English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 13/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made
Mark 02/18-22: “John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 12-13/2020

Lebanon Virus Infections Pass 100,000 Mark
Report: Lebanon Expects New Sanctions before Trump Leaves White House
Report: Vital Aid Conference for Lebanon 'Hinges' on Govt Formation
President Aoun Meets French Envoy
Berri Tells French Envoy Only Govt. of Specialists Can Save Lebanon
Durel Meets Hariri, Says Support Conference Hinges on New Govt.
Raad Says French Envoy Urged Cooperation with Hariri
1 Dead, 3 Hurt in New 'Welding' Explosion in Lebanon
Lebanon’s central bank is not ‘above all control’, says caretaker justice minister/Sunniva Rose/The National/November 12/2020
Bahaa Hariri drawn again to the limelight, takes aim at brother/The Arab Weekly/November 12/2020
US stances on Lebanon to hinge on Biden’s Iran policies/Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/November 12/2020
Hezbollah presence in south Syria much larger than previously revealed/Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/November 11/2020
In Lebanon, Gebran Bassil’s day of reckoning has come as sanctions hit/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/November 12/2020
A Biden policy on Lebanon must reflect its sovereignty, unique role in region/Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/November 12/2020
In blast-hit Beirut, ‘invisible’ elderly women face destitution/Reuters/November 12/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 12-13/2020

Covid-19 Vaccine 'Best Science News' of 2020
Pope Congratulates Joe Biden in Phone Call
Pressure campaign of sanctions on Iran will go on under Biden: US official
US policies in the Middle East: An in-depth analysis of Biden’s plans
Saudi Crown Prince Vows 'Iron Fist' against Extremists after Attack
Saudi Arabia tells Europe: The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to Islam
Saudi King Urges 'Firm Stance' against Iran
Shots Fired at Saudi Embassy in Netherlands, No One Hurt
Russia plans to build a naval base in Sudan to resupply its fleet
Libyans to Debate Powers of Transitional Government
Libyans reach agreement on presidential, parliamentary elections
Japanese Automaker Nissan Posts Loss amid Pandemic, Scandal

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 12-13/2020

China Squashes a Giant Ant and Nukes Its Financial System/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/November 12, 2020
The death threat to free speech in France/Islamists are using violence to command silence/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/November 12, 2020
Biden's engagement with Iran will undermine the Abraham Accords/Con Coughlin/The National/November 12, 2020
Why the Iranian regime is breathing a sigh of relief/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/November 12/2020
Iran and Turkey ‘losers’ in emerging new Middle East order, say analysts/Caline Malek/Arab News/November 13/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 12-13/2020

Lebanon Virus Infections Pass 100,000 Mark
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Lebanon's coronavirus infections crossed the 100,000 mark on Thursday, as the country prepared to enter a new two-week lockdown in a country where hospital capacity has been saturated. The health ministry said the number of people who have tested positive with Covid-19 had reached 100,703, including 775 deaths. Lebanon, with a population of around six million, is recording some 11,000 coronavirus infections on average each week, the ministry added in a statement Thursday. In a bid to stem the pandemic that has taken its toll on an already fragile and battered health sector, the government has announced that a fresh two-week nationwide lockdown would start from dawn on Saturday. "We've reached a stage of critical danger, as private and public hospitals don't have the capacity to receive severe cases," caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab said in a televised address on Tuesday. He said the new lockdown, with limited exemptions, would last until November 30. The interior ministry on Thursday said that during the lockdown a nighttime curfew would be imposed every day except Sundays, when all movement will be totally banned. The number of coronavirus cases have surged in Lebanon following the monstrous blast at Beirut's airport which killed more than 200 people, wounded at least 6,500 and devastated swathes of the capital. Diab said the blast had led Lebanon to "lose control" over its Covid-19 outbreak, as hospitals were overwhelmed. The World Health Organization said at the end of October that 88 percent of Lebanon's 306 intensive care beds were occupied. A first country-wide lockdown was imposed in March, but restrictions were gradually lifted, specially as summer beckoned people outdoors.

Report: Lebanon Expects New Sanctions before Trump Leaves White House
Naharnet/November 12/2020
A new batch of U.S. sanctions on Lebanon is reportedly expected to hit the country before the official end of term of President Donald Trump in January, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper reported on Thursday. According to information obtained by the daily, it said the United States will impose “strict” sanctions on Lebanon before Trump leaves the White House. According to the 20th Amendment, after losing the presidential election, Trump’s term would end at noon on Jan. 20, 2021. Al-Anbaa said the proposed sanctions are likely political, not economic, and include a joint US-French position on the current Lebanese authority. It said the above “was reported to Lebanese officials in Beirut through text messages that arrived from Paris.”In a recent set of sanctions, the US Treasury announced sanctions against Lebanon's former energy and foreign affairs minister Jebran Bassil, accusing him of corruption involving billions of dollars that has left the economy in a shambles. Bassil, however, has repeatedly denied the accusations against him, insisting that his party is at the forefront of efforts to root out corruption from Lebanon. The latest sanctions came as the United States, as well as former colonial power France, press for a new government in Lebanon to push urgent reforms.

Report: Vital Aid Conference for Lebanon 'Hinges' on Govt Formation
Naharnet/November 12/2020
In order to benefit from a French-planned humanitarian aid conference for Lebanon, the crisis-hit country better line up its government before the end of November, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported Thursday. A Lebanese official told the daily that the French envoy, Patrick Durrell, who arrived in Beirut Wednesday, is visiting the country in an attempt to urge Lebanon’s political leaders to form a government within a period of two weeks at the most and not later than the end of this month. France has declared that it will organize a conference on humanitarian aid for Lebanon during the month of November. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity drew attention to the fact that the conference was scheduled to take place last October, but Paris, given the lack of a government in Lebanon, has postponed it until November. He said Paris could push the conference farther shall a government stalemate persist. “Durrell’s visit to Beirut affirms that the French initiative towards Lebanon still tops its priorities. Moreover, it reflects France’s desire that a government be formed in Lebanon,” he said. The official noted that Lebanese officials and political parties are therefore urged to facilitate the efforts of PM-designate Saad Hariri to form a cabinet in order to benefit from a much-needed aid conference.

President Aoun Meets French Envoy
Naharnet/November 12/2020
President Michel Aoun held a meeting at Baabda Palace on Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron's advisor for North Africa and the Middle East, Patrick Durel, the Presidency said in a tweet. The talks were held in the presence of French Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, and focused on the bilateral relations between the two countries, on the French initiative towards Lebanon and the formation of a cabinet, it said. French President Emmanuel “Macron is a great friend of Lebanon. We adhere to the French initiative for the benefit of the country,” Aoun told Durel. Durel for his part said Lebanon should expedite efforts to form a new government welcomed by Lebanon’s conflicting political parties. “To expedite the formation of an efficient government acceptable to all parties,” said Durel. Local media reports said Durel's two-day visit aims to revive the French initiative towards Lebanon in light of the stalemate to form a government. Macron, who visited Lebanon two days after the colossal August 4 explosion in Beirut, launched an initiative aimed at forming a mission government, capable of implementing reforms. However, despite agreeing on Macron's plan during a meeting at the Pine Residence in Beirut, leaders of Lebanon's political parties have failed so far to ease PM-designate Saad Hariri's mission to form a cabinet.

Berri Tells French Envoy Only Govt. of Specialists Can Save Lebanon
Naharnet/November 12/2020
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday told a French presidential envoy that only a “government of specialists” can rescue Lebanon from its multiple crises. Describing the meeting with Patrick Durel as “good,” Berri thanked French President Emmanuel Macron for being keen on Lebanon.
Berri also stressed his commitment to the French initiative and “the need to implement reforms, especially as to the electricity sector and combating corruption.”“The only gateway and exit for Lebanon’s salvation is the instant formation of a government, whose ministers would be specialists who would gain the confidence that parliament is eagerly waiting in order to take Lebanon to the shore of safety,” the Speaker added.

Durel Meets Hariri, Says Support Conference Hinges on New Govt.
Naharnet/November 12/2020
French presidential envoy Patrick Durel held talks Thursday with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri at the Center House. A statement issued by Hariri’s press office said the meeting focused on the overall situation in Lebanon, the French initiative, and the issue of the formation of the new government. TV networks meanwhile reported that Durel told Hariri that an international support conference for Lebanon that is supposed to be held in Paris depends on the formation of a new Lebanese government.Durel also stressed the need for the speedy formation of “a government of nonpartisan specialists to implement the reforms needed to halt the collapse and reconstruct Beirut,” the TV networks added.

Raad Says French Envoy Urged Cooperation with Hariri
Naharnet/November 12/2020
French presidential envoy Patrick Durel held talks Thursday in Haret Hreik with the head of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad. “Durel came on an exploratory mission linked to the issue of government’s formation and to emphasize on the French initiative,” Raad told reporters after the meeting. “He stressed the need that the new government commit to the implementation of the initiative’s clauses and the reform paper that was agreed on at the Pine Residence,” Raad added. He noted that the French visitor “hoped for cooperation with the PM-designate to resolve the obstacles” hindering the formation of the new government, albeit without “mentioning the type of the obstacles.” Asked about possible European sanctions on “those obstructing the government’s formation,” Raad said: “I’m surprised by these remarks, which have not been mentioned, and those obstructing the government’s formation cannot be pinpointed.”He added: “We have a responsibility to speed up the government’s formation because the country cannot withstand further deterioration and the economic situation is very dire.”

1 Dead, 3 Hurt in New 'Welding' Explosion in Lebanon
Naharnet/November 12/2020
One person was killed and three others were injured in an explosion Thursday near a mango fermentation workshop in the Bekaa town of Taanayel. Al-Jadeed TV said the blast went off as Syrian workers were carrying out welding works near the workshop.
LBCI television said the explosion occurred inside “a workshop for storing and cooling fruits” as the workers were “welding a room for storing fruits prior to refrigeration.”The TV network said a flammable material was likely present at the site, adding that a Syrian worker was killed and others were wounded. Welding works have been blamed for several fires and explosions in Lebanon in recent months, the last of which was on Sunday.
 

