English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 06/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.october06.20.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. ‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 06/20-26/:”Jesus looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. ‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. ‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. ‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 05-06/2020
Lebanon's Hospitals on the Brink as COVID Cases Surge
Lebanese Health Ministry: 1175 Covid-19 cases, 8 deaths
Report: President Aoun Sees 'No Alternative' for French Initiative
Lebanese Presidency Office clarifies reports about President Aoun not signing draft decrees exempting General Directors referred to the judiciary
Aoun Blocks Dismissal of Detained Blast Officials
Senior Officials Visit Kuwait to Offer Condolences to Emir
Lebanese Presidential delegation back in Beirut after condolences visit to Kuwait
Families of Firefighters Killed in Port Blast Vow Escalation
Woes of Beirut Rescuers 'Microcosm' of Troubled Lebanon
Hassan: Lebanon Faces Last Chance to Beat Coronavirus as Cases Spike
As Virus Cases Rise, Lebanon Fears Europe-Levels
Protesters Block Jal el-Dib Highway over Social Demands
Bassil Discharged from Hospital after Covid-19 Treatment
Lebanese Army Blocks Migrants Risking Sea Crossing
Lebanese Army commander kicks off visit to Britain
U.S. Embassy announces 2021-2022 Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program
WCCR Warns Against Negotiation on Maritime Borders with Lebanon while Hezbollah Holds Power
Hezbollah, Assad may simply be buying time/Dr. Dania Koleilat KhatibArab News/October 05/2020
Is The Axis of Resistance Fighting Backwards?/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/October 05/2020
Lebanon's economic woes may get the better of Hezbollah/Prof. Eyal Zisser/ Israel Hayom/October 05/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 05-06/2020

Trump leaves hospital, exhorts nation don’t fear virus
Erdogan on collision course with NATO over Nagorno-Karabakh war
Russia, U.S., France Say Karabakh Conflict 'Threat against Stability' in Region
Armenia, Azerbaijan Clashes Resume Over Separatist Region
Fears Grow for Civilians as Karabakh Fighting Rages
Israel under Diplomatic Fire over Arms to Azerbaijan
Turkey pulls back drilling ship from Cyprus
Oman reinstates ambassador to Syria
IRGC Special Force Backs Quds Force in Fierce Battles
Iran Uses Third Parties to Circumvent US SanctionsRouhani Mocked for Claiming Iran’s Economy Outdoing Germany’s
Iran Police Disperse Pro-Azerbaijan Demonstrations
Iran Industrial Zone Explosion Kills One
Two Rockets Fall in Baghdad, No Casualties
Israel Warns Advanced Cruise Missiles Could Fall in Hands of Armed Groups
Canada/Statement from Minister Champagne on suspension of export permits to Turkey
Canada/Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs on the repatriation of a Canadian child orphaned in northeastern Syria
Annamie Paul becomes first Black and Jewish Canadian party leader/Marcy Oster/JTA/October 05/2020
Canada forms own probe into Iran downing of Ukraine plane

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 05-06/2020

Missile war of the cities in Armenia and Azerbaijan escalates - analysis/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/October 05/2020
Is Pompeo changing tack on Turkey? - Analysis/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/October 05/2020
A Fifth War Won't Do Turkey Any Good/Burak Bekdil//Gatestone Institute/October 05/2020
The United Nations: Erdogan’s Favorite Platform for Trolling the World/Aykan Erdemir and Philip Kowalski/FDD/October 05/2020
CIA Director Haspel and the Anti-Trump Conspirators/Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute/October 05/2020
China's Religious Persecution And Its Accomplices/Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMRI/October 05/2020
No Time to Die/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/October 05/2020
Milton Friedman Was Wrong. Look at Income Inequality./Joe Nocera/Bloomberg/October, 05/2020
War in the Caucasus Will Draw in Russia and Turkey/James Stavridis/Bloomberg/October,05/2020
Trump Confronts a New Form of Risk, More Personal and Perilous/Matt Flegenheimer/,The New York Times•October 5, 2020
 

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 05-06/2020

Lebanon's Hospitals on the Brink as COVID Cases Surge
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
A drastic rise in COVID-19 infections has pushed Lebanon's hospitals to the edge, and experts warn they will soon be unable to cope as the country buckles under a succession of devastating crises.
Lebanon's healthcare system was already struggling before several hospitals were badly damaged by a massive explosion at the port of Beirut in early August. Now medical supplies are dwindling thanks to a shortage of dollars due to an ongoing financial crisis, doctors are emigrating in droves, and fears are growing that subsidies on medicines might soon be lifted.
"At the moment, COVID-19 in Lebanon is not under control," said Firass Abiad, who runs Beirut's Rafik Hariri University hospital, the largest coronavirus facility in the country. "We are seeing a high positivity rate relative to testing."
Lebanon registered a record 1,321 new daily infections over the weekend, bringing its cumulative total to more than 43,000 cases while the death toll stands at 398. The numbers are low by global standards, but intensive care units have reached a critical 82% of capacity, according to the World Health Organization. Meanwhile, the virus continues to spread in Lebanon's overcrowded prisons, public hospitals, and densely packed cities, where mask-wearing remains lax.
"If we continue with this exponential growth, I don't think we'll last more than a couple of weeks," said Dr. Eveline Hitti, chair of the emergency department at the American University in Beirut's Medical Center.
Lebanon was praised for containing the spread early in the pandemic, averaging fewer than 100 daily cases until August. But as the country's woes began to multiply, concerns over the coronavirus took a backseat.
Lebanon is facing its worst crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. Its banking system has been paralyzed since last year, its currency has crashed by 80%, and banks have severely restricted withdrawals. The financial meltdown was compounded by the explosion on Aug. 4 that wrecked a swathe of Beirut, killing nearly 200 people and damaging several hospitals.The government has for years owed hospitals millions of dollars in arrears. Their unpaid bills are mounting. Doctors told Reuters that patients at some hospitals were struggling to pay bills as low as 50,000 Lebanese pounds - $6.25 at Monday's street rate.
Some hospitals have doubled prices to keep up with hyperinflation, while others have furloughed staff. "It's not for profiteering reasons," Hitti said. "It's a matter of survival." The COVID-19 spike began in June, after the airport reopened. But the port explosion made matters worse as thousands of people swarmed the devastated streets and hospitals, abandoning coronavirus precautions.
The government reimposed a partial lockdown at the end of August, but it was only loosely observed by most Lebanese, exhausted by trying to survive in a country already on its knees. Restaurants, bars, and shops are open.
"My children are going to go hungry if I close my shop or ask every customer who comes through my doors to wear a mask," said 47-year-old Mohammad Dagher outside his Beirut tire shop. The government imposed local lockdowns on Sunday in 112 municipalities, but whether these will be effective remains to be seen, as faith in the state continues to dwindle.For the country's most vulnerable, the malaise could turn into a death sentence. Malak Samara, 34, has two sons in one of Lebanon's overcrowded prisons, where infections are beginning to spike. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to carry them out of the prison dead," she said. "Have some mercy on us mothers."

Lebanese Health Ministry: 1175 Covid-19 cases, 8 deaths
NNA/October 05/2020
The Ministry of Public Health announced on Monday the registration of 1175 new Coronavirus infections, thus raising the cumulative number since February 21 till today to 45657 cases.It also indicated that 8 death cases were reported during the past 24 hours.

Report: President Aoun Sees 'No Alternative' for French Initiative
Naharnet/October 05/2020
Despite the failed endeavors to form a new government in Lebanon under now-resigned PM-designate Mustafa Adib, President Michel Aoun reportedly pins hopes on the French initiative to form a reform-minded government to stop the country’s ongoing collapse, Saudi Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said on Monday. Sources close to Aoun told the daily “the President adheres to the initiative seeing no alternative for it in the foreseeing future. “He pins high hopes on it, perhaps it would help him complete his presidential term with an achievement by stopping the country’s deterioration towards chaos and collapse,” the sources said on condition of anonymity. Regarding the parties he blames for foiling French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative, the sources said that Aoun “distributes the blame between the former prime ministers, and more so on his own allies, Hizbullah and Amal Movement, for refusing to settle the dispute and insisting on retaining the Ministry of Finance portfolio.”Macron has visited Lebanon twice since the deadly August 4 blast at Beirut's port -- that led the government to resign -- and has pushed for Lebanon's leaders to support a new premier in swiftly forming a fresh cabinet.
After prime minister-designate Mustapha Adib resigned late in August, Macron accused Lebanon's political leaders of "collective betrayal" and said he was "ashamed" of them. Adib's efforts to come up with a new line-up have been effectively blocked by the main parties representing Lebanon's large Shiite community -- Amal and Hizbullah. The two parties have refused to budge on their demand to keep the finance ministry under their control. Macron has visited Lebanon twice since the deadly August 4 blast at Beirut's port -- that led the government to resign -- and has pushed for Lebanon's leaders to support a new premier in swiftly forming a fresh cabinet. After prime minister-designate Mustapha Adib resigned late in August, Macron accused Lebanon's political leaders of "collective betrayal" and said he was "ashamed" of them. Adib's efforts to come up with a new line-up have been effectively blocked by the main parties representing Lebanon's large Shiite community -- Amal and Hizbullah. The two parties have refused to budge on their demand to keep the finance ministry under their control.

