, designed to discredit anyone who claims that Iran-aligned Shiite militias are a problem, by suggesting that they are better understood on their own terms in a national, rather than an international, context. But what can “on their own terms” mean when most of them openly admit to their close connections with Iran and their loyalty to the Rahbar-e-Moazzam, or supreme leader? Puppetry is, after all, a highly skilled art, designed to remain invisible.
3. “The Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate and democratic movement, forced into extremes by oppression.”
And this brings me on to my third straw man argument, and the last for this week. I have lost count of the times this argument has been made to justify support for Islamists in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Kuwait, Turkey and in exile. Imprisoning, torturing and killing people for their political beliefs is wrong. Period. But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot, that is, say Egypt’s political system (or Jordan’s or Kuwait’s or Morocco’s) has been rigged for years and is therefore a fake democracy and then say that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has played those systems since the 1970s, is a democratic party. It has simply learned to pretend very well.
That does not make it Abraham Lincoln. It makes it a clever player of a game deliberately designed to exclude liberals, secularists, leftists and, indeed, Copts, which gave it in return the ability to impose highly conservative social and increasingly political norms as the precursor to what it hoped would be political hegemony. Ask Farag Foda — only you cannot; he’s dead.
What happened between 2011 and 2013 is that the Brotherhood thought its moment had come. It had not, any more than it had in 1953. That does not tell us they are martyrs for freedom. It tells us that while they are good at playing games, when reality hits, they do not know what they are doing.
In the end all of these straw men arguments are meant to discredit those who believe that what is happening in the region is a struggle for its future; not between freedom and oppression but between the sort of sociopolitical oppression in the name of God or sect that Europe last experienced in the 17th century — or perhaps in a secular form under the revolutionary regime in France in the 1790s — and a gradual recapturing of what Ibn Khaldun or Al-Mawardi would have recognized as a form of government dealing with the problems of this world with due respect for the divine but a profound understanding that human problems are for human ingenuity to solve.
It is going to be messy. But to adapt the Brotherhood’s slogan, al ‘aql – huwa al hall.
Sir John Jenkins
*Sir John Jenkins is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange. Until December 2017, he was corresponding director (Middle East) at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Manama, Bahrain, and was a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. He was the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia until January 2015
It was well known that the Iranians wanted Al-Maliki to ensure the removal of all Western troops in return for their support in his bid to overturn the election victory of Dr Iyad Al-Allawi’s Iraqiyya list.

Trump deal with North Korea remains frustratingly elusive
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/June 16/2019
An untethered White House has plunged America into an identity crisis of sorts. It is increasingly evident that Washington cannot quite decide whether to continue to lead or to abdicate its role as an arbiter of international peace, human rights, freedom and democracy.
Twitter diplomacy, unilateralism, backtracking, escalatory rhetoric and unorthodox maneuvering have only alienated allies, coddled America’s adversaries and distracted from urgent international priorities. As a result, this rudderless reshaping of US foreign policy has fumbled incredible opportunities more often than it has scored crucial victories.
This was evident in the highly unusual 2018 summit between the US and North Korea, at which President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un hoped to completely denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and settle a 65-year-old stalemate once and for all.
One year later, this historic encounter of opposites has crumbled, and the cheerful optimism, pomp and circumstance that came with it are all just a distant memory. Working-level talks have since stalled after yet another failed summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. US special representative to North Korea Stephen Beigun is still waiting for a response to his letter to North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui. Pyongyang has also stopped cooperating in inter-Korean projects, which South Korea was keen on as a tool to de-escalate tensions and foster closer ties in lieu of the less-favored reunification.
In a particularly stinging blow to the White House, North Korea has also resumed its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs not long after a triumphant Trump had declared that Pyongyang was no longer a nuclear threat. Despite the assertions at both summits, North Korea left its ballistic and nuclear missiles programs intact, and new revelations indicate that the country’s capabilities are advancing at a rapid pace.