Lebanon’s central bank is not ‘above all control’, says caretaker justice minister
Sunniva Rose/The National/November 12/2020
Lebanon’s central bank is not “above all supervision and all control” warned caretaker justice minister Marie-Claude Najm on Thursday after weeks of a power struggle between the bank and the country’s caretaker government. The government wants to push ahead with a crucial audit to uncover the reasons for the country’s financial collapse, but the central bank argues that it would violate Lebanon's 1956 banking secrecy law should it fully cooperate with the audit. “To argue that information cannot be delivered because of banking secrecy laws means that the state does not have the possibility to know the figures of its own central bank,” Mrs Najm told The National by phone. On August 31, Lebanon’s Finance Ministry commissioned three international consultancy firms to audit the Banque du Liban (BDL), nearly one year after banks implemented stringent capital controls and suspended transactions abroad.
But BDL only transferred 42 per cent of the documents requested by Alvarez & Marsal, the firm contracted to carry out the forensic audit, rendering its work impossible. On November 5, the government, which argues that it's accounts at the BDL are not subject to banking secrecy, gave the BDL a 3 month-extension to hand over the documents. The grace period is a “little long,” said Mrs Najm, but not unheard of in the case of forensic audits. The audit of the central bank was one of the key reforms demanded by France, which has led an international effort to help salvage Lebanon’s economy, in exchange for a financial aid package. All political parties say they support France’s demands for reforms but have yet to implement them. The International Monetary Fund estimated the BDL’s accumulated losses at $49 billion, the Financial Times reported in June this year. The central bank argues that its losses are lower but does not publish profits and loss accounts. One solution to the forensic audit dispute would be for Parliament to amend Lebanon's banking secrecy law. “All political blocks say that they are with France’s initiative,” said Mrs Najm, a lawyer by training and former professor of law at Université Saint Joseph in Beirut. “If MPs believe that the law should be changed to exclude banking secrecy from the forensic audit, all they must do is change it. But I persist in saying that this is beside the point.”Alvarez & Marsal representatives told Lebanese officials during a meeting attended by Mrs Najm that they managed to conduct forensic audits of private Lebanese companies in the past, despite banking secrecy laws, by keeping the names of bank account holders anonymous.
“The ball is in [the BDL’s] court,” said Mrs Najm.
There is little hope of an improvement in Lebanon’s finances via international aid without an audit of the BDL. The economic crisis, which began in the summer of 2019 with a shortage of US dollars and has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, has pushed over half the Lebanese into poverty. The IMF projects that the economy will contract by 25 per cent in 2020. In addition to its financial woes, Lebanon’s capital Beirut was devastated by the explosion of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate on August 4, killing 204 people. Over three months later, the investigation has yet to pinpoint responsibilities in what is widely viewed as an accident caused by state negligence. Mrs Najm said that investigative judge Fadi Sawan had told her that one of the reasons for the delay is that Lebanon is waiting for technical reports from France, which is co-operating in the investigation. The French embassy in Beirut said it could not comment an ongoing investigation. Mrs Najm declined to give a deadline for the investigation. “Political authorities cannot ask the judiciary to work within a specific amount of time. What we can say is that we want it to go as fast as possible,” she said.

Bahaa Hariri drawn again to the limelight, takes aim at brother
The Arab Weekly/November 12/2020
Saad Hariri’s older brother said, “To me it is clear that anyone who forms a government which is under the control of Hezbollah is not doing the right thing.”

BEIRUT--Lebanese businessman and brother of the leader of the Future Movement Bahaa Hariri has returned to the spotlight again, appearing more frequently in the media and increasing his social media presence. According to analysts, Bahaa is showing that has not given up on his ambition to play an active role in Lebanese politics and that he is not shying away from competing with his brother for leadership of the country’s Sunni community. In his latest media appearance, Bahaa Hariri spoke with Israeli writer Barak Rafid, a contributing correspondent for the US website Axios based in Tel-Aviv.
During the interview, he sent direct messages to his brother Saad, who is struggling to form a new Lebanese government after months of deadlock. Lebanese political analysts say that Saad’s older brother Bahaa, who spent many years away from politics while focusing on his investments and accumulating wealth, now wants his share of the Lebanese political cake, and has launched a campaign run by his adviser Jerry Maher aimed at presenting his credentials abroad after he found it difficult to market himself at home. Bahaa Hariri first appeared on the political scene more than two years ago during Lebanon’s parliamentary election season, controversially endorsing the electoral list of former Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi. He later withdrew from the scene, only to return again after the Beirut port blast on August 4, trying to exploit the anger of the street against Lebanon’s political elite. Bahaa Hariri’s attempts did not draw much attention at home, especially within the Sunni community, which still largely rallies around Saad Hariri despite the public’s disapproval of some of his policies, particularly his multiple concessions to the Shia Hezbollah movement. Analysts say Bahaa Hariri wants revenge, as he feels more entitled to succeeding his late father Rafik Hariri than his brother Saad. Bahaa says his ambitions are driven by his desire to preserve his late father’s legacy and help bring Lebanon back from the “abyss.”He told Axios that the could not sit on the sidelines and do nothing as the situation in Lebanon grows “very critical for the country and its people.”
“We have reached the abyss, and what happened in Beirut forces me more to do everything in my power to help,” Bahaa Hariri added.
Bahaa did not refrain from taking aim at his brother, the leader of the Future Movement, even if diplomatically. He expressed deep concern that his younger brother would in the coming weeks form a government that is “controlled by Hezbollah,” which should be considered a “terrorist organisation.”
“At the time of Rafik Hariri, Hezbollah was not in the government. Until his death there was no Hezbollah in any government with Rafik Hariri — so I think forming a government with Hezbollah is… a big mistake,” he said. “Hezbollah have caused a lot of damage to Lebanon internally and externally. They managed in 15 years to break Lebanon. Hezbollah and their cronies manage to bring down an empire,” he said, referring to Lebanon. “Their failure is huge.” Bahaa stressed that “Hezbollah and the warlords and all those who support them reached a point of failure that is of no return and they have to step aside and let people who have clean history” take over. Bahaa Hariri said a government that included members of Hezbollah would not receive support from Gulf states or the broader international community, and therefore would not be able to bring Lebanon out of its economic and political crisis.
When asked if he was disappointed with his brother, he said, ““I love my brother and I care about him, but the political differences between us are stark and very big. To me it is clear that anyone who forms a government which is under the control of Hezbollah is not doing the right thing.”
Lebanese President Michel Aoun assigned Saad Hariri to form a new government after former Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib failed to complete the process. The Future Movement leader is struggling to fulfill his mission, however, especially in light of Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement’s prohibitive conditions.

US stances on Lebanon to hinge on Biden’s Iran policies
Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/November 12/2020
“Going back to the Obama era is impossible because of the drastic change in the balance of powers in the region,” Nader said Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.
BEIRUT--The US presidential vote was followed anxiously in parts of the Arab region including Lebanon where the election of Democratic candidate Joe Biden over Donald Trump’s hawkish administration stirred speculation that a softer US policy approach to Iran might benefit Hezbollah, Tehran’s powerful proxy. Analysts agree that Lebanon will be indirectly impacted by any change in US policy in the Middle East under Biden who had served as vice-president for Barack Obama, but they largely discard a dramatic overhaul of that policy.
During Obama’s administration, a nuclear deal with Iran or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was sealed and Washington reduced its engagement and commitment in the region. It turned instead to Asia, which allowed Iran, Turkey and Russia to fill the vacuum
After pulling out from the nuclear deal, the Trump administration initiated a maximum pressure campaign against Iran and its regional proxies imposing sanctions that left them reeling under economic hardship. But it will be more difficult for a Biden administration to roll back sanctions and return to the nuclear deal, according to political analyst Amin Kammourieh.
“Undoing the Trump years will not be easy. Trump has done a lot of damage and it will take time to clean up after him and put the wheel back on track,” Kammourieh said. “Moreover, Biden will face a series of more pressing priorities at home and abroad such as conquering the Covid-19 pandemic, rehabilitating transatlantic relations with Europe, reintegrating the climate agreement and mending relations with China etcetera… Iran is not a top priority,” he said. “I don’t see any return to negotiations on the nuclear issue with Iran any time soon, but once it is there, Lebanon will be among the pressure cards that would be used. Lebanon will be influenced indirectly, depending on Biden’s policy towards Syria, Israel and Iran,” Kammourieh added. Trump’s sanctions on Iran and its proxies has paid off in Lebanon with Hezbollah and its Shia ally, the Amal movement, green-lighting the government’s decision to engage in talks with Israel to resolve the two countries’ dispute over maritime boundaries. That move, which could not have come without Iran’s consent, amounted to a de facto recognition of Israel which Tehran does not officially recognize.
However, further concessions by Hezbollah and Iran could depend on what the next US administration decides it wants for the region.
A Democratic or Republican administration won’t differ when it comes to US policy goals, says analyst Johnny Munayyer.
“There would be a change in the style or way of doing things but not in the goals. Probably the new administration’s way would be more lenient than Trump’s. But Biden’s administration will definitely want to weaken Hezbollah,” Munayyer said. “I don’t see a major reversal of US policy in the region that would really affect Lebanon and I doubt Biden’s administration has the leeway in Congress of changing drastically its strategy towards Tehran due to constraints posed by Republicans who remain in control of the Senate. “I believe Biden is happy with the outcome of the sanctions on Iran because it placed him in a stronger position, but definitely he will be more flexible than Trump,” Munayyer added. While tensions between the United States and Iran will continue over Iran’s nuclear program and regional activities, Biden is unlikely to release the pressure that Trump imposed on Iran without a price, according to Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.
“Going back to the Obama era is impossible because of the drastic change in the balance of powers in the region,” Nader said. “We have a different Middle East today. Iran no longer has the upper hand in contexts like Syria where it lost a big chunk of its influence to the Russians. Turkey has an increasing regional role, and we have new peace dynamics and alliances between Israel and Arab Gulf countries… All this is a game changer.”For Nader, the pro-Iranian camp betting on a dramatic reversal of Trump’s policy in its favour is unwarranted nostalgia.
“They want to go back to the Obama era because it was their golden era, but Obama’s foreign policy was an exception in the Democrats’ traditions because he opened up to Iran on the expense of US traditional allies like Israel, Turkey and GCC countries… I believe this won’t happen again because the Americans have learned the lesson,” Nader said. Kammourieh maintains that foreign policy will be a second priority for Biden for several months as he will be busy reversing many of Trump’s controversial domestic policies.