Lebanese Presidency Office clarifies reports about President Aoun not signing draft decrees exempting General Directors referred to the judiciary
NNA/October 05/2020
The Information Office of the Lebanese Presidency issued Monday the following statement: “In response of what is reported about the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, not signing bills of exemption decrees for three General Directors, referred to the judiciary, as a result of the investigations of the Beirut Port August 4 explosion, and with the aim of putting an end to the media campaigns dealing with this issue, the Presidency Information Office is concerned in clarifying the following: Since the President of the Republic is entrusted, according to the requirements of his oath, to respect the constitution and laws of the Lebanese nation, and since three draft decrees have been referred, to the General Directorate of the Lebanese Presidency, on the issue of exempting the Director General of Customs, the General Director of Land and Maritime Transport, and the Chairman of the Interim Committee for the Administration and Investment of Beirut Port, from their duties and placing them at the Prime Minister’s disposal. And since the Legislation and Consultation Commission has expressed its opinion on the formula that is required to be followed in issuing such decrees, in implementation of Cabinet Resolution No. 14 of 10/8/2020, as considered in the aforementioned opinion No. 882/2020 dated 28/9/2020 the draft decrees. The aforementioned was not taken in the Council of Ministers, as it was not presented to it, whereas Article 3 of the draft law that was put into effect by Decree No. 3169 of 4/29/1972 would be used to state that the decree exempting the employee of the first category from his job duties and placing him at the disposal of the Prime Minister should be taken in the Council of Ministers based on the proposal of the competent Minister, and by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Council, in accordance with the principle of parallelism, as long as the appointment of an employee of the first category is made by a decree issued in the Council of Ministers, based on the proposal of the competent minister by a two-thirds majority, as stipulated explicitly in Article 65 of the Constitution.
In addition, Cabinet Resolution No. 14/2020 approving the status of all employees of the first category and those who are or will be arrested at the disposal of the Prime Minister, after relieving them from their duties, can be described, pursuant to the aforementioned advice, in the initial or reference decision, which the issuance of nominal individual decrees by the Council of Ministers, according to the above-mentioned formula, is not indispensable. Accordingly, and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the laws in force, the President of the Republic will not sign any of these draft decrees, as long as no decisions have been issued nominally or individually by the Council of Ministers.” -----Presidency Press Office

Aoun Blocks Dismissal of Detained Blast Officials
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
President Michel Aoun will not sign decrees dismissing three officials charged in a probe into the August 4 Beirut port blast without a formal cabinet vote, his office said Monday. The director of land and maritime transport, Abdel Hafiz Kaissi, the port's director-general Hassan Koraytem and customs chief Badri Daher, who is close to the president, are already in custody over the blast that killed more than 190 people and wounded at least 6,500 others. But the president will not give his signature to a decree dismissing them without an official decision from cabinet supported by the majority of ministers, his office said in a statement posted on Twitter. Former justice minister Ibrahim Najjar told AFP that the president's decision "will be very badly perceived by the public and will appear as a rebuff" that is designed to protect the suspects. The investigation has so far found that the blame rests mostly on Daher regarding a shipment of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that authorities say caught fire and led to the port explosion, a judicial source said. Daher was aware that the chemical substance was stored at a port warehouse for years and is to blame for the delay in its disposal, according to investigations, the source said.
The investigation also found that Daher was aware that some of the fertilizer had been extracted form the port warehouse before the explosion, the source said, without specifying the amounts removed or the party responsible for taking it.
A dismissal decree signed by the president, the premier and relevant ministers is usually sufficient for an official to be removed from their post, a judicial source told AFP. Outgoing premier Hassan Diab, caretaker finance minister Ghazi Wazni and caretaker public works minister Michael Najjar have already approved the decrees, the same source added. It is the second time that Aoun has refused to sign a decree dismissing Daher since the probe began in the wake of the explosion. Two months after the port explosion ripped through Beirut, the investigation has yet to make public any of its findings. The blast probe so far yielded the arrest of at least 25 people, Daher and Koraytem being the most high-profile among them.Although no official in government or parliament is currently in custody, many have been called in to give their testimony, including Diab himself.

Senior Officials Visit Kuwait to Offer Condolences to Emir
Naharnet/October 05/2020
President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker PM Hassan Diab arrived in Kuwait on Monday to extend condolences to the new emir, Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who was sworn in last week.
Sheikh Nawaf succeeded his half-brother, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, a giant of Gulf diplomacy who died at the age of 91.
The Lebanese delegation included caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charbel Wehbe, and was joined by the Chargé d'Affairs of the Lebanese Embassy in Kuwait, Basil Oweidat. Sheikh Nawwaf thanked Aoun, Berri and Diab for their condolences, stressing that Kuwait during his era will stand alongside Lebanon and continue its march of support for the good of its people and its revival, pointing to the position of Lebanon and the Lebanese in the hearts of Kuwaitis.
After offering condolences, the Lebanese Presidential delegation left Kuwait to return to Beirut.

Lebanese Presidential delegation back in Beirut after condolences visit to Kuwait
NNA/October 05/2020
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, and caretaker Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, returned to Beirut, at 3 pm today, after a visit to Kuwait during which they offered condolences to the Prince of the country, Sheikh Nawwaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and Kuwaiti officials, for the death of late Prince, Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The official delegation included the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates in the caretaker government, Charbel Wehbe.—Presidency Press Office

Families of Firefighters Killed in Port Blast Vow Escalation
Naharnet/October 05/2020
The relatives of ten firefighters killed in the Beirut port blast on Monday made a host of demands and requested answers to several questions, vowing escalation if authorities do not heed their grievances.
The families voiced their remarks at a press conference marking two months since the August 4 tragedy. The conference was attended by the lawyer Imad Martinos, who represented Beirut Bar Association chief Melhem Khalaf.
Below are some of the demands and questions:
- An emergency parliament session to lift immunity off all ministers and politicians concerned with the file
- Declaring August 4 a national mourning day
- Questioning all ministers concerned since 2014 to date and anyone linked to the Hangar 12 file as of the date of unloading the cargo in it
- Publishing all the reports submitted by international crews and foreign security agencies regarding the Beirut port blast
- Declassifying the investigation and briefing the families of the martyrs on all the developments that have not been disclosed to the public opinion
- Expanding the investigation to become an international investigation
- Clarifying the reasons behind the disappearance of all previous reports related to the dangerous substances that were stored inside Hangar 12 and behind silencing anyone who tried to tackle the file (resignations, sacking, death…)
- Unveiling the reason behind the total absence of the Beirut Port Fire Brigade, especially when the first fire erupted, around 40 minutes prior to the blast
- Unveiling the identity of the judge who ordered the unloading of the cargo from the ship into Hangar 12 and clarifying why he is yet to be identified and summoned to interrogation
- Clarifying reports that said members of a political party had entered the port’s premises in the first two days after the explosion and the reason behind their entry.

Woes of Beirut Rescuers 'Microcosm' of Troubled Lebanon
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
Fierce forest fires, a monster explosion that killed friends, then more Beirut blazes; Lebanon's emergency services are reeling from a devastating year, but are determined to press on. Lebanese firefighter Afraa Obeid, a 27-year-old woman with long black hair, recounted how she lost her close friend Sahar Fares in the August 4 Beirut port blast. Sahar, Obeid's fellow female emergency worker, was among 10 colleagues killed when they rushed to the port to extinguish a blaze -- and were then engulfed by the subsequent cataclysmic explosion. "It could have been me," Obeid said, sitting inside the gutted shell of the capital's main fire station. "I was there the next day to collect her remains. It was very hard." The authorities had failed to tell the fire brigade of the giant shipment of fertiliser stored at the port. The port explosion, which killed more than 190 people and wounded thousands more, was only the latest blow in a year of tragedy for Lebanon and its fatigued firefighters. In the fall of 2019, ferocious forest fires ravaged huge areas south of Beirut, putting many lives at risk. The fires, which fuelled public resentment towards a ruling elite seen as corrupt and incompetent, came days before a mass protest movement erupted in October to demand political overhaul.
'Final blow'
An ensuing economic crisis -- the worst since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war -- meant inflation soared and the value of Lebanon's currency slumped. The purchasing power of the firefighters' pay packet evaporated. Then the outbreak of the novel coronavirus added to their woes, complicating rescues for the firefighters who must wear extra protective gear. The August 4 explosion dealt them a knockout punch. "The Beirut fire department today is a microcosm of Lebanon," Obeid said, waving at the damaged wreck of the fire station, located near Beirut's port. Its windows were shattered by the blast, and exposed electric cables dangle from almost every corner. Firefighters must sleep in tents in the building's courtyard. "The building is demolished," she said. "Just as are the people who work inside it." Two months later, repairs are yet to begin, with no resources spare. "We have never seen a year like this one," said Lieutenant Ali Najem, a veteran firefighter working for nearly 25 years. The blast, he said, was a "final blow".
'Martyr's project'
Budget cuts and the explosion have left rescuers and firefighters with a diminishing fleet of vehicles and equipment. "Only 10 percent of our vehicles are operational today, down from 50 percent last October," said Najem.
It makes tackling fires increasingly difficult and dangerous. There have been a string of major fires since the explosion. Just over a month after the blast, on September 10, a massive fire broke out at a warehouse storing oil and tires in Beirut's port. The blaze took hours to extinguish, and sparked widespread alarm.
The traumatised public hail the emergency services as heroes. At Beirut's Civil Defence command centre, rescue teams watch for the next disaster.
For Lebanon's 5,000 civil defence volunteers, who don't receive compensation for their service, the situation is dire. Many have lost their main jobs in the economic crisis, and are now struggling to make ends meet, director of operations Georges Abou Moussa said. "Like everyone else, we suffer," Moussa said. "It's very difficult psychologically. We head off to extinguish fires with preoccupied minds." Yet despite the dangers, "we are receiving a lot of volunteer applications," said Moussa. For Ayman al-Taher, a civil defence volunteer, the past few months were more traumatic than the 33-day war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006. "Even the July war didn't have that much of an impact on me, even though I saw death, body parts and a lot of destruction," the father of six said. For Taher, being a civil defence volunteer will always be a risky "martyr's project" -- but he cannot retire. "Saving the lives of others will remain my priority," he said.

Hassan: Lebanon Faces Last Chance to Beat Coronavirus as Cases Spike
Naharnet/October 05/2020
Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan warned on Monday that Lebanon has reached the peak of coronavirus phase 2, adding that only few intensive care beds are still unoccupied, the National News Agency reported.
"We are at the peak of phase 2, ICU beds are full and only a few beds remain vacant," Hassan said in televised remarks. The Minister explained that COVID-19 disease had spiraled out of control following the August 4 Beirut port blast. “We don’t have the luxury of time. All hospitals in Lebanon are required to participate responsibly in order to help citizens,” he added. Moreover, Hassan revealed that he had asked the central bank's governor to provide him with accurate figures pertaining to subsidized medicine.
Lebanon put 111 villages and towns nationwide on lockdown for a week after a series of record novel coronavirus daily infection rates. From early Sunday and for eight days in the villages listed, residents were to "remain at home", and "wear a mask covering their mouth and nose if forced to go out", the ministry said in a statement. State institutions and places of worship would close, but health centres and delivery services would be exempted, it added. Cases have spiked in the aftermath of a massive explosion at the Beirut port on August 4 that killed more than 190 people and overwhelmed the capital's health services, with thousands of wounded. The country has recorded 44,482 Covid-19 cases since February, including 406 deaths. Authorities fear that a major spike would overwhelm the country's fragile health sector.