To add further insult to injury, Trump’s effusive characterizations of Kim Jong Un are now overshadowed by reports that senior officials involved in the failed Singapore summit were executed by firing squad. Some pundits doubt the veracity of these reports given that they were sourced from an extreme right-wing South Korean newspaper. However, such executions — and there have been many— will not be as alarming as a US president wilfully ignoring them in pursuit of a warm, personal relationship with a brutal dictator.
Washington's North Korea policy is now caught in a tug of war between an amiable White House full of glowing praise for Kim, and the reality that the US will not unilaterally lift sanctions without Pyongyang unilaterally denuclearizing.
The US, on the other hand, has returned to the familiar yet bizarre world of conflicting statements and contradictory positions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has elected to follow a diplomatic route that mixes firmness and consistency while leaving a door open for dialogue. John Bolton, the national security adviser, has adopted a more hardline approach, pointing to North Korea’s missile tests as violations of UN Security Council resolutions that should justify the ratcheting up of sanctions, as well as pressuring China and Russia on sanctions enforcement.
Conversely, President Trump disagrees completely. Initially he denied that the missile tests took place, then dismissed them as attention-seeking behavior, and ultimately declared that the tests were unimportant since the short-range missiles that were tested are incapable of reaching the US.
In effect, Washington does not appear to be in any rush to resume high-level talks or make any tangible diplomatic moves. So far, there is an unwillingness to pressure Pyongyang in accordance with precedent; nor will Washington further empower an enterprising Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, to keep making overtures in the name of closer economic cooperation. As a result, Washington's North Korea policy is now caught in a tug of war between an amiable White House full of glowing praise for Kim, and the reality that the US will not unilaterally lift sanctions without Pyongyang unilaterally denuclearizing. There is also the question of what both countries mean by denuclearization. There is little to suggest that Kim will completely abandon his nuclear missiles, a key pillar of his unquestionable authority in North Korea and the most important strategic bargaining chip in the complex, high-stakes negotiations for denuclearization. On the other hand, US policy desires a verifiably nuclear-free North Korea before easing sanctions. It requires nuclear inspectors to be given unfettered access, which North Korea views as a violation of its sovereignty. Without trust-building mechanisms and permanent reconciliation, there is little incentive for Pyongyang to allow inspectors in, or for US officials to trust North Korean reports that facilities are being dismantled in compliance with Washington’s demands.
On a more positive note, President Trump is expected to visit South Korea at the end of June. Before that, South Korean officials are looking to arrange another meeting between the leaders of the two Koreas. It is unclear whether Moon will highlight the paths open to Pyongyang to break the deadlock, given that his focus has always been on establishing stable inter-Korean relations ahead of larger denuclearization, or even reunification, goals.
If anything, the South Korean president will probably echo similar sentiments to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin in April this year, i.e. a commitment by North Korea to continue dialogue with Washington. China is also on board with the idea of more talks, acknowledging that denuclearization is a complex issue that cannot be solved overnight — a minor slight aimed at the rather short Hanoi and Singapore summits at which Trump failed to achieve his objectives.
For now, “fire and fury” has been supplanted by overtures and the nurturing of a personal bond between Trump and Kim. Whether that will translate into progress in talks and positive changes on the ground remains to be seen. However, even this low-hanging fruit remains elusive given the pressing issues Washington faces in Asia from the trade spat with Beijing, a controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan and escalating tensions with Iran.
• Hafed Al-Ghwell is a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is also senior adviser at the international economic consultancy Maxwell Stamp and at the geopolitical risk advisory firm Oxford Analytica, a member of the Strategic Advisory Solutions International Group in Washington DC and a former adviser to the board of the World Bank Group.

Hong Kong 1, China 0 (extra time being played)
Cornelia Meyer/Arab News/June 16/2019
When Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, after its 99-year lease expired and 156 years of British rule ended, the territory became a “special administrative region” in an agreement commonly referred to as “One Country, Two Systems.” That served both countries and Hong Kong well; the UK could hold its head high for having preserved a democracy of sorts, and the people of Hong Kong felt their civil rights were protected — a necessity for China, which needed the thriving business hub on its southern border to advance its own economic goals.