Hezbollah presence in south Syria much larger than previously revealed
Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/November 11/2020
New report by the ALMA Research and Education Center locates 58 sites belonging to group's Southern Command and Golan Project.
Hezbollah’s presence in southern Syria is much larger than previously revealed to the public, a new report by the ALMA Research and Education Center has found, with some 58 sites where the terror group’s Southern Command and Golan Project have been deployed.
The report, which is based on Syrian opposition websites and cross-referenced with actual locations of sites (some military) damaged by Israel, revealed 58 locations belonging to the group in the southern Syrian provinces of Quneitra and Dara’a.
“In our estimation, the operational and intelligence infrastructure, which is widely deployed in southern Syria, constitutes a quality basis for Hezbollah’s ongoing activities in the sector, with an emphasis on intelligence gathering and operational planning,” the report read.
Syrian troops recaptured southern Syria seven years after losing the area to rebel groups and returned to its positions along with Hezbollah operatives and Iranian-backed troops.
Though the Israeli military revealed Hezbollah’s network on the Syrian Golan Heights last year, the deployment of the group’s forces was not completely known, with less than a dozen places known in the province of Quneitra.
In the newly released report, ALMA identified 28 locations with Hezbollah forces deployed as part of the Southern Command unit and another 30 locations where there is a presence of cells operating under the Golan Project.
“These two units, the “Southern Command” and the “Golan File” pose an ongoing operational and intelligence challenge for the State of Israel and stability in the region,” the report said, adding that they were “able to reach exact coordinates in some places and a general location in the rest.”
The Southern Command, led by Munir Ali Na'im Shaiti, is the Hezbollah unit in charge of southern Syria whose main function is to create a Hezbollah infrastructure in the area and not only gather intelligence on the IDF but train the Syrian Arab Army 1rst Corps for war with Israel.
The report by ALMA found 28 sites where the Southern Command is deployed, “located from the border with Israel in the west to the Dara’a-Damascus highway in the east. From the village of Arana in the north of Quneitra province to the city of Daraa and its surroundings in the south.”
Although the commanders of the Southern Headquarters are all Lebanese Hezbollah, the troops, numbering in the thousands, are all local Syrians.
The unit, the report said is “present and integrated” in every base and central headquarters of the SAA in the area as well as in observation posts (including five major observation complexes overlooking Israel) and field operation headquarters which serve as “joint coordination headquarters for Hezbollah and the Syrian army with the presence of representatives of the Iranian Quds Force.”
The Golan Project is under the command of Ali Mussa Daqduq and has its headquarters in Damascus and the Lebanese capital of Beirut. Last year there were tens of operatives operating in the Syrian towns of Hadar, Quinetra and Erneh who collected intelligence on Israel and military movement on the Israeli Golan Heights.
Since then, another 10 villages in the Quinetra province and another 14 villages in the Dara’a province have active cells belonging to the Golan Project, bringing the total number of cells near the Israeli border to 30.
In addition to coordinates, the report also names the commanders of each cell.
“The cells are deployed in the area near the Israeli border on one hand and in the area surrounding the city of Daraa, which is defined by Hezbollah as a strategic area, on the other hand,” the report said.
All actions of operatives are said to be compartmentalized and kept secret from each other and the local population in order to advance the project. According to ALMA, the operatives receive a monthly salary of $200 per operative and $500 per commander directly from Hezbollah.
The operatives, members of local Syrian pro-military militias and even former rebels, have weaponry available from the civil war and if needed, will receive additional weaponry from Lebanon or existing arsenals kept by Hezbollah and Iran in Syria.
While some of the operatives have taken part in attacks against Israel in the past, other local Syrian villagers have joined for financial reasons. A portion of the operatives have undergone training by Hezbollah in sabotage, sharpshooting and firing Grad rockets.
“In our estimation, the level of professionalism and readiness of the “Golan File” units enables an attack to be carried out,” the report said, adding that attacks by these units “have the potential to cause damage to civilians and IDF soldiers.”
The Southern Command, meanwhile “is currently working to realize operational and intelligence infrastructure with a high level of readiness for Hezbollah’s operations in southern Syria, as part of the opening of another front from the Syrian border against Israel alongside the Lebanese front,” the report said. Cells belonging to the Golan Project and Southern Command have already carried out attacks against the IDF, and Israel, which has stated that it will not allow Hezbollah to entrench itself on the Golan Heights has, according to foreign reports, carried out several strikes against operatives belonging to the two.
Should a war break out in the north, the IDF expects it will not be contained to one front but along the entire northern border with both Lebanon and Syria.

In Lebanon, Gebran Bassil’s day of reckoning has come as sanctions hit
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/November 12/2020
Last Thursday while the Lebanese were anxiously awaiting the results of the US presidential elections, where many watched understanding the outcome would determine the fate of the region and their country, news broke of looming sanctions against Gebran Bassil, former foreign minister and the head of the Free Patriotic Movement and the son-in-law of Lebanese President Michel Aoun.
For many Lebanese, especially those who went to the streets a year ago, the sanctioning of Bassil was a long-awaited response to the public outcry to hold the entire political class accountable for decades of corruption, which is responsible for their current economic downfall.
The sanctioning of Bassil is no ordinary matter, not merely because it punishes the head of Lebanon’s biggest Parliamentary bloc, but rather because these sanctions were passed under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets corruption and serious human rights abuse around the world. Typically, sanctions specifically target Hezbollah for their terrorist activities.
According to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) “The systemic corruption in Lebanon’s political system exemplified by Bassil has helped to erode the foundation of an effective government that serves the Lebanese people.”
For the longest time, Bassil has carried himself as untouchable, claiming that his supposedly pro-Western Christian credentials and the fact that his political party is amply represented in Parliament makes him immune to US sanctions, which traditionally and exclusively target Shia supporters of Hezbollah.
The new sanctions shattered Bassil’s image as a statesman that he has put forward over the years. But more importantly, the new sanctions shattered his presidential ambitions, a position he has coveted and wishes to occupy once his father-in-law the 85-year old Aoun’s term expires.
Aoun and Bassil, through their infamous memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah back in 2006, gave the Iran-backed group the much-needed Christian cover for them to maintain their weapons arsenal and would later allow them to venture further and spearhead Iran’s regional expansion project when war broke out next door in Syria in 2011.
In exchange, Bassil benefited from Hezbollah’s political and military muscle and gradually, yet aggressively, setup up his clientelist networks in key ministries, including in telecoms, energy and water, and the foreign ministry. The FPM and Hezbollah fait accompli came in 2016 when Aoun was elected president and Bassil was allowed to impose a new electoral law that gave him and his allies a 2018 parliamentary majority.
This watershed act from the Trump administration strikes at the heart of the alliances Bassil has formed with minorities across the region and the local factions he has headed.
For the longest time, the FPM has labored to maintain a regional alliance of minorities between themselves and Iran and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which they believe can protect the Maronite and other minority group from the supposed hegemony of Sunni Islam. This farcical school of thought has attracted many supporters in the West and in Washington, D.C. where some believed that Bassil and Assad were the only line of defense against extremists who were bent on purging the area of minorities.
In fact as soon as the sanctions against Bassil were released, his first reaction on Twitter was to underscore the injustices that the Christians of the East have undergone and that such measures will never change his position that says: “We the Christians of the East are destined to carry our cross every day ... to survive.”In a press conference, Bassil blasted the US administration and defiantly declared that he was being penalized not for his corruption, but for his refusal to break ties with Hezbollah, even though the Americans tried to lure him with bribes and incentives.
Bassil also ridiculed the Trump administration which does not understand that, “We are friends and not agents,” and that these sanctions against him are an attempt to uproot the Christians of the Levant – something that been attempted time and again but failed, according to Bassil.
The American Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea quickly noted that Bassil himself “expressed willingness to break with Hezbollah on certain conditions, expressing gratitude that the US had gotten him to see how the relationship is disadvantageous to the party.”
Regardless of the implications of these sanctions on Bassil, one thing is certain: The upcoming Joe Biden administration will not backtrack on these sanctions. The new US administration might even use sanctions more liberally, simply because sanctions issued against Iran and its corrupt allies typically receive bipartisan support in the US congress. Friday November 6, 2020 will forever be a day remembered in Lebanon’s history as the beginning of the day of reckoning for the entire political establishment that hopes their corruption passes as statecraft as they hide behind the weapons of Hezbollah. US President elect Biden and his new administration have a real opportunity to push that day of reckoning for Lebanon’s ruling class forward, if they can continue what the Trump administration has started.

A Biden policy on Lebanon must reflect its sovereignty, unique role in region
Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/November 12/2020
The Lebanese were enthusiastic about the results of the US presidential election. While some supported incumbent President Donald Trump, considering that his policies were designed to weaken the Iran-led axis of resistance, others leaned toward supporting President elect Joe Biden on the basis that he has less aggressive views on certain Middle East issues, including the Iranian nuclear issue. But with Biden set to move into the White House January 20 and begin his presidency, where does he stand on Lebanon, and what would a Biden Lebanon policy look like?
While the US has lacked a Lebanon-specific policy for decades, the country, now in the midst of its worst economic crisis, deserves a policy that protects Lebanon’s sovereignty and recognizes the country’s unique position in the region.
“The United States first established a diplomatic presence in Beirut in 1833 with the appointment of a consular agent,” according to the American Embassy in Beirut website, which traces mutual relations that date well before the establishment of Lebanon’s current borders in 1920 under French tutelage. The US has been a major donor to Lebanon over the years, but whether there will be an independent Lebanon policy in the upcoming Biden administration is yet to be observed.
According to the US State Department, it has provided more than $4 billion in total foreign assistance to Lebanon, and since 2010, more than $2 billion has been provided to address economic support and security needs. The American support for the Lebanese military forces is a way to “counter Hezbollah’s narrative and influence,” among other objectives, according to the State Department.
Having visited Lebanon twice, President elect Biden is at least somewhat familiar with the country. He first visited in 2005 while he was a senator and he met several officials and paid a visit to Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Joumblatt.
Four years later in 2009, Biden’s second visit to Lebanon came when he was serving as President Barack Obama’s vice president and was timed two weeks before scheduled parliamentary elections, which were expected to lead to a sweeping victory for Iran-backed Hezbollah. His visit came few weeks after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Beirut to call for democratic elections free of external interference. The elections dealt a significant victory to the March 14th coalition – the anti-Iran coalition –but the winning coalition failed to run the country as they were never able to secure the support of the minority, headed by Hezbollah. Securing a majority, the March 14th coalition should’ve been able to balance the growing influence of Hezbollah, but in reality, the balance of power on the ground hardly shifted.
Lebanon has not been a top priority in subsequent American administrations since at least the mid-1970s when civil war broke out in the divided country. After the 1983 truck bombings at the Marine barracks where a multi-national force with units from the US, France, Italy, and the UK was stationed, attention paid to Lebanon by the US decreased further.
It was not until 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese President Rafik Hariri that American policy toward Lebanon materialized.
In the decades before Hariri’s death, Syria occupied Lebanon and this occupation would pave the way for an American-French rapprochement on Lebanon. Yet, despite the remarkable support for the Lebanese military, which is much needed, American interest in Lebanese affairs has gradually faded in the wake of the Arab Spring that began in 2010 in which the Arab world witnessed unprecedented waves of popular protest, some of which were waged against traditional allies of Washington – most prominently Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
Donald Trump’s administration has given some attention to Lebanon, but it has been vis-à-vis its Iran policy, especially after the US withdrew from the Iran deal that was struck in 2015. The US policy toward Iran and its allies – most prominently Hezbollah in Lebanon – has been to carry a big stick, rather than offer a carrot, and the Trump team has slapped unprecedented sanctions on Iran and its allies in Lebanon.
But this is not a US policy on Lebanon, it is an Iran policy, in which Lebanon is a byproduct.
Whether Biden will undo the measures taken by Trump’s administration or not is yet to be seen. Biden could decide to try to revive the nuclear deal and preserve the sanctions policy, which would be a drastically different approach, compared to Trump’s hardline policy, as part of which he assassinated Iran’s top general and leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. While sanctions can be an effective tool, they target people, rather than regimes. Even if the new administration preserves sanctions, it will likely have minimal effect, compared to the hardline policy adopted by Trump. Sanctions alone proved incapable of exerting enough pressure to contain Iran or put an end to Tehran’s regional meddling that Washington views as destabilizing the region.
Sanctions alone fall short of affecting change in autocratic regimes, rather they provide them with a pretext to exert more authoritarian pressure on their people under the slogan of conspiracy theory. Iran has played this card since its Islamic Revolution in 1979. This was tested previously in Iraq and yielded the same results. Therefore, if Biden’s policy on Lebanon is to be constructed through the lens of regional considerations, it will likely fail to cater to the real needs of Lebanon, known for its openness, democracy and freedom. All those principles are at stake. Lebanon has somewhat lost its traditional role in the Middle East; where it has been known for its diverse, vibrant community and a regional hub, that image has faded for both political and economic reasons.
Its political sovereignty and decision making capabilities have been hijacked by Iran’s axis of resistance and its economy continues its free fall, with no real hope of stopping any time soon. “Preserving Lebanon’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity” has been a fixed position in almost all public statements issued by Washington officials. This is needed more than ever. pendent policy by Washington and the West so that the country may preserve its freedom, liberty and openness in a region where many countries lack those values.
The downfall of this country, despite its detrimental effects on its people, will yield dramatic effects on the whole region. Lebanon’s inability to sustain itself as a unified democratic entity will have a domino effect on its neighbors, giving way to a more fragmented Middle East, one that is crowded with sectarian entities locked in a continuous state of belligerency. Does Washington really want to see that happen?