As Virus Cases Rise, Lebanon Fears Europe-Levels
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
Lebanon's caretaker health minister said Monday said he fears increasing coronavirus cases in the country could reach European levels and urged more private hospitals to help prepare for any new deterioration. The Mediterranean country had kept its numbers relatively low since its first case in February, but the easing up of measures this summer has set infection rates back on the rise. Covid-19 infections have shot up to 44,482 including 406 deaths since February, and Lebanon on Sunday put 111 villages and towns on lockdown in a bid to stem the pandemic. "The rate of infections in Lebanon has reached 120 per 100,000 people per week, which is considered to be a peak and brings us closer to the European scenarios," said minister Hamad Hassan. As a comparison, official French figures show new coronavirus cases stand above 250 per 100,000 people in Paris per week. Hassan, who has been caretaker minister since the government resigned in the wake of a massive August 4 explosion in Beirut, said Lebanon's death rate stood at 1.2 per 100,000 cases of infection. He called the localized lockdowns across the country a "last chance." Residents of those districts should stay at home and public institutions close for eight days until next Monday, the interior ministry has said. Healthcare facilities, pharmacies and bakeries can however remain open while groceries and supermarkets are allowed to offer delivery services. Cases have spiked in the aftermath of the port explosion that killed more than 190 people and overwhelmed the capital's health services with thousands of wounded. Authorities fear the continuous rise of cases could further overwhelm the fragile healthcare sector. Hassan said the authorities were working on securing an extra 300 intensive care beds for coronavirus patients. He urged more private hospitals to pitch in with help, saying only 15 were receiving coronavirus patients so far out of 130 hospitals in total nationwide. "We don't have the luxury of time; there is a need for responsible participation from all hospitals to save the Lebanese," he said. Lebanon on Saturday notched up a new record of 1,321 new cases in 24 hours.
"Many hospitals have reached full capacity," Firass Abiad, head of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, a major public hospital battling the virus, warned Sunday on Twitter. "Some patients have had to stay in the emergency departments, or to be transported long distances to reach an intensive care bed."

Protesters Block Jal el-Dib Highway over Social Demands
Naharnet/October 05/2020
Demonstrators on Monday blocked the vital Jal el-Dib highway in protest at plans by authorities to end the subsidization of essential goods. Minor scuffles with army troops were recorded during the sit-in. The National News Agency said the protest was organized by the General Union of the Syndicates of Lebanon’s Workers under slogans warning against “hunger”.The highway was reopened after around 50 minutes.

Bassil Discharged from Hospital after Covid-19 Treatment
Naharnet/October 05/2020
Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil was discharged from hospital Monday after a several-day stay for coronavirus treatment, his press office said. “He headed to his house where he will continue quarantine and minor treatment for the next few days,” the press office added in a statement, noting that Bassil had finished the “main treatment.”Thanking all the Lebanese and foreign officials, friends and citizens who called him to inquire about his health, the FPM chief urged everyone to “be cautious and take all the necessary precautionary measures.” “This lethal pandemic has reached dangerous levels that require increasing hospitals’ capacity and restricting movement in the country,” Bassil added. “He will quickly resume his activities to shoulder the responsibilities resting on his shoulders amid these difficult circumstances in Lebanon,” the press office said. In a tweet, Bassil also thanked the administration, medical crew, nurses and assistant nurses of the Hôtel-Dieu de France Hospital where he received his treatment.

Lebanese Army Blocks Migrants Risking Sea Crossing
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
Lebanon's army said it had prevented a boat carrying 37 mainly Syrian passengers from leaving the country by sea on Sunday, the latest attempt to make the perilous Mediterranean crossing. The boat was stopped on Saturday night near an island close to Lebanon's northern port of Tripoli.
Those on board included 34 Syrians, two Lebanese and a Palestinian, with seven children among them. A Lebanese man was arrested for organising the operation, the statement added. Lebanon, which hosts nearly 1.5 million people displaced by the war in neighbouring Syria, was struggling from a severe economic crisis and political instability even before the coronavirus pandemic struck. That was exacerbated by the massive August 4 explosion at Beirut's port, which laid waste to whole neighbourhoods of the capital and killed over 190 people. In recent weeks, dozens of Lebanese and Syrians have tried to make the sea journey from Lebanon to Cyprus, authorities on both sides say. The Republic of Cyprus, a European Union member, lies just 160 kilometres (100 miles) away. In mid-September, UN peacekeepers in Lebanon rescued 36 people from a boat in trouble in international waters off the Lebanese coast.
Families of the survivors said the boat had been adrift without food or water for around a week, during which time several passengers had died or jumped overboard to find help.

Lebanese Army commander kicks off visit to Britain
NNA/October 05/2020
Lebanese Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Monday kicked off a visit to the United Kingdom at the invitation of his British counterpart, General Nick Carter, with the aim of discussing the best means to cement military cooperation bonds between the two armies. Aoun’s visit also aims at discussing the means to develop the capabilities of the Lebanese army in several areas.

U.S. Embassy announces 2021-2022 Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program
NNA/October 05/2020
The U.S. Embassy on Monday announced the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. “This program offers scholars the chance to obtain a fellowship with a U.S. intuition of higher learning for a period between three and ten months during the 2021-2022 academic year (beginning in August or September 2021, depending on the institution). Scholars will have the opportunity to establish professional contacts in their field, develop collaborative research relationships with U.S. counterparts, and enhance their publications and professional experience,” a statement by the US embassy in Beirut said. The Fulbright Program is the U.S. Government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Since 1946, tens of thousands of Fulbright Visiting Scholars from around the world have conducted research or taught in U.S. universities.
“Interested candidates may log on to https://lb.usembassy.gov/fulbright-visiting-scholar/ and follow the instructions to apply for this program,” the US embassy’s statement added.

WCCR Warns Against Negotiation on Maritime Borders with Lebanon while Hezbollah Holds Power
EIN Presswire/October 05/ 2020
The World Council of the Cedars Revolution cautions the US against mediating the maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon in the Mediterranean Sea until such time as the grip of Hezbollah on Lebanon’s government is removed.
“With Hezbollah still in power in Lebanon, any oil and gas discovery off the coast would be under the de facto control of Iran,” said WCCR Secretary General Tom Harb. “Hezbollah would dictate which companies would be allowed to exploit those resources, which would strengthen the terrorist organization immeasurably.”
“Hezbollah has never complied with UN Security Council Resolution 1559, calling on it to disarm back in 2004,” stated WCCR National Director, John Hajjar. “Until they live up to their previous international agreements, there should be no new negotiations.”
“The speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah who heads the Amal movement, is trying to use this framework agreement to forestall any future sanctions the US may impose on corrupt Lebanese politicians, including those sanctions imposed on outgoing Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, a long time Berri ally,” added Sheikh Mohammad Hajj Hassan, leader of the Free Shi’a movement. “The US should not reward corrupt politicians by giving them a chance to engage in further corruption through control of offshore oil.”
“Only a free Lebanon should be the negotiating partner with the US and Israel,” continued WCCR Lebanese Director Regina Kantara. “While Lebanon is still under the thumb of Hezbollah, there should be no negotiations. On the other hand, a free Lebanon should be brought under the umbrella of the Abraham Accords in order to make peace with Israel and join a new and prosperous Middle East free from terrorist domination. But until the power of Hezbollah in Lebanon is broken, that remains a distant dream.”
WCCR remains committed to a peaceful Lebanese future free from the domination of both Iran and Syria. Breaking the power of Hezbollah is the key to this long desired outcome.
Rebecca Bynum
The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy
+ 16157756801

