LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
March 21/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.march21.20.htm

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

Bible Quotations For today
‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’
Mark 03/01-12./”Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Jesus departed with his disciples to the lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 20-21/2020
Coronavirus Cases Rise to 163, Home Quarantine is 'Compulsory', Says Ministry
Hasan: Lebanon Preparing for Stage Four, Community Cooperation Much Needed
Entrapping US citizens in Lebanon is not acceptable/Dr.Walid Phares/Face Book/March 21/2020
Text of Sayyed Nasrallah's Speech: Our Resistance The Most Honorable One in Modern History/Al-Manar English Website/March 20/2202
Nasrallah says Al-Fakhoury’s release dangerous, affirms Hezbollah not aware of it/NNA /March 20/2020
Nasrallah Says No Deal over Fakhoury, Slams 'Sectarian' Virus Rhetoric/Naharnet/March 20/2020
U.S. Official Says No Deal Made to Free Fakhoury
Lebanon: US Helicopter on ‘Special Mission’ Whisks Fakhoury Away
Lebanon FM summons US ambassador over American’s release
Lebanon: Calls for National Dialogue to Announce State of Political Emergency
Aoun Reiterates Call for Citizens to Stay Home
Diab on Fakhoury Release: Collaboration Crime Can't be Forgotten
Lebanon's Army Command denies news attributed to military source
Diab meets Banking Association: $6 million will be allocated to purchase 120 ventilators for Coronavirus patients
Diab leads first coordination meeting to fight Coronavirus
Minister of Industry, National Campaign for Social Solidarity discuss means to bolster industries amid outbreak
Business as Usual as Some Tripoli Areas Defy Lockdown
Wazni Meets Kubis Who Reiterates the UN Support for Lebanon
Lebanon hospitals facing Coronavirus amid medical shortages/Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/March 20/2020
Two Americans Imprisoned in Iran, Lebanon Released/Associated Press/March 120/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 20-21/2020
Coronavirus cases in Canada: At least 1,000 diagnoses, 12 deaths
One million jobs are being lost every day as coronavirus hits travel and tourism industry/Fareed Rahman/Fareed RahmanThe National/March 20/2020
WHO Says Wuhan Recovery Gives Rest of World Hope
China Berates 'Lying' Pompeo as U.S. Presses on Pandemic
Trump Doesn't Think U.S. Will Need National Lockdown
Italy's Virus Toll Tops 4,000 after New One-Day Record
U.S.-Canada Joint Initiative: Temporary Restriction of Travelers Crossing the U.S.-Canada Border for Non-Essential Purposes
Rouhani urges Americans to call on U.S. to lift sanctions as Iran fights coronavirus- state media
Iran releases jailed US Navy vet Michael White on medical furlough
Former Syrian army chief Ali Habib dies aged 81
Iraq: Premiership Candidate Rejected by Iran-Backed Blocs
Pakistani Doctor Arrested in US over ISIS Links
9 Years Since the Start of the Syrian Revolution: An Arena for Regional Wolves
The Mighty Nile, Jeopardized by Waste, Warming, Dam
Former PA adviser says Trump peace plan ‘dormant’

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 20-21/2020
Mullahs & COVID-19: Iran’s failing response reflects regime’s priorities/Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/March 20/2020
Palestinian Leaders Use Coronavirus to Attack Israel/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 20/2020
Daniel Pipes: COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories "Need to Be Refuted"/Gary C. Gambill/Middle East Forum Webinar/March 20/2020
The Coronavirus: Death of Globalization or a Rebirth?/Amir Taheri//Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Europe Freezes its Economy to Fight the Coronavirus/Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Coronavirus a Test For The World/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Syria and the Pandemic… Between Denial and Conspiracy Theories/Akram Bunni/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Central Europe's central concern/Ranvir Nayar/Arab News/March 20/ 2020
Refugees must not become the forgotten victims of corona crisis/Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/March 20/ 2020
Coronavirus could offer EU chance for much-needed reform/Dr. John C. Hulsman/Arab News/March 20, 2020
Global collaboration key to flattening the curve/Michael Hage/Arab News/March 20/ 2020
Arab leaders were already incompetent, then came coronavirus/Rami G. Khouri/The New Arab/March 20/ 2020
Question: "What does the Bible mean when it tells us to fear not / do not fear?"/GotQuestions.org?

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 20-21/2020
Coronavirus Cases Rise to 163, Home Quarantine is 'Compulsory', Says Ministry
Naharnet/March 20/2020
The Health Ministry released on Friday its daily report on the tally of people infected with coronavirus saying the total number has reached 163 stressing the need for self quarantine. "From February 21 till March 20, 2020, the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases has reached 163, including those diagnosed at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital and those reported by other university hospitals accredited by the Ministry (14 new cases were recorded yesterday),” said the report. Adding that the Ministry “continues to run tests on samples taken from people suspected to have contracted the virus, while identifying and monitoring their contacts, and carefully watching all arrivals from countries experiencing a spread of the virus.” The Ministry is also “conducting epidemiological tracking to pinpoint the source of infection for some of the newly diagnosed cases.” “Citizens are urged to adhere to the strict measures issued by the official authorities, especially the mandatory home quarantine and the restrictions on movement, except when absolutely necessary,” it added.

Hasan: Lebanon Preparing for Stage Four, Community Cooperation Much Needed
Naharnet/March 20/2020
Health Minister Hamad Hasan on Friday said after a joint meeting with the parliamentary health committee that Lebanon is preparing for stage four in its fight against coronavirus after registering six cases of unknown origin, stressing the need for community cooperation to stop its spread. “We truly wish not to reach stage four, but we have to take precautions and the epidemic requires community cooperation and strict implementation of the plan put by the health ministry,” said Hasan. He noted that after registering (on Thursday) six cases of unknown origin, the ministry must prepare for stage four to stop the spread of the virus. “There is common coordination between all state agencies to deal with the epidemic,” he said. He said the Defense Ministry secured 20 million dollars to fight the virus spread. For his part, head of the health committee Assem Araji said the government might be compelled to “use private hospitals if coronavirus disease spreads dangerously.”“Twelve government hospitals have been equipped to receive people infected with coronavirus,” he added.

Entrapping US citizens in Lebanon is not acceptable
Dr.Walid Phares/Face Book/March 21/2020
The United States extracted its own citizen from Lebanon, as it would do it for any other of its citizens and as it did for thousands of US citizens from all communities, including from south Lebanon and the Bekaa, during the 2006 war.
Hassan Nasrallah need to understand that Amer Fakhoury, in the eyes of the US Congress and the White House is an American citizen, regardless of Hezbollah's endless wars and unending hatred for its fellow Lebanese.
Amer Fakhoury entered the Lebanese Republic as a US citizens and that's how he was repatriated six months later.
If the Lebanese Government didn't want him to enter Lebanon with his US passport at the International Airport, they could have refused entry, period. Once admitted, all protections are applicable.
The United States will not accept that terror organizations or institutions collaborating with terror organizations, would entrap its citizens and "prosecute them" for wars that have ended twenty years ago, (and against the stipulations of Lebanese and international law,) when they were Lebanese citizens.
The Beirut airport should not be used to settle old ideological and political scores.

Text of Sayyed Nasrallah's Speech: Our Resistance The Most Honorable One in Modern History
Al-Manar English Website/March 20/2202
Marwa Haidar
Stressing that accusations of treason against Hezbollah in the case of Israeli collaborator Amer Fakhoury can’t be accepted anymore, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah described the Resistance as the most honorable one in the modern history. In a televised speech on Friday night via Al-Manar TV, Sayyed Nasrallah hit back at all those who accused Hezbollah in the case of Fakhoury, who was acquitted by Lebanon’s military tribunal and then released and airlifted outside Lebanon to the United States. His eminence said that the Resistance party didn’t know of the acquittal in advance, stressing that Hezbollah’s stance in this regard is known and out of moral principles that refuses acquittal of those who took part in murdering and torturing Lebanese people and Resistance fighters. On the coronavirus crisis, Sayyed Nasrallah called on people to stay home in a bid to prevent the outbreak of the deadly virus, as he slammed the sectarian dealing with the matter.
Facts about Fakhoury Case
Sayyed Nasrallah started his speech by saying that he would clarify several issues related to the military tribunal’s decision to acquit Fakhoury, noting that there has been an anti-Hezbollah propaganda aimed at undermining the confidence between the Resistance and its supporters.
“We rely on Resistance supporters’ awareness, faith and patience. Our responsibility is to be transparent with our people whom we care for their smile and their tears.”His eminence then stressed that Hezbollah did not know of the court’s decision in advance, denying that there has been a deal in this regard.
The Resistance Leader then went on to talk about US pressures and threats to Lebanon in order to release the notorious Israeli collaborator. “The US has been for six months exerting all forms of pressures and threats against Lebanon in order to release Fakhoury.”
“US threatened several Lebanese judges, some of whom refused to release Fakhoury and some of whom yielded to the pressures,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, noting that Washington threatened to blacklist some Lebanese officials and to halt the military aid to the Lebanese Army.
The Hezbollah S.G. said that when contacted, Hezbollah stressed that he refuses Lebanon’s surrender to US pressures. He pointed to the great propaganda campaign after Fakhoury was airlifted by US helicopter outside the country.
“The enemy has been propagating that Hezbollah controls Lebanon and its judiciary. Many know that such accusations are baseless.”
Accusations of Treason Unacceptable
His eminence then slammed some Hezbollah allies, whom he did not mention, stressing that “whoever insists on accusing Hezbollah of being responsible for releasing Fakhoury then he insists on keeping himself in the category of opponent and enemy.”Sayyed Nasrallah also hit back at some comments slamming Hezbollah over the issue of Fakhoury. “To those who wonder how Hezbollah which launched May 7 (2007) battle over sacking an official in Beirut International Airport, how couldn’t he have a say in Fakhoury’s case: May 7 took place because back then decided on an issue related to disarming Hezbollah and the Resistance weapon was at danger,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, wondering if a similar battle now serves the national interest. “What would Hezbollah do? Would we make an ambush against the Lebanese Army convoy which was transferrin Fakhoury? Would we kill Lebanese Army officers and soldiers in a bid to prevent the release of Fakhoury? Does this serve the national interest?” “To those who say that our minister should have resign in protest to Fakhoury’s release, and that we should have topple the government: In circumstances like this- economic crisis and coronavirus outbreak- is it right to topple the government?”In this context, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the blame should be on the United States which violated the Lebanese sovereignty. His eminence stressed meanwhile that the case of Fakhoury must be followed up by the Lebanese judiciary and the collaborator must be considered fugitive since he was transferred outside the country despite a travel ban. Sayyed Nasrallah also called for forming a committee to investigate in the acquittal decision by the military court. Hezbollah S.G. then made it clear that the Resistance Party can’t no more accept accusations of treasons and insults, noting that Hezbollah allies should have ask for an explanation before making such accusations. “There are two things that can’t be accepted: accusations of betrayal and insults. We offer our blood for our dignity, so it’s unacceptable to accuse us of treason. Whoever wants to be our ally then he must not do these two things, or else let him out of our friendship circle.” “This Resistance is the most honorable, honest and pure one in the modern history. We are keen to preserve our alliance but it is not acceptable to accuse us of treason and insult us.”Sayyed Nasrallah in this context regretted that he was put in such position to defend the Resistance in the case of a criminal Israeli collaborator.
Coronavirus Crisis
Tackling the coronavirus crisis in Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah underlined the importance of staying home by Lebanese citizens in order to prevent the spread of the contagious disease. “We are in a state of general Mobilization and people must bear their responsibility in this regard.” His eminence slammed the sectarian dealing with the outbreak. “We are people who live in the same country. It’s shameful to deal with the matter on sectarian basis.”Sayyed Nasrallah also voiced support to the government’s measures, calling on it to take what it sees appropriate. “If there is an interest to isolate a region then let the government go ahead with such measure, regardless of this area’s sect.” His eminence reiterated his call for social solidarity, as he also reiterated Hezbollah’s readiness to put all its health capabilities under the service of the government and the Health Ministry.“So far nearly 20,000 of Hezbollah’s members and supporters who are involved in the battle against coronavirus.”Sayyed Nasrallah on the other hand, warned against the spread of coronavirus in Gaza, Yemen and among Palestinian prisoners at Israeli jails.He lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his comments on coronavirus vaccine and his administration’s sanctions against Iran amid the spread of the coronavirus in the Islamic Republic. “Trump is racist. He wants the coronavirus vaccine exclusively for the US. Trump is not a human being. He is an alien.”
*Al-Manar English Website

Nasrallah says Al-Fakhoury’s release dangerous, affirms Hezbollah not aware of it
NNA /March 20/2020
Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, on Friday delivered a televised speech via Al-Manar TV station, in which he touched on the most recent local developments and announced that he would be delivering more speeches within the coming period — up to once or more per week. Nasrallah seized the occasion to congratulate moms marking Mothers’ Day. Touching on the heatedly debated release of Amer Al-Fakhoury, Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that the most precious thing between the Resistance and its people was their mutual trust.
“There’s a battle for the public opinion’s awareness and the most important thing is the trust upon which it’s based,” he added.
“The need to tackle the release of Israeli agent Al-Fakhoury is due to our concern with regard to the public opinion in light of rumors and fabrications,” Nasrallah explained. In this vein, he affirmed that Hezbollah had no information regarding a deal to release Al-Fakhoury. “The US exerted all sorts of pressures and threats on various Lebanese sides to release Al-Fakhoury. All these pressures were exerted by the US to unconditionally release the Israeli agent,” he maintained, noting that since the apprehension of Al-Fakhoury, all those hindering his release were subject to direct threats to be blacklisted by the US.
Hezbollah chief went on to say that the US had even threatened to stop supporting the Lebanese Army. “Direct threats were made to place some individuals on the sanctions list, halting aid to the Lebanese Army, slapping economic sanctions, and preventing world nations from offering assistance to the Lebanese state,” he added.
Sayyed Nasrallah went on to affirm that US delegations had been visiting Lebanon for this purpose. “The pressure was mainly exerted on judges, but there are judges who should be appreciated for their steadfastness.”
However, he regretted the fact that there were some judges who had caved in to the US pressure.
“We are the people primarily concerned with this issue, and we are not a neutral party. Therefore, we refused the release of Al-Fakhoury,” he affirmed, warning that this is a dangerous move that will open the door for the US to impose what it wishes in the future. However, he wished the judiciary had been provided with protection over Al-Fakhoury’s release.
“From the first moment after Fakhoury’s release, a broad campaign was launched against the Shiite duo [Hezbollah and Amal Movement]. All accusations about Hezbollah’s role in Fakhoury’s release were based on mere suspicion that the military tribunal wouldn’t have taken such a decision without Hezbollah’s knowledge,” Nasrallah said.
“I personally heard of Al-Fakhoury’s release from the media,” he maintained, dismissing claims that the Lebanese government and judiciary were affiliated to Hezbollah as wrong and unjust.
“After the travel ban, the US tried to smuggle Al-Fakhoury from Beirut airport, but the relevant security authorities refused,” he said. “Despite this, the US brought Al-Fakhoury out in a blatant attack on the Lebanese sovereignty.”Furthermore, Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah was political force represented in Lebanon’s parliament and cabinet. Yet, he asserted that the government had never been Hezbollah’s government, neither had the Lebanese state ever been Hezbollah’s.
He wondered whether Hezbollah was supposed to ambush the Lebanese Army and the forces tasked with protecting Fakhoury. “We’re we supposed to shoot down the aircraft that carried Fakhoury? Is this in the interest of the country and the government?” he pondered.
In addition, Sayyed Nasrallah stated that the decision to release Al-Fakhoury was not discussed in the government, and no decision had been in this regard. To those who said Hezbollah would’ve downed the US helicopter that lifted Al-Fakhoury out of Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah said, “Do it yourselves!”“How can we ask people in the Coronavirus era to protest and storm the US embassy? How can we subject them to dangers?” he wondered.
“We do not act according to our mood or emotions. We are a resistance and political party. We have a cause, a vision, a system of priorities, and we have discussions and studies. Hezbollah is not run by a single person; we hold discussions and when we find that there is an interest for the people and the resistance in doing something, so we do it without hesitation,” Nasrallah explained.
However, he went on to insist that Al-Fakhoury’s case must be pursued judicially, and that the Lebanese judiciary should not consider that Al-Fakhoury’s dossier had ended. “The Military Court panel should have resigned instead of dropping the charges,” he added.
Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say that it was not acceptable to question the resistance's credibility, deeming slurs and insults utterly rejected.
Touching on the novel Coronavirus outbreak in Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that strict measures must be adopted against the Coronavirus, suggesting the formation of social frameworks to pressure those who violate them. “If the government decides to isolate any region where the epidemic has spread, even if it is a Shiite region, then let us do it,” he added, noting that all Hezbollah members who arrived in Beirut from Syria or Iran have been subjected to coronavirus tests and home isolation.
Moreover, Nasrallah disclosed that approximately 20000 of Hezbollah Health members were engaged in this battle.
“We are ready to help in this battle with all we can,” he reiterated, noting that “It’s shameful and insulting to treat the spread of Coronavirus among the Lebanese as per the sectarian equation: 6 Vs 6. In this war, there are parties that act racially,” he said in regret.
On the international level, Sayyed Nasrallah cautioned that there were three regions that were subjected to racist behavior in this war: Gaza Strip, Yemen and Iran. “These areas, which are under siege, war, and sanctions, are prevented from receiving aid, medical devices, and medicines. They are pressuring them with sanctions despite the Coronavirus outbreak,” he added.
“Isn’t it high time for the international community to raise its voice in face of this racist, Trump, to lift sanctions for medical supplies,” Nasrallah concluded. “I think that Trump is not a human being, as he only wants a vaccine for the US.”