In blast-hit Beirut, ‘invisible’ elderly women face destitution
Reuters/November 12/2020
AMMAN: Thousands of elderly women in Beirut whose lives were upended by a huge blast in August now face destitution, as Lebanon buckles under financial crisis and a COVID-19 lockdown, charities said. The United Nations (UN) and aid agencies said older women living alone made up almost one in 10 households in areas hit by the explosion, which wrecked swathes of Beirut, killed 200 people, injured thousands more and displaced 300,000. “A mental health hotline responder noted a rise in calls from older people contemplating suicide,” UN Women and others said in an analysis, calling for emergency aid in Beirut to better target potentially “invisible” elderly people.
“Because of higher rates of physical disabilities among older people, combined with increased inability to leave their homes, limited economic means and fears around COVID-19, older women are struggling to access assistance.”With almost 100,000 COVID-19 cases and some 700 deaths since February, Lebanon announced a new coronavirus lockdown this week to stem rising infections, with hospitals unable to find beds to admit critical cases, caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab said. Before the August explosion, which officials blamed on unsafely stored ammonium nitrate, Lebanon was already grappling with worsening poverty, the scars of civil war three decades ago and a financial crisis rooted in corruption and mismanagement. Some elderly people in Lebanon feel they are a burden on younger relatives, charities said, as there is no state pension in the Middle Eastern country and only retirees who were in formal employment receive financial support in old age. Old women are often left in poverty. Lebanon has one of the world’s lowest rates of women in the workforce, with less than one in three in paid employment, according to UN Women.
“Because they are women, they are less likely to have worked throughout their lives, which means they are less likely to have savings, they are less likely to have a pension,” said Rachel Dore-Weeks, head of UN Women in Lebanon.
“Because of this, they are less likely to have the economic resources to react, respond and recover from the crisis.”
Widows are often unable to support themselves financially so they rely on their children, who then count on their children to do the same for them in old age, said Maya Ibrahimchah, founder of Beit el Baraka, a non-profit that supports elderly people. “We don’t want parents to always be a burden on their kids,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “These three post-war generations are not living. They are surviving in order to take care of the previous generations.”Beit el Baraka was one of the leaders of Beirut’s large community-led effort after the blast to help rebuild homes, provide aid, medication and psychological support. One of its main goals is to help elderly people with rent and utility payments so that they are not forced out of their homes into cheaper accommodation or on to the streets. “It’s very difficult at 70 to leave your whole life, your friends and neighbors behind, and go rent a small room in a poor area where you don’t know anyone,” Ibrahimchah said. “(We) need to make sure that they can stay in their homes and be taken care of until this economic crisis is over.”
Plans to expand social protection schemes to tackle poverty, including a universal state pension, were put on hold after the government resigned in the wake of the August blast, said Assem Abi Ali of the social affairs ministry. “One of its main components addresses the issue of caring for the elderly through a pension scheme ... in order to protect them from destitution, hunger and homelessness,” said Abi Ali who supervises its crisis response plan, which began in 2015. Working with humanitarian groups, the ministry helped deliver food aid, wheelchairs and crutches to elderly and disabled people after the blast, Abi Ali said. But Dore-Weeks said more needed to be done to provide elderly women, disproportionately living in poverty and alone, with medical and emotional support during the pandemic. “There is a huge need for tailored psychosocial support for these communities and that is a real challenge in the context of COVID-19 when so many face-to-face interactions are deemed unsafe,” she said.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 12-13/2020

Covid-19 Vaccine 'Best Science News' of 2020
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Data indicating that a vaccine being developed against Covid-19 is highly effective is the "best science news of the year", a pharmaceutical industry association chief said, voicing hope that other vaccine candidates would show equally good results. "A vaccine that has 90 percent efficacy and is pretty safe, that is a historic breakthrough," the head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), Thomas Cueni, said. American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced Monday that their vaccine had proven 90 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 infections in ongoing Phase 3 trials involving more than 40,000 people. "This was the best science news of the year," IFPMA's director general told AFP in an interview. Hopes are also high that one or several of the vaccines under development will also help rein in the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed nearly 1.3 million people out of the over 51.5 million infected. There are currently more than 40 candidate vaccines against Covid-19 being tested on humans, with a handful in the most advanced Phase 3 trials. Cueni acknowledged that more data was needed on the Pfizer and BioNTech candidate, which is based on an innovative technology that has never been approved for use before.The companies based their announcement on interim results from the last step in their clinical trial before officially applying for approval.
'Reason for optimism'
Cueni voiced confidence that any major safety concerns with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would have been known. "We still need to see the (full) efficacy and the safety data," Cueni said, but stressed: "There is now genuine reason for optimism that these vaccines are basically considered safe." He said there is still a long list of unknowns about the vaccine's protection, including whether it will be equally effective in all age groups and how long the protection might last. Another pressing question is whether it will not only protect a person from Covid-19 infection but also prevent that person from transmitting the virus.
But Cueni said the data so far indicated the vaccine candidate was far more effective in preventing Covid-19 infections than the 50-percent efficacy threshold required by some regulators before considering authorisation. This was "big news", he said, particularly "since I think there is reason to hope it won't be the only one.""We will see more good results."Cueni said safety and efficacy data on at least four other vaccine candidates, being developed by Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson, would be known within the next few months.
- Vaccine hesitancy -
He was optimistic that enough data would soon be available to win approval for using one or more of the Covid-19 vaccines. And the large developers had already scaled up their manufacturing capacities, and were each in a position to produce upwards of a billion doses next year, he said. But Cueni acknowledged there were numerous logistical challenges to actually inoculating the huge numbers of people it would take to bring the pandemic to a halt. And he voiced concern about high levels of vaccine hesitancy in many countries. Pharmaceutical companies were taking that challenge particularly seriously, he said, insisting they were going "way above and beyond the normal regulatory requirements" in terms transparency and data-sharing from trials. The industry understood the importance of ensuring any authorised vaccine is trusted, he said. "This is not only about Covid-19." Without trust, "the negative spillover on vaccination overall would be disastrous."

Pope Congratulates Joe Biden in Phone Call
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Pope Francis spoke with Joe Biden by telephone Thursday to offer "blessings and congratulations" to the U.S. president-elect on his victory, the Democrat's transition team said in a statement.Former vice president Biden, 77, is only the second Catholic elected to the U.S. presidency, after John F Kennedy in 1960. "The president-elect thanked His Holiness for extending blessings and congratulations and noted his appreciation for His Holiness' leadership in promoting peace, reconciliation, and the common bonds of humanity around the world," according to a readout of the call provided by Biden's office. Biden "expressed his desire to work together on the basis of a shared belief in the dignity and equality of all humankind on issues such as caring for the marginalized and the poor, addressing the crisis of climate change, and welcoming and integrating immigrants and refugees into our communities." During a bitter 2020 campaign against President Donald Trump, Biden quoted Pope John Paul II, frequently invoked his Irish Catholic roots and pledged to "restore the soul of America" after four years of acrimony. He also regularly carried a rosary that belonged to his late son Beau Biden. Pope Francis himself has had strained relations with Trump. In early 2019 he called Trump's wall project on the U.S.-Mexico border "madness." Back when Trump was seeking the Republican nomination, in February 2016, the Pope made waves when he said during a visit to Mexico that someone who thinks about building walls instead of bridges "is not Christian." Trump fired back in a stinging statement at the time, saying: "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful."In 2015 the Pope met with then-vice president Biden in Washington when Francis delivered a speech in the US Capitol to a joint meeting of Congress.

Pressure campaign of sanctions on Iran will go on under Biden: US official
The Associated Press/Al Arabiya/Thursday 12 November 2020
The US special representative for Iran insisted Thursday that a pressure campaign of sanctions targeting Iran would persist into the administration of Joe Biden, even as the president-elect has pledged to potentially return America to Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Elliott Abrams, who also serves as the US special representative to Venezuela, said sanctions targeting Iran for human rights violations, its ballistic missile program and its regional influence would go on. That, as well as continued scrutiny by United Nations inspectors and American partners in the Mideast, would maintain that pressure, he said. Iran now has far more uranium than allowed under the deal since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018. The Mideast also has been roiled by tensions between Tehran and Washington, which pushed the two countries to the brink of war at the beginning of the year. “Even if you went back to the (deal) and even if the Iranians were willing to return ... this newly enriched uranium, you would not have solved these really fundamental questions of whether Iran is going to be permitted to violate long-term commitments it has made to the world community,” Abrams told The Associated Press in an interview at the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Iran’s politicians have increasingly discussed the possibility of the US returning to the deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the UN, dismissed Abram’s comments. “The policy of maximum pressure and sanctions against Iran has failed,” Miryousefi told the AP. “The US effort to abuse this corrupt policy is futile and will only lead to further isolation of the US on the international stage.”Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which would have been under 300 kilograms (660 pounds) in the deal, now stands at over 2,440 kilograms (5,380 pounds), according to the latest report by UN inspectors.
That’s potentially enough material to make at least two nuclear weapons, experts say, if Iran chose to pursue the bomb.
Iran also is enriching uranium to as much as 4.5 percent purity, higher than allowed under the accord but still far lower than weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. Tehran abandoned all limits on its enrichment months after Trump’s pullout from the agreement, even as the deal’s other international partners China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany have tried unsuccessfully to salvage it. Meanwhile, Iran has begun construction at its underground Natanz enrichment site after a fire and explosion it described as “sabotage” struck its advanced centrifuge assembly plant in July.
Abrams described the construction as “another Iranian challenge” to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN agency that Iran still allows to monitor its nuclear sites. He also criticized Iran for its slow response in allowing the IAEA to investigate a suspicious site outside of Tehran where it discovered particles of uranium of man-made origin. Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, the IAEA has said Iran “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” in a “structured program” through the end of 2003.
“Iran denies that it ever had a nuclear weapons program,” Abrams said. “Therefore, it can’t now say, well, things you found from 2003, were part of our old nuclear weapons program. They’re caught in their own lie.”
Abrams mentioned US citizens still imprisoned by Iran, who activists and their families insist are chips in future negotiations. He also said the United Arab Emirates’ normalization deal with Israel also put new pressure on Iran, especially as the US plans a $23 billion arms deal for Emiratis to purchase F-35 stealth fighter jets and drones. “I hope that next year the leverage that we’ve built up through our sanctions program is used (with) any form of pressure including, for example, Iranian fears about a developing relationship between Israel and Arab states in the region,” he said. “All of this pressure should be brought to bear to get Iran to change its conduct.”