Hezbollah, Assad may simply be buying time
Dr. Dania Koleilat KhatibArab News/October 05/2020
Following the failure of the French initiative, coupled with the criticism that President Emmanuel Macron unleashed on Hezbollah, Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah partner Nabih Berri last week unexpectedly announced that Lebanon was ready to demarcate its maritime border with Israel. This position, along with the soft stand of the Assad regime on the Abraham Accords, drives us to question whether the “resistance front” is crumbling or if these overtures are just time-buying maneuvers while waiting for the US presidential election.
In Lebanon, the political elite has reached a deadlock and is struggling to secure its survival. When Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib failed to form a government due to Hezbollah and Amal’s insistence on controlling the Ministry of Finance, Macron sent a veiled threat to Hezbollah. He said that the group does not respect the Lebanese and that it cannot be a political party while also operating as an army against Israel and a militia against Syrian civilians. This might mean removing the distinction between Hezbollah’s military and political wings and imposing sanctions on the group’s political figures, which would add to the existing crippling US sanctions.
In addition to the political impasse, more and more people now see Hezbollah as a stumbling block regarding a rescue package from the international community. Now that Berri’s close circle has been hit by the US’ sanctioning of former Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, Hezbollah’s allies are feeling the heat, especially as Washington has promised that more sanctions are on the way.
So, in a sudden change of mind, Berri last week announced that Lebanon was ready to hold negotiations with Israel over the countries’ maritime borders. It is interesting to analyze this sudden shift by Berri, given that this issue has been on the table for the past 14 years. However, every time the US administration suggested talks on the subject, it was dodged by Berri and his adviser. It is in the interests of Hezbollah to have points of contention with Israel, the same way it is also in the interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to maintain the legitimacy of their respective narratives. Netanyahu needs Hezbollah in order to justify his belligerent policies and Hezbollah needs the Israeli occupation to justify its arsenal.
After the withdrawal of Israel from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah put forward four conditions for giving up its arms. The first was that Israel had to give it the map of landmines it planted in the south. However, this demand is irrelevant as the area has since been cleared with the help of the UN and other friendly nations. The second condition was a prisoner exchange, which was conducted following the 2006 war. Hezbollah’s third condition for disarming was for the Lebanese Armed Forces to become strong enough to protect the country from any attack, and this has been achieved over the years with the help of more than $2 billion of American aid. The final condition was the departure of Israel from all Lebanese soil. This just leaves Shebaa Farms, the small village in the south of Lebanon, as the last point of contention.
Berri justified the border demarcation talks as a way of generating funds through gas extraction in order to support Lebanon’s ailing economy. However, given the difficult time Hezbollah is going through, the talks could offer the group a graceful exit. We have to remember last month’s bombing of its arms depot, which the party claimed was due to a technical error. However, in Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly last week, he said the group had another arms depot in Beirut and gave its specific location. Later, the Israeli Defense Forces released information on two additional sites. Lebanon’s Al-Modon news website on Sunday reported that Hezbollah could be infiltrated and that the Israelis could have the coordinates of all the group’s storage facilities. In this doomsday scenario, where Hezbollah faces the destruction of all its facilities in Lebanon, it would be better off voluntarily relinquishing its arsenal using a face-saving argument.
Meanwhile, unlike its patron Iran, Syria has kept silent on the Abraham Accords; and it even sent a subtle message that it might be open to following suit. Mahdi Dakhlallah, a senior Baath Party official, said on state-run TV last month that Syria would leave the resistance axis if there was a Russian-American consensus and a Palestinian state was established. This surprised his interviewer, who asked Dakhlallah whether this would be a long-term project. He answered that the situation might be very close.
Given the difficult time Hezbollah is going through, the border demarcation talks could offer the group a graceful exit.
The Syrian regime is crippled by sanctions and is unable to consolidate Bashar Assad’s rule. Photos of long queues of people waiting to fill their cars with petrol are all over the internet, while Russian and Chinese companies are reluctant to invest in the country and become subject to US Caesar Act sanctions. In this difficult situation, could Iran’s proxies be defecting and warming to the US by making “goodwill” gestures toward Israel?
This could also be a time-buying technique, which the Iranian and Syrian regimes have mastered. Looking back at the negotiations with the US regarding the nuclear portfolio, the Iranians kept on enriching uranium, while maintaining and prolonging the talks, until their nuclear capabilities reached a level that allowed them to dictate the conditions they wanted. As for Assad, any observer of current negotiations in Geneva can see the same maneuver. The Syrian ruler has no intention of changing his behavior and has no interest in any political transition, but he keeps sending his delegations to Geneva to show the international community he is ready to negotiate, even though all he is doing is putting down hurdles to prolong the negotiations without reaching a binding agreement.
Hezbollah and Assad might be buying time, hoping for a Joe Biden win. What are the true intentions behind Hezbollah and Assad’s overtures? We won’t know until after Nov. 3.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is the co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building (RCCP), a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She is also an affiliated scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Is The Axis of Resistance Fighting Backwards?
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/October 05/2020
When the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized relations with the state of Israel, all eyes immediately turned to Damascus: How will the fortress of steadfastness and resistance react? Would it approve of normalization? Our memories were brimming with the insults that were launched at Anwar Sadat, Yasser Arafat, King Hussein and Amin Gemayel.
Damascus did not respond to the Gulf-Israeli move. It approved what had happened. Even the famous phrase that's commonly used to comment on the Israeli military strikes was avoided; we didn’t hear Syrian officials claim they would choose the appropriate time and place to respond. The President’s Office, Foreign Affairs Ministry, the television channels and the radio stations all kept quiet. The issue was left to employees: Buthaina Shaaban, the Syrian president’s media and political advisor, told the new broadcaster Al-Mayadeen: “I don’t know, what is in Abu Dhabi’s interest?” Agnosticism has suddenly replaced absolute certainty. The Arab Socialist Baath Party took on the role of responding: it denounced, in two sharply-worded statements, “the blatant aggression against the Palestinian cause and the rights of the Palestinian people.” However, the words of the Baathists are Baathist words; they’re not taken seriously.
Writers and commentators, in their analysis of this silence, alongside other circumstances in Syria, went further. They asked: When will Bashar al-Assad go to Tel Aviv? When will the American sponsored Syrian-Israeli negotiations begin?
This hasn’t happened yet. But something along these lines happened in the country neighboring Syria, one that is a part of the axis of resistance as much as its larger neighbor: Lebanon. Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri announced that an “agreement on a framework” for indirect talks between Lebanon and Israel had been reached. As for the fact that the declaration was made by Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, and not by President Michel Aoun, it implies that the parallel state, not the state, is the one taking the initiative and shares responsibility for it.
Making what happened even more grave, the United Nations will sponsor and supervise the process. However, the gravity peaks with the United States, aka the “Great Satan”, mediating and facilitating this process.
The important development was accompanied by new rhetoric that speaks of “mutual interests”, “resource development” and the “peoples of the region.” The whole thing has a whiff of normalization with a “Zionist entity” whose existence is in doubt!
This coincided with another unusual development: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) deploying forces in Beirut and the port area. The Annahar newspaper referred to the deployment as a prelude to the emergency forces’ spreading out towards the eastern and sea borders.
“They have been assigned new monitoring missions to prevent smuggling, in fulfillment of the US desire which Washington had expressed during last August’s Security Council’s discussion on renewing of these forces’ presence.” Just a reminder: Hezbollah has not concealed its extreme hostility to an expansion of the activity of the emergency forces, which it constantly accuses of working day and night to serve Israel’s interests, while the “people of the area” (?!) have clashed with them several times.
So, besides the sonorous rhetoric about Israel and Palestine and the constant lying to Palestinians, something else is going on in the region: On May 7, the day Mustafa al-Kadhimi formed a new Iraqi government, it seemed as though a page was turning: The Iranians and their militias in Iraq agreed to the prime ministerial appointment of a man at whom they had been hurling insults and accusation of treachery at, only days before. One of their factions (Kataeb Hezbollah) did not hesitate from accusing him of complicity in Qassem Soleimani’s murder.
At this point, skepticism began to emerge about the Khomeinist project’s viability in the Levant. Bringing Hamas back to the resistance’s ranks was very little and very late: Tehran is economically drained and regionally and internationally isolated. Its ally Assad reigns and does not rule, while the most powerful voice in Syria is the Russian. The Iranian regime knows this better than anyone else. Hezbollah and the Iraqi Shiite militias’ standing in their countries is far from enviable. The two countries’ revolutions revealed this and, in Lebanon, the port explosion exacerbated popular disgruntlement further.
This does not mean that the “axis of resistance ” has surrendered, or that it is in the process of surrendering. It is probably fighting as it retreats to fill that lost time in anticipation of the US presidential elections. This regressive fighting is of two parts: Making concessions on one hand and mischief on the other. Regarding concessions, we can point to the developments mentioned above. As for the mischief, we can see it in sabotaging the French initiative in Lebanon and the “mysterious” missiles launched in Iraq.
Despite its brevity, this may be a turbulent and critical phase in which the axis of resistance makes concessions to the US and Israel while exerting pressure on those they consider to be the US and Israel’s local allies. This is the approach of an illustrious school in our part of the world, one whose most notable teacher was Hafez al-Assad.

Lebanon's economic woes may get the better of Hezbollah
Prof. Eyal Zisser/ Israel Hayom/October 05/2020
For years, Beirut shied away from any talks with Israel, so as not to lend it even a semblance of recognition. Then came the economic crisis.
Direct talks between Israel and Lebanon are slated to begin next week over the maritime border between the two countries. Finagling an agreement will allow Lebanon to explore offshore gas fields, and potentially produce and sell gas, as Israel has long done.
Negotiations on the demarcation of the offshore border could have taken place a decade ago when large gas fields were discovered in the waters of the Mediterranean. But Lebanon dragged its feet and refused any contact with Israel, as part of the notion that the very existence of negotiations between the two countries constitutes some sort of legitimization of Israel's existence.
The Lebanese government was paralyzed by the fear of being accused of nothing short of treason lest it advances such an agreement with the Jewish state. This, of course, only hurt Lebanon as Israel forged ahead with offshore explorations in the fields clearly not close to a potential Lebanese border.
But since then, Lebanon has reached the brink of complete economic collapse, both over the harsh sanctions imposed by the United States on Hezbollah and its Iranian patron, the coronation crisis, and most recently, over the catastrophic explosion in the Port of Beirut.
The massive Aug. 4 blast left hundreds dead and caused damaged estimated $15 billion. In many ways, it was the final nail in the Lebanese economy's coffin.
With their back against the wall, Lebanon's government, where Hezbollah wields considerable power, gave in and agreed to hold negotiations with Israel, thus reluctantly giving it the recognitions they so feared in the past, ultimately admitting that the road to economic prosperity runs through talks with Israel.
The pressure is also clearly getting to Hezbollah. Israel's exposure of its missile depots in the heart of Beirut's residential areas dealt the Shiite terrorist group's image another blow and made it clear to everyone that it is leading Lebanon down the path of destruction.
If you believe Arab media reports, Syria may not be far behind. Despite the vigorous denials from Damascus, it is clear that given the chance, Syrian President Bashar Assad is more than willing to join the regional peace process of it gets his country out of the dire economic crisis it faces.
As it turns out, the economy is stronger than any defeat on the battlefield. The peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain is not only a political or defense agreement but one based on economic interest – meaning these countries' desire to enjoy what Israeli technology has to offer their economies. Lebanon isn't quite there yet but if a deal is reached and it, too, will begin harvesting natural gas it will further curtail Hezbollah's leeway. The Lebanese people will not forgive Hezbollah of it drags the country into war and endanger the gas field, which many hope would be a pipeline to economic relief.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 05-06/2020