Nasrallah Says No Deal over Fakhoury, Slams 'Sectarian' Virus Rhetoric
Naharnet/March 20/2020
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday stressed that his party had no knowledge of any Lebanese-American deal to release former Khiyam Prison warden Amer Fakhoury from prison.
“We have no knowledge of a deal to release Amer Fakhoury and what we know is that there was no deal,” Nasrallah said in a televised address.
“From the first moment after Fakhoury’s release, a broad campaign was launched against the Shiite duo (Hizbullah and AMAL),” he lamented.
Nasrallah added: “Ever since Fakhoury was arrested six months ago, the U.S. started exerting strong pressures on the Lebanese state to resolve this issue and release this collaborator without any conditions.”
Noting that Hizbullah had rejected Fakhoury’s release when asked about the case by certain political parties, Hizbullah’s leader slammed the move as “a dangerous development that will allow Americans to impose what they want in the future.”
“We thought that no such ruling would be issued and that the court would not convene amid the current circumstances, but we learned of the collaborator's release from media outlets,” he said.
Nasrallah also revealed that “direct threats were made as to placing some individuals on the sanctions list, halting aid to the Lebanese Army, slapping economic sanctions and preventing world nations from offering assistance to the Lebanese state.”
“A lot of pressures were exerted on the judges and there are judges who issued a travel ban and others who submitted and issued a release order,” he said.
“The Lebanese judiciary persevered for six months in the face of U.S. pressures,” Nasrallah pointed out.
He stressed that Hizbullah “did not face any pressure at all from any political party in Lebanon regarding Fakhoury’s case.”
“The government has never been Hizbullah’s government, the state has never been Hizbullah's state and there are parties who have more influence on the domestic political equation,” Nasrallah added.
Addressing critics, he wondered whether Hizbullah was supposed to “set up an ambush against the Lebanese Army and the forces tasked with protecting Fakhoury.”
“Was Hizbullah supposed to shoot down the aircraft that carried Fakhoury? Is this in the interest of the country and the government?” he asked.
“Is it right to topple the government amid these circumstances for the sake of Fakhoury?” Hizbullah’s secretary-general added.
“How can we ask people in the era of coronavirus to demonstrate and storm the U.S. embassy? How can we subject them to dangers?” he went on to say.
Noting that Fakhoury’s arrival in the U.S. should not necessarily stand for the end of the case, Nasrallah said the file should be followed up by the Lebanese judiciary, describing Fakhoury as a “fugitive.”
Addressing some “friends and allies,” Nasrallah added: “We have swallowed the harm and insults but from now on, we in Hizbullah will not allow a friend or ally to accuse, insult or launch treason accusations against it. They better stop being our friends.”
Turning to the coronavirus crisis and Lebanon’s measures to confront it, Nasrallah said it is “shameful” to deal with the issue in a “sectarian” manner.
“The government should isolate any region it wants even if it's a Shiite region,” he suggested.
An uproar had erupted after Health Minister Hamad Hasan revealed that he had asked the government to “isolate two regions” over a rise in coronavirus cases in them.
Nasrallah also noted that all of Hizbullah’s members who go to Syria or Iran are being subjected to “coronavirus tests and home isolation.”
TIMELINE
Nasrallah: All of our members who come from Syria or Iran have been subjected to coronavirus tests and home isolation.
Nasrallah  it's shameful to deal with the virus crisis sectarianly, adding the government should isolate any region it wants "even if it's a Shiite region."
Nasrallah: We have swallowed the harm and insults but from now on, we in Hizbullah will not allow a friend or ally to accuse, insult or launch treason accusations against it. They better stop being our friends.
Nasrallah: It is not acceptable to question the resistance's credibility and slurs and insults are rejected, especially when they come from friends.
Nasrallah: The Military Court panel should have resigned instead of dropping the charges.
Nasrallah: The Americans have influence inside Lebanese state institutions and they have individuals in Lebanon and they sometimes activate this influence, even during the era of Syrian administration.
Nasrallah: America is not imposing its hegemony on Lebanon and the proof is that there are judges who did not bow to pressures. They issued rulings and those rulings were brave and it is not correct to say that this incident proves the U.S. hegemony over Lebanon.
Nasrallah: Fakhoury's case should be followed up by the judiciary, because he is a fugitive.
Nasrallah: How can we ask people in the era of coronavirus to demonstrate and storm the U.S. embassy? How can we subject them to dangers?
Nasrallah: We do not act according to mood or emotions. We are a party for resistance and a political party. We have a cause, a vision, a system of priorities and we have discussions and studies. The party is not run by a single person; we hold discussions and when we find that there is an interest for the people and the resistance in doing something we do it without hesitation.
Nasrallah: Is it right to topple the government amid these circumstances for the sake of Fakhoury?
Nasrallah: Was Hizbullah supposed to set up an ambush against the Lebanese Army and the forces tasked with protecting Fakhoury and was Hizbullah supposed to shoot down the aircraft that carried Fakhoury? Is this in the interest of the country and the government?
Nasrallah: The government has never been Hizbullah’s government, the state has never been Hizbullah's state and there are parties who have more influence on the domestic political equation.
Nasrallah: Some asked whether the Military Court could take such a decision without the knowledge of the Shiite duo. I stress that the AMAL Movement and Hizbullah had no knowledge of this decision. We have no knowledge of a lot of rulings that the Military Court issues and we don’t interfere in them.
Nasrallah: We did not face any pressure at all from any political party in Lebanon regarding Fakhoury’s case.
Nasrallah: The Lebanese judiciary persevered for six months in the face of U.S. pressures.
Nasrallah: A lot of pressures were exerted on the judges and there are judges who issued a travel ban and others who submitted and issued a release order.
Nasrallah: Direct threats were made as to placing some individuals on the sanctions list, halting aid to the Lebanese Army, slapping economic sanctions and preventing world nations from offering assistance to the Lebanese state.
Nasrallah: We thought that no such ruling would be issued and that the court would not convene amid the current circumstances, but we learned of the collaborator's release from media outlets.
Nasrallah: We rejected Fakhoury’s release, which is a dangerous development that will allow Americans to impose what they want in the future.
Nasrallah: Ever since Fakhoury was arrested six months ago, the U.S. started exerting strong pressures on the Lebanese state to resolve this issue and release this collaborator without any conditions.
Nasrallah: From the first moment after Fakhoury’s release, a broad campaign was launched against the Shiite duo (Hizbullah and AMAL).
Nasrallah: We have no knowledge of a deal to release Amer Fakhoury and what we know is that there was no deal

U.S. Official Says No Deal Made to Free Fakhoury
Associated Press/Naharnet/March 20/2020
A senior U.S. official said Friday that there was no deal made to secure Amer Fakhoury's release from Lebanese prisons. Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, the official ruled out the possibility that a promise was made to send aid or to release Lebanese prisoners held in the U.S. The official also denied Washington is in talks with Hizbullah. A Lebanese businessman accused of financing Hizbullah has been serving a five-year sentence in the U.S. since 2018. The U.S. official said Fakhoury's release was ensured by "competent judicial authorities," adding Fakhoury was "wrongfully" detained. Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti summoned the U.S. ambassador on Friday and asked her to explain "the circumstances of Amer Fakhoury being transferred abroad from the U.S. embassy," the National News Agency said. Fakhoury, a former member of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia (SLA), went into exile more than two decades ago before returning to Lebanon in September, when he was arrested. The 57-year-old was released on Monday over a statute of limitations on his alleged crimes, a judicial source said, though put under a travel ban, according to state media. On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump hailed Fakhoury's return to the United States, saying he was suffering from late-stage cancer. He also thanked the Lebanese government for cooperating with Washington in the case. A security source said on Thursday that Fakhoury left the country in a helicopter from the U.S. embassy heading to an unknown destination, but the embassy did not comment on the report. When Fakhoury was arrested, a Lebanese security source said he had served as a senior warden in the notorious Khiyam Prison, opened in 1984 by the SLA after Israel occupied southern Lebanon. Witnesses accuse Fakhoury of ordering or taking part in beatings of thousands of inmates. The veteran militiaman's release by a military court on Monday prompted huge criticism on social media. Hizbullah, largely credited with Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, said it would be more honorable for the judges involved to resign rather that "succumb to the pressures that led to this decision." On Friday, the head of the military tribunal resigned over the criticism.

Lebanon: US Helicopter on ‘Special Mission’ Whisks Fakhoury Away
Beirut - Nazeer Rida/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
A US Marine Osprey took off from the US Embassy compound in Awkar near Beirut on Thursday transporting Amer Fakhoury despite a Lebanese military judge appealing the decision of his release. US President Donald Trump announced the release of Fakhoury, a Lebanese-American, thanking Lebanon’s government on its efforts. Fakhoury was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma and had been hospitalized in Lebanon. Trump said Fakhoury “will now be able to receive the much needed care and treatment in the United States." “We’ve been working very hard to get him freed, and he’s finally able to have his entire family at his side,” Trump said. Lebanese sources confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the US helicopter, which made a five-minute landing at the embassy in Awkar, was on a “special mission” to transport Fakhoury. The State Department said in a short statement that “Fakhoury, who has been in detention in Lebanon since September, is returning to the United States where he will be reunited with his family and receive urgent medical treatment.”“His return comes as a relief to those who have followed the case with grave concern. We are relieved to be able to welcome him back home,” it said. Fakhoury had been accused of torturing prisoners at the Khiam prison run by an Israeli-backed militia in southern Lebanon two-decades ago. He had been imprisoned since September after returning to Lebanon to visit family. Fakhoury was ordered to be released Monday because more than 10 years had passed since the torture of prisoners. But he was not immediately allowed to leave the country after a Lebanese military judge on Tuesday appealed the decision, asking a military tribunal to strike down the decision to free Fakhoury. The release of Fakhoury has drawn huge condemnation from Hezbollah, with several parties claiming that it was part of a deal between Lebanon and the US government that would see a freeze in possible sanctions that Washington would impose on non-Shiite pro-Hezbollah personalities.

Lebanon FM summons US ambassador over American’s release
AP/March 20/ 2020
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s foreign minister on Friday summoned the US ambassador, seeking an explanation for how an American on trial in Beirut was transferred out of the country from the US Embassy compound. The Lebanese-American man, Amer Fakhoury, was ordered released Thursday by a judge in Lebanon because more than 10 years had passed since he allegedly tortured prisoners at a jail run by an Israel-backed Lebanese militia. Fakhoury has denied the charges. Another military tribunal had contested the release, effectively banning Fakhoury from leaving the country until the appeal was heard. But Fakhoury was nonetheless released amid unclear circumstances, and on Thursday a US Marine Osprey was seen taking off from the US Embassy compound northeast of Beirut. Later, US officials confirmed Fakhoury traveled out of Lebanon on the Osprey, and was being returned to the US. The decision to move him out of Lebanon has been widely criticized there. Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Foreign Minister Nasif Hitti sought an explanation from Ambassador Dorothy Shea for the circumstances of Fakhoury’s exit.
A New Hampshire restaurant owner, Fakhoury received US citizenship last year. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma and had been hospitalized in Lebanon. His family and lawyer say that while he did work at the prison, he did not have any contact with inmates.
Local media reported the US Embassy gets an annual permission to fly helicopters out of the embassy compound and not for every single use.
Fakhoury was a member of the Israel-backed militia known as the South Lebanon Army, and had been accused of torturing prisoners at a SLA-run jail during Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. He had been imprisoned since September after returning to Lebanon to visit family.
Former inmates at Khiam prison — where Fakhoury was allegedly a warden until Israel withdrew in 2000 — protested the decision to free him. On Friday, representatives of the former prisoners filed a case before prosecutors to investigate who was responsible for violating the travel ban on Fakhoury.
His case had put a significant strain on already troubled ties between the US and Lebanon. Lawmakers in Washington had threatened to withhold critical aid to the country and impose sanctions on the Lebanese military, which is seen by the Trump administration as a bulwark against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. President Donald Trump thanked the Lebanese government, saying they “worked with us” to secure the release of Fakhoury, further muddying the waters. The parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah said it wants accountability for the military tribunal responsible for the release order, accusing it of “succumbing” to US demands and describing Fakhoury as “an agent who betrayed his country.” A senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said there was no deal made to secure Fakhoury’s release. The official ruled out the possibility that a promise was made to send aid or to release Lebanese prisoners held in the US The official also denied Washington is in talks with Hezbollah. A Lebanese businessman accused of financing Hezbollah has been serving a five-year sentence in the US since 2018.
The US official said Fakhoury’s release was ensured by “competent judicial authorities,” adding Fakhoury was “wrongfully” detained. Lebanon and Israel have been officially at war since Israel’s creation in 1948. Lebanon bans its citizens from traveling to Israel or having contact with Israelis.
Fakhoury’s lawyer and family say he fled Lebanon in 2001 through Israel and eventually to the United States because of death threats he and many other SLA members received after Israel ended its occupation.

Lebanon: Calls for National Dialogue to Announce State of Political Emergency
Beirut - Mohamed Choucair//Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
A state of political emergency should be announced in Lebanon over the coronavirus outbreak that threatens the health of the entire population, a high-ranking official said. “After the government announced a state of health emergency on Sunday, Lebanon should declare a political mobilization because this pandemic affects all parties,” the unidentified official told Asharq Al-Awsat. “All parties from different sects … should work on keeping Lebanon on the path of safety to contain this disease,” the source said, adding that Lebanese officials must now depend on themselves while the world is busy fighting the pandemic. According to the source, the government should first start by acquiring all the necessary medical equipment that Lebanon needs to fight the virus. “A political mobilization means the development of a health rescue plan to protect the country based on the instructions of the Health Ministry,” he noted. The source explained that the new plan means the delay of the economic rescue efforts that the government had planned to unveil in May. “The economic rescue plan would not be the same one drafted before the outbreak of the virus in Lebanon,” he added.
The official said the country has entered an extremely dangerous phase. “President Michel Aoun is the best person capable of bringing all parties together to … confront this virus, particularly that opposition leaders such as former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, and Phalange Party leader Sami Gemayel, have expressed supportive stances to contain the virus," the official added.

Aoun Reiterates Call for Citizens to Stay Home
Naharnet/March 20/2020
President Michel Aoun on Friday reiterated his call for citizens to stay home and abide by the two-week lockdown declared by the government in the face of the coronavirus crisis. “As we witness how the coronavirus pandemic is killing people around the world, I reiterate my call for the Lebanese on the need to stay home and not go out unless necessary,” Aoun tweeted. “I call on the relevant ministries, municipalities and security forces to be strict in enforcing the general mobilization decision in order to limit the spread of the pandemic,” the president added. “Our commitment will protect our families and loved ones, so don’t take it lightly,” Aoun went on to say. Lebanon has so far confirmed 163 COVID-19 coronavirus cases among them four deaths. On Sunday, the government declared a two-week state of “general mobilization,” closing the country’s air, land and sea ports of entry and ordering the closure of all non-essential public and private institutions. Major breaches of the lockdown order were recorded Friday in the northern city of Tripoli.MTV meanwhile reported heavy traffic on the Naccache Bridge, noting that “large numbers of cars are entering and exiting Beirut.”

Diab on Fakhoury Release: Collaboration Crime Can't be Forgotten
Naharnet/March 20/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Friday stressed that “the crime of collaboration with the Israeli enemy cannot be forgotten,” a day after former Khiyam Prison warden Amer Fakhoury arrived in the U.S. after spending around five months in Lebanese prisons.
“Heaven’s justice won’t drop the rights of martyrs and liberated captives due to ‘passage of time,’” Diab tweeted, criticizing Fakhoury’s controversial release. Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti had earlier in the day summoned the U.S. ambassador and asked her to explain "the circumstances of Amer Fakhoury being transferred abroad from the U.S. embassy," the National News Agency said.
Fakhoury, a former member of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia (SLA), went into exile more than two decades ago before returning to Lebanon in September, when he was arrested.
The 57-year-old was released on Monday over a statute of limitations on his alleged crimes, a judicial source said, though put under a travel ban, according to state media. On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump hailed Fakhoury's return to the United States, saying he was suffering from late-stage cancer. He also thanked the Lebanese government for cooperating with Washington in the case. A security source said on Thursday that Fakhoury left the country in a helicopter from the U.S. embassy heading to an unknown destination, but the embassy did not comment on the report. When Fakhoury was arrested, a Lebanese security source said he had served as a senior warden in the notorious Khiyam Prison, opened in 1984 by the SLA after Israel occupied southern Lebanon. Witnesses accuse Fakhoury of ordering or taking part in beatings of thousands of inmates.
The veteran militiaman's release by a military court on Monday prompted huge criticism on social media. Hizbullah, largely credited with Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, said it would be more honorable for the judges involved to resign rather that "succumb to the pressures that led to this decision."On Friday, the head of the military tribunal resigned over the criticism.

Lebanon's Army Command denies news attributed to military source
NNA/March 20/2020
Lebanon's Army Command issued on Friday the following statement: "The Army Command confirms that it is not connected whatsoever to the news attributed to it via military or security sources, and that the only source of news related to the military institution is the statements issued exclusively by the Army Command-Orientation Directorate, which are published on the official website of the Lebanese Army and its official accounts on social media."