At first, all seemed to go well. In 1998 the territory held its first election under new rule and the first multiparty vote in the history of the People’s Republic. However, things went downhill from then. As China’s economic might grew, so did its regional and geopolitical ambitions. In 1995 China’s economy was the world’s eighth-largest. Now it is second, and its output accounts for about 20 percent of global GDP. China has become more assertive on the international stage, too. Its overtures in the South China Sea are met with skepticism by its neighbors. The Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to revive the trading routes of the ancient Silk Road, is a geopolitical power play of major proportions. Founding the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2001 may be seen in the same light.
No wonder, then, that China has become more assertive toward its southern territory. The first inkling was in 2003 when Beijing inserted an anti-subversion article into Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Half a million took to the streets in protest, and demanded the removal of the territory’s chief executive. The demonstrations were peaceful, and achieved nothing.
Beijing attempted to pull the noose ever tighter as time went on. In 2014 China ordered a revision of the electoral law whereby candidates for the Hong Kong legislature had to be “registered” in Beijing. This influenced the selection of the territory’s chief executive, who has to be approved by the Hong Kong Legislative Council. Democracy and human rights activists saw this as a violation of universal suffrage and an attempt by Beijing to undermine Hong Kong’s status under “One Country, Two Systems.” The Umbrella movement occupied central Hong Kong between the end of September and mid- December. Again, neither the protests nor the umbrellas achieved the desired result.
In came Carrie Lam as chief executive. She is very much Beijing’s woman. Her draft law enabling Hong Kong to extradite criminals to the People’s Republic provoked a groundswell of opposition. This time one million took to the streets, one in every 7 inhabitants. The last demonstrations on such a scale in Hong Kong were in 1989, around the time of the uprisings in Tiananmen Square, when 1.5 million took to the streets. The size of last week’s protests were a surprise, given that several leaders of the umbrella movement were imprisoned this year.
All in all, the past two weeks have proved that “One Country, Two Systems” will always produce stress points. On the one hand we have an ascending global superpower, and on the other a small territory whose pro-democracy activists are supported by many NGOs. Overlaying the US-China trade tensions makes for heightened volatility.
So, what happened between 2014 and now?
The timing was significant, immediately after the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen uprising. There are several demonstrations in China each year. They take place under wraps and the foreign press does not report them. Demonstrations on the scale seen in Hong Kong must cause unease among the leadership in Beijing.
Unlike in 2014, the demonstrators were joined by an increasing number of mainstream business leaders who feared the new law was bad for business, because it allowed anyone who had become cumbersome in the eyes of Beijing to be extradited. As many businesses have strong links to the mainland, it could leave their leaders vulnerable, which would in turn be bad for business. There seems to be some validity to that concern.
International reaction was interesting, too. When the protests turned violent on Wednesday, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, asked for Hong Kong to be treated like the People’s Republic and no longer exempted from trade sanctions
On Friday, Lam met her Chinese masters across the border in Shenzhen. As a result, she announced on Saturday that she would suspend the bill. This was probably too little, too late. The demonstrators had asked for the proposal to be scrapped, not postponed, and by Wednesday they had also asked for Lam’s resignation. There will be new protests on Sunday, although we can expect the numbers to be smaller.
All in all, the past two weeks have proved that “One Country, Two Systems” will always produce stress points. On the one hand we have an ascending global superpower, and on the other a small territory whose pro-democracy activists are supported by many NGOs. Overlaying the US-China trade tensions makes for heightened volatility.
Hong Kong will always be weaker than China, but the territory holds several strong cards: It is the fourth-largest trading partner of the People’s Republic, and Beijing needs the territory’s unfettered access to global capital markets and multinational corporations — for now at least.
• Cornelia Meyer is a business consultant, macro-economist and energy expert. Twitter: @MeyerResources