Trump leaves hospital, exhorts nation don’t fear virus
Arab News/Agencies/October 05/2020
BETHESDA, Md.: Stepping gingerly, President Donald Trump walked out the military hospital Monday night where he has been receiving an unprecedented level of care for COVID-19, immediately igniting a new controversy by declaring that despite his illness the nation should fear the virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans. Wearing a mask, Trump left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a waiting SUV that carried him to Marine One for the short helicopter flight back to the White House. Trump’s doctor, Navy Cdr. Sean Conley, said the president would not be fully “out of the woods” for another week but that Trump had met or exceeded standards for discharge from the hospital. Trump is expected to continue his recovery at the White House, where the reach of the outbreak that has infected the highest levels of the US government is still being uncovered.
Still Trump, who remains contagious, indicated he won’t be kept from campaigning for long, tweeting before leaving the hospital, “Will be back on the Campaign Trail soon!!!”
Trump made a point of sounding confident earlier. He tweeted, “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. ... I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
However, that message alarmed infectious disease experts and suggested the president’s own illness had not caused him to rethink his often-cavalier attitude toward the disease, which has also infected the first lady and several White House aides, including new cases revealed on Monday.
“We have to be realistic in this: COVID is a complete threat to the American population,” said Dr. David Nace of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, an expert on infections in older adults.
“Most of the people aren’t so lucky as the president,” with an in-house medical unit and access to experimental treatments, Nace added.
“It’s an unconscionable message,” agreed Dr. Sadiya Khan of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “I would go so far as to say that it may precipitate or worsen spread.”
There was political pushback to Trump’s attitude toward the virus, as well.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told the Houston Chronicle editorial board that Trump had “let his guard down” in his effort to show that the country was moving beyond the virus and had created “confusion” about how to stay safe.
Conley said that because of Trump’s unusual level of treatment so early after discovery of his illness he was in “uncharted territory.” But the doctor also was upbeat at an afternoon briefing and said the president could resume his normal schedule once “there is no evidence of live virus still present.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those with mild to moderate symptoms of COVID-19 can be contagious for as many — and should isolate for at least — 10 days.
Trump’s expected discharge raised new questions about how the administration was going to protect other officials from a disease that remains rampant in the president’s body. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced she had tested positive for the virus Monday morning and was entering quarantine.
Both Nace and Khan expressed fear Trump won’t properly stay isolated at the White House — and that he hasn’t learned his lesson about wearing a mask.
“We know he hates the mask, we know he hates to be restricted, we know he’s unpredictable,” Nace said. “The rest of the American people are held accountable to a 10-day isolation period.”
There were also lingering questions about potential long term effects to the president — and even when he first came down with the virus
Conley repeatedly declined to share results of medical scans of Trump’s lungs, saying he was not at liberty to discuss the information because Trump did not waive doctor-patient confidentiality on the subject. COVID-19 has been known to cause significant damage to the lungs of some patients. Conley also declined to share the date of Trump’s most recent negative test for the virus — a critical point for contact tracing and understanding where Trump was in the course of the disease.
Trump’s nonchalant message about not fearing the virus comes as his own administration has encouraged Americans to be very careful and take precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the disease as cases continue to spike across the country. For more than eight months, Trump’s efforts to play down the threat of the virus in hopes of propping up the economy ahead of the election have drawn bipartisan criticism.
Only a day earlier, Trump suggested he had finally grasped the true nature of the virus, saying in a video, “I get it.” But then on Sunday afternoon, Trump briefly ventured out of the hospital while contagious to salute cheering supporters by motorcade — an outing that disregarded precautions meant to contain the virus.White House officials said Trump was anxious to be released after three nights at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where doctors revealed that his blood oxygen level had dropped suddenly twice in recent days and that they gave him a steroid typically only recommended for the very sick.
Trump’s experience with the disease has been dramatically different from most Americans, who do not have access to the same kind of monitoring and care. While most must cope with their symptoms — and fear of whether they’ll take a turn for the worse — at home and alone, Trump has been staying in the presidential suite of one of the nation’s best hospitals and has been given experimental drugs not readily available to the public. He returns to the White House where there is a team of doctors on call with 24-hour monitoring.
Trump was leaving the hospital after receiving a fourth dose of the antiviral drug remdesivir Monday evening, Conley said. He will receive the fifth and final dose Tuesday at the White House.
Less than one month before Election Day, Trump was eager to project strength despite his illness and to press his campaign effort across the country.
Vice President Mike Pence returned to the campaign trail moments after Trump announced he would soon leave the hospital. The vice president boarded Air Force Two to fly to Salt Lake City, where he is to face off against Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
Joe Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, said the Democratic presidential nominee again tested negative for coronavirus Sunday. The results came five days after Biden spent more than 90 minutes on the debate stage with Trump.
McEnany, who announced Monday that she had contracted the virus, spoke briefly with reporters on Sunday evening without wearing a mask, but said that no members of the White House press corps spent enough time around her to be considered close contacts.
Even before Trump’s motorcade outing on Sunday, some Secret Service agents had expressed concern about the lackadaisical attitude toward masks and social distancing inside the White House, but there isn’t much they can do, according to agents and officials who spoke to The Associated Press. This close to the election, thousands of agents are engaged on protective duty so they can be subbed out quickly should someone test positive.
Trump’s aggressive course of treatment included the steroid dexamethasone and the single dose he was given Friday of an experimental drug from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. that supplies antibodies to help the immune system fight the virus. Trump on Friday also began a five-day course of remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences drug currently used for moderately and severely ill patients. The drugs work in different ways — the antibodies help the immune system rid the body of virus, and remdesivir curbs the virus’ ability to multiply.

Erdogan on collision course with NATO over Nagorno-Karabakh war
Arab News/Agencies/October 05/2020
JEDDAH: Recep Tayyip Erdogan was on a collision course with NATO on Monday after the head of the Western military alliance ordered the Turkish president to calm the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. “We are deeply concerned by the escalation of hostilities. All sides should immediately cease fighting and find a way forward toward a peaceful resolution,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said after talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. “And I expect Turkey to use its considerable influence to calm tensions.”
But minutes before his own talks with Stoltenberg, Erdogan urged Azerbaijan to keep fighting until it retook land it lost in a war with Armenia in the early 1990s that killed 30,000. Azerbaijan was “responding to an attack and saving Karabakh from its occupation,” Erdogan said.
“We, Turkey, say that we are always on the Azerbaijan side. As long as the Karabakh issue is not resolved, it will not be possible to end conflict in the region.”Turkey’s membership of NATO has been under increasing strain since Ankara bought a missile defense system from Russia, the main military threat to the alliance, and began exploring for oil and gas in territorial waters belonging to Greece, a NATO ally. “Stoltenberg’s call is unusual because NATO has in the past appeared powerless in the face of Turkey’s incursions into Syria, which have resulted in mass suffering of civilians,” Seth J. Frantzman, executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis, told Arab News. Turkey was the main country fueling violence in the Caucasus because Azerbaijan felt it had a powerful ally, Frantzman said. “Turkey is also exporting Syrian mercenaries, and that is also concerning for the US. And let’s not forget the claims that Turkey may have used Russian-made radar to track Greek warplanes. Such acts constitute a continued pattern for NATO’s concern.” As fighting continued in Nagorny-Karabakh on Monday, Azerbaijan and Armenia accused each other of attacking civilian areas and said the death toll was rising from the deadliest fighting in the South Caucasus for more than 25 years. Azerbaijan said Azeri cities outside Nagorno-Karabakh had been struck, taking the fighting closer to territory from which pipelines carry Azeri gas and oil to Europe. President Ilham Aliyev said Armenia must withdraw its troops for military action to stop. But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called on servicemen demobilized last year to volunteer to fight.”They are going to fight a war of survival for their fatherland,” he said.

Russia, U.S., France Say Karabakh Conflict 'Threat against Stability' in Region
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
Russia, the United States and France said Monday that the escalating conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway territory represented an "unacceptable threat" to the region's stability.
The three countries' foreign ministers in a joint statement condemned "in the strongest terms the unprecedented and dangerous escalation of violence," adding that attacks allegedly targeting civilian centers "constitute an unacceptable threat to the stability of the region.""The ministers call once again upon the conflicting parties to accept an immediate and unconditional ceasefire."

Armenia, Azerbaijan Clashes Resume Over Separatist Region
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
The fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh resumed on Monday morning, with both sides accusing each other of launching attacks.
Armenian military officials on Monday reported missile strikes hitting Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region lies in Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist war in 1994.
Firefights "of various intensity ... continue to rage" in the conflict zone, Armenian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanian said on Facebook. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, in turn, accused Armenian forces of shelling the towns of Tartar, Barda and Beylagan. Ganja, Azerbaijan's second largest city far outside of the conflict zone, is also "under fire," officials said. The fighting erupted on Sept. 27 and has killed dozens, marking the biggest escalation in the decades-old conflict over the region. Both sides have accused each other of expanding the hostilities beyond the conflict zone in Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh officials have said nearly 200 servicemen on their side have died in the clashes so far. Eighteen civilians have been killed and more than 90 others wounded. Azerbaijani authorities haven´t given details on their military casualties, but said 24 civilians were killed and 121 others were wounded.
Nagorno-Karabakh was a designated autonomous region within Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. It claimed independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, about three months before the Soviet Union´s collapse. A full-scale war that broke out in 1992 killed an estimated 30,000 people.
By the time the war ended in 1994, Armenian forces not only held Nagorno-Karabakh itself but substantial areas outside the territory´s formal borders. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly said that Armenia´s withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh is the sole condition to end the fighting.
Armenian officials allege that Turkey is involved in the conflict and is sending fighters from Syria to the region. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said earlier this week that "a cease-fire can be established only if Turkey is removed from the South Caucasus."Ankara has denied sending arms or foreign fighters, while publicly siding with Azerbaijan in the dispute.

Fears Grow for Civilians as Karabakh Fighting Rages
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
Clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces were raging on Monday over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as fears grew for civilians after the two sides began shelling major cities. Separatist forces in Karabakh -- an ethnic Armenian enclave that broke away from Azerbaijan in the 1990s -- reported firefights along the frontline and the regional capital Stepanakert again coming under artillery fire. The region's leadership said it had pulled back fighters in some areas of the frontline "for tactical purposes", after Azerbaijan claimed separatist soldiers were fleeing their posts. Azerbaijan's defense ministry said Armenian forces were shelling several towns, including the country's second-largest city Ganja which was first hit on Sunday. Increasing artillery fire on urban areas has raised concerns of mass civilian casualties if the fierce fighting, which has already killed at least 260 people, continues to escalate. The clashes broke out on September 27, re-igniting a decades-old conflict between the ex-Soviet neighbors over Karabakh and threatening to draw in regional powers Russia and Turkey. Neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia, which supports the breakaway region, has shown any sign of backing down. They have ignored international calls for a ceasefire and a return to long-stalled negotiations on the region. Stepanakert, a city of 50,000 in the heart of the mountainous province, has been under steady artillery fire since Friday, with residents cramming in to underground shelters. The separatists' foreign ministry said Monday that shelling of Stepanakert had resumed at 6:30 am (0230 GMT).  It released video footage of repeated bursts of heavy shelling and of debris from seriously damaged blocks of flats, claiming Azerbaijan had used cluster munitions. Azerbaijan meanwhile said Armenian forces were shelling the cities of Ganja, with a population over 330,000, and Agjabedi, home to some 38,000, as well as the towns of Beylagan, Barda and Terter. Hikmet Hajiyev, an adviser to President Ilham Aliyev, accused the Armenians of "attacking densely populated civilian areas" and claimed they had shelled Ganja's central market. "Barbarism and vandalism. Sign of weakness and panic," he wrote on Twitter.
'Indiscriminate shelling'
More than 40 civilians have been reported killed on both sides. The International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday condemned the reports of "indiscriminate shelling and other alleged unlawful attacks using explosive weaponry in cities, towns and other populated areas".
A witness in Stepanakert told AFP the city had come under intense artillery fire on Monday morning but that shelling had eased by mid-day. The streets were largely empty, the witness said, with many people taking shelter in basements. Convoys of residents have fled the city for Armenian territory, with groups gathering in the border town of Goris hoping to find passage on to the capital Yerevan. In a fiery address to the nation on Sunday, Aliyev set conditions for a halt to the fighting. He said Armenian forces "must leave our territories, not in words but in deeds," provide a timetable for a full withdrawal, apologize to the Azerbaijani people and recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
'Chase them like dogs' -
"Nagorno-Karabakh is our land. We have to go back there and we are doing it now," Aliyev said. "This is the end. We showed them who we are. We are chasing them like dogs." Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman Anna Nagdalyan said Baku was failing to "engage constructively" on the conflict.
Russia, the United States and France -- co-chairs of a mediation group that has failed to find a political resolution to the conflict -- have called for an immediate halt to the fighting. Karabakh's declaration of independence from Azerbaijan during the collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives. Talks to resolve the conflict have made little progress since a 1994 ceasefire agreement. Turkey is a strong ally of Azerbaijan, a fellow Muslim and Turkic country, and has been accused of dispatching mercenaries from Syria and Libya to join the fighting. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday he expected alliance member Turkey to use its "considerable influence" with Azerbaijan to calm the conflict.