Diab meets Banking Association: $6 million will be allocated to purchase 120 ventilators for Coronavirus patients
NNA/March 20/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab met today at the Grand Serail with a delegation from the Banking Association, headed by Salim Sfeir. It was agreed during the meeting that the banks will allocate USD 6 million to purchase 120 specialized ventilators dedicated to the treatment of the coronavirus patients. The ventilators will be distributed to a number of public hospitals in different Lebanese regions.—Serail Press Office

Diab leads first coordination meeting to fight Coronavirus
NNA/March 20/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab lead on Friday the first coordination meeting dedicated to finding optimal solutions in order to fight coronavirus.
Attending the meeting were Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Zeina Akar, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs Nassif Hitti, of Interior Mohammad Fahmi, of Public Health Hamad Hassan, of Social Affairs Ramzi Musharrafieh, of Economy Raoul Nehme, of Energy Raymond Ghajar, of Public Works Michel Najjar, and of Labor Lamia Yammine, as well as the Secretary General of the Higher Defense Council, Major-General Mahmoud Al-Asmar, the Secretary General of the Lebanese Red Cross George Kettaneh, PM’s Advisor on Health Affairs Petra Khoury, European Union Ambassador Ralph Tarraf, Dutch Ambassador Jan Waltmans, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Philippe Lazzarini, Representatives from WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, UNRWA, UNDP, WFP, Head of ICRC Mission Christophe Martin, and Head of Doctors Without Borders Mission Amaury Gregoire.
Also taking part of the meeting through Skype were Ambassador of the United Stated of America Dorothy Shea, of France Bruno Foucher, of Italy Nicoletta Bombardier, of Germany George Berglin, of Canada Emmanuelle Lamoureux, of China Wang Kejian, of the United Kingdom Chris Rampling, of Switzerland Monica Schmutz, and of Sweden Jörgen Lindström, as well as Senior Health Specialist at the World Bank, Nadwa Rafeh. At the beginning of the meeting, PM Diab expressed his gratitude to all the participants for their cooperation and continuous coordination during this crisis, stating the importance of working in a concerted manner to find the best solutions to fight the coronavirus.
“There is no doubt that acting quickly is essential at this stage to prevent the number of casualties from increasing,” he said. Diab added: “As you know, we have in the Serail a disaster risk management unit, which began its work last week, and is coordinating all relevant data with the concerned ministries.”“Two emergency funds have been initiated at the Central Bank, the first being the coronavirus support fund, and the other, the social support fund, and handling both funds will be done in complete transparency through a platform and an audit company to provide daily figures.”
He finally recalled that Lebanon is also facing the Eurobonds' and banking sector's restructuring, as well as developing a fiscal program. “Very few countries, if any, have faced all of that at the same time, and any support we can get from various organizations is more than welcome.”
US Ambassador indicated that she has submitted Lebanon’s request for help to the Departments of State and of Defense.
French Ambassador noted that Paris has already sent 32 packages of gloves and personal protective equipment for the medical personnel treating coronavirus-infected patients. He added that coordination is regular with China, Iran, and Lebanon, noting that they are currently facing problems in shipping the material and equipment that Lebanon needs.
Chinese Ambassador said that the Embassy is ensuring permanent coordination between both the Lebanese and Chinese Governments in order to find means to help Lebanon face this crisis.
Italian Ambassador reminded that Italy is currently facing an emergency and is in desperate need of receiving all needed medical material, underlining the tight coordination with the Lebanese authorities, notably the Ministry of Social Affairs, in order to help the most vulnerable. She finally added that the Italian UNIFIL Contingent recently made a contribution to help Lebanon by donating an isolation room to a public hospital in the South, to receive people who are undergoing the coronavirus test.
Within this framework, the Prime Minister clarified that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is following up closely on the situation of Lebanese students in Italy. UK Ambassador also highlighted the importance of ensuring all required equipment by coordinating with the local authorities.
EU Ambassador praised the Lebanese Government for the steps taken in order to fight coronavirus and the implemented measures to halt its fast spread. He conveyed EU’s will to help Lebanon in solving its electricity issue. The World Bank Representative thanked all donors and stated that the WB has established a facility to help provide financial support to tackle the coronavirus crisis, adding that the Bank looks forward to supporting the Lebanese Government and all partners in order to address the social and economic repercussions of this crisis.
Public Health Minister said that Lebanon essentially has “problems in the healthcare status now, in both public and private sectors.” “Our data shows that we have only 1000 ventilators, but 50% of them are already taken for patients with chronic diseases,” he added. Hassan also noted that there is no fund for local suppliers, and that even if the required equipment is available on the international market, it will take 6 to 8 weeks to deliver it to Lebanon.
Minister of Social Affairs thanked the international community for all its efforts, especially after the recent coronavirus crisis, and reiterated the importance of coordination between all parties. “We operate from a nondiscriminatory point of view; all humans are equal no matter their nationality. And every human being on the Lebanese territory will be receiving the same quality of care that we intend to give.” He also mentioned the social safety and the provision of adequate help for the most vulnerable, and the need to provide them with help during this crisis.
Minister of Economy said that many coordination meetings have been held by the Ministry with importers, industrials, and major supermarkets, in order to make sure that the chain of supply for the essential items is still working normally. “We have also worked on measures to be taken by stores that remain open, from the health point of view; and are working on completing recommendations for consumers upon their visits to the stores,” he said. He added that the Ministry is coordinating with insurance companies to cover both Lebanese and foreigners infected by the coronavirus. Minister of Defense noted the importance of joint work. “It was agreed during the Cabinet session that the Lebanese army will be responsible for all the warehouses, stocks, and for delivering the items to the public hospitals. Private hospitals will themselves ensure transport of required items,” she said.
The Minister of Public Works spoke of the role of the Ministry in limiting and then suspending all flights. He also noted that many people working within this sector are daily workers and that the social and economic repercussions of them staying at home would be very difficult for them to overcome. Finally, the Minister of Energy underlined the need to address the electricity dossier in coordination with other Governments or companies that are willing to help Lebanon in building, financing, and operating power plants. After the meeting, PM Diab visited the National Operation Room for Disaster Management and stressed on the importance of issuing daily reports about coronavirus updates to the Lebanese.—Serail Press Office

Minister of Industry, National Campaign for Social Solidarity discuss means to bolster industries amid outbreak
NNA/March 20/2020
A delegation from the National Campaign for Social Solidarity (My hand in yours) on Friday visited Minister of Industry, Dr. Imad Hoballah, and discussed with him the means to face the current social crises amid the novel Coronavirus outbreak in Lebanon.
The delegation presented to the minister a document with a road map to meet the needs of people who lost their jobs and businesses as a result of the crisis. The meeting stressed the substantial need to join efforts and keep meetings open to launch a national donation campaign, in which the Ministry of Industry seeks to provide support by encouraging factories and concerned ministries to be an essential part in securing people's needs in all the Lebanese regions. For his part, the minister praised the initiative put forward by the National Campaign for Social Solidarity and placed his ministry’s capabilities at the campaign’s disposal. He also promised to communicate with the Association of Industrialists in order to involve them in this mutual campaign.

Business as Usual as Some Tripoli Areas Defy Lockdown
Naharnet/March 20/2020
Heavy traffic and pedestrian movement was witnessed Friday in some impoverished areas of the northern city of Tripoli despite the government’s lockdown order over the coronavirus crisis, state-run National News Agency reported. NNA said the popular souks in Mahram, Bab al-Tabbaneh, al-Qobbeh and Abi Samra were bustling with people as street vendors spread their chariots and some citizens gathered around coffee kiosks. Others meanwhile flocked heavily to the vegetable market as car repair and parts shops opened normally. Crowding was also recording in the Mahram area, especially inside and outside major supermarkets, where no precaution measures were observed, NNA said. Scores of worshippers meanwhile performed the Muslim Friday prayer inside and outside some mosques, despite calls by religious authorities for believers to pray in their homes. The agency said the majority of people on the streets were not wearing masks or gloves. Relatives of Islamist prisoners meanwhile staged a march across the city in which they condemned the release of former Khiyam Prison warden Amer Fakhoury and demanded a general amnesty. Lebanon has so far confirmed 163 COVID-19 coronavirus cases among them four deaths. On Sunday, the government declared a two-week state of “general mobilization,” closing the country’s air, land and sea ports of entry and ordering the closure of all non-essential public and private institutions. Citizens and residents were meanwhile asked to stay home unless it is extremely necessary to go out. President Michel Aoun and the army on Friday called on citizens and residents to respect the lockdown and stay home.

Wazni Meets Kubis Who Reiterates the UN Support for Lebanon
Naharnet/March 20/2020
Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni met with the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis who reiterated the international agency's support for Lebanon, the National News Agency reported on Friday. Kubis said the UN is willing to “support Lebanon, its people and government during these difficult times.” The two men also discussed the comprehensive economic plan that the government will issue and the measures it has taken to limit the spread of coronavirus and its implications on the health of Lebanese, said NNA.

Lebanon hospitals facing Coronavirus amid medical shortages
Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/March 20/2020
Virus Outbreak Lebanon. A Lebanese Red Cross ambulance leaves the
BEIRUT--Lebanon’s crippling financial crisis and banks’ stiff capital control left hospitals short of medical equipment and consumables undermining their ability to manage the coronavirus outbreak, medical supply importers said.
A severe dollar shortage that has hit imports in Lebanon since October, when anti-government protests erupted, exposed hospitals to shortages of basic materials from dialysis equipment to syringes. Demands for medical supplies have significantly increased with the appearance of COVID-19, which claimed at least four lives and infected more than 130 people in the country.
Salma Assi, president of the Syndicate of Importers of Medical Devices and Equipment, said even basic supplies have all but dried up as a backlog of foreign exchange requests at dollar-scarce commercial banks has gone unmet.
“Hospitals were already low in stock but things got worse with the outbreak of the virus,” Assi said. “Definitely there is a severe shortage of consumables in high demand such as masks and gloves because we have not been able to import properly for the past 7 months.”
“Importers have been able to bring in just $10 million of the $140 million in goods they have sought since October, less than 10% of what we need, and nearly all transactions have been frozen since February,” Assi said.
She said private and public hospitals across Lebanon are equipped with 850 respirators, 10% of which were out of order and needed spare parts. “Of the remaining 780 ventilators, 400 are already being used and 250-300 that are available are definitely not sufficient if the number of coronavirus cases surges as feared,” she said. Assi, whose syndicate represents 80% of medical suppliers, complained about the government’s laxity in facilitating the suppliers’ work.
“Although the government has said it will facilitate medical imports linked to the virus, we are still not able to transfer money to providers abroad because until today there is no mechanism to facilitate transfers for imports,” she said, adding “no government official got in contact with us to facilitate our work. We are not even represented in the crisis committee dealing with the virus outbreak.”
People testing positive for COVID-19 have been quarantined and treated at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, the only public health-care facility in the country capable of treating coronavirus patients.
The hospital has seven intensive care and four isolation units, with capacity to accommodate approximately 128 mild and 11 severe cases. With rapid rates of infection and 14-day periods of self-isolation necessary to determine if they are carriers of the virus or whether symptoms develop, the capacity to treat only 139 people nationwide is not enough.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health called on all hospitals across the country to prepare for the outbreak, which could grow.
“I don’t think any country is 100% prepared to this big-scale pandemic but what is reassuring is that Lebanon’s case monitoring and quarantine steps meet international norms,” Lebanon World Health Organisation (WHO) representative Iman Shankiti said. “It is applying strict measures and still able to trace all positive cases and the people they were in contact with in order to check them.”
“Also, we have several cases that are cured and the fact that none of the hospital’s staff was infected shows that they are applying the requested precautionary measures.”
Noting that the health-care sector in Lebanon has been deeply affected by the financial crisis, Shankiti said the WHO has provided technical support and in-kind assistance to medical teams stationed at the airport and to hospital laboratories.
“We are trying to flatten the curve and keep it at a level whereby the number of patients does not exceed the hospital’s capacities. That would give us additional time to prepare other hospitals for a potential increase in the number of cases in the next phase,” she said.
In Lebanon, where protests have taken aim at a political elite seen as mired in corruption, distrust of the government runs deep and many Lebanese have been sceptical of its ability to rein in a serious outbreak.
“Whether it’s coronavirus or any disease or any problem, the government isn’t prepared to deal with anything,” 41-year-old real-estate broker Samir al-Mohtar told Reuters. The Lebanese government owes private and public hospitals millions of dollars including funds owed by the National Social Security Fund and military health funds. Human Rights Watch warned that the government’s failure to reimburse hospitals “seriously endangers the health of the population.”
Sleiman Haroun, the head of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals, told Human Rights Watch that the Lebanese Finance Ministry has not paid private hospitals an estimated $1.3 billion in dues since 2011, compromising their ability to buy vital medicine and supplies and to pay staff salaries.
*Samar Kadi is the Arab Weekly society and travel section editor.

Two Americans Imprisoned in Iran, Lebanon Released
Associated Press/March 120/2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — An American jailed for months in Lebanon was released from custody Thursday, while a Navy veteran was granted medical furlough from an Iran prison as the country struggles to curb the spread of coronavirus, U.S. officials said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Michael White, imprisoned more than a year ago for insulting Iran's supreme leader, was released to the Swiss Embassy as part of a furlough that will require him to remain in Iran. The U.S. will work for his full release, Pompeo said.
The other American was Amer Fakhoury, a New Hampshire restaurant owner who had faced decades-old murder and torture charges in Lebanon that he denies. He was ordered released by a judge because more than 10 years had passed since the crimes he was accused of committing.
The Trump administration trumpeted the twin releases, though done in different countries and for different reasons, as part of its efforts to secure the release of Americans held hostage or imprisoned abroad. Officials including President Donald Trump used the occasion to name additional Americans they want released, including journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012.
“I want to let everyone know that recovering Americans held captive and imprisoned abroad continues to be a top priority for my administration," Trump said at a news conference.
White's release, though temporary for the moment, came as Iran has furloughed tens of thousands of prisoners while struggling with a coronavirus that Iranian officials fear could kill millions.
White, of Imperial Beach, California, was detained in Iran while visiting a girlfriend there in July 2018. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for insulting Iran's supreme leader and posting private information; the State Department said he was serving a 13-year sentence. His mother had called for White's immediate release in an interview with The Associated Press this month, saying she was concerned about the well-being of her son and that he had been battling cancer.
“He is in very good spirits, but has some pretty sustained health conditions that are going to require some attention,” Brian Hook, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, said on a conference call. Hook said White would be evaluated by doctors.
Fakhoury was on his way back to the U.S. after a judge in Lebanon ordered him released. Fakhoury had been accused of torturing prisoners at a jail run by an Israeli-backed militia two-decades ago. He had been imprisoned since September after returning to Lebanon to visit family.
His case had put a significant strain on already troubled ties between the U.S. and Lebanon. Lawmakers in Washington had threatened to withhold critical aid to the country and impose sanctions on the Lebanese military, which is seen by the Trump administration as a bulwark against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement.“Anytime a U.S citizen is wrongfully detained by a foreign government, we must use every tool at our disposal to free them,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H, who had worked for his release. “I’m very glad that Amer is finally coming home and will be reunited with his family. No family should have to go through what the Fakhoury family has gone through."
His oldest daughter, Guila Fakhoury, told the AP by phone, “We are so happy. It's a dream."
Fakhoury was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma and had been hospitalized in Lebanon. Trump said Fakhoury “will now be able to receive the much needed care and treatment in the United States."
“We’ve been working very hard to get him freed, and he’s finally able to have his entire family at his side,” Trump said.
Fakhoury was ordered to be released Monday because more than 10 years had passed since he allegedly tortured prisoners at a jail run by the South Lebanon Army militia. But he was not immediately allowed to leave the country after a Lebanese military judge on Tuesday appealed the decision, asking a military tribunal to strike down the decision to free Fakhoury.
The parliamentary bloc of Hezbollah criticized the military tribunal for what it called “succumbing” to U.S. demands to release Fakhoury, describing him as “an agent who betrayed his country.” Hezbollah lawmakers called on concerned authorities to hold the tribunal accountable.
Hours before Shaheen announced Fakhoury's release, a U.S. Marine Osprey was seen taking off from the U.S. Embassy compound northeast of Beirut. He was being returned to the U.S. in a State Department medical plane, said Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker.
Separately, hours after the release, the U.S. embassy announced that all of its non-essential personnel had been ordered to leave Lebanon. An official in Washington said the decision to move to ordered departure was not connected to the release and was instead made due to the spread of the coronavirus and the uncertainty of transportation. The embassy will be operating with only emergency consular services available for American citizens for the foreseeable future.
Fakhoury is a former SLA member who became a U.S. citizen last year. His case has been closely followed in New Hampshire, where Shaheen and other officials have called for imposing sanctions on Lebanon to pressure Beirut to release him.
Fakhoury was jailed last year after returning to Lebanon on vacation to visit family. Lebanon’s intelligence service said he confessed during questioning to being a warden at Khiam Prison, which was run by the SLA during Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.
Human rights groups have described the prison as a center for torture.
Fakhoury’s family and lawyer, however, said he had no direct contact with inmates and was never involved in any interrogation or torture.
Fakhoury's family said in a statement said they have been through a nightmare “that we would never wish on anyone." They thanked Trump and members of his administration and said Fakhoury “considers Shaheen his hero."
Lebanon and Israel have been officially at war since Israel’s creation in 1948. Lebanon bans its citizens from traveling to Israel or having contact with Israelis.
Fakhoury’s lawyer and family say he fled Lebanon in 2001 through Israel and eventually to the United States because of death threats he and many other SLA members received after Israel ended its occupation of Lebanon in 2000.
Fakhoury was formally charged in February by a military judge with the murder and torture of inmates at Khiam Prison.
*McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington and Bassem Mroue and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 20-21/2020
Coronavirus cases in Canada: At least 1,000 diagnoses, 12 deaths
عدد المصابين بفيروس الكورونا في كندا وصل إلى الف فيما الوفيات اقتصرت على 12 فقط
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-canada-cases-184926838.html
Total COVID-19 cases in Canada: 1087
Ontario - 318 cases, including 2 deaths (5 resolved)
B.C. - 348 cases, including 8 deaths (6 resolved)
Alberta - 195 cases, including 1 death (3 resolved)
Quebec - 139 cases, including 1 death (1 resolved)
New Brunswick - 11 cases
Manitoba - 17 cases
Saskatchewan - 26 cases
Prince Edward Island - 2 cases
Newfoundland and Labrador - 4 cases
Nova Scotia - 15 cases
CFB Trenton - 12 cases