US policies in the Middle East: An in-depth analysis of Biden’s plans
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Thursday 12 November 2020
US President-elect Joe Biden will inherit a number of conflicts in the Middle East – many of the same wars that were ongoing during his term as vice president – which outgoing President Donald Trump vowed to end.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have a myriad of challenges to handle inside the US while also trying to balance priorities internationally. A battered economy and coronavirus pandemic that experts fear could worsen in the coming months will require a bulk of the Biden administration’s time and effort. Domestically, Harris said she and Biden would confront “discriminatory policies that target Arab-Americans and cast communities under suspicion,” in an interview days before Election Tuesday. Biden has also promised to include Muslim-Americans in his administration. He and Harris have said they would rescind the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, which Trump enforced near the start of his four-year term. Away from home, Harris told The Arab American News that the US had an obligation to securing a “more peaceful and secure world.”Biden and his team will “divide up a lot of the issues in the Middle East and try to assess where we are,” a senior adviser on Biden’s foreign policy team told Al Arabiya English. This includes the Gulf region, Syria, Lebanon and others, said the adviser who asked to remain unnamed.
“Biden is very serious when he says we are going to have a human rights element in reestablishing ties with countries in the region. In some ways, that’ll change ties with countries, but in some ways, it will enhance bilateral ties.”“You will see more of the traditional role of balancing US interests, as opposed to contractual relationships for short-term gains,” the Biden adviser added.
Gulf
US ties with Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have been a point of contention among sides in Washington, including within Biden’s Democratic party. A wide split remains between what is seen as progressives like VP-elect Harris and moderates, led by Biden himself. Biden and Harris’s opposing views were evident in pre-election remarks, with Harris aggressively targeting the Kingdom. Nevertheless, people familiar with Biden’s thinking on the Gulf region told Al Arabiya English that he sees Saudi Arabia and the UAE as key partners, economically and politically. Efforts to end the war in Yemen are expected to be pushed by Washington, something Saudi Arabia and the UAE have repeatedly expressed interest in doing. There will difference in political viewpoints between the US and the Gulf region; however, “there is no question we have partners that we need to have a relationship with,” the senior adviser said. “We will have a different but constructive relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. You cannot just walk away from them,” the adviser, who is also a former US diplomat, told Al Arabiya English.
Biden will also have to address the progressive Democrat line that relates to human rights in the region.
Iran
Tehran will be perhaps the biggest focus for US foreign policy in the region. Biden has made no secret of his desire to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Biden wrote in the Spring that Iran must return to strict compliance with the deal. In an op-ed published by Foreign Affairs, Biden wrote: “If it does so, I would rejoin the agreement and use our renewed commitment to diplomacy to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it, while more effectively pushing back against Iran’s other destabilizing activities.”Asked what strengthening the deal would entail, Biden’s advisers said it would not solely focus on nuclear capabilities. “The two additions to a deal will include Iran’s terrorist proxies and its ballistic and precision-guided missiles,” the former US diplomat said. He added that it would be unacceptable to “just go back to the status” under the deal brokered by Obama.
And the idea that sanctions Trump slapped on Iran were too much is not an idea shared by Biden, according to people familiar with his thinking on the matter. “Some may be lifted to get Iran to recommit to a deal, but some need to be left as part of leverage as we try to push Iran to reengage on the JCPOA,” a director at a Middle East-focused think tank said.
Iraq
Biden supported the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, despite his recent comments to the contrary, but Baghdad is not expected to be a priority for his administration. Similar to Lebanon, Iraq will not have a specific policy centered on its interests. It will come as part of the pressure campaign on Iran and its proxies in the region, which include Shia militias in Iraq. This was evident when neither Harris brought up Iraq in the rare interview she gave prior to the elections, nor in Biden’s two op-eds earlier this year. “Iraq will be viewed through the administration’s two principal priorities in the Middle East: Returning to a negotiation path with Iran and ending forever wars,” senior fellow at the Middle East Institute Randa Slim recently wrote.
Palestine-Israel
Biden and his confidantes have said they would not seek to reverse the decision to move the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Contrary to Trump, Biden said he would reopen the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington. Economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people is also expected to be restored.
Syria
Much criticism has been lodged at Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, for his failure to take action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the atrocities he carried out inside Syria. In a rare interview given before the election, Harris told The Arab American News that the next administration would stand with civil society and pro-democracy partners in Syria. This includes working toward a political solution, “where the Syrian people have a voice.” So far, the Trump administration, like Obama’s, was unable to reach a political settlement. Biden is not expected to ease sanctions under the crushing Caesar Act, which Trump enforced against Assad’s financial and political backers.
Lebanon
The Iran-backed Hezbollah will be hoping Biden eases the maximum-pressure campaign on its allies in the country and on Tehran’s proxies in the region. But advisers and people familiar with Biden’s Middle East team told Al Arabiya English that sanctions would continue against corrupt officials and figures, including against Hezbollah and its allies. On Wednesday, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly voiced his delight at Trump’s defeat but also expressed the belief that Biden’s “pro-Israel” policies would not be too different from his predecessors in the region.
 

Saudi Crown Prince Vows 'Iron Fist' against Extremists after Attack
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged Thursday to strike extremists with an "iron fist", after a bombing against a gathering of diplomats was claimed by the Islamic State group. "We will continue to strike with an iron fist against all those who want to harm our security and stability," Prince Mohammed said in an address to the Shura Council, the top government advisory body, a day after Wednesday's attack in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia tells Europe: The Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to Islam
The Arab Weekly/November 12/2020
Analysts say the Council of Senior Scholars’ message means Saudi Arabia will not change policy on the Brotherhood following Biden’s victory in the US.
RIYADH –The International Organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood has clashed with the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, describing it as a sycophant body, after the Council declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation that does not represent the way of Islam and warned against its agenda.
Leading Brotherhood activists heaped insults and sarcasm on the Council. Tawakkol Karman described its scholars as sycophants and boot-lickers, while Mohamed al-Mukhtar al-Shanqeeti–a pro-Brotherhood researcher at Qatar Foundation in Doha – called the Council’s statement about the Brotherhood “just a media firecracker.”The Council of Senior Scholars issued a strongly-worded statement against the Muslim Brotherhood, considering it a “deviant group” which gave birth “to extremist terrorist groups that wreaked havoc on the country and the people.”
The statement coincided with a European campaign targeting the wheels and cogs of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, amid an awakening in a number of European countries to the strategic danger posed by the group’s ideology and methods based on luring young people and feeding them anti-Western society notions leading to the building of isolated Islamic communities within these societies, communities that hate others, in addition to inciting them to target these societies and target their values.
Analysts said that the statement of the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars contains a clear message to Europe that the Brotherhood does not represent Islam, and that its threat to Islam is the same one that threatens Europe, resulting from the latter’s embrace of the group for decades and allowing it to control the mosques of the Muslim communities, their religious centres and their charitable activities.
The analysts said the Council’s statement amounted practically to the Saudi kingdom washing its hands of the extremist group and denies it any religious cover, which in turn would allow the European states to go after it and dismantle its branches and networks in Europe.
The Council’s statement coincided with the holding of a European summit that brought together France, Germany and Austria to set the basic mechanisms and rules for expanding the tasks of combating extremism and extremists, as part of measures aimed primarily at besieging political Islam organisations.
Abdullatif Al-Sheikh, Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs, Advocacy and Guidance, wrote on Twitter, “I have been warning against the terrorist group of the Muslim Brotherhood for over twenty years, fearing for our religion, our country, our citizens and all Muslims as a whole, and I have received from them and their brainwashed victims more than my share of harm to my person, my honour and my possessions, but I resisted and persevered… and now, after this healing statement, no one can claim ignorance as an excuse.”
Followers of Saudi affairs did not rule out that the statement of the Council of Senior Scholars was a response to the Muslim Brotherhood’s exaggerated enthusiasm over Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential elections and its probable negative impact on Saudi-American relations.
These observers pointed out that, behind the Council’s statement, there is a Saudi message saying that the Brotherhood’s rush to welcome and embrace Biden and its attempts to win his sympathy while inciting against important countries in the region will not change Saudi Arabia’s steadfast position of considering the group a terrorist organisation and a real incubator for all militant groups.
The statement shows that there is a conviction in the Kingdom that the Brotherhood – and behind it its networks of influence that have not yet been completely dismantled – is the main enemy of the reform path adopted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, through unrelenting smear campaigns on social media sites that rely on peddling and spreading rumours, with the intent of trying to show that the bold reforms introduced are inconsistent with the Saudi national identity and the Kingdom’s role as a spiritual and political centre in the leadership of the Islamic world.
Yemeni activists urged Saudi Arabia on social media to expand its anti-Muslim Brotherhood stance to include the Brotherhood’s Yemeni branch, the Islah Party. It has become clear that this party is serving Qatari and Turkish agendas at the expense of the Kingdom’s efforts to secure the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement. Activists said the plans of the Brotherhood’s Islah Party show that it has become a card in Turkey’s hand, and that it is paving the way for it to obtain vital sites in Yemen. They noted that prominent party leaders have become based in Turkey from which they keep launching media attacks on the countries of the Arab coalition in support of legitimacy in Yemen. They also pointed out that Saudi Arabia, too, is hosting other Brotherhood leaders and giving them the means to play an influential role in the “Yemeni legitimacy” camp.
In March 2014, the Saudi Ministry of Interior declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. Three years later, in June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt issued a joint statement in which they listed 59 individuals, including prominent Muslim Brotherhood figures, and 12 charities of various nationalities as terrorists.In March 2018, Prince Muhammad bin Salman described the Muslim Brotherhood as an “incubator for terrorists,” and attacked the group in a television interview on the American CBS television network, pledging to “eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood members” from Saudi schools in a short time.

Saudi King Urges 'Firm Stance' against Iran
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Saudi Arabia's King Salman urged world powers Thursday to take a "firm stance" against its arch-rival Iran, as expectations mount that US President-elect Joe Biden will seek to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. "The kingdom calls on the international community to take a firm stance towards the Iranian regime," the king said in his annual address to the Shura Council, the top government advisory body. "This firm stance must guarantee that the Iranian regime is prevented from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, the development of its ballistic missile programme and threatening peace and security," he added in a speech delivered in the early hours. Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are locked in a decades-old tussle for supremacy in the Middle East, and are on opposing sides in regional conflicts from Syria to Yemen. Riyadh appears wary of Biden's pledge to revive a 2015 nuclear pact between major powers and Iran, a landmark deal that was negotiated when he served as vice president under Barack Obama. The agreement was abandoned by President Donald Trump, a close ally of Saudi rulers whose "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was welcomed by the kingdom. The king condemned Iran-linked rebels in neighbouring Yemen for repeatedly firing on civilians in the kingdom with drones and ballistic missiles.Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition against the rebels in a five-year-old conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes. The UN has described the conflict as the world's worst humanitarian disaster. King Salman also reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He did not address recent normalisation deals between Israel and Saudi allies Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan. Despite its clandestine links with Israel, Saudi Arabia has publicly refused to officially recognise the Jewish state without a resolution to the Palestinian issue. The king's speech comes just days before the G20 summit, which will be hosted virtually by Riyadh on November 21 and 22.