Israel under Diplomatic Fire over Arms to Azerbaijan
Agence France Presse/October 05/2020
A major supplier of arms to Azerbaijan, Israel has come under diplomatic fire from Armenia over the struggle between the Caucasus neighbors in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia, a country long-seen as close to Israel's nemesis Iran, only opened an embassy in Tel Aviv on September 17, but Yerevan recalled its ambassador barely two weeks later, citing weapons sales to Azerbaijan. While Israel's president on Monday spoke with his Armenian counterpart and attempted to smooth the waters, the Jewish state's weapons exports to Baku will be difficult to give up. The diplomatic rift came shortly after press reports, based on data from flight tracing site Flightradar 24, cited the takeoff of an Azerbaijani cargo plane from southern Israel. The site said the aircraft, operated by Azerbaijani carrier Silk Way, took off from Ramon Airport, located near the Ovda military base, on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities.
Beyond this single example, Azerbaijan has a long track record of buying Israeli arms -- to the extent that Iran in 2012 summoned the former's ambassador to voice its concerns. And while the Israeli defense ministry does not publish details of sales by country, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in 2016 said his country had bought $4.85 billion in defense equipment from the Jewish state (4.1 billion euros at current prices). Israeli media say that Israel's Elbit Systems sold Azerbaijan, a Shiite country, armed drones -- weaponry which has shifted the military balance in the decades-old dispute in which Armenian fighters long held the advantage of manning mountain outposts. Azeri presidential advisor Hikmet Hajiyev told the Jewish state's Walla news website last week that Azerbaijan was using Israeli-made drones, including so-called "suicide" drones that can destroy a target on impact, in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Smoothing troubled ties
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin spoke on Monday with his Armenian counterpart Armen Sarkissian in a call that Rivlin's office said was at Sarkissian's request. Rivlin "expressed his sorrow at the outbreak of violence... and at the loss of life on both sides" in Nagorno-Karabakh, his office said in a statement, adding that the Jewish state's long-standing relations with Azerbaijan are "not aimed against any side." Rivlin said Israel was prepared to send Armenia humanitarian aid and expressed hope that the Armenian ambassador will return "soon". In Jerusalem, Armenian flags appeared this week from windows in the Armenian quarter of the Old City. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), over the past five years, Israel has been the top supplier of arms to Azerbaijan, with sales of more than $740 million, putting it ahead of Russia. "Azerbaijan is an important country for us," Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told AFP. "We always try to be a good supplier even during times of tension... we have to make sure that we will honor the contracts we make with Azerbaijan," he added. "It is not our responsibility what they are doing. They can fight with knives, they can fight with stones, people fight with many things." The ties between Israel and Azerbaijan date back to the break-up of the USSR in the early 1990s. The two countries forged diplomatic and trade relations, as Israel sought to build bridges with Muslim countries and Azerbaijan was working to build new relationships beyond its traditional ties with Moscow. "Israel and Azerbaijan have strategic relations," said Gallia Lindenstrauss, analyst at the Tel Aviv Institute for Strategic Studies. "Israel imports quite a large amount of its oil from Azerbaijan and Israel exports to Azerbaijan weapons," she said. "Azerbaijan is one of the largest clients of Israel's defense industry."
Turkish drones
Armenia also accuses Turkey, an ally of Azerbaijan, of supplying drones to Baku. But that does not make Israel and Turkey allies. The two are at odds over the Palestinian conflict, gas resources in the Mediterranean and the conflict in Libya. Ankara has given military support to the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia have favored eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar.
"We have seen Turkey increase (its influence) in Libya and this seems to be the manifestation of a more assertive military policy aimed at demonstrating the capabilities of its defense industry," says Lindenstrauss. She says Ankara could be seeking "political leverage to cause Azerbaijan to rethink its relations with Israel." At a time when Israel has normalized relations with several oil-producing Gulf countries who are potential customers of its military technologies, could the Jewish state cool its links with Azerbaijan? Inbar says Israel does not want to build new relations with one Muslim country by sacrificing existing links with another. "We want to have more deals," he said. "We don’t want to swap them."

Turkey pulls back drilling ship from Cyprus
AFP/October 05/2020
A Turkish drilling ship returned to port Monday from contested waters near Cyprus, according to a naval tracking website, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prepared to receive the head of NATO. The Turkish navy had said last month that the Yavuz would stay in eastern Mediterranean waters southwest of Cyprus until October 12. But the Vessel Finder tracking site said the ship began pulling out of the disputed region on Sunday and entered the Turkish port of Tasucu early Monday. Turkey issued no official comment. The apparent de-escalation came as Erdogan prepared to hold talks in Ankara later Monday with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg about its dispute with Greece and Cyprus about maritime borders and energy rights. NATO members Greece and Turkey have rattled the military alliance by staging rival war games in August to support their territorial and energy claims. The conflict began to ease when they agreed last month to resume direct negotiations in Istanbul for the first time since 2016. No date for the talks has been announced. Last month, Turkey pulled its Oruc Reis energy research vessel back to shore after more than a month-long mission near a Greek island that it supported with naval warships. Erdogan had said at the time that if Turkey withdrew the vessel, "it means let's give diplomacy a chance."EU leaders warned Friday they could sanction Turkey if it failed to stop its unilateral actions and continued drilling activities.
Ankara rejected the threat as "unconstructive".

Oman reinstates ambassador to Syria
Reuters/Arab News/Agencies/October 05/2020
DUBAI: Oman has sent an ambassador to Syria, becoming the first Gulf Arab state to do so after they downgraded or shut missions in Damascus in 2012 over attacks by the government there on protests at the start of the war. Oman is one of the rare Arab countries that kept diplomatic relations with the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad after the 2011 uprising, despite pressure from the United States and other Gulf allies. Syria’s foreign minister on Sunday accepted the credentials of Oman’s Ambassador Turki bin Mahmood Al-Busaidy, appointed to the post in a royal decree in March, state news agency ONA said. Some Arab states are seeking reconciliation with Damascus after decisive gains by pro-government forces in the conflict, aiming to expand their clout in Syria at the expense of non-Arab Turkey and Iran, who have backed Assad. Oman, whose Sultan Haitham pledged when assuming power in January to continue maintaining friendly ties with all nations, kept its embassy open, as did Bahrain. The UAE re-opened its mission to Damascus in late 2018 in a diplomatic boost to Assad, and has a charge d’affaires there. Kuwait has said it would re-open its mission in Damascus if there is agreement in the Arab League, which suspended Syria’s membership in 2011. Assad has recovered control of most of Syria with support from Russia along with Iran and Iranian-backed Shite Muslim groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The United States has imposed new sanctions aimed at cutting off funds for Assad’s government and warned that anyone doing business with Damascus was also at risk of being blacklisted.

IRGC Special Force Backs Quds Force in Fierce Battles
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
Chief of an Iranian Revolutionary Guardian Corps (IRGC) special unit has announced that his forces “continue to support the Quds Force and carry out combat missions in fierce battles.”Commander of Saberin ground special operation forces unit Mohammad Taheri told IRGC’s Tasnim News Agency that his forces enjoy “combat capabilities and are supplied with advanced equipment” during battles fought within Iranian territory or alongside the Quds Force in battles it leads abroad. In 2016, the IRGC officially announced the presence of Sabrin Brigade in Syria after affirming the death of one of its senior leaders and a number of its members. Taheri said his forces lost 30 fighters during military battles, without specifying the number of dead in foreign missions, adding that 100 have been disabled. Saberin forces were engaged in military confrontations with opposition factions on the borders of Syria’s northwest and southeast region, Taheri noted. He pointed to battles against the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the Kurdish-Iranian ally of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Komala factions, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), as well as armed factions in Balochistan region. According to Tehran, opposition parties that raise the banner of defending the rights of nationalisms are “anti-revolution” and “terrorist organizations.” Taheri said his forces constitute the “best ground forces in the IRGC,” adding that they carried out significant and influential operations in maintaining the country’s security. The establishment of Saberin Unit dates back to 1999 and 2000, when the IRGC gathered elite figures to counter activities of the Kurdish PJAK, which inflicted heavy losses on the IRGC in the border triangle between Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.
In July 2012, back then Saberin Commander Brigadier General Morteza Mirian said the IRGC had relied on the training bases for special forces in the British army. According to media sources, the unit uses a US-manufactured M-16 rifle, which the IRGC calls “Zulfiqar.” Meanwhile, General Mohsen Sasani has been appointed by Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed forces Major-General Mohammad Bagheri as Deputy Head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization, Iranian media reported. His appointment is considered the first military shuffle after an explosion at Natanz nuclear facility in late July.
Deputy Coordinator of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces General Ali Abdullahi said: “promoting resilience and protecting critical infrastructure of the country are considered strategic issues in the country’s defense system.”
“In order to face new cyber and electronic threats in the future wars, we need to adopt new approaches and strategies,” he stressed.