One million jobs are being lost every day as coronavirus hits travel and tourism industry
Fareed Rahman/Fareed RahmanThe National/March 20/2020
As many as one million jobs are being lost every day in the travel and tourism sector due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). “While the priority for governments is to keep people safe, this global health catastrophe means a million people a day in the travel & tourism industry alone are losing their jobs and facing potential ruin due to the disastrous impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” said Gloria Guevara, president & chief executive of WTTC in a statement on Friday. Coronavirus, the biggest challenge to the global economy since the 2008 financial crisis, has disrupted trade, the travel industry and rattled investors. At least $17tn ((Dh62.4tn) has been wiped from stock markets worldwide. “Businesses large and small are being forced to rip up their three-year plans and focus on a three-month fight for survival on a daily basis, while people’s jobs are wiped out hour by hour. We fear this situation will only deteriorate unless more action is taken immediately by governments to address it,” she said. Output drop in China due to coronavirus costs world economy about $50bn, UN says. WTTC announced a three-point plan for governments to tackle the problem including protecting the salaries, income and jobs of people who are at risk and extending interest free loans to provide liquidity to large and small travel and tourism businesses. It also suggested waiving or removing all dues, taxes or fiscal charges for 12 months that affect the cash flow of businesses. “While some governments have been quick to respond with promises of help, the majority of businesses still have no idea how to access these potentially life-saving loans and tax breaks," added Ms Guevara. The travel body also said up to 50 million jobs throughout the world are at immediate risk, with up to 320 million jobs facing the impact of the dramatic loss of business due to the current situation. Small and medium sized businesses at every level within travel and tourism, such as tour operators, travel agents and sole-traders, are especially vulnerable, it added. Earlier this week, International Labour Organisation (ILO) predicted coronavirus could claim up to 24.7 million jobs worldwide. Based on different scenarios for the impact of Covid-19 on global gross domestic product, the ILO estimates indicated a rise in global unemployment of between 5.3 million in a low scenario and 24.7m in a high scenario from a base level of 188m in 2019.

WHO Says Wuhan Recovery Gives Rest of World Hope
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 20/2020
The World Health Organization said Friday that the original epicenter in China of the coronavirus outbreak at last reporting no new cases gave hope to the rest of the world battling the pandemic. The city of Wuhan registered no new cases of COVID-19 in 24 hours -- for the first time since reporting its first case in December in an outbreak that has gone on to infect more than 250,000 people around the world and kill more than 11,000 people. "Yesterday, Wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva. "Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world that even the most severe situation can be turned around. "Of course, we must exercise caution; the situation can reverse. But the experience of cities and countries that have pushed back this coronavirus gives hope and courage to the rest of the world."
China as a whole is now reporting only a handful of new infections each day -- all of them apparently from overseas visitors -- as the crisis has shifted from Asia to Europe, which has now reported more deaths than China. Tedros said the WHO's greatest worry was the impact that the virus could have if it took hold in countries with weaker health systems or more vulnerable populations. "That concern has now become very real and urgent," he said, but added that significant sickness and loss of life in such countries was not inevitable. "Unlike any pandemic in history, we have the power to change the way this goes," he said.
Young 'not invincible'
Tedros said that although older people had been the hardest hit by the disease, younger people were not spared, saying they made up many of the sufferers needing hospital treatment. He said solidarity between the generations was one of the keys to defeating the spread of the pandemic. "Today I have a message for young people: you are not invincible. This virus could put you in hospital for weeks -- or even kill you," Tedros warned. "Even if you don't get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else. "I'm grateful that so many young people are spreading the word and not the virus."WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said that two out of three people in intensive care in badly-hit Italy were aged under 70.
Physical distancing
The WHO also said it was now using the term "physical distancing" rather than "social distancing" to describe the need to maintain space between people to avoid the virus passing. Although people may need to go into physical isolation, they did not need to become socially isolated, he said, adding it was important to maintain good mental health during the crisis. "We can keep connected in many ways without physically being in the same space," said Maria Van Kerkhove, who heads the WHO's emerging diseases unit. "We want people to still remain connected." Tedros added: "It's normal to feel stressed, confused and scared during a crisis. Talking to people you know and trust can help." Whilst advising people to maintain their mental and physical health during the crisis, including exercising and eating a healthy diet to help the immune system, Tedros also had a message for the world's smokers. "Don't smoke. Smoking can increase your risk of developing severe disease if you become infected with COVID-19," he said. The WHO also said it was launching a new health alert messaging service on WhatsApp, containing news, information, details on symptoms and how to prevent against catching the virus. To access it, WhatsApp users need to send the word "hi" to the number 0041 798 931 892. The service is initially available in English, with other languages to be rolled out next week.

China Berates 'Lying' Pompeo as U.S. Presses on Pandemic
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 20/2020
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday demanded that China share more data on the novel coronavirus as Beijing angrily accused him of lying and said Washington was trying to shift blame. It was the latest clash in an escalating feud between the two powers over the global COVID-19 pandemic, which was first detected in the Chinese metropolis Wuhan but has now infected more than 250,000 people worldwide and hobbled life in the West. Pompeo -- who, like President Donald Trump, has enraged Beijing by speaking of the "Chinese virus" -- said Beijing had a "special obligation" to scientists due to its early knowledge of the illness. "This is not about retribution," Pompeo told reporters at the White House. "We need to make sure that even today, the data sets that are available to every country, including data sets that are made available to the Chinese Communist Party, are made available to the whole world. It's an imperative to keep people safe."In an interview earlier with Fox News, Pompeo said China "wasted valuable days" after identifying the novel coronavirus by letting "hundreds of thousands" leave Wuhan to places including Italy -- which has surpassed China as the country with the highest death toll. "The Chinese Communist Party didn't get it right and put countless lives at risk as a result of that," Pompeo said. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying voiced anger over Pompeo's claim of hundreds of thousands leaving Wuhan, writing in English: "Stop lying through your teeth!" "As WHO experts said, China's efforts averted hundreds of thousands of infection cases," she tweeted. In a briefing in Beijing, another foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said that China had shown "great sacrifice" and contributed to global health. "Some people on the US side are trying to stigmatize China's fight against the epidemic, and shift the blame onto China," he said.
Foreign ministry feud on Twitter
Beijing's state media took to Trump's favorite medium of Twitter -- which is largely banned in China -- to taunt him with hashtags such as #TrumpSlump and #Trumpandemic. Hua said China first told the United States of the novel coronavirus outbreak on January 3, with the State Department alerting Americans in Wuhan on January 15. "And now blame China for delay? Seriously?" she wrote on Twitter. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus soon replied: "By Jan. 3, Chinese authorities had already ordered #COVID19 virus samples destroyed, silenced Wuhan doctors, and censored public concerns online." Hua "is right: This is a timeline the world must absolutely scrutinize," Ortagus tweeted. The United States last week summoned the Chinese ambassador after another foreign ministry spokesman tweeted an unfounded conspiracy theory that the U.S. military brought the virus to Wuhan. Trump has refused to stop saying "Chinese virus," despite criticism also within the United States that the terminology can falsely associate Asian Americans with the malady. As the United States increasingly locks down to stem rising infections, China has stepped up crisis aid to US allies, with a plane on Friday bringing more than one million masks to the Czech Republic.

Trump Doesn't Think U.S. Will Need National Lockdown
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 20/2020
President Donald Trump on Friday discounted the possibility of a national lockdown after two populous U.S. states -- California and New York -- issued tough new stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of the coronavirus. Trump said California and New York were "really two hotbeds" but the problem was not so severe in other regions as to warrant a nationwide lockdown. "So no, we're working with the governors and I don't think we'll ever find that necessary," he said, responding to a question at a White House news conference.

Italy's Virus Toll Tops 4,000 after New One-Day Record
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/March 20/2020
Italy on Friday reported a record 627 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, taking its overall toll past 4,000 as the pandemic gathered pace despite government efforts to halt its spread. The total number of deaths was 4,032, with the number of infections reaching 47,021. Italy's previous one-day record death toll was 475 on Wednesday. The nation of 60 million now accounts for 36.6 percent of the world's coronavirus deaths. Italy has seen more than 1,500 deaths from COVID-19 in the past three days alone. Its current daily death rate is higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan's Hubei province.

U.S.-Canada Joint Initiative: Temporary Restriction of Travelers Crossing the U.S.-Canada Border for Non-Essential Purposes
March 20, 2020 – Ottawa, Ontario – Prime Minister’s Office
The U.S.-Canada land border serves as an economic engine that supports over $2.4 billion dollars in daily trade. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States and Canada are temporarily restricting all non-essential travel across its borders. In each of our countries, we are encouraging people to exercise caution by avoiding unnecessary contact with others. This collaborative and reciprocal measure is an extension of that prudent approach.
“Non-essential” travel includes travel that is considered tourism or recreational in nature. The United States and Canada recognize it is critical we preserve supply chains between both countries. These supply chains ensure that food, fuel, and life-saving medicines reach people on both sides of the border. Supply chains, including trucking, will not be impacted by this new measure. Americans and Canadians also cross the land border every day to do essential work or for other urgent or essential reasons, and that travel will not be impacted. This decision will be implemented on March 21, 2020, at which time the U.S. and Canada will temporarily restrict all non-essential travel across the U.S.-Canada land border. The measure will be in place for 30 days, at which point it will be reviewed by both parties.
PMO Media Relations: media@pmo-cpm.gc.ca
This document is also available at https://pm.gc.ca/

Rouhani urges Americans to call on U.S. to lift sanctions as Iran fights coronavirus- state media
National Post/March 20/2020
DUBAI — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday urged Americans to call on the U.S. government to lift sanctions as Iran fights the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, state media reported.
“U.S. government sanctions have led to many ordinary Iranians losing their health, jobs and income,” Rouhani said in a message carried by state media. “Now is the time for the American people to shout loudly at the U.S. government to demand an answer … and not allow the U.S. history to be blackened further.” (Reporting by Dubai newsroom Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Iran releases jailed US Navy vet Michael White on medical furlough
Laura Rozen/Al Monitor/March 19, 2020
WASHINGTON — Iran has released US Navy veteran Michael R. White, 48, on medical furlough, the State Department announced today. White is currently in the custody of Swiss diplomats in Iran undergoing medical observation, a spokesman for White’s family said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo thanked Swiss authorities for help in facilitating White’s temporary release, expressed hope that it would be made permanent and called again for the release of other US citizens detained or missing in Iran, including Morad Tahbaz, former FBI agent Robert Levinson and Siamak Namazee and his father, Baquer Namazee. White “was released today on a medical furlough,” Pompeo said in a statement today. “His release on humanitarian grounds was conditioned upon him staying in Iran. Michael is now in the custody of the Swiss embassy and will undergo medical testing and evaluation.”Jonathan Franks, a spokesman for White’s family, wrote on Twitter that White “has been running a fever the past few days … and has a cough.” “The United States will continue to work for Michael’s full release as well as the release of all wrongfully detained Americans in Iran,” Pompeo’s statement continued. “We thank the Government of Switzerland for its continued and constructive role as our protecting power in Iran.”
The State Department said it is in daily discussions through the Swiss to try to secure the release on humanitarian grounds of the other US citizens detained in Iran.
“We hope this is the first step,” Brian Hook, the US Special representative on Iran, told journalists today. “Right now, it is just a medical furlough.”
Hook said that he had spoken with White and that he is in very good spirits, but had preexisting medical issues that required attention. Hook said White was released from prison in Mashhad into the custody of Swiss diplomats and was flown to Tehran today, where he can see doctors the Swiss work with.
An Iranian official told Al-Monitor the decision to release White on medical furlough “was purely based on medical and humanitarian considerations."
White, 48, from Imperial Valley, California, served in the US Navy for 13 years. He was arrested in Iran in July 2018 as he and his girlfriend were trying to fly out of Mashhad. In March 2019, Iran’s judiciary sentenced White to 10 years in prison. Pompeo’s statement today said that White had been sentenced to 13 years of prison. Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and ambassador to the UN, had met with the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Ravanchi, three times in the last month on efforts to secure White’s release, said a person familiar with the discussions who spoke not for attribution.
The United States has opened a Swiss channel to facilitate humanitarian transactions with Iran impacted by crushing US sanctions on Iran’s banking sector. Rob Malley, a former Barack Obama White House Middle East coordinator, and Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group director of Iran programs, proposed this week that the United States and Iran engage in "virus diplomacy" to facilitate the humanitarian release of US citizens detained in Iran and increased international help to Iran to combat the coronavirus. “What we suggested … is maybe a two-phase approach, in which, [in the first phase], the Iranians would furlough Siamak Namazee and the other US prisoners … and in return, the US would allow other countries to provide humanitarian assistance to Iran without concern for US sanctions at this moment,” Vaez told Al-Monitor.
In a possible second phase, the US could issue a waiver to not veto an International Monetary Fund loan of $5 billion that Iran has requested, and Iran would permanently release the prisoners, Vaez and Malley proposed.
“It would make it a win-win solution, for both sides, and put more time on the clock, and put the issue on ice for the president [Donald Trump] … in the runup to the US election,” Vaez said.
Hook said he was in daily discussions through the Swiss seeking the release of the other detained US citizens in Iran on humanitarian grounds.
“We recognize the urgency of the situation,” Hook said. “We want these Americans not to be at risk from coronavirus. The fact that the regime has released so many people from jail is an admission by the regime of their concern. We hope that gets applied to Americans in prison.”
“We have offered assistance to the regime,” Hook said. “It has not been accepted.”Separately, Trump asked Syria in a White House press conference today for the release of US journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012.
“Syria, please work with us,” Trump told journalists at a White House briefing on the US government’s efforts to combat the coronavirus. He confirmed that the United States had sent a letter to the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad asking for Tice’s release. The Syrian government has not to date publicly acknowledged holding Tice. In the case of the White furlough in Iran, an attorney for White's family expressed gratitude that White can now receive medical attention and called for his permanent release to the United States.
“Now he can get needed medical attention,” the attorney, Mark Zaid, wrote on Twitter. “We are very grateful. We continue to call for his full release back to US. Thank you to the Swiss government and the State Department for their efforts.”
*Laura Rozen is Al-Monitor's diplomatic correspondent based in Washington, DC. She has written for Yahoo! News, Politico and Foreign Policy. On Twitter: @LRozen

Former Syrian army chief Ali Habib dies aged 81
The New Arab/March 20/ 2020
The Syrian regime's defence ministry announced on Friday the death of former defence minister and army chief of staff General Ali Habib Mahmud, who hit headlines in 2013 amid rumours he had defected to the Syrian opposition and would lead a post-Assad Syria.
The official statement said that Habib died at the Al Assad University Hospital in Damascus on Friday morning at the age of 81. His body was set to be returned to his hometown near the city of Tartus, it added. Rumours of Habib having fled to Turkey and defected to the Syrian opposition surfaced in 2013, at a point when the Assad regime was nearing collapse two years into the civil war. However these were later proved false and it is thought that Habib remained in Syria throughout the war until his death. Born into an Alawite family in Tartus in 1939, Habib joined the army aged 20. Comment: Unsung heroes: Syria's female White Helmets step into the spotlight. After fighting in the 1973 war with Israel, Habib quickly rose through the ranks of the military, being appointed commander of the Special Forces in 1994 and later chief of general staff of the Syrian Army in 2004.
President Bashar Assad appointed Habib as defence minister in June 2009, serving until August 2011. Sources at the time said that Habib had attempted to resist Assad's decision to use the army to crush the popular revolts that erupted that year. However until that point, Habib had been a loyal member of Assad's inner circle. In May 2011, the United States imposed sanctions on Habib by executive order, accusing him and the Syrian regime's key figures of human rights abuses.