Shots Fired at Saudi Embassy in Netherlands, No One Hurt
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Several shots were fired at the Saudi embassy in the Dutch city of The Hague but no one was hurt, police said on Thursday. "Just before 6am (0500 GMT) we received a message that a shot had been fired at a building in The Hague. There were no injuries," police said on Twitter. A number of bullet casings were found at the scene after the incident, the Dutch news agency ANP quoted police as saying. Local media said there were 20 bullet holes in the building and showed pictures of some holes in windows. There was no confirmation of the number of shots by police. Officers have sealed off the scene and forensic teams are conducting an investigation, police said. The motive for the shooting was not known. The incident comes a day after a bomb blast struck a World War I commemoration attended by French and other diplomats in the Saudi city of Jeddah Wednesday, wounding at least two people.
 

Russia plans to build a naval base in Sudan to resupply its fleet
AFP/Friday 13 November 2020
Russia plans to build a naval base on Sudan's Red Sea coast to resupply its fleet, according to a draft agreement with Khartoum signed off by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The planned deal, published on the Russian government's website Wednesday, outlines a "logistical support centre" to be set up in Sudan where "repairs and resupply operations and rest for crew members" can take place. Its capacity will be capped at 300 military and civilian personnel and four ships, including nuclear-powered vessels, the text added. The base will stand on the northern outskirts of Port Sudan, according to coordinates named in the detailed document. Russia will also gain the right to transport via Sudan's ports and airports "weapons, ammunition and equipment" needed for the base to function. The deal is slated to stand for 25 years -- as long as neither party objects to its renewal. So far Russian authorities have not named a date for the accord to be signed with Khartoum. Moscow has in recent years turned its eyes to Africa as it renews its geopolitical clout. It has wooed Sudan with military and civilian nuclear cooperation, signing a deal between the countries' armed forces in May 2019 set to last seven years. In January last year Russia acknowledged, as a political crisis reached its peak in Sudan, that its military advisors had already been on the ground "for some time" alongside forces loyal to the government. Former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir asked President Vladimir Putin to "protect" his country from the US when he visited Russia in 2017. He said military cooperation should be stepped up to "re-equip" Sudan's armed forces.

Libyans to Debate Powers of Transitional Government
Agence France Presse/November 12/2020
Libyans at UN-led talks were to discuss the powers of a proposed transitional government Thursday, the UN said, as it steps up efforts to end years of conflict in the country. The meetings in neighbouring Tunisia have produced a preliminary roadmap for "organising free, fair, inclusive and credible presidential and parliamentary elections," interim UN envoy Stephanie Williams told journalists on Wednesday evening. The talks, between 75 delegates selected by the UN to represent existing institutions and the diversity of Libyan society, take place in parallel with talks between former rival military delegations inside the country to fill in the details of a key October ceasefire deal. Oil-rich Libya has been gripped by chaos since the 2011 ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival administrations in the east and west vying for power. The latest push for peace comes months after forces backing the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) staged a withering June pushback against the forces of military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who is allied with a rival administration in the east and had attempted to seize Tripoli. The Tunisia talks, which build on the relative calm on the ground, aim at creating a roadmap towards elections and appointing a temporary government to oversee the transitional period. The administration will be charged with providing vital services to a country torn apart by war, economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. The UN is also convening meetings of a joint military commission with five representatives from each side near the ceasefire line in Sirte, the coastal hometown of Kadhafi. Williams said talks would continue there on Thursday, with a subcommittee on the withdrawal of foreign forces. An array of foreign powers have backed Libya's warring parties, notably Russia and the United Arab Emirates on Haftar's side and Turkey on the side of the GNA. The GNA on Tuesday accused the Wagner group, a Russian paramilitary organisation accused of backing Haftar, of preventing its delegation from landing at the Qardabiya airbase south of the city.
The Qardabiya airbase is vast military installation occupying a strategically vital position on the central Mediterranean coast.
 

Libyans reach agreement on presidential, parliamentary elections
The Arab Weekly/November 12/2020
“There’s real momentum and that’s what we need to focus on and encourage,” said UN Envoy Stephanie Williams at a news conference in Tunis.
Deputy head of the UN Support Mission in Libya for political affairs Stephanie Williams speaks during a press conference at the Libyan Political
TUNIS--Political talks on Libya’s future have reached agreement on holding elections within 18 months, the United Nations acting Libya envoy said on Wednesday, hailing a “breakthrough” in a peacemaking process that still faces great obstacles.
“There’s real momentum and that’s what we need to focus on and encourage,” said UN Envoy Stephanie Williams at a news conference in Tunis. The meeting has reached preliminary agreement on a roadmap to “free, fair, inclusive and credible parliamentary and presidential elections” that also includes steps to unite institutions, she said. Williams stressed the need to move quickly to “national elections which must be transparent and based on full respect for freedom of expression and assembly.”Thursday’s talks in Tunis will focus on a new unified transitional government to oversee the run-up to elections, with participants discussing its “prerogatives and competencies,” Williams said. The new government would have to quickly address deteriorating public services and corruption, two issues that prompted protests on both sides of the frontlines this summer, she added.
The roadmap also outlines steps to begin a process of national reconciliation, transitional justice and address the plight of displaced people, Williams said. The talks in Tunisia aim to create a framework and a temporary government to prepare for elections as well as providing services in a country devastated by years of war, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The Tunisia dialogue comes alongside military negotiations inside Libya to fill in the details of a landmark October ceasefire deal. Libya is dominated by an array of armed groups and two administrations: the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA), the product of a 2015 UN-led process, and a legislature elected in 2014 and allied with east-based Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
– Military talks in Sirte —
The UN selected the 75 invitees to the political talks to represent existing institutions and the diversity of Libyan society, a move that has sparked criticism of the process and its credibility. The talks took place as a joint military commission of senior pro-GNA and pro-Haftar officers continued meetings in Sirte, the hometown of longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi whose 2011 toppling sparked Libya’s crumble into chaos. Sirte is on the line dividing zones controlled by the two forces, after Haftar’s year-long bid to seize the western city of Tripoli fell through after a June GNA counter-attack backed by Turkey. The ceasefire deal and military talks since have sparked hopes of an accompanying political deal. Wednesday’s talks were overshadowed by the shooting dead of a prominent lawyer and women’s rights activist in the eastern city of Benghazi the previous day. Hanan al-Barassi, a vocal critic of corruption, abuse of power and violence against women, was killed in broad daylight by unidentified armed men. Williams said Tuesday’s assassination of Barassi “reminds us of the need for Libyans to really end this long period of crisis and division and fragmentation and impunity.”