Iran Uses Third Parties to Circumvent US Sanctions
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
Iran is trying to evade US sanctions imposed on its efforts to bolster weapons of mass destruction through using third parties, according to western intelligence sources. The German state of Hesse said in a new report on Friday that states such as "Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Syria tried to acquire and distribute such weapons as part of the proliferation, for example, by concealing the transport routes via third countries." The aim of such intelligence measures was to circumvent control mechanisms over third countries that are not subject to special embargo regulations." The Hesse intelligence document covers the year 2019. The service’s findings confirm the data collection of additional German state intelligence agencies in 2020 that declared Iran's regime continues to seek technology and material to build weapons of mass destruction devices.
The agency wrote that it “continued to pay particular attention to attempts at proliferation originating from Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria, i.e. the proliferation or transfer of weapons of mass destruction."
According to Hesse’s intelligence service, “the term proliferation refers to the spread or transfer of weapons of mass destruction as well as the acquisition of suitable delivery systems and corresponding technologies to states that do not yet have such weapons. In addition to the import of complete weapon systems, proliferation also includes the illegal procurement of components, relevant technologies, and manufacturing processes as well as the recruitment of scientific and technical personnel.” The report outlined the damage that could unfold if Iran’s rulers obtain the deadliest weapons in the world, saying it could "shake the stability of an entire state structure in both regional and international crisis situations.” The report warned of Iran’s exploitation of the research and academic fields to advance its nuclear weapons program.
“Relevant states with illegal procurement methods are in particular Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan. An example of this is the field of electrical engineering in conjunction with the use of centrifuges in the process of uranium enrichment. There are always suspicions here that foreign intelligence services are putting their own guest researchers under pressure in order to acquire the desired technical know-how. " "Another example of intelligence control is the exchange of research between university institutes in the field of chemical-biological processes,” it added. For its part, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration opposes an extended UN weapons embargo against Iran. Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and the US government have urged Merkel to join the US and impose snapback UN sanctions against Iran for its violations of the 2015 nuclear deal and its sponsorship of terrorism across the globe.

Rouhani Mocked for Claiming Iran’s Economy Outdoing Germany’s
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed that his country’s economy has outdone Germany’s under COVID-19, drawing ridicule from Iranians on social media. During a meeting of the National Taskforce to Combat Coronavirus on Saturday, Rouhnai said Germany is experiencing a 5.2 percent contraction and its economy is facing a negative growth. “Germany is a developed country that is not under sanctions … our economy will certainly be in a better position [than Germany’s],” he added. The president also hoped that Iran would achieve economic growth above zero with or without oil sales.
German Chancellor Angela “Merkel called me and asked me what I have done to maintain my country’s economy prosperous despite the sanctions and coronavirus,” said Radio Farda journalist Iliya Jazayeri mockingly.
Journalist at Iran International Reza Morad Vaisi wrote that Rouhani resorted “somehow to deception and manipulation of numbers” in comparing the German economy with the Iranian amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On Twitter and Instagram, most Iranians mocked Rouhani. One user, Jawad, compared the Iranian currency with the euro, pointing out that the rial hit a record low against the dollar last week when in fact it breached 300,000 to a dollar for the first time on the unregulated market in Tehran.
Another user, Hossein, said: “You are laughing because of what Rouhani said, but it is the bitter truth. His statements demonstrate that he does not believe that the situation is bad and therefore he doing nothing about it. He believes everything is excellent.” A Twitter user, Sarah, chose a picture of a depressed cleric with a black turban, and wrote in her tweet: “How did Hassan think that Iran’s economy is better than Germany’s?” One user joked that Rouhani’s statements only reflected his financial status and that of his friends, rather than the Iranian people.
Another user said Rouhani might either not know where Germany is, or that he may be the president of Switzerland or even does not know what the economy even means. In September, US President Donald Trump said Iran’s GDP fell 24 percent due to American pressure and sanctions. Rouhani, however, responded by affirming that it only fell 0.6 percent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in an April report that Iran’s economy will shrink by six percent in 2020 and the country’s economic growth will be negative for the third consecutive year.
Iran’s economic growth was negative 7.6 percent in 2019 and negative 5.4 percent in 2018, according to the IMF. The Iranian currency lost more than 60 percent of its value, disrupting foreign trade and boosting annual inflation, which reached 41.1 percent in 2019. The IMF also forecast that the currency will fall to 34.2 percent in 2020 and 33.5 percent in 2021. It pointed out that the Iranian government’s fiscal deficit might widen to 9.9 percent of GDP this year from a 5.7 last year.

Iran Police Disperse Pro-Azerbaijan Demonstrations
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
Police dispersed demonstrations in northwestern Iran in support of Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Fars news agency reported. Protests broke out on Thursday in Tabriz, the capital of Iran's East Azerbaijan province, where a large Azeri minority lives, wrote Fars which also published two videos showing dozens of people gathered in streets chanting slogans in the Azeri language. In one video, there appeared to be a deployment of police, according to AFP. In Tabriz, "around 500 people gathered and chanted slogans in support of the end of the occupation of Karabakh", an Armenian separatist enclave within Azerbaijan, Fars said. "Some tried to disrupt the atmosphere with ethnic slogans (but) the police intervened to stop the rally," the agency added. "Some people" were arrested by "security forces" in Zanjan for having chanted "ethnocentric slogans", Fars noted, without providing further details. According to some estimates, there are around 10 million Azeris out of Iran's population of 80 million, which also includes an Armenian community of just under 100,000. Clashes have raged between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces since Sunday over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian province that broke away from Baku in a bitterly fought war in the early 1990s that claimed 30,000 lives. According to AFP, the clashes, the worst since 2016, have raised fears of a new war between the two countries.

Iran Industrial Zone Explosion Kills One
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
An explosion killed a worker in an industrial zone in Iran's central Isfahan province on Saturday, state news agency IRNA reported. The blast struck on the Razi industrial estate in Shahreza county and was caused by a welder working on an oil tank, local crisis management chief Mansour Shishehforoush told IRNA. "There was no oil inside the tank, but the welding caused the gas built up in it to explode." Firefighters later brought the blaze under control, IRNA said, adding that Razi is "one of the largest chemical production industrial zones" in Iran. There has been a spate of fires and explosions at military and civilian sites across Iran since June, AFP reported. A July blast caused damage at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant. Iranian authorities initially said it was an accident before later blaming sabotage. Earlier, a powerful explosion at a clinic in northern Tehran killed at least 19 people.

UN Chief Urges Libya Ceasefire
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
The United Nations chief on Monday urged world powers and other countries with interests in Libya’s long-running civil war to keep working toward a lasting ceasefire between its rival governments, warning that the country’s very future "is at stake.”Secretary-General Antonio Guterres implored participants at a virtual ministerial meeting co-hosted by the United Nations and Germany to encourage and support peace efforts “not only in words but in actions,” including full and immediate implementation of a widely violated UN arms embargo.
“The violations of the embargo are a scandal and call into question the basic commitment to peace of all involved,” he said in remarks to the closed meeting, released by the UN “Foreign deliveries of weapons and other military support must stop immediately.”Germany has been trying to act as an intermediary in the conflict, and in January held a summit in Berlin where participants from the east-based Libyan National Army (LNA) and Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) agreed to respect an arms embargo and push Libya’s warring parties to reach a full ceasefire. That agreement has been repeatedly violated. Guterres noted that the Berlin commitments also include restoring due process in Libya and preventing arbitrary detention in the north African nation, stressing that “this, too, is essential.” “We must also see the immediate, permanent and unconditional lifting of the blockade on the country’s oil production and exports, which has had a crippling impact on the economy,” he said. Guterres said the UN mission in Libya is preparing for a series of meetings and consultations “that would facilitate the resumption of inclusive intra-Libyan political talks — Libyan-led and Libyan-owned.” Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said the situation in Libya is still “fragile and complex.” He called for participants to “unite efforts behind the United Nations to enable it .... to organize the expected Libyan dialogue forum.”
The virtual meeting came amid international pressure on both sides of war and their foreign backers to avert an attack on the strategic city of Sirte.
Guterres said he has been “encouraged” in recent weeks and months “to witness a lull in the fighting,” with a stalemate around Sirte and direct confrontation between both sides “limited.” Recent rounds of talks in Egypt and Morocco resulted in positive steps by the warring sides, that included a preliminary deal that aims to guide the country toward elections within 18 months and demilitarize the contested city of Sirte. They also agreed to exchange prisoners and open up air and land transit across the country’s divided territory.
LNA commander Khalifa Haftar also allowed the reopening of vital oil facilities last month allowing production for the first time since powerful tribes loyal to him closed oil fields and terminals in January to chock off their rivals amid the Tripoli attack. Stephanie Williams, the top UN official for Libya, said Friday that the meeting “comes at a crucial moment.” She pointed to “some encouraging developments in Libya” including talks on security, “the long-term agreements on transition, and progress on the question of oil exports.” Germany’s deputy UN ambassador, Günter Sautter, said Berlin hopes participants in the meeting — co-chaired by Guterres and Maas — will renew their commitments to the Berlin road map and its implementation. “We hope that they will call on the parties to accelerate efforts to achieve a ceasefire,” Sautter said. “We hope that continuing blatant violations of the arms embargo will end.”

Two Rockets Fall in Baghdad, No Casualties
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
Iraq’s military said in a statement on Monday that two Katyusha rockets had fallen late on Sunday in Baghdad’s Jadiriya area, near the heavily fortified Green Zone, without causing any casualties. One of the rockets landed near the Babylon hotel, which is used by Iraqi travelers and sometimes for government meetings, the military said in the statement. The Iraqi military blamed “terrorist groups” for the attack and said the rockets were fired from an area in the western part of the capital. Rockets regularly fly across the Tigris towards the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign missions including the US embassy. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi pledged in a meeting with top diplomats to protect foreign missions and limit the possession of weapons to state forces following a US threat to shut down its embassy in the city.
Washington blames such attacks on Iranian-backed militia groups. Iran has not directly commented on the incidents. Iraq, often the scene of spillover violence from US-Iran tensions, wants to avoid being drawn into any regional conflict.
Last week, at least six missiles targeting Erbil international airport in northern Iraq were intercepted. The US-led coalition maintains a troop presence on a base inside the airport. The recent attacks have, until now, exclusively targeted the Green Zone and Baghdad's airport. Roadside bombs have also routinely targeted convoys carrying materials for the US-led coalition forces. Iraq's foreign minister on Wednesday said the government was taking measures to consolidate security in the Green Zone and airport.
The attack in Erbil, a rare target for rockets, is considered a serious escalation by Iraqi officials. Kurdish officials, and former Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, said the incident was “yet another escalation” to undermine security in the country by “the same groups who are attacking the US embassy in Baghdad and its convoys. Action is needed to stop it.”