Iraq: Premiership Candidate Rejected by Iran-Backed Blocs
Baghdad- Hamza Mustafa/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Iraqi Prime Minister-designate, and former Najaf governor, Adnan al-Zurfi has not made any progress yet after a number of prominent Shiite blocs, as well as Iran-backed armed factions, rejected his candidacy.
Zurfi began informal consultations with many political parties, as his main concern now is to open channels of dialogue through mediators with the parties that refuse him as a candidate, some of which are close to Iran, according to an Iraqi politician close to the matter. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that Zurfi, member of Nasr Coalition, was surprised by this rejection even though the deputies who attended his assignment ceremony belonged to different Shiite blocs, some members of the parties that now say they are against him. Asked whether Zurfi will work on mobilizing the forces supporting him such as Shiite blocs, namely Saeroon, or Sunnis and the Kurds, the politician said that it is necessary for Zurfi to determine his position with the Shiite component before agreeing on anything with Kurds or Sunnis. He explained that Zurfi's efforts will be futile if he doesn't agree with Shiite blocs, warning that the country can’t afford that on top of all the crises, including the drop in oil prices and the Coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, political sources revealed that there are efforts to replace Zurfi with former candidate Naeem al-Suhail, whom President Barham Saleh would have nominated had it not been for last-minute disagreements between Shiite leaders. Local Iraqi media outlets reported that a meeting was held Thursday night to discuss supporting the re-nomination of Suhail. Nasr coalition, led by Haider al-Abadi, affirmed that Zurfi was Saleh’s candidate after obtaining approval from many Shiite forces and representatives of various blocs. However, the State of Law coalition, led by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, announced it had a list of 170 members of the parliament who refuse Zurfi as the premier. State of Law spokesman, Bahaaeddine al-Nouri stated that political blocs in al-Benaa alliance and Wisdom bloc held a meeting two days ago announcing their official refusal of Zurfi. Al-Benaa coalition, the largest parliamentary bloc, demanded that the President disclose the mechanism that led to naming Zurfi, noting that the President has created a political crisis in the country rather than being the protector of the constitution and law. Nouri pointed out that Benaa bloc, with over 170 MPs out of 329, refuses to assign Zurfi and will not participate in his next government if it wins the confidence vote of the Iraqi parliament.

Pakistani Doctor Arrested in US over ISIS Links
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
A Pakistani doctor and former Mayo Clinic research coordinator was arrested Thursday in Minnesota on a terrorism charge, after prosecutors say he told paid FBI informants that he had pledged his allegiance to ISIS and wanted to carry out lone wolf attacks in the United States.
Muhammad Masood, 28, was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursday by FBI agents and was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Prosecutors say Masood was in the US on a work visa. They allege that starting in January, Masood made several statements to paid informants — whom he believed were members of ISIS — pledging his allegiance to the group and its leader. He also allegedly expressed his desire to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS and a desire to carry out lone wolf attacks in the US. At one point, Masood messaged an informant “there is so much I wanted to do here .. .lon wulf stuff you know ... but I realized I should be on the ground helping brothers sisters kids,” according to an FBI affidavit. Prosecutors say Masood planned to go to Syria in February. But his plans changed after flight suspensions over the coronavirus outbreak. Masood and one of the informants then developed a plan for him to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to meet with that informant, whom Masood believed would help him travel in a cargo ship into ISIS territory. Masood was arrested Thursday at the airport after he checked in for his flight to Los Angeles. Court documents do not name the clinic where Masood worked, but a LinkedIn page for a man with the same name and work history says Masood has worked at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, since February of 2018, first as a research trainee, but has been a clinical research coordinator since May. A profile on researchgate.net says he has done research in cardiology; he was scheduled to present his research for the Mayo Clinic School of Continuous Professional Development in October 2018, according to an online calendar of the event. Mayo Clinic spokeswoman Ginger Plumbo said Masood formerly worked at the medical center, but "was not employed by Mayo Clinic at the time of his arrest.”

9 Years Since the Start of the Syrian Revolution: An Arena for Regional Wolves
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
The 9th anniversary of the Syrian revolution has left a severe bitterness in the mind and heart. Here, where beginnings seem distant and details are lost while endings are unforeseeable behind a horizon of destruction, displacement and broken fates. This anniversary leaves behind it an Arab world that is frozen awaiting change. Perhaps the lessons learned from this betrayed revolution are negative, in the sense that they should not be followed. They are lessons about today’s world, its values, institutions and standards all of which appear as a scandal when compared with the image marketed since the end of the Cold War when quotes were promoted on human rights, international protection and the role of non-governmental organizations as alternatives to the balance of power imposed by the two camps and the ability of countries and their peoples to make tangible gains under a struggle between the two mighty forces, socialism and capitalism, such as the national liberation of colonized countries and the welfare state in wealthy nations.
Since the start of the revolution, near and far countries have offered nothing but opportunistic policies that looked more like 19th-century policies than the new international order that was established after the Cold War. The Syrian Revolution shed light on the fake concerns of the United Nations, and on the inability of its delegates to produce solutions through their diplomatic pleas and shenanigans. The revolution revealed the true bitterness of the extent that violence could reach in an ethnically and religiously divided country, where nothing is left of power and arms other than the delusion of exterminating the other.
Among the things that the revolution displayed in front of its followers in the East, was the bloody undertones of the notions of majority and minority. Those who classify themselves as a majority, see the latter as nothing but a means to crush and marginalize minorities and deprive them of their rights to political participation based on the miserable experience of the Baath rule and the Alawite sect that has dominated it since it reached power in the coup of March 1963.
The minority, however, raising slogans of progress and secularism, is quick to turn these slogans into means to eliminate the identity of the majority and destroy it under the pretense that it would guarantee the rights of minorities and prevent political Islam from reaching power. Between these two views, and after different opposition groups failed over nine years to provide any viable model for them to coexist by accepting diversity among the opposition, it is not strange that the opposition was eroded and their activists assassinated in the “liberated" areas and in countries that were thought to be safe for the opposition. The opposition's demands for a civil state were all struck down by foreign and Syrian murderers. They opened the door for international powers to divide Syria into areas under Russian, American and Iranian influence with Turkish monitors, let alone the sectarian militias brought from Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq that have no use except in raising the wall against a political solution after the opposition's military venture failed. The defeat of both the opposition and the regime, whose ghosts only remain now, has invited wolves from the outside to negotiate and split up gains among them. The Syrian people and society will need a very long time before they have any influence again.

The Mighty Nile, Jeopardized by Waste, Warming, Dam
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020 - 08:00
Early one morning in Cairo, volunteers paddle their kayaks across the Nile, fishing out garbage from the mighty waterway that gave birth to Egyptian civilisation but now faces multiple threats.
Egypt's lifeline since Pharaonic days and the source of 97 percent of its water is under massive strain from pollution and climate change and now the threat of a colossal dam being built far upstream in Ethiopia.
Undeterred, the flotilla of some 300 environmental activists do what they can -- in the past three years they say they have picked some 37 tonnes of cans, plastic bottles, disposable bags and other trash from the waters and shores along the Nile in Egypt."People have to understand that the Nile is as important -- if not more -- than the pyramids," said Mostafa Habib, 29, co-founder of the environmental group Very Nile. "The generations coming after us will depend on it." His fears echo those that millions worldwide share about other over-taxed and polluted rivers from the Mekong to the Mississippi -- an issue to be marked on World Water Day on March 22. But few waterways face greater strain than the 6,600-kilometre (4,100-mile) Nile, the basin of which stretches across 11 countries -- Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
No country is more reliant on the Nile than Egypt, whose teeming population has just passed 100 million people -- over 90 percent of whom live along the river's banks. Surrounded by a green valley full of palm trees, the north-flowing river is awash with boats of all sizes for tourism, fishing and leisure. "All of us Egyptians benefit from the Nile, so cleaning it up is a way of giving back to my country," said one of the volunteers, Walied Mohamed, a 21-year-old university student. "The Nile is the main source of drinking water for Egypt. We have no other major rivers flowing in our country."
- 'Question of life' -
Despite its importance, the Nile is still heavily polluted in Egypt by waste water and rubbish poured directly in to it, as well as agricultural runoff and industrial waste, with consequences for biodiversity, especially fishing, and human health, experts say. Around 150 million tonnes of industrial waste are dumped into it every year, according to the state-run Environmental Affairs Agency.
Climate change spells another threat as rising sea levels are set to push Mediterranean salt water deep into the fertile Nile river delta, the nation's bread basket. Researchers predict the country's already stretched agricultural sector could shrink by as much as 47 percent by 2060 as a result of saltwater intrusion.
Cotton, one of the most widely cultivated plants along the Nile, requires a lot of water. Egypt also faces a nationwide fresh water shortage by 2025, according to the UN. Already around seven percent of Egyptians lack access to clean drinking water and over eight million go without proper sanitation. Hydrologists say people face water scarcity when their supply drops below 1,000 cubic metres per person annually. Egyptian officials say in 2018 the individual share was 570 cubic metres and that this is expected to further drop to 500 cubic metres by 2025. But aside from all the existing threats, there is another issue that terrifies Egypt's national planners and has even sparked fears of war.
More than 3,000 kilometres (2,000 miles) upstream on the Blue Nile, the main tributary, thousands of workers have toiled for almost a decade to build the $4.5-billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, set to be Africa's largest. Downstream countries, mainly Egypt but also drought-plagued Sudan, fear that the dam's 145-metre (475-foot) high wall will trap their essential water supplies once the giant reservoir, the size of London, starts being filled this summer.
Years of tensions between Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa have even seen Washington jump in to mediate rounds of crisis diplomacy. For Ethiopia, one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, the dam is a prestige project and source of national pride. In a country of 110 million where even the capital is plagued by blackouts, it promises to provide electricity by 2025 to the more than half of the population that now lives without it.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has insisted the project will not be stopped, warning that if necessary "we can deploy many millions". Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told the United Nations last year that "the Nile is a question of life, a matter of existence to Egypt". Meanwhile, the Egyptian volunteers push on in their kayaks and rowboats doing what they can to reduce the garbage piled up on the Nile's banks. "We have a treasure and we really haven't taken care of it," said Nour Serry, a Cairo graphic designer and avid volunteer. "As Egyptians, we should be more attuned to cleaning up our Nile and the surrounding environment. This is our source of life."

Former PA adviser says Trump peace plan ‘dormant’
The Arab Weekly/March 20/2020
Ghaith al-Omari is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute's Irwin Levy Family Programme on the US-Israel Strategic Relationship. Prior to that, he held various positions within the Palestinian Authority, including director of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s international relations department.
He has worked closely on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process for decades, having served as an adviser to the Palestinians’ negotiating team during permanent status negotiations from 1999-2001. In that capacity, he participated in various negotiating rounds, most notably the Camp David summit and the Taba talks. Omari is a lawyer by training and a graduate of Georgetown and Oxford universities. Before focusing on the Middle East peace process, he taught international law in Jordan and worked in human rights advocacy.
He spoke with The Arab Weekly as the coronavirus began prompting countries around the world to limit travel and as coalition-building continued in Israel following recent elections.
The Arab Weekly (TAW): “What might happen to the Trump peace plan, announced earlier this year but rejected by a majority of countries?”
Ghaith al-Omari (GAO): “From a traditional diplomatic angle, for now the plan seems to be dormant in the sense that Palestinian diplomacy has managed to create a near universal rejection of this plan.
“However, there are two other scenarios that are possible. One is if we have a second Trump administration, it is likely we will have a renewed push to get it more widely adopted. One expects, if there is a second administration, there will be diplomatic energy around it.
“The second issue is, of course, what happens in Israel because this plan potentially could give the green light to annexation [of large parts of the West Bank] by Israel. That depends on the outcome of Israeli coalition-building but you can see a scenario in which, if you have a right-wing Israeli government, while the plan itself might not go forward, aspects of it that relate to annexation start being implemented.”
TAW: “Do you think the Arab world is united in its rejection?”
GAO: “I don’t think it’s united. I think what we see in the Arab world are two sets of dynamics.
“One, and this is almost universal among Arabs particularly in the Gulf, is a decoupling of the peace process from bilateral relations with Israel and this is something that will go on. So the not-so-secret, behind-the-scenes security and sometimes economic links, they will continue.
“On the other hand, most Arab countries will support the Palestinians no matter what the Palestinians say on issues related to the peace process. However, the support will vary in intensity. Some countries will very proactively push for the Palestinian position, some countries will be more passive and that depends on how these countries see the conflict through the lenses of its own national priorities.”
TAW: “What, if anything, can be done in response to the Trump plan?”
GAO: “I think there is something to be done. The wisest course of action right now would be for the Palestinians with Arab support to come up with a counteroffer. I think what’s been happening over the last few weeks, since the peace plan was released, was an image of the Palestinians yet again solidifying as rejectionist. “I think the way to deal with it is for the Palestinians to present a realistic counteroffer. If they wait until a second Trump administration, it might be too late for them to do that. I think this is the time and, in many ways, they have an opening now.”
TAW: “What is the likelihood of the Palestinians making a counteroffer?” GAO: “Unfortunately minimal and it’s minimal not because there is no counteroffer. I mean the Palestinians, especially the negotiators, know the extent of the compromises they’re willing to make and yet I think the Palestinian leadership feels politically very weak in domestic terms and the Palestinian leadership is facing a legitimacy crisis, a legitimacy deficit.
“In this situation, they are too cautious and too politically weak to present a counteroffer so, while this might be the wisest move from a national perspective, I fear political weakness will make them unwilling or unable to do so.”
TAW: “What might happen if Israel moved ahead with any annexation moves?” GAO: “Will there be violence? This is the question and no one knows. So far, we’ve seen very little appetite for violence and I think the trauma of the second intifada is still real for many Palestinians but in these situations of volatility we simply do not know how things will move. “The second thing is given the political fragility of the [Palestinian Authority] PA, this could be the moment that pushes it over the edge…The PA will not disband itself, there are too many vested interests but it might come to a point when it becomes irrelevant and implodes. “The final point, maybe even more or equally important, is the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan will go through its deepest crisis by far since its entry into force… At a minimum there could be a suspension of diplomatic relations… Given the mood in Jordan, things could go up all the way up to cancellation of the treaty. I doubt there will be cancellation but there could be complete suspension of all political and civilian aspects of the treaty.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 20-21/2020
Mullahs & COVID-19: Iran’s failing response reflects regime’s priorities
Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/March 20/2020
The Iranian regime’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been erratic and flailing.
Having declared 14,991 confirmed cases and 853 deaths as of March 17, Iran has been the Middle East country hit hardest by the coronavirus. After China and Italy, it is the worst hit globally.
This week, 78-year-old Ayatollah Hashem Bathaie Golpayegani, a member of the powerful Assembly of Experts, died of the disease. The assembly is the body that appoints the supreme leader. Golpayegani is the latest in a growing list of senior officials to have caught the virus. The Iranian regime’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been erratic and flailing. Many of the precise details of this inadequate response derive directly from the particular nature of the regime itself. Initial complacency, a desire not to offend allies and supporters, and then an effort to “solve” the problem through repression, propaganda and restriction of information have been salient characteristics. As such, the coronavirus is likely to form an additional element in the ongoing erosion of such legitimacy as the Islamic regime still possesses in the eyes of large parts of its population.
At the beginning, Tehran apparently failed to gauge the seriousness of the threat. As a result, precious time was wasted. The authorities did not cancel flights from China to Iran, after being informed about the virus in late January. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-associated Mahan Air continued to transport religious students between China and the Shia holy city of Qom.
Tehran’s relations with Beijing are of growing importance to the regime. Iran therefore preferred to downplay reports of the virus rather than risk offending its ally. The first cases of deaths from the virus were reported in Qom on February 19.
The regime then compounded this initial misstep by refusing to take measures that could have contained the virus. No efforts were made to quarantine the city of Qom. No order was given to cease pilgrimages to the city.
A hospital administrator in Tehran’s Yaftabad was quoted in a report on the virus on an Iranian opposition website as saying, “If we had limited the travel of people in Qom, since the epicenter of the illness is in Qom, the spread would not have been so extensive. You look at the map and you will see that it spread to neighboring provinces from Qom.”
Iranian parliamentary elections were scheduled for February 21. The regime’s attempt to downplay the spread of the virus appears to have been linked to a desire to ensure that the elections would proceed as smoothly as possible.
In early March, official statements by the regime continued to downplay the virus. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 3 said: “This disease is not serious; we have seen more disastrous calamities than this,” and he referred to the virus as a “fleeting event.”
Such statements were belied by the evidence emerging from the country. This included eerie satellite images apparently showing newly dug mass burial pits in the main cemetery in Qom.
By mid-March, comments by Iranian leaders had shifted from downplaying the virus to presenting it as a “biological attack” carried out by an unnamed adversary. In an official statement issued by the Supreme Leader’s Office announcing the formation of a centralized “health base” to fight the disease on March 13, Khamenei noted that the establishment of the base “may also be regarded as a biological defense exercise and add to our national sovereignty and power, given the evidence that suggests the likelihood of this being a biological attack.”
But the shift from indifference to a language of national mobilization does not appear to have been accompanied by a coherent, nationwide strategy to suppress the virus.
The Masumeh Shrine at Qom, the main pilgrimage site in the city, was finally closed on Monday. The Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, which attracts 25 million pilgrims annually, was closed on the same day. But businesses and restaurants in Tehran remain open. Many citizens dismiss advice regarding limiting social contact. The airport remains in operation. Local health authorities appear largely to be left to themselves to combat the spread and deal with existing cases as best they can.
The regime, meanwhile, now appears to be engaged in a systematic effort to prevent the revealing of information regarding the actual state of affairs in Iran. The powerful Ministry of Intelligence and Security, in cooperation with the IRGC, is carrying out this task. The IRGC has mobilized its regional divisions, which have dispatched operatives to local hospitals and medical centers to control reporting on the number of people infected with the virus or killed by it.
Nahid Khodakarami, head of the Health Commission of the Tehran City Council, said on March 1: “Yesterday, I said that in Tehran it is possible that 10,000 people have been infected with coronavirus. The IRGC intelligence unit called me and complained. They asked, Why did you provide this number? I said, Sir, how long are you going to cover this up? These numbers are being talked about in society, and my saying it calms the situation. Let’s be transparent with the people. We shouldn’t make this disease a security matter.”
The absence of accurate information in the public sphere itself further handicaps the formulation of an effective practical response. The result is a public health disaster. It is widely considered that even the very high official figures of those suffering from, and those who have died from, the coronavirus in Iran may represent only a fraction of the true figures.
Certainly the ramshackle situation of Iran’s health system and wider public infrastructure as a result of sanctions have also contributed to the disaster.
Thus, the nature of, and the policies pursued by, the Iranian regime have clearly contributed to the gravity of the health crisis in Iran today. The regime’s preference for its diplomatic relationships and its elections over the safety of its citizens, its pursuit of policies resulting in international isolation and sanctions and the consequent decline in health infrastructure, and its restriction of information have all played negative roles.
The regime has also not attempted the draconian suppression strategy carried out in China, which in the latter country has led to the slowing of the virus’s spread and the decline in new cases.
THOSE WHO have predicted that the coronavirus could lead to the fall of the regime in Iran are probably overreaching. Revolutions, with their necessary mobilization and organization, do not occur during pandemics.
But a series of events has occurred since October 2019 that has served to show the hollowness of this regime’s ideological proclamations and the dysfunctional and ramshackle reality that lies behind them.
These events include the demonstrations in Iraq and Lebanon, and the brutally suppressed protests in Iran itself in November 2019. The regime’s disastrous response to the coronavirus will undoubtedly constitute an additional significant episode in revealing the nature of this regime to its own people.
The result will be a situation in which the Islamic regime in Tehran increasingly will sustain itself through the exercise of force alone.