Japanese Automaker Nissan Posts Loss amid Pandemic, Scandal
Associated Press/November 12/2020
Nissan posted a loss of 44.4 billion yen ($421 million) in the last quarter as the pandemic slammed profitability and the Japanese automaker fought to restore a brand image tarnished by a scandal centered on its former star executive Carlos Ghosn. Nissan Motor Co. had a profit of 59 billion yen in July-September of 2019. Yokohama-based Nissan reported Thursday its quarterly sales dipped to 1.9 trillion yen ($18 billion) from 2.6 trillion yen a year earlier. Nissan officials said its global sales are expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels by December, if improvements continue at the current pace. Chief Executive Makoto Uchida promised the company will work hard to recover and become "a trusted company," delivering products that will be praised as "Nissan-like." A section of Nissan's earnings report addressed the Ghosn case. Former Nissan executive Greg Kelly is standing trial in Tokyo District Court on allegations of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act in not fully disclosing Ghosn's compensation. Ghosn, who says he is innocent, jumped bail and fled to Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan. Kelly also says he is innocent. Nissan, as a company, is not fighting the criminal charges and has paid an administrative penalty of 1.4 billion yen ($13 million). The company reiterated Thursday that it took what happened seriously and has taken steps to improve governance. In its report, Nissan accused Ghosn of misusing company assets for personal use, such as spending $27 million of company funds to buy homes in Beirut and Rio de Janeiro, improper use of the company jet and donating $2 million to universities in Lebanon. Nissan is suing Ghosn, demanding 10 billion yen ($95 million) in damages. The company is still bleeding red ink and expects a 615 billion yen ($5.8 billion) loss for this fiscal year, which ends in March. That is still an improvement over its earlier projection for a 670 billion yen loss ($6.4 billion). Nissan posted a 671 billion yen loss in the previous fiscal year. The maker of the Leaf electric car and Infiniti luxury models raised its fiscal year sales forecast to 7.9 trillion yen ($75 billion), better than its earlier projection for 7.8 trillion yen ($74 billion). Nissan said it's carrying out cost cuts; its new Rogue crossover is doing well in the U.S. market and it remains a leader in electric vehicles. "We will maintain the momentum from the second quarter with further financial discipline and improvement in our quality of sales," Uchida said, while stressing uncertainties remained because of the pandemic. Uchida acknowledged global vehicle sales are bound to decline because of the pandemic. The latest forecast says Nissan expects to sell 4.17 million vehicles for the fiscal year, down from 4.9 million vehicles a year earlier. The latest projection marks a 1% improvement from an earlier forecast. Nissan said it's sticking to its plan to launch 12 new models, including a new compact car in Japan.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 12-13/2020
China Squashes a Giant Ant and Nukes Its Financial System
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/November 12, 2020
Beijing has cast doubt on the soundness of China's equity markets and, more broadly, on the long-term viability of the country's private sector.
China is not big enough for two big personalities. Xi is building a personality cult, and so is Ma Yun, better known as Jack Ma to the international financial and business communities.
Ant's lending volumes grew fast because the company was largely unregulated.
"The message is that no big private businessman will be tolerated on the mainland." — Chen Zhiwu of Hong Kong University, Financial Times, November 6, 2020.
Xi demands absolute obedience, something incompatible with a modern financial system.
On November 3, Shanghai's Nasdaq-like STAR Market and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange announced the suspension of the largest initial public offering in history, of Ant Group Co., Ltd., about 36 hours before the scheduled start of trading in Hong Kong. The unprecedented actions shocked domestic and international investors. Pictured: The Ant Group headquarters in Hangzhou, China. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Investors in Hong Kong this week dumped more than $250 billion in Chinese tech stocks. Particularly hard hit were Alibaba Group, JD.com, Tencent, and Meituan Dianping.
The rout followed the stunning postponement of what would have been the largest initial public offering in history. Ant Group Co., Ltd., an Alibaba Group affiliate, was set, with the overallotment option, to raise $39.5 billion.
Investors were valuing the six-year-old company at $359 billion, making it worth more than American-based behemoth J.P. Morgan and the world's largest bank by assets, the state-backed Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
On November 3, Shanghai's Nasdaq-like STAR Market and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange announced the suspension about 36 hours before the scheduled start of trading in Hong Kong. The unprecedented actions shocked domestic and international investors.
The now-accepted narrative is that Ma Yun, the driving force behind Ant, angered Chinese regulators in a speech in Shanghai. Another often-heard explanation was that China's stodgy state banks, threatened by the lightly-regulated Ant, retaliated. Others think regulators panicked when they realized that Ant had become a giant.
In any event, Beijing, by ordering the suspensions at the last moment, has cast doubt on the soundness of China's equity markets and, more broadly, on the long-term viability of the country's private sector.
What happened? There are reports that Chinese ruler Xi Jinping personally made the decision to suspend the Ant offering.
China is not big enough for two big personalities. Xi is building a personality cult, and so is Ma Yun, better known as Jack Ma to the international financial and business communities. Ma built Alibaba Group, the New York Stock Exchange-listed online sales platform, and he can act -- and literally dress up -- as if he is a rock star, especially in front of domestic audiences.
On October 24, at the Bund Summit in Shanghai, Ma publicly accused Chinese banks of having a "pawnshop mentality," a reference to their collateral-based lending. He also said Ant would spur reform and trigger lending to small businesses.
Ma even had choice words for China's central bank and the country's banking regulators. "We cannot manage an airport the way we manage a train station, nor can we manage the future the way we managed yesterday," he said.
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post called the speech "rousing," but to Beijing, Ma's comments were fighting words. Ant was, in recent years, transforming itself into a lender and loan arranger, going far beyond its Alipay unit's original business as a mobile payment platform.
Ant's lending volumes grew fast because the company was largely unregulated. Fees that banks paid to its CreditTech unit grew 59% in the first six months of this year. Such fees accounted for 39% of Ant's total sales during the period and constituted the largest segment of its business, outstripping even revenues from its mobile payment platform. As the Financial Times pointed out, "the rapid growth of its credit business has been a key selling point to investors."
The central bank -- and the Communist Party itself -- is coming on all fronts for Ant. It is clear that Ant's lending business will be more heavily regulated going forward. On November 2, the People's Bank of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued draft regulations restricting online lending, and China's State Administration for Market Regulation on November 10 issued draft anti-monopoly guidelines for internet businesses. Moreover, the central bank's new digital currency, now circulating in trial runs and soon to be introduced nationwide, is going to undercut Alipay and other mobile payment apps.
Ominously, observers think the regime is also targeting Ma himself. As Chen Zhiwu of Hong Kong University told the Financial Times, "The message is that no big private businessman will be tolerated on the mainland."
Xi Jinping tolerates no one, but not all the reasons for the listing suspensions are necessarily suspect. The Shanghai Stock Exchange pointed to "major issues," including the possible failure to meet "listing conditions or information disclosure requirements."
Analysts believe the reference to inadequate disclosures relates to the new regulations to be issued to rein in Ant, yet they could also refer to more serious problems. Jack Ma, after all, has been accused of acting like a pirate -- for instance divesting Yahoo! of its interest in Alipay. Another way to put this is that Ant, through insufficient disclosures, may have been trying to pull a fast one on the investing public.
Given uncertainty about the extent of the last-minute regulation, the IPO certainly carried too high a valuation. Some believe regulators acted to protect investors from a sudden post-IPO drop.
Most analysts believe the IPO will be delayed for "months," as the South China Morning Post suggested, and others think the postponement will last a half year.
The delay will have consequences. Beijing's new rules will result in Ant raising perhaps "less than half of what it is now," as a fund manager in Shanghai told the FT.
Of course, Ant and its regulators should have worked out disagreements long before this month. That they did not do so is a reflection of a political system that has, under Xi Jinping, acted capriciously and erratically and moved in the wrong direction of more control over markets. Xi demands absolute obedience, something incompatible with a modern financial system.
The lesson here is that China's communism and modernity do not mix.
China this month crushed a giant ant, nuked its markets, and once again revealed the essential nature of its political system.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow, and member of its Advisory Board.
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The death threat to free speech in France/Islamists are using violence to command silence
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/November 12, 2020
Suppose you’re a teacher, and you’re French, and you want your students to learn about France’s tradition of freedom, the reasons your nation believes it’s good and useful to tolerate a wide range of opinions, beliefs and perspectives, including those some people find offensive. Do you go ahead and teach this lesson? Or do you remain silent because to speak freely about freedom in France today is to risk your life?
These are not hypothetical questions. In January 2015, the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked the slaughter of twelve people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine. After an obviously long delay, 14 alleged accomplices in that attack have recently gone on trial.
To illustrate the issues involved, Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old teacher in a Parisian suburb, on Oct. 5 showed the cartoons to those of his middle-school students who were interested – permitting anyone who preferred not to view them to step out of the classroom for a minute. On Oct. 16, Mr. Paty was attacked and beheaded.
Abdullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen immigrant, was soon shot and killed in a confrontation with the police. French prosecutors have charged six suspects with complicity in the murder of Mr. Paty, who was married and had a five-year-old son.
A few days later, two women and a man were attacked inside the Notre Dame Basilica in southern French city of Nice. One of the women was “virtually beheaded” – her throat was deeply slashed – according to France’s chief anti-terrorism prosecutor. Witnesses said the killer repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is greatest!”) before being wounded and subdued by police. Brahim al-Aouissaoui, 21, is believed to have recently arrived on a boat carrying immigrants from Tunisia. Two other men have been arrested in connection with this triple homicide.
“With the attack against Samuel Paty, it was freedom of speech that was targeted,” French Prime Minister Jean Castex said. “With this attack in Nice, it is freedom of religion.”
There was another attack in September: Two people were stabbed with a butcher knife, allegedly by Zaher Hassan Mahmood, an immigrant from Pakistan, near the former offices of Charlie Hebdo. Mr. Mahmood was apparently unaware that the magazine had moved to a new location.
French President Emmanuel Macron has taken a tough line in response to this latest outbreak of what he calls “Islamist” terrorism and “Islamist separatism,” the latter a reference to the belief that Muslims in Europe owe primary allegiance to the “ummah,” an imagined pan-Islamic international community. “Islamists will not sleep peacefully in France,” Mr. Macron promised after the beheading of Mr. Paty. “This is our battle and it is existential.”
He has shut down a mosque and a non-governmental organization believed to encourage extremism. He supports legislation that would ban foreign funds going to French mosques and religious schools. He’s promised additional measures.
French Muslim leaders have responded variously. Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, proclaimed: “The duty of fraternity requires everyone to renounce certain rights.” Translation: “Free speech does not apply where Islam is concerned.”
Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, president of the Conference of Imams of France, disagreed. Calling Mr. Paty “a martyr of freedom,” he added: “There is such a thing as Islamism: It is the poison of Islam, the disease of Islam.”
Among the countries ruled by Muslims, there have been a range of responses as well. The United Arab Emirates condemned the attacks strongly and unequivocally.
By contrast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked: “What is Macron’s problem with Islam? What is his problem with Muslims? Macron needs some sort of mental treatment.” Mr. Erdogan also is furious because Charlie Hebdo ran a cartoon mocking him. Turkish officials have called that “racist,” and vowed diplomatic and legal consequences.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan accused the French president of encouraging “Islamophobia,” adding: “Blasphemy in the garb of freedom of expression is intolerable.”
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad asserted on Twitter that Muslims have a right to “kill millions of French people” in retaliation for past French crimes. (A year ago, as noted in this space, Columbia University, honored Mr. Mohamad.)
It is often said that France is not doing enough to integrate Muslim immigrants and their children. That may be true but such criticism is rarely accompanied by concrete proposals for government programs likely to achieve that objective.
Complicating the task is the frequently leveled charge that attempts to inculcate traditional French values such as free speech and laïcité – secularism in the public square – violate multiculturalism, an ideology that has been embraced by Europe’s elites.
It’s hard to see how this ends well. With encouragement from such prominent international figures as Messrs. Mohamad, Khan and Erdogan, not to mention the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and the Islamic State, Islamism is not going away anytime soon. In one form or another, it will continue to appeal to a small but lethal – and therefore powerful – minority of Muslims in Europe. How consequential will it be if the French acquiesce, agreeing to carve out an exception to free speech in deference to Islamists? Very. For one, it would establish, de facto, the supremacy of Islam over all other religions. For another, once it becomes apparent that the French government cannot guarantee basic freedoms to its citizens, and that violence commands silence, some on the far left and far right are likely to employ the same tactics. Under such pressures, it’s probable, perhaps inevitable, that freedom of speech, along with other freedoms, will wither and die.
**Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. Follow him on Twitter @CliffordDMay. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

Biden's engagement with Iran will undermine the Abraham Accords
Con Coughlin/The National/November 12, 2020
To judge by Tehran’s response to US President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Iran is entertaining optimistic expectations that the new American administration will renew Washington’s commitment to their controversial nuclear deal.
But while it is true that, during the course of the gruelling election campaign, Mr Biden and his supporters intimated that they wanted to reset relations with Tehran, many significant obstacles will first need to be overcome before any meaningful rapprochement can take place.
In the long history of confrontation between Iran and the US, which in recent times dates back to the 1979 revolution and the subsequent long-running hostage crisis, the Democrats have had just as many bruising encounters with the regime as their Republican counterparts.
One of the major factors why former Democratic president Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election was because Iran only agreed to release the 52 American citizens, who had been held captive after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stormed the US embassy compound, after the 1980 election race had been concluded. The constant images broadcast on American television of the hostages during the election played a significant factor in Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, ultimately securing victory.
Bill Clinton is another former Democratic president who had to contend with Iran’s malign activities in the region after Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah terrorist mastermind who worked closely with the IRGC, was implicated in the 1996 Khobar Towers suicide truck bomb attack in Dhahran that killed 19 people.
Even former US president Barack Obama, who Mr Biden served for eight years as vice president, came to understand the frustrating reality of trying to encourage Tehran to behave more responsibly on the world stage.
Despite investing a great amount of personal political capital in persuading Iran to sign up to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal’s official title, in 2015, Mr Obama was ultimately disappointed by Iran’s attitude once the deal had been completed. He had hailed the deal as offering the promise of a “more hopeful world”, and remarked that: “This deal offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.”
But rather than heralding a new era of constructive engagement on the part of Iran with its Middle East neighbours and the West, the deal marked the start of a new campaign by the IRGC to expand its influence in the region, as well as intensifying efforts to develop sophisticated missile technology, which was not covered by the terms of the JCPOA.
Mr Biden and his supporters will be well aware of the profound disappointment the Obama administration felt. As a consequence, the President-elect is likely to tread cautiously in any effort the new administration might make to re-engage with the JCPOA framework.
Indeed, there are many reasons why, even if Mr Biden wanted to restore the deal, it is unlikely to be a straightforward process.
For a start, the uncompromising tone adopted by senior representatives of the regime after Mr Biden claimed victory suggests that Iran will seek to dictate the terms in any future negotiations relating to its nuclear activities.
Even before the outcome of the US presidential contest had been decided, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader, had tweeted disparaging remarks about the entire American electoral system, declaring that, “this is an example of the ugly face of liberal democracy in the US. Regardless of the outcome, one thing is absolutely clear: the definite political, civil, and moral decline of the US regime”. In another speech denouncing the US, Mr Khamenei argued the election result would have "no effect" on Tehran's policies stating that "Iran followed a sensible and calculated policy which cannot be affected by changes of personalities in Washington".
Meanwhile, President Hassan Rouhani, who played a key role in the JCPOA negotiations, warned that Mr Biden should make amends for President Donald Trump’s policies towards Iran. Mr Biden’s victory, he said, was “an opportunity for the next US government to make up for past mistakes and return to the path of adhering to international commitments with respect to global rules”. Moreover, with Iran due to hold its own presidential election contest in June next year, the hardliners will be looking to consolidate their position by maintaining their uncompromising stance towards the US, irrespective of who occupies the White House. There are many other significant obstacles that are likely to impede any attempt to revive the JCPOA, not least of which are Iran’s own violations of the accord, such as its recent decision to resume work on uranium enrichment.
In addition, Iran has been accused of building a new network of bomb-proof underground bunkers to store its nuclear facilities. Work has also continued to develop a variety of sophisticated weapons systems, including ballistic missiles. Many of the military drones, for example, used by Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack targets in Saudi Arabia have originated from Iran. The other important consideration the incoming administration will need to take on board in any attempt to re-engage with Tehran will be the potential adverse effect it could have on Mr Trump’s success in reviving the Israeli-Arab peace dialogue.
The establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan heralds the possibility of a more peaceful era in the region. But all that good work could be undermined if, rather than building on the success of the Abraham Accords, the President-elect instead tries to establish a dialogue with an uncompromising Iran, the one country that is fundamentally opposed to any diplomatic ties between Israel and the rest of the region.
*Con Coughlin is a defence and foreign affairs columnist for The National