Palestinian Leaders Use Coronavirus to Attack Israel
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 20/2020
On March 18, Israel delivered hundreds of kits for detecting the coronavirus into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, together with equipment for medical protection. This is the same Gaza Strip from which Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have been firing thousands of rockets at Israel for the past few years, and launching party-balloons carrying hidden bombs as recently as last week. In February alone, more than 40 rockets were launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leaders, who are pursuing their efforts to prosecute Israelis for "war crimes," have been concealing from their own people and the international community the fact that Israel is assisting them in the war on the coronavirus.
For Palestinian leaders, it seems that the war on Israel is more important than the battle against a pandemic and saving the lives of their own people. Yet, these leaders and their families, if they are diagnosed with the disease, will undoubtedly be the first to rush to Israel to seek medical treatment there.
Palestinian officials continue, on a daily basis, to spread lies about Israel and Jews, even as Israel is helping them combat the coronavirus. For Palestinian leaders, it seems that the war on Israel is more important than the battle against a pandemic and saving the lives of their own people. Pictured: A Palestinian Authority policeman stands outside a hospital in Ramallah on March 12, 2020.
What is the connection between US President Donald Trump's recently unveiled plan for Middle East peace and the coronavirus?
Palestinian leaders seem to believe that there is a connection between the peace plan, also known as the Deal of the Century, and the coronavirus pandemic. According to these leaders, Israel is taking advantage of the health crisis to implement the Trump plan and build new housing units for Jews in the West Bank. They are referring to Israel's intention to build a new road between the E1 area and Jerusalem, and 3,500 apartments in Ma'aleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem.
First, the building program in the area has been on the agenda for more than 20 years. All Israeli governments since Yitzhak Rabin's second tenure as prime minister in the 1990s have supported it.
Second, the recent Israeli announcement was made in the last week of February, before the outbreak of the coronavirus in Israel and the West Bank. In fact, the announcement came on the eve of the March 3 election and was more likely a pledge from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral campaign.
On March 18, the PLO Executive Committee, whose members held a meeting in Ramallah, said that it "rejects the Israeli occupation government's exploitation of the coronavirus to pursue its policy of settlement construction and colonial expansion."
The committee, consisting of veteran PLO leaders and loyalists of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, claimed that the Israeli government and Jewish settlers were exploiting the outbreak of the virus to "destroy trees, attack houses and vehicles, and pave new roads for the use of settlers [in the West Bank] in order to implement the ominous so-called Deal of the Century."
In addition, the PLO leaders went on to condemn Israel for supposedly allowing "herds of Jewish settlers to storm the Al Aqsa Mosque" in Jerusalem. They were referring to routine, peaceful, visits by Jews to the Temple Mount. In fact, Jews do not "storm" the compound. Instead, they enter as visitors in coordination with the Israeli authorities. Moreover, contrary to the claims of the Palestinians, none of these Jews has ever set foot inside the Al Aqsa Mosque.
The Palestinian officials, however, are not prepared to be "confused by the facts." They continue, on a daily basis, to spread such lies about Israel and Jews, even as Israel is helping them combat the coronavirus. In Arabic, we call it wakkaha (audacity).
While Israeli and Palestinian medical professionals were working together to prevent the spread of the virus, the Palestinian Authority's official news agency, Wafa, came out with yet another blood libel against Israel.
According to Wafa, Israel was now releasing wolves to attack calves belonging to Palestinian farmers in the Jordan Valley. The agency claimed that three calves were killed when they were attacked by wolves "released by the Israeli occupation forces in the Jabarees area in the northern Jordan Valley." There have always been wolves in the area, but the claim that they are being released by Israel is false. There is no evidence that Israelis -- or anyone else -- have ever released wolves in the area.
Another false charge spread by Palestinian officials and media outlets claims that Israel is taking advantage of the world's preoccupation with the outbreak of the coronavirus to "impose abusive measures" against Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The Palestinian Authority's Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) published a statement on March 17, accusing "the Israeli prison administration of using the coronavirus as a pretext to continue with the imposition of abusive measures against Palestinian prisoners." The PPS called on international organizations, particularly the International Committee of the Red Cross, to "stop exploitation of the current situation for the imposition of more abusive measures against prisoners."
Mahmoud Aloul, deputy chairman of Abbas's ruling Fatah faction, also contributed to the anti-Israel campaign by repeating the claim that Israel was taking advantage of the world's preoccupation with the virus to implement the Trump peace plan.
As is obvious from the PPS statement and the false charges made by the PLO officials, it is the Palestinian leadership, not Israel, that is exploiting the coronavirus. Clearly, Palestinian leaders are leveraging the virus to continue their campaign of incitement against Israel and Jewish settlers instead of focusing their energies on preventing the spread of the disease.
The Palestinian leadership also seems to have enough time to pursue their effort to prosecute Israelis for "war crimes" at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Palestinian leaders are evidently determined to pursue their efforts to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the rest of the world.
On March 16, the Palestinian Authority submitted its "observations" to the ICC in relation to the prosecutor's request for a determination on the scope of the court's territorial jurisdiction in the PA-controlled areas. These "observations" were submitted to the ICC at the same time that Israel was busy distributing coronavirus test kits to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"In the past two weeks, hundreds of coronavirus testing kits have been delivered by Israel to the Palestinian territories and health systems in response to the outbreak of the virus in the region," said Major Yotam Shefer of the Israeli Defense Ministry.
"Israeli and Palestinian health and medical bodies are cooperating in the training of medical staff and in the sharing of knowledge and equipment. We will continue our joint efforts to prevent the spread of the disease and maintain public health throughout the region."
On March 18, Israel delivered hundreds of kits for detecting the coronavirus to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, together with equipment for medical protection. This is the same Gaza Strip from which Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have been firing thousands of rockets at Israel for the past few years, and launching party-balloons carrying hidden bombs as recently as last week. In February alone, more than 40 rockets were launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leaders, who are pursuing their efforts to prosecute Israelis for "war crimes," have been concealing from their own people and the international community the fact that Israel is assisting them in the war on the coronavirus.
Instead of telling Palestinians the truth, these leaders are continuing to incite their people against Israel. The Palestinian "observations" submitted to the ICC are silent about the Israeli aid to the Palestinians in the fight against the spread of the virus. Only on March 16, a spokesman for the Palestinian government admitted that the Palestinians and Israel have set up a joint command center to fight the virus.
Palestinian leaders have again shown that they are grandmasters at playing a double game.
On the one hand, they seek Israel's assistance in the fight against the coronavirus. On the other hand, they have upgraded their diplomatic warfare to try to delegitimize Israel in the international community. For Palestinian leaders, it seems that the war on Israel is more important than the battle against a pandemic and saving the lives of their own people. Yet, these leaders and their families, if they are diagnosed with the disease, will undoubtedly be the first to rush to Israel to seek medical treatment there.
*Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Daniel Pipes: COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories "Need to Be Refuted"
Gary C. Gambill/Middle East Forum Webinar/March 20/2020
Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes spoke to participants in the Forum's inaugural webinar (video) on March 18 about the proliferation of conspiracy theories attributing the spread of the COVID-19 virus to the United States and Israel, the subject of his Washington Times article the previous day. The author of two books on conspiracy theories, Pipes explained that they follow a pattern dating back to the Middle Ages, when "Europeans found that two alleged conspirators were behind all the world conspiracy plots that they could think of. One was a secret societies and the other was the Jews." The former included such organizations as the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati, while the latter were seen as operating under the sway of real or imagined leadership cabals.
In the modern era, these two strains of conspirators "transmuted into the United Kingdom and the United States on the secret society side and Israel on the Jewish side." Those who are "looking for some explanation for nasty events ... [such as] the JFK assassination, Princess Diana's death, 9/11, the great recession, and now COVID-19" invariably turn to these three culprits.
"We don't know exactly the origins of [COVID-19] ... but we know that it comes from Wuhan, China, and we know there was a Communist Party in China cover up, and we know that it spread from China to the rest of the world. There is no doubt about these things," said Pipes. "But conspiracy theories ... inevitably emerged and invariably focused on the three alleged conspirators, [though] the UK is a lesser factor this time around."
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao tweeted that "it might be [the] US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan."
The primary purveyors of conspiracy claims are the media and governments of China and Russia, which point the finger at the U.S., and of Turkey and Iran, which point the finger at Jews and Israel. The goal of the conspiracy is usually framed as harming these respective countries economically or demographically, or as benefiting the U.S. and Israel. Elsewhere around the globe, "antisemites come out of the woodwork" upon hearing these conspiracy theories, said Pipes, noting that actress Rosanna Arquette did so hours earlier on Twitter.
"Ideas like this are pernicious and can do a lot of damage to the effort to solve the [COVID-19] problem, to find a remedy for the problem and to maintain international security," Pipes warned. They "need to be refuted" explicitly, as their seemingly self-evident absurdity is not sufficient to stem their spread. The fact that "Israelis are at the forefront of finding a cure," for instance, is interpreted by the conspiracy-minded as confirming, not contradicting, the claim that "this was [their] plot all along." In other words, he added, "The temptation with crazy conspiracy theories is to roll one's eyes and say, 'that's ridiculous and I'm not going to dignify it with an answer,' and I'm arguing the opposite."
Iran's regime controlled media attributed the spread of coronavirus to Israeli and American "biological warfare."
Asked during the Q&A to elaborate on how this and other conspiracy theories can be refuted, Pipes replied,
Well, there's no shortcut. One has to know one's facts, one has to be prepared, one has to present one's case eloquently. There are plenty of platforms ... we've just created our own right here now. Well, everyone has a role in this. Everyone has a voice. It used to be that there were only limited number of newspapers and magazines. Now there's an infinity and everyoneshould be participating.
Asked if there could have been a "Chinese conspiracy" to release the virus, Pipes replied that it's "completely plausible" that the virus was created intentionally. "I would not put it beyond the Chinese government to be planning to use viruses, to have them in stock for warfare purposes." Whatever its precise origins, he disputed accusations that President Trump and others who call COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" are being racist:
It's not racism, it's accuracy. COVID-19 is also fine way of describing it, but we have the Spanish flu and the West Nile virus and the Ebola virus and the Lyme disease and others that have geographic indicators. What's wrong with calling it the Wuhan or Chinese virus?
Responding to a question about how the Chinese government can be held accountable for the spread of the virus, Pipes replied,
Well, it's very important that it'd be studied where this came from, that we find out eventually how it came to be. I know that this is a subject of great interest right now, but the Chinese government is doing its best to hide it. So yes, people who really understand these things need to be looking very closely at the origins of this virus. And I assume that it will come out, if not sooner than later.
*Gary C. Gambill is general editor at the Middle East Forum. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

The Coronavirus: Death of Globalization or a Rebirth?
Amir Taheri//Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Is this the end of globalization? This is the question that we were supposed to debate at a colloquium in Paris this week before we were all ordered by the government to “confine” ourselves to our dwellings at least for the next 15 days. The concept of globalization attained wide circulation when cheap goods made by cheap labor in China started to flood world markets from Tokyo to Timbuktu. Thus, if globalization is to end it is only fair that it should also come to a close with a Chinese fanfare in the form of the coronavirus.
Before globalization whatever happened in China reached the rest of the world as a distant echo. The Opium Wars, the black series of famines, the atrocities committed by various foreign occupiers, the civil war, the Korean War, the annexation of Tibet and East Turkestan, the deaths of millions of people under Mao Zedong were all perceived as exotic events in a remote fantasyland that affected the rest of the world only incidentally.
Both fascinating and frightening, China was the stuff of many dreams about Oriental wisdom and many and many phobias expressed in Kaiser Wilhelm’s “Yellow Peril” warning.
Less than three decades after the start of globalization China has been included into our day-to-day world and banalized as just another as a major economic power in search for access to resources and a growing share of markets.
At the start of globalization, the Chinese economy represented three percent of the global gross domestic product. Today, China’s share has risen to around 20 percent. Establishing itself as the world’s major manufacturing center, China has contributed to almost two decades of low inflation and economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in all continents. At the same time China has started to develop an appetite for playing big power.
So far, the model China has chosen is closer to that of Holland during its empire-building period, that is to say focusing on business and trade and steering clear of involvement in politics, local or international, in contrast with British and French colonial strategies that put political domination top of the agenda.
There are, however, signs that China may be developing a new strategy in which tighter political control at home is combined with a higher big power profile abroad. Is China going the way that the European colonial powers went after the Berlin Conference?
The best answer is that even if China did adopt such a strategy it would not be able to implement it. The European colonial powers of the Berlin Conference combined their quest for security abroad with democratization at home. In China today, we witness a different configuration. Regarding almost all its neighbors, with the possible exception of Pakistan, as unreliable if not hostile, China is, in fact, fomenting insecurity through its aggressive power projection. This aggressive option is highlighted with ambitious plans for developing a 19th century style blue-water naval power capable of challenging the United States in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
China’s feeling of insecurity abroad is combined with President Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian style at home. Chinese friends who had welcomed Xi’s rise to power as a promise of liberalization now regret what they call “our childish illusions”. To be sure, Xi’s China is certainly not as repressive as that of Chairman Mao in its heyday. Apart from the Uighurs and the Tibetans who are subjected to tighter control, most Chinese still enjoy freedoms that they could not dream of before Deng Xiaoping put the country on a different course. Even in Hong Kong which is bubbling with protests, Beijing has not yet taken its gloves off. Nevertheless, the optimism that we noted in our latest trip to the People’s Republic in 2014 now seems a distant dream.
Is the cursed coronavirus the latest result of China’s turn towards greater secrecy and tighter control? There is no doubt that the big boys in Beijing knew of the outbreak of the epidemic weeks before they officially admitted it. It is also possible that face-saving considerations and attempts at hiding things contributed to delays in taking decisions needed to prevent the epidemic from becoming a global pandemic.
As always, fear and insecurity foment petty nationalisms that regard globalization as arch-enemy. Last Sunday’s local elections in France, the first test of the public mood in a major democracy after the coronavirus, gave petty nationalist candidates a major boost against rivals cast as defenders of globalization. The closing of frontiers all over the world is inspired more by a desire to reassure the people that “virus-bearing foreigners” are kept out than by any proven scientific model for coping with a pandemic.
However, it is increasingly clear that a global pandemic cannot be dealt with local efforts alone. If anything, a greater pooling of resources is needed to rescue the more defenseless societies from total catastrophe. Global cooperation is also needed to speed up the development of a vaccine, making it available to the rich and the poor alike.
And that is not to mention the need for global cooperation to cope with the economic consequences of what may turn out to be the gravest crisis since the 1920s that pushed the world to the edge of abyss.
Far from calling for a burial of globalization as a concept we may have to work for its rebirth in a broader concept that goes beyond business, trade and economic issues to include moral, cultural and political domains as well. To be sure, this does not mean that we should all conform to a single model of existence, something that human nature, if such a thing exists, would shun under most circumstances. But a rule-based global system could also mean a measure of transparency, popular participation in decision-making, free flow of information and a systemic sharing of scientific and technological resources to deal with global emergencies. The warlike situation that the coronavirus has imposed on almost all of us, rich and poor, must remind us that we live in a single global reality in which the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in the Amazons could affect the whole world.

Europe Freezes its Economy to Fight the Coronavirus
Lionel Laurent/Bloomberg/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Like the eye of a hurricane, the epicenter of coronavirus disease Covid-19 has shifted from Asia to Europe, bringing with it a rising toll of infections, deaths and economic damage. After a messy few weeks in which the region’s leaders seemed incapable of hitting on a common response to the crisis — which has hit healthcare, consumer confidence and financial markets all at once — this weekend marked a turning point.
France and Spain announced draconian steps, similar to those seen in virus-stricken neighbor Italy, which has already gone several steps further in imposing a lock-down on citizens. Germany is planning partial border closures, and Austria has banned gatherings of more than five people. The public-health imperative explains the need to strangle the euro-area economy and robbing citizens of basic freedoms, but the very real threat of a knock-on recession means another test looms for governments: The need for fiscal stimulus to cushion the blow.
A ramp-up in cases has sparked the ramp-up in policies. France, Spain, and Italy boast some of the highest confirmed cases of Covid-19 outside China. The speed and severity of the infection is picking up: French cases have risen five-fold in just over a week, while Spanish deaths have doubled overnight. After initially holding back from coercive measures beyond shutting schools, French President Emmanuel Macron’s administration dramatically hit the accelerator on Saturday, decreeing the imminent closure of all non-essential businesses. (Though on Sunday France also, bafflingly, held a first round of local elections as planned.) Covid-19 is no longer just about highly exposed countries like China or Italy. Its epicenter is European.
Forcing people to stay at home may seem at odds with a region that has for years espoused free movement and borderless travel. But the hope is that this will slow down the spread of the disease and flatten an infection curve that might otherwise take public-health services to the breaking point. That’s sensible. Less sensible is the idea of sealing borders, which sounds great to some voters but is ultimately pretty meaningless when you consider the Schengen visa-free travel area covers 4 million square kilometers, 400 million people, and plenty of crossing points by sea, land or air. Especially considering that since the novel coronavirus landed in Europe, myriads of people have been crossing Europe’s internal borders, at least some of them bringing the infection with them. Still, overall, there is a certain logic behind what’s being done.
The question is whether Europe can also do “whatever it takes” to offset the economic consequences of effectively putting a dome around tens of millions of people. What began this year as a hit to tourism and multinational supply chains running through China is now likely to affect all industries. Italy’s lock-down measures are estimated to have hit tourism and transport activity by 90%, retail by 50%, and factory output by 10%, according to former Italian government economist Lorenzo Codogno. The European Union expects the bloc’s GDP to shrink by around 1% this year. Replacing a virus outbreak with a recession and more strains on public services looks painful.
Encouragingly, it looks like momentum behind emergency spending plans is growing. The French government is eyeing a package worth over 30 billion euros ($33.4 billion), according to Les Echos, covering partial unemployment, taxes, and state guarantees for small-business loans. That’s after Germany’s pledge to support businesses via state bank KfW, and Italy’s plan for 25 billion euros of spending. The European Commission has pledged 1 billion euros in loan guarantees via the European Investment Bank. The biggest threat to a truly effective crisis response may end up coming from across the Atlantic, rather than from Brussels: There’s not much hope that a conference call between G7 leaders scheduled for Monday will bring US President Donald Trump closer to European countries he has accused of spreading a virus he has said is under “tremendous” control in the US.
It is the virus that will have the last word, to paraphrase (badly) Louis Pasteur. If the infection curve fails to flatten as hoped over time, it’s hard to see how the promise of more money will calm homebound voters or jittery markets. For now, though, there are some chinks of optimism in the gloom. Europe is opting to freeze its economy in order to heal it, and a recession is likely — but increased commitment by governments to sink budgets deeper into the red, in order to cushion the blow, is a welcome development. Until the response becomes more global and more coordinated, though, any celebration will feel premature.

Coronavirus a Test For The World
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
Calamities are usually the issues of others and are met with some empathy or indifference. COVID-19 is a different pandemic, although it is neither the most serious nor the ugliest in history. It is frightening because of its ambiguity, rapid spreading, and terrifying news — and because it equally threatens all continents, social classes, cities, rural areas, the rich, and the poor. This will surely be over one day, but when? We don’t know. Maybe before this summer or maybe it will continue until next year’s winter or it might last forever. At the moment of truth, the world’s nations have realized how much they need each other. Despite disagreements and mutual recriminations between China and the US, despite enmity with the Iranian regime and its followers, and despite all the vengeance on this planet, this pandemic has become the enemy that is uniting the world, albeit temporarily.
This new enemy has spread everywhere from Wuhan. Maybe it started in a country before China, but its origin does not concern us as much as overcoming it and returning to “normal” life — or what we used to consider normal before early January.
As in all wars, COVID-19 has victims and sacrifices. I hope that the world learns a different lesson this time, not the expected lessons. I hope the world ends human disputes and armed conflicts and, instead, cooperates for the sake of the safety of land and humans, our shared concerns.
Let us remember that there are diseases that no one is interested in curing. Malaria never leaves the world’s poor countries and has no cure because it means nothing to medical insurance companies, and the mosquitoes that spread it do not fly overseas.
The truth is bigger than that. “There are 10,000 diseases and we only have 500 cures.” This is what US congressman Kevin McCarthy said a few years ago. Someone thought the number was exaggerated, so he researched it and found that there are precisely 9,235 diseases without cures until now. Each of these diseases might affect six out of every 10,000 people. Things seem to move slowly when it comes to cures, but recent achievements are enormous compared to what they were in all of human history. Work on the human genome, the genetic map or the “catalog” of a human and the book of his life started in 1990 and was documented a decade later at the dawn of the millennium. However, endeavors to cure diseases are still in their infancy.
I received this week my coronavirus test result. I took the test voluntarily after a long trip that made me have doubts. After two of the longest days of the year, the result arrived… and it was negative. The result of this test gives me no more than mental satisfaction, as there is no cure and testing negative does not prevent infection, nor does it relieve a person of the responsibility of self-isolation.
The test protects the community from the individual and, if the test were available to all, all infected people could be isolated and the virus could be eliminated, instead of imposing a lockdown on 5 billion people for the next few months. We wish everyone safety. May the ill recover and may this predicament soon be over.

Syria and the Pandemic… Between Denial and Conspiracy Theories
Akram Bunni/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 20 March, 2020
It is not strange that the Syrian regime dealt with the coronavirus pandemic as it deals with its other crises, especially the Syrian revolution, which celebrated its ninth anniversary a few days ago. It swung between, on the one hand, denying an irrefutable reality, blaming the things it must admit on a foreign enemy that stalks it in order to break its determination and alter its alliance with the axis of resistance. One the other hand, it abrogates itself from any responsibility and refuses to admit society’s aggravating crises, using various methods of repression, killing and terror to keep things under control and people humiliated and obedient. In other words, it is not strange for a tyrannical regime that trivialized the reasons for the Syrian revolution and denied the injustice, prejudice and deprivation that they suffered from... a regime that belittled a peaceful movement of millions of protesters and considered them to be a small insignificant minority, tools of foreign agendas… a regime that denied the existence of detainees and even the use of torture they were subjected to in its prisons, claiming that the leaked pictures of thousands of detainees by "Caesar" are fabricated photographs that are from the remnants of World War II.
A regime that never blinked. At first, it killed hundreds of young men and peaceful children with its troops’ bullets. Then it reeked violence, persecution and destruction, without a care for the suffering of the people, the shedding of blood, or the accumulating number of people it had victimized, disfigured, detained, handicapped, and displaced. It is not strange for such a regime to turn a blind eye to the increasing number of victims who are dying as a result of infection from the coronavirus, claiming that the country is completely free of this pandemic and devoting its tools of repression to shut mouths that expose the spread of the disease or even suggest its existence, as happened with the head of a hospital in Damascus, who was arrested, terrorized, and forced to change his statement confirming the presence of a coronavirus patient at the hospital, claiming that it had been a mere suspicion!
The same happens with everyone who reveals the names of Syrian victims who have died of the coronavirus on social media. The authorities track them and punish them under the pretext that they had fabricated lies to undermine the state.
The regime's efforts to hide the truth about the victims has led to their numbers increasing quickly and to a delay to the implementation of the measures needed to curtail its spread, like social distancing, and closing borders and stopping air travel.
Even these measures are mere tragic and ridiculous posturing so long as they are not accompanied by preventive measures and medical tests that would limit the spread between cities and regions, and as tens of thousands of Iranian, Pakistani, Lebanese and Afghani soldiers continue to arrive and move around freely throughout the country, for dozens of them are infected.
How then, will things progress given the limitations of the country’s medical capabilities after the regime itself destroyed the most important health institutions, keeping in mind the massive number of doctors and medical experts who have been killed or displaced? There is also the problem of the deterioration of people’s living conditions and their limited ability to meet the costs of their basic needs, not the least their medical needs.
We must point to the reasons for this regime’s hopelessness and inability to do anything useful to limit the spread of the coronavirus compared to other countries with better capabilities, and the latter are still struggling to contain the virus.
Making matters even more hopeless is the statement given by the health minister. He not only bragged that there were no cases of coronavirus in Syria, he also considered that the measures he had outlined were purely preventive, meant to protect the country from a global pandemic that “conspiring enemies are trying to bring to us”, copying his ally Iran’s accusations that the United States is responsible for spreading COVID-19. Even worse, he praises the “Syrian army” for decontaminating the country from the virus as it had decontaminated it from all kinds of germs!
The approach stems from the essence of this regime, employing its media and propaganda, with every crisis or calamity that befalls us, to associate what is happening with an organized conspiracy of hostile powers. Thus, conspiracies are behind backwardness we suffer from and the failure of development projects. The exhausting corruption, backwardness and poverty we suffer are also the result of foreign conspiracies. Those in power do not see anything wrong with using religious figures to help them evade their responsibilities further. They claim that everything happening because of the coronavirus is divine will that cannot be responded to, instead of seeking to curtail the causes of the disease and treat its symptoms.
Maybe it’s true to say that the implicit aspect of the Syrians’ revolution was to save their society from the pain that the regime's policies inflicted and continue to inflict, counting on the latter’s acceptance of the real reasons for the chronic problems and its work on limiting them, and avoiding the worst. However, the latter was determined, as usual, to continue to deny and to refuse to accept bitter truths or the primacy of fixing them, even if that meant burning the country and putting Syria and all Syrians in the furnace of a bloody civil war that spares none. The state crumbled and the nation's social fabric disintegrated and was tainted with sectarianism as a result. It allowed Syria’s fate to be tampered with by gangs of religious extremists and foreign interventions and, today, to all kinds of viruses and illnesses.
Indeed, a regime that refuses to admit its peoples’ crises and fails to solve them is a regime that disregards the responsibilities that are naturally assigned to it, protecting people’s lives, rights and needs. This is clearly illustrated with the tyrannical policies it has chosen to adopt in its confrontation of the coronavirus and what preceded it. We are faced with a regime that refuses to accept its failure and inability to govern the country and protect its people. Rather, it emphasizes its approach of exacerbating terror and suffering, deluded into thinking that its method for solving problems can allow it to stay in power forever and face any obstacle. In times of disaster, a study of the reasons and motives is usually conducted in order to set a plan that would allow for its traversal. In Syria, however, despite the tragedy and bitterness of what it has suffered and continues to suffer after years of killing, abuse and destruction, the people in power remain insistent on confronting the pandemic with reckless disregard and resort to conspiracy theories that blame the other for everything. Even worse, it is counting on violent repression to solve a problem that it is impossible for repression and violence to deal with!

Central Europe's central concern
Ranvir Nayar/Arab News/March 20/ 2020
Bulgaria, which is perhaps the poorest member of the EU, also has the dubious distinction of topping the list of nations with the fastest-shrinking populations.
The country, which has a population of 7.2 million, has lost more than a million of its people to migration since it joined the EU in 2007, as Bulgarians took advantage of free movement within the union to leave in search of better-paying jobs elsewhere. According to UN forecasts, if the trend continues the country will have barely 5 million people by 2050.
Bulgaria’s experience is replicated across Eastern and Central Europe, where the 10 countries with the fastest-shrinking populations in the world can be found. Most are affected by sharply declining fertility rates and high rates of emigration.
The countries in the region have adopted a variety of strategies in an attempt to overcome the challenges posed by declining populations, including severe shortages of workers that are seriously hurting their economies.
Hungary, where the population has fallen below 10 million, has taken a stance against migration, at least overtly. Extreme right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban has locked horns with the EU by rejecting immigration. Instead, he is trying to promote a higher birth rate in the country through measures such as tax breaks for families with more than two children and free fertility treatments.
Hungary, where the population has fallen below 10 million, has taken a stance against migration, at least overtly.
He has also called upon the large Hungarian diaspora to return home to support his efforts to maintain “Hungary’s Christian character” and boost the population through “procreation rather than immigration.”
The effectiveness of Orban’s measures remains highly dubious, as the population continues to decline by about 0.25 percent each year. At the end of last year it fell to just 9.66 million.
Poland, by far the largest country in the region with a population of more than 38 million, has been grappling with a declining population for years. Despite its size, and perhaps because of it, the challenges it faces are particularly severe.
Since joining the EU in 2004, Poland has lost a large chunk of its population to emigration, with more than 900,000 Poles moving to the UK alone. Large numbers also moved to work in other large EU economies, most notably Germany, which has outsourced a large chunk of its manufacturing activities to companies in Poland.
Poland has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of EU membership. Not only has it received hundreds of billions of euros in financial assistance to develop infrastructure and the country, it has also been the best-performing EU economy for well over a decade, growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the EU. This economic boom has led to creation of millions of jobs, but the large-scale emigration threatens to halt progress as a result of an extreme shortage of skilled workers.
Though Poland is also governed by a right-wing, nationalist party, Law and Justice (PiS), the country is considering immigration as a possible solution to the challenges it faces — and seems to have opened the floodgates all of a sudden.
Until a decade ago, only about 100,000 people living in Poland were born outside the country. By 2018, it was home to more than 2 million Ukranians who fled the civil war and deep economic recession that have plagued their country for more than a decade. Poland has also attracted immigrants from other nearby countries, including Belarus and fellow EU members Bulgaria and Romania.
The right-wing PiS found it easier to accept migrants from neighboring European nations because there are cultural similarities and the languages are also similar. However, the growing need for skilled and unskilled workers cannot be fulfilled only by European migrants. Therefore the country has been forced to look further afield.
In the past three years, it has “imported” nearly 60,000 South Asians, most notably Indians, Nepalese and Bangladeshis, who bring with them strong cultural and religious traditions that set them apart from the rest of the country and, indeed, the continent.
So far, Poland has been able to manage this migration because the numbers are relatively small. But the demand for workers in the future will be much greater and soon it will run out of available migrants from other European nations, most of whom are now able to cherry-pick the best employment options in EU nations such as Germany or France.
PiS has tried to provide incentives for Poles to have bigger families, including as much as 125 euros ($133) a month in child support for each child, and a number of tax breaks for parents with larger families.
Despite this, few Polish women are opting to halt their careers and raise families, and meanwhile the emigration of highly-skilled Poles continues unabated, fueling an ever-greater decline in the country’s population. But PiS, or any other party, does not really have the option of simply allowing millions of Indians, or immigrants from any other country, to simply walk in without fearing that it might provoke a strong backlash, especially from Poles in rural areas in particular, who feel their culture and traditions are threatened by “outsiders.” The Polish government’s options are limited to keeping migration and migrants as invisible as possible, and using smart management — and smarter communication — to reassure the native population that its culture and traditions will be protected.
That is a tough ask for any leader, however popular. Can PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski measure up to the task?
* Ranvir Nayar is the editor of Media India Group, a global platform based in Europe and India that encompasses publishing, communication and consultation services.