Why the Iranian regime is breathing a sigh of relief
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/November 12/2020
Iran’s state-owned news outlets have dedicated significant time and space this week to coverage of the US election. From the perspective of the regime in Tehran, Joe Biden’s projected victory over Donald Trump is definitely also a triumph for Iran.
Headlines that appeared in state-controlled newspapers included: “World without Trump” (in Aftabe Yazd) and “Trump must leave” (Donyaye Eghtesad).
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the opportunity to call into question the legitimacy of democratic systems of governance and to send a warning to Iranians who oppose the theocratic establishment. He tweeted: “What a spectacle! One says this is the most fraudulent election in US history. Who says that? The president who is currently in office. His rival says Trump intends to rig the election! This is how #USElections & US democracy are.”Iran’s leaders cannot wait until Trump leaves the White House, because of the pressure and damage that his administration has inflicted on the regime.
First Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. Then his administration reimposed primary and secondary sanctions on Iran’s energy, banking and shipping sectors. In the past two years, many Iranian officials and organizations have been added to the sanctions list.
The killing of Qassem Soleimani was also a big blow to the regime, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies across the Middle East.
The sanctions, in fact, have imposed significant pressure on the Iranian government, to such an extent that the country’s leaders had to cut funding to their allies, militias and terror groups. The state-controlled Syrian newspaper Al-Watan reported that Iran had also closed its line of credit to the Syrian government.
After Trump implemented his “maximum pressure” policy against the regime in Tehran, Iran’s oil revenues and exports steadily declined. For example, prior to the US pulling out of the nuclear deal and taking a tougher stance on the ruling clerics, Iran was exporting more than 2.5 million barrels a day (bpd). Exports have since dropped to about 100,000 bpd, a decline of more than 95 percent. As a result of the pressure, the ruling clerics are facing one of the worst budget deficits in their four-decade history of being in power. The regime is currently running at a deficit of about $200 million a week and it is estimated that if the pressure on Tehran continues, it will reach a total of about $10 billion by March 2021. This will in turn increase inflation and devalue the currency even further, if the pressure on the regime persists.
The current US administration’s policy toward Iran has made it extremely difficult for the regime to financially support its network of proxies. This shortfall might be why, for the first time in more than three decades, a Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has issued a public statement asking for donations to his group.
The killing of Qassem Soleimani was a big blow to the regime, particularly the IRGC and its proxies across the Middle East. “The sanctions and terror lists are a form of warfare against the resistance and we must deal with them as such,” he said. “I announce today that we are in need of the support of our popular base. It is the responsibility of the Lebanese resistance, its popular base, its milieu” to battle these measures. He also acknowledged that the US sanctions are the primary reason for the group’s money problems, adding that the “financial difficulties that we may face are a result of this (financial) war” and not any “administrative defect.” In Yemen, the Houthi militias have also been sending text messages appealing for donations. The situation in Iran has become so dire that Rouhani has admitted that the regime is facing its worst economic crisis since its establishment in 1979. The national currency, the rial, has fallen to historic lows thanks to Washington’s maximum-pressure policy. As this pressure continued to mount, Tehran also faced a number of widespread protests that threatened the ruling clerics’ grip on power. As a result, it should not come as a surprise that the Iranian leaders feel relieved in the aftermath of the US election, after almost three years of unbearable pressure and sanctions. The Iranian regime is breathing a sigh of relief — but it is difficult to believe that the social, political and economic problems it faces will be resolved when the administration changes in Washington.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Iran and Turkey ‘losers’ in emerging new Middle East order, say analysts
Caline Malek/Arab News/November 13/2020
DUBAI: Turkey and Iran are the big “losers” of the normalization of relations between the UAE and Bahrain with Israel, but the treaties signed by the three countries are not directed against any third party, according to participants in the just concluded Abu Dhabi Strategic Debate.
A key takeaway from three days of discussions was that the Abraham Accords are about solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and approaching it in a strategic and realistic way, while creating momentum for peace in the entire Middle East.
Organized by the Emirates Policy Centre, the seventh edition of the annual debate featured virtual panel discussions in which strategic experts, researchers and policy-makers participated from all over the world.
Participating in a debate on Wednesday entitled “Middle East between Political Rationality and Delusions,” Khalifa Shaheen Al-Marar, UAE assistant minister for political affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, put it this way: “The Abraham Accords represent a massive and ongoing project; the more we get tangible results from the agreement, the more we incentivize finding peaceful solutions to ongoing conflicts.”
He added: “To build on the success and momentum of the accords, we need renewed efforts in finding a solution for the Palestinian peace process based on a two-state solution.”
Two experts who took part in a separate panel discussion on Wednesday entitled “Decoding the Region in the Aftermath of the Treaty” called for more dialogue among the signatories to the Abraham Accords and other Middle East countries with a view to begin de-escalation of regional tensions.
“I see Iran as a loser in the sense of losing out geopolitically, ideologically and politically at home,” said Alex Vatanka, senior fellow and director of the Iran program at The Middle East Institute.
“Geopolitically, the Iranian regime is now concerned with what Israeli presence in the Gulf will mean for Iran’s security. Ideologically, the axis of resistance is on the defensive. It is clear that the armed struggle option against Israel has not worked and perhaps it is time to try a different approach. Domestically this is an embarrassment for Iran in the eyes of Iranians.”
He said Iran now will have to come up with policy solutions and, more importantly, engage in introspection. “The question mark is still out there as to how much Israel and the Gulf will cooperate militarily and in intelligence, which will shape Iran’s actions going forward,” he said.
“Iran has made a giant mistake for the last 42 years by believing that it can come to terms with the Gulf states by going through Washington, and it is a false premise that’s not going to work. The axis of resistance is on the defensive, which puts pressure on Iran.”
According to Vatanka, should the Abraham Accords end up creating tangible new ways of cooperation involving Israel and the Gulf, it would make life harder for the ideological message that Iran has been promoting for the last 42 years. “This is an embarrassment for Iran and a failure on their part,” he said.
“Iranian foreign policy has invited massive sanctions on the country and put the entire regime at risk. Iranians are going to come out on the streets and everything the Islamic Republic stands for will now be challenged, unlike any time you have seen it before. That is a real risk for the regime.”
Turkey too finds itself on the wrong side of the new Middle East order following the normalization of ties by Israel with the UAE and Bahrain, according to the other panel participant. Omar Taspinar, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking to create the perception of a Turkey that is strong in the region, in the eyes of the Muslim Brotherhood and hundreds of millions of Muslims.
He said the Abraham Accord confirms the sense of isolation that Turkey is feeling in the region, because Israel was an ally of Turkey not too long ago. “Now Turkey is increasingly perceived as an Islamist country,” Taspinar said. “This plays a role in the sense of anger, resentment and victimhood of Turkey. And Erdogan will use this victimhood to turn it to his advantage by stating that he is one of the few (remaining) allies of the Palestinian cause.”Taspinar said Erdogan is playing the game along the lines of Turkey being one of the few countries that is able to challenge the dynamic in the region that is going towards the legitimization of Israel. “There is irony in this, because you can ask what has Turkey done for the Palestinians? This is more perception than reality, (but) Erdogan is in the business of creating perceptions,” he said.
Taspinar believes “politically, Erdogan is determined to send the message that he is a supporter of the Palestinian cause as an additional step in his populist messages to the world and his domestic base.”
With President Donald Trump’s projected defeat in the US elections, Turkey is “the biggest loser,” Taspinar said, adding that a sense of panic had settled in Ankara today with regard to a Biden administration because it will not be interested in a reset without Turkey abiding by certain norms, including becoming a loyal NATO ally and figuring out a new path for relations in Syria.
“The US under (President Biden) will have a lot of leverage economically against Erdogan, and the economy is where Erdogan is the most vulnerable because Turkey does not have oil nor natural gas. It is totally dependent (economically),” Taspinar said. “The Turkish economy and the lira are now in free fall, and without the economy doing well, Erdogan might lose the election.”However, Taspinar does not foresee Erdogan calibrating his “pro-Islamist” foreign policy because of the worsening economic situation in Turkey. “As the economy worsens, Turkey will look at opportunities in the Middle East to wave the flag of political Islam to distract attention from the mismanagement of the economy at home,” he said.
For his part, Vatanka said success stories will need to be attached to the UAE-Bahrain-Israel accord, and one of them is to bring the Palestinians into the conversation as soon as possible. “They cannot be left out in the cold,” he said. “If the Palestinians accept the new realities on the ground, it will make life a lot more difficult for Turkey and Iran to use the Palestinian issue for their own political purpose.”He said it was vital for the sake of the UAE, Gulf stability and Israel neither to undo the accord any time soon, nor to become a staging ground for operations against Iran, as this may force the Iranians to retaliate. “If Iran chooses to go in the direction of trying to broaden the conversation in its foreign policy, that could be the beginning,” Vatanka said.
“If Iran decides it will take the option of saving the nuclear deal and broadening the conversation, which could happen in six months, then the US will then be accepted by Iran as a player in the region. You have to have the Gulf states at the table; this is something that Washington and Tehran have to accept if for real sustainable de-escalation in the region.”Vatanka said the election of Biden could have been the perfect opportunity for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to shift in a new direction and blame the deteriorating relationship with the US on Trump. “Instead he has called the entire US government corrupt and criticized the elections. This is an indication that he is still thinking small and not willing to change the overall position of being a revolutionary militant Islamist state,” he said.