Refugees must not become the forgotten victims of corona crisis
Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/March 20/ 2020
The plight of refugees stranded along Turkey’s border with Greece was the top story in the international media, political circles and public discussions — until the coronavirus pandemic turned the world on its head and wrecked the lives of millions of people.
This global health crisis once again proves that when fear comes knocking on people’s doors, desperate refugees struggling to survive in the margins of society are the first to be forgotten.
No one can be blamed for prioritizing the health and safety of themselves and their families, of course, but while life will go on for most, it undoubtedly continues to get worse for refugees who have already been living with the fear of death for many years.
These are people who are now not only still at risk of losing their lives to conflict, maltreatment or bad weather conditions, they also face the added threat of the global spread of the coronavirus. As borders are closed and travel is banned between many countries, there is a growing atmosphere of fear. Refugees and internally displaced people are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus, along with many other diseases. Millions of them around the world lack access to decent health care, many live in overcrowded conditions with poor hygiene and some are trapped in areas lacking even proper shelter from the elements.
Therefore, more attention must be paid to how the pandemic is affecting refugees, and the international community needs to work collectively to reduce the risks at a time of crisis when the need for such assistance is particularly desperate.
On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed with the leaders of France, Germany and the UK the refugee crisis and the war in Idlib, which has caused another large wave of people to flee Syria. His video conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came after Ankara last month opened its border with Greece and allowed refugees to cross into Europe.
The move increased tensions with Brussels and Athens, as thousands of migrants and refugees gathered at the border. Both Turkey and Greece have deployed security forces at the border, and the Greeks have used tear gas and water cannon against the migrants. Ankara accuses the Greek forces of shooting dead four migrants, a claim Athens strongly denies.
To get a better understanding of the situation facing refugees at the border and within Turkey, I talked to Metin Corabatir, a former spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Turkey. I had the opportunity to work with him at the UN agency, and he now heads the Asylum and Migration Research Center (IGAM).
The coronavirus pandemic has dealt another severe blow to refugees who are simply seeking a safe haven.
He said that border crossings are limited and under control, with an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 refugees and migrants in a buffer zone between Turkey and Greece. While the majority of refugees returned to Turkey as a result of mistreatment by the Greeks, he added, those who remain at the border are likely to stay there and await for the outcome of the next meeting between Turkey and EU leaders, according to the International Organization for Migration. This next summit is scheduled for March 26 and the refugees are hoping a new migrant deal will be agreed with Brussels.
In 2016, Turkey and the EU signed an agreement designed to limit the flow of Syrian refugees into Europe. The EU pledged a substantial aid package, while Ankara agreed to prevent refugees crossing into Europe from Turkey. The deal succeeded in significantly reducing the influx of migrants. However, as Turkey’s refugee burden has continued to increase, in the face of a serious lack of European support, Ankara has called for the deal to be renegotiated.
Meanwhile, the already substantial health risks refugees face continue to grow as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Corabatir said that Turkey has opened a field hospital at the border to monitor the health of refugees. The Turkish Red Crescent and some non-governmental organizations also have established clinics, where regular testing is taking place, he added, and there have been no reported coronavirus cases so far.
However, most refugees have already experienced considerably more trauma than the average person, and many have chronic health conditions as a result. Given that the effects of the coronavirus are potentially much more serious for the elderly and those with existing health problems, the results could be extremely grim if prompt measures are not taken to prevent the risk of the virus spreading to crowded communities of particularly vulnerable people.
Doctors Without Borders has called for the immediate evacuation of squalid camps for asylum-seekers on the Greek islands, over fears of the potential effects of a coronavirus outbreak. This week, a Greek citizen was the first person to test positive for the coronavirus on the island of Lesbos, where a refugee camp designed to hold fewer than 3,000 people is hosting 19,000.
Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration and UNHCR announced on Tuesday that they are temporarily suspending resettlement travel for refugees.
Corabatir also pointed out that the risk of cross-border contagion is increased by Iranian and Afghan refugees crossing the Turkish border illegally. Syrian refugees within Turkey, however, have the same access to health services as Turkish citizens, he added.
In short, the coronavirus pandemic has dealt another severe blow to refugees who are simply seeking a safe haven. While governments are implementing severe precautionary measures to protect their own citizens during the pandemic, they must not forget or discriminate against vulnerable refugees on the margins of their societies.
*Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkey’s relations with the Middle East. Twitter: @SinemCngz

Coronavirus could offer EU chance for much-needed reform
Dr. John C. Hulsman/Arab News/March 20, 2020
Given the panic enveloping the globe, let us logically think through the political risk ramifications of the coronavirus. The basic, Platonic question that first needs decisively answering is this: Is the coronavirus the political risk event of the 21st century so far, or is it just one of a series of lesser crises out there?
I think that answer must now be clear to even the dimmest of analysts. The global health crisis the coronavirus represents — along with its huge economic, geopolitical, and political ramifications — towers above any other single-issue event that has happened over the past 20 years, both in its obvious global scope, as well as the shock that closing huge components of the world’s economy represents. This is the equivalent of our generation’s global war. It is the big one.
Second, as was true with the last great global pandemic, the Spanish flu of 1918-1920, the coronavirus is likely to serve as an accelerant of trends that are already present. In the case of the present pandemic, the coronavirus amounts to the next chapter in the already established worldwide shift toward the delinkage of globalization itself. While free trade will (and must) continue, it will not be as “free” as before; more and more trade will be regional in orientation, as global supply chains dissolve in the face of tariffs and health panics. This will have the profoundest implications for the world.
Third, this once-in-a-generation political risk event upends the basic global geopolitical narrative. Think of the great powers (the US, China, and the EU) as players at the poker table. The game has a clearly defined set of rules and patterns and who is winning (China, above all, recently) and who is losing (the EU, relatively) has not radically changed for quite a while. The coronavirus upends the game, thrusting all the cards high into the air. In a basic sense, the player who picks up his cards — in the immediate aftermath of the global pandemic — and plays them best can fundamentally alter the trajectory of the game itself.
All the powers have basic strengths and weaknesses made clear by the crisis. China, where the virus originated and initially by far the hardest-hit power, is coming out of the crisis ahead of the rest; in fact, the West itself — and especially the US — has not begun to see the worst of things.
This once-in-a-generation political risk event upends the basic global geopolitical narrative.
China comes out of things in better shape than most, having taken the hit and — using state control to marshal its disciplined public — managed to best this first wave of the pandemic. While 30 percent of Chinese businesses are still not open, and many others have been underutilized for much of a quarter now, Beijing can at least look forward to being able to get back to normal while the others struggle with the darkness of the plague. On the other hand, in the longer term, a delinkage of globalization hurts China — by far the world’s greatest exporting power — more than anyone else.
The US, while possessing both the most advanced and most dynamic economy in the world, also has a terrible political leadership that has been dreadfully slow to react. Also, the country’s rickety health care system has resulted in there being scandalously little overall testing for the virus — an avoidable lapse that will lead to more deaths than are necessary. The virus has yet to really strike America. When it does, these glaring deficiencies will be horribly clear to all. Following the pandemic, the US could well lose further geopolitical market share to the others.
Finally, there is the EU. As we have predicted over and over in this column, the continent-wide governance of Europe is not fit for purpose in our new era. The EU is an edifice made for sunshine, not for rain. The minute there is a real crisis, all talk of “solidarity” goes out the window, as the Germans hoard surgical masks from desperately pressed Italians. Nor have there been sufficient EU-wide monetary policies put in place to brace the virus-infested French, Spanish, and Italians.
But crises can also amount to opportunities. The frugal Germans — belatedly, under the perpetually sleepy Angela Merkel, at last aware of the danger to themselves — have remarkably pledged to open the spending spigots to the tune of €500 billion ($537 billion) to combat the virus. Berlin has pledged to do whatever it takes to safeguard its economy; it can now hardly fault other European countries from doing the same. This removes a great obstacle to EU-wide reform, if the great European powers could only compromise.
A Germany that grudgingly allows more continent-wide spending (at today’s subterranean interest rates); a France that settles for less than an EU super-state but does manage to move Europe toward at least confederation; and an Italy that gets to spend more but only on specifically targeted areas to stimulate future structural growth, is at last possible. It will take vision to achieve Europe’s dramatic turnaround, but at least — following the carnage of the coronavirus — the pieces to do so are on the table.
*Dr. John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via www.chartwellspeakers.com.

Global collaboration key to flattening the curve
Michael Hage/Arab News/March 20/ 2020
Serious measures to counter the threat of COVID-19 have been taken, including the declaration of a national emergency in the US, restricting travel internationally, and instituting social distancing domestically. National health authorities have given the green light to fast-tracking the development of test kits, a vaccine and of retroviral medication that is effective against COVID-19.
The public-private partnerships that have been struck, as well as federal and local collaboration, are reassuring. The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to near zero and the federal government is mobilizing $1 trillion to shore up major industries, small businesses and to fund tax breaks to individuals. The military is shoring up floating hospitals off major coastal cities in New York and California, where higher rates of confirmed cases already exist. These are all great steps.
Producing sufficient hospital-grade respirators and protective gear for medical personnel to meet the predicted demand remains a challenge. Enacting war-time measures to dedicate manufacturing sites for the production of the equipment needed to fight this war against COVID-19 cannot come too soon.
While the US administration and the private sector are soldering on, citizen awareness and responsibility is equally important if we are to curb the spread of this highly contagious virus. Self-discipline is required of all, and adhering to advisories and directives by local or national health authorities is a must.
It is imperative to bridge communication gaps, drop stiff language from all quarters and harness the relevant knowledge of all that may have acquired it, irrespective of which country they live in.
A week ago, COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic and every country on the planet found itself obliged to marshal its resources and begin taking herculean measures to raise its preparedness level to face the ominous threat created by COVID-19. Some countries that were hit earlier by the coronavirus have been striving to mitigate the storm for much longer.
Achieving the goal of “flattening the curve” — the product of limiting and delaying the spread of COVID-19 with a view to allowing existing medical facilities and personnel to attend to those infected with the virus and to buy much-needed time to develop the long-awaited vaccine and drugs — remains a daunting task. Despite the relaxed regulations and the abundance of funds now being made available to specialized medical labs and research facilities in the US, the shortest way to ensure that the curve is flattened might be through stronger collaboration between these entities and their counterparts in other countries. The latter’s medical professionals have been — some for several months — tackling this virus and they may possess useful information on patient reactions and other critical data from experiments they have attempted in developing a vaccine and other medications to treat COVID-19 cases.
Now is not the time to reinvent the wheel. If time is of the essence, and it is, then it is imperative to bridge communication gaps, drop stiff language from all quarters and harness the relevant knowledge of all that may have acquired it, irrespective of which country they live in, to contribute to the effort of quickly developing a vaccine and retroviral medication to rid humanity of this pandemic.
As we have been rudely reminded by the eruption of COVID-19, no nation is an island.
*Michael Hage is President and CEO of American Innovation for International Development, Inc.

Arab leaders were already incompetent, then came coronavirus
Rami G. Khouri/The New Arab/March 20/ 2020
The coronavirus pandemic, oil price plunge, popular revolutions, shrinking economies, climate change, and active wars across the Arab region are a veritable festival of tsunamis that will significantly worsen the lives of millions of citizens and further weaken some states.
These new threats hit an Arab population already ravaged by very high poverty and vulnerability rates of 70 percent or more, alongside declining essential social services in most countries.
Incompetent or uncaring Arab governments that cannot meet and protect citizens' basic rights now grapple unsuccessfully with simultaneous crises of governance, economy, environment, health, warfare, citizenship, and even state integrity. It's unlikely they can respond effectively to the new menaces that are upon us, and we should anticipate larger-scale human suffering and displacement in the years ahead.
A 2017 United Nations-led report on multidimensional poverty revealed that 66.6 percent of surveyed Arab populations in 12 countries were poor or vulnerable, with many unable easily to access basic services like healthcare, electricity, and clean water, let alone jobs.
The ongoing crises are increasing this figure, to somewhere around 70-75 percent of Arabs. International officials report privately that at least 55 million Arabs need humanitarian aid, including many of the 27 million forcibly displaced by conflict.
Such studies also confirm that poor families will remain poor for several generations, due to insufficient new jobs or government interventions that can pull them out of poverty. This hopeless future is one reason why tens of millions of Arabs have demonstrated in the streets for the past year in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon, to oust their ruling elites and establish more effective and accountable governments.
66.6 percent of surveyed Arab populations in 12 countries were poor or vulnerable
Only a few wealthy Arab states can launch emergency programmes to revive economies or protect the most vulnerable. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) this week estimated that the pandemic will reduce Arab gross domestic product (GDP) by at least $42 billion in 2020. Arab companies' market capitalisation decreased by $420 billion in January-March, and more than 1.7 million jobs could be lost by December.
Every economic sector that could mitigate Arab pauperisation will remain depressed, perhaps for years. Tourism, trade, energy exports, manufacturing, remittances, official aid, foreign direct investments, and others are declining, and the dominant non-energy services sector may shrink by 50 percent. The poor and vulnerable will be hardest hit.
If the World Bank, IMF or other global institutions assist, their stringent economic adjustment policies will exacerbate poverty and vulnerability, as their legacy indicates. Another UN report last year that analysed the impact of such macroeconomic reform policies in Tunisia and Egypt concluded that while they assisted some families, they increased poverty rates and inequality in many regions, promoted greater crony capitalism, and often have "severe microeconomic and social impacts."
A new report by the respected Cairo-based NGO the Economic Research Forum and ESCWA, entitled Rethinking Inequality in Arab Countries, concludes that while Arab citizens' access to education and healthcare have improved over the years, quality in both cases has stagnated or regressed.
The report and an associated paper by Khalid Abu-Ismail, Paul Makdissi, and Oussama Safa note several big threats: Poorer countries bear a double burden of higher inequalities and deprivation; persistent and sometimes widening structural inequalities in some countries (for example, among rich and poor households); rising inequalities of income and wealth; and, national income increases that are not systematically transmitted to higher household income.
Surveyed households in Egypt "witnessed growth of less than 20 percent in their real income over a period of 25 years, while the economy as a whole grew by more than 70 percent," it said.
Also in Egypt, between 2005 and 2018 the middle class dropped from 51.5 percent to 34 percent of the population, while the poor and vulnerable group increased from 40.5 percent to 60 percent. The World Inequality Database estimates that 64 percent of pre-tax national income in the region is captured by the top 10 percent of earners, making the Arab region the most income-unequal in the world.
The poor and vulnerable majority dominates low-wage informal labour
shows low productivity and labour force participation rates, and suffers weak social protections, with only 31.4 percent of Arab workers covered by social security systems.
Also vulnerable are the war-ravaged health facilities in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Gaza, and Libya that are unable to handle the pandemic that is just starting to hit them.
Poor governance, economic mismanagement, and widespread war damage mean that the Arab rentier state in its present form, the report concludes, is "ill-equipped for addressing these multiple challenges" of declining income, growing poverty and inequality, high deficits, and weak social sectors. States that respond with more autocracy and security controls, it says, would repeat the same responses that ignited the uprisings since 2010.
Respected Lebanese professor at SOAS, University of London, Gilbert Achcar, in a new journal article On the 'Arab Inequality Puzzle': The Case of Egypt, sees Egypt as a striking example of Arab states that pursued flawed IMF-mandated economic policies and consequently now suffer extensive poverty and inequality:
"As was to be expected," he says, the economic adjustment policies "led to further and brutal decline in the standard of living of most Egyptians and a sharp increase in poverty…
"Between 1999/2000 and 2017/2018, the proportion of Egyptians living under the national lower poverty line almost doubled from 16.7 to 32.5 percent... These are the most striking results of an economic liberalisation that has mostly profited cronyism and corruption, hence provoking a steep rise in social inequality with the tip of the social pyramid getting ever richer while the lower tiers are increasingly unable to satisfy their basic needs."
Arab and international scholars who gathered in Beirut recently identified other reasons for the poor and vulnerable state of Arab populations. These included the rollback of the state in spending on social sectors alongside the increased privatisation of investment; the rentier state and its crony capitalists who tend to monopolise economic, education, and other opportunities for themselves and their friends; low productivity economies that rely heavily on energy exports; and, the inability of the state and private sectors to generate enough quality jobs to hire the millions of school graduates.
Most of these problems reflect weak political and economic management by governments, which will be further exposed now as the multiple new crises roll over the region.
The nonstop uprisings and revolutions since 2010 would suggest that turbulent days are ahead, as the existing Arab governance systems must deal with an unprecedented combination of challenges that are far bigger than the other routine national development tests that they have mostly failed already.
*Rami G. Khouri is senior public policy fellow, adjunct professor of journalism, and Journalist-in-Residence at the American University of Beirut, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative.

Question: "What does the Bible mean when it tells us to fear not / do not fear?"
GotQuestions.org?
Answer: The Bible’s commands to “fear not” are plentiful and occur in a variety of contexts. As God’s people, we are not to be fearful. We have no reason to live in fear.
The Bible often says things like, “Do not fear,” “Do not be afraid,” and “Fear not.” Of course, these commands do not contradict the command to “fear God” (1 Peter 2:17). The fear of God keeps us from sin; the fear of man leads to sin, and that is what we are to avoid: “The fear of man brings a snare” (Proverbs 29:25, NKJV). Also, the biblical command do not fear does not negate the need for prudence and caution in this world. We are not to be cavalier but prayerful in the face of danger.
The fear that the Bible tells us to avoid is concern mixed with anxiety or dread; it is the feeling of alarm we have when we expect trouble or danger. Followers of Christ are not to live in a state of anxiety. We have higher expectations than simply anticipating trouble. In fact, we have the means to rise above fear: “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7, ESV).
God’s command to “fear not” is applied in several ways in the Bible. For example, the fear of what other people think should never prevent us from obeying the Lord (see 1 Samuel 15:24; John 9:22). We should not fear lacking provision in this world (Luke 12:6–7). We are not to fear the plans of the wicked, even when they rise to power (Psalm 37:1–2, 9–17, 35–38).
When the Bible tells us, “Do not fear,” it means we are not to allow anxiety or fretfulness to rule our lives or take root in our hearts. We are not to be people of panic. We are to be people of faith.
Having been justified by God, we need not fear divine condemnation (Romans 8:1). Having been chosen by God, we need not fear His rejection (Ephesians 1:4–6; Luke 12:32; Jude 1:24). With Christ as our Shepherd, we need not fear the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4). With the Maker of heaven and earth watching over us, we need not fear anything (Psalm 121).
Psalm 91 speaks of the one who “dwells in the shelter of the Most High” and who says of God, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust” (verses 1–2). Those who trust in God can live fearlessly: “You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (verses 5–7). There is a direct correlation between faith and the confidence to face the dangers of life: “If you say, ‘The Lord is my refuge,’ and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent” (verses 9–10). We rest in God’s promise: “‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble’” (verses 14–15).
Matthew’s account of the resurrection of Christ presents two very different results of that miracle. When the angel descended to the tomb and rolled the stone away, “the guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint” (Matthew 28:4, NLT). The angel let them lie there. But later, the angel spoke to the women who visited the tomb: “Don’t be afraid! . . . I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead” (verses 5–6, NLT). With one group, God takes away their fear; with the other group, He allows fear to overwhelm them. The difference was one of belief versus unbelief.