Israel Warns Advanced Cruise Missiles Could Fall in Hands of Armed Groups
Tel Aviv /Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 5 October, 2020
The Israeli security and military leaders have expressed their concern on Sunday over the development advanced cruise missiles, which can fly at supersonic speeds, that can fall in the hands of armed groups.
They said the Middle East is witnessing an unprecedented arms race whereby countries and various armed groups are knocking on the doors of the world’s leading arms producers, the United States, China and Russia, all of whom are known for manufacturing the advanced cruise missiles.
They voiced fears that the missiles may land in the hands of “Israel’s enemies” and “terrorist organizations”. Israeli sources predicted that China could be the greatest arms supplies for these groups.
“The greatest fear comes from the proven fact that nearly all weapons that are made in China eventually end up in the Middle East,” they added.
expressed its worries Sunday from the development of new cruise missiles with a pace exceeding the speed of sound, while it uncovered a US Congress draft law prohibiting Washington to sell arms to any Arab state without Tel Aviv’s approval. Israel’s Channel 12 military correspondent, Nir Dvori, said the advanced cruise missiles possess a very quick ability to maneuver in the field, changing entry routes and making it difficult for the Israeli defense system to deal with their speed. Separately, lawmakers at the US House of Representatives introduced a bipartisan bill that could allow Israel to veto any American arms sales to the Arab countries. The proposed bill "would require the President to consult with the Israeli government to ensure [qualitative military edge] concerns are settled" in respect to weapons sales to Middle Eastern countries, read a statement by the office of lead sponsor Representative Brad Schneider.
The proposed legislation also asks the US President to inform the Congress of the potential impact of the planned deal on Israel’s military superiority in the region, no later than 60 days after receiving a request to sell arms and military equipment to countries in the Middle East.
 

Canada/Statement from Minister Champagne on suspension of export permits to Turkey
October 05, 2020 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs today issued the following statement:
“Over the last several days, certain allegations have been made regarding Canadian technology being used in the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Upon learning of these allegations, I immediately directed Global Affairs Canada to investigate these claims.
“In line with Canada’s robust export control regime and due to the ongoing hostilities, I have suspended the relevant export permits to Turkey, so as to allow time to further assess the situation.
“Canada continues to be concerned by the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulting in shelling of communities and civilian casualties.
“We call for measures to be taken immediately to stabilize the situation on the ground and reiterate that there is no alternative to a peaceful, negotiated solution to this conflict.”

Canada/Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs on the repatriation of a Canadian child orphaned in northeastern Syria
October 5, 2020 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement:
“I am pleased that this Canadian child orphaned in Syria will soon be united with extended family in Canada.
“Global Affairs Canada has been actively engaged in this case since first learning of the child’s exceptional circumstances. The focus is now on protecting the child’s privacy and ensuring that the child receives the support and care needed to begin a new life here in Canada.
“I would also like to thank the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces for their valuable support during this process.”
 

Annamie Paul becomes first Black and Jewish Canadian party leader
Marcy Oster/JTA/October 05/2020
Paul has previously worked as an advisor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and as a political officer in Canada’s Mission to the European Union in Brussels.
Toronto attorney Annamie Paul made history when she was elected head of Canada’s federal Green Party on Saturday.Paul, 47, is the first Black permanent leader of a major federal political party in Canada, and the second Jewish person, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation reported. David Lewis, former leader of the left-wing NDP party, was the first Jewish party head.
The daughter of Caribbean immigrants to Canada, Paul converted to Judaism in 2000 while working on a master’s degree at Princeton University. Her conversion was supervised by the director of the campus Hillel, a Conservative rabbi. Paul has been married to Mark Freeman, a Jewish international human rights lawyer, for nearly 25 years, and is the mother of two teenage boys.
“It’s a faith that has really spoken to me: the universality, the humanistic values … I’m very much guided by the idea that if you save one person, you save the world,” Paul told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about her relationship to Judaism in June.
Paul faced some racist and antisemitic attacks during the campaign to head the Green Party, including being called the N-word in online comments during a virtual town hall, and a “f**king Jew” in a live chat, the CBC reported.
Paul has previously worked as an advisor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and as a political officer in Canada’s Mission to the European Union in Brussels.

Canada forms own probe into Iran downing of Ukraine plane
TORONTO (AP)//October 05/2020
Canada is forming its own forensic examination and assessment team to examine evidence and information after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shot down a Ukrainian jetliner in January, killing all 176 people on board.
The office of Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne told The Associated Press the team will collect, organize and analyze all available information, evidence and intelligence about the Jan. 8 crash near Tehran, and will advise the Canadian government on its credibility.
“This is yet another step to uncover the truth, hold the Iranian regime to account and seek justice for the families of the victims. We will spare no efforts on behalf of the families of the victims to obtain justice and closure,” Champagne said in a statement provided to the AP.
The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, more than 50 Canadians — including many Iranians with dual citizenship — and 11 Ukrainians, according to officials. The route was popular with those traveling onward to Canada. Shahin Moghaddam, who lost his wife Shakiba Feghahati and his 10-year-old son Rosstin, said the Canadian probe is late, but he called it a good first step. He said the families have a lot to share.
“Iran won’t cooperate and won’t answer any of the questions. At a same time we have to use all the tools we have to pressure them to answer,” he said.
The shootdown happened the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting U.S. soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3. At the time, Iranian troops were bracing for a U.S. counterstrike and appear to have mistaken the plane for a missile. Iran announced recently announced it retrieved some data, including a portion of cockpit conversations, from the Ukrainian jetliner. The head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said in August that the passenger plane’s black boxes have only 19 seconds of conversation following the first explosion, though the second missile reached the plane 25 seconds later. The report quoting him did not elaborate. The Canadian government previously dismissed Iran’s reports as limited and containing selected information, and said Tehran still has many questions to answer. Iran initially denied responsibility for the crash before admitting — in the face of mounting evidence and international pressure — the Boeing 737-800 went down after being hit by two Iranian missiles.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 05-06/2020

Missile war of the cities in Armenia and Azerbaijan escalates - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/October 05/2020

Azerbaijan said that it had “liberated” seven villages on Saturday, which led to cheers in Baku.
Sunday has brought more escalation between Armenia and Azerbaijan as the countries continue to rely on missiles and rockets to shell each other over the last days. The attack on the Armenian town of Stepankert on Saturday was followed by a long-range missile attack on Ganja in Azerbaijan.
Both sides have traded accusations of the other targeting civilians. Reports indicated Azerbaijan used the LORA missile, which was invented in Israel, last week. In addition Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of used Russian Tochka-U missiles. Armenia also has Iskander missiles. The fighting appears now to be entering a more indiscriminate phase after Azerbaijan’s initial advances last week. In fact Azerbaijan said that it had “liberated” seven villages on Saturday, which led to cheers in Baku. The attack on Sunday has brought a more somber mood.
The Azeri claim to have taken seven villages, which Azerbaijan claims is all part of its territory of Nagorna-Karabkah which Armenia controls, would have handed Baku a victory and potential for a ceasefire. Iran and Russia would like to see the conflict reduced. Turkey wants it to increase. The attack on Sunday appears to force Azerbaijan to respond with a more heavy bombardment. So far the conflict has mostly been isolated to the disputed area, a kind of quasi war of the kind that many countries have gotten used to fighting. Armenia has considered asking for Russian peacekeepers or post-Soviet CSTO states to support it. This could potentially mean outsourcing the conflict to Russia and Turkish mediation and reducing the sovereignty of Azerbaijan and Armenia to control their own destiny. Neither country wants that.
Sources online said the Ganja shelling may have been with the Tochka-U missiles but Armenia has rejected these assertions in the past. Meanwhile Armenians claim Azerbaijan struck Stepankert with Polonez and Smersh missiles on Saturday, plunging the city into darkness. Both sides have made exaggerated claims. Azerbaijan claimed to have shown an Armenian Smerch missile that fell in a field but mislabelled it last week. Both sides are using the same Soviet-era origin missile concepts and methods. The Soviets invented the use of large missile forces and many rockets and missile units throughout the world, from Iran to the Caucuses, have weapons that are based on Soviet designed or countries that may have borrowed those designs such as China and North Korea.
It appears now that the conflict, after a week of war, is escalating. This could be an escalation before mediation and ceasefire, as both sides lash out. It could also mean that soon the missiles will be targeting more strategic and deeper targets. Each side has access to numerous missiles with expanding ranges up to several hundred kilometers. On paper the Azeri side appears to be better armed. It has, in addition to older Russian rocket systems, the Israeli LORA, and Russian Tochka and Belarus Polonez, which is more modern. Armenia’s number of known launchers appears much smaller, perhaps half the size of the Azerbaijan missile and rocket force. Like many details in military equipment and defense sales this is not entirely known and both sides may have more equipment than they have revealed.
It is not clear if either side has adequate air defenses to shoot down larger missiles. Once again they rely on Russian technology often in this, even as Azerbaijan has sought to modernize its forces. Baku claims to have decimated Armenian air defenses in Nagorna-Karabkah, striking more than 30 units, likely using drones that can hunt radars, such as Israel’s Harpy, which Azerbaijan is known to have. Azerbaijan also has the Turkish Bayraktar drone. Yerevan has S-300 and other air defenses. It doesn’t appear Azerbaijan was able to protect Ganja from the attack today. This will enter its calculations about a response.

Is Pompeo changing tack on Turkey? - Analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/October 05/2020
For the first time, the US appears to be confronting Turkey over its fueling of conflict all over the Middle East.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has paid a visit to the eastern Mediterranean, where he met Greek leaders. He was also in Cyprus on September 12. Turkey has been threatening Greece and Cyprus and causing tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara’s challenge has caused Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel to work together more closely.
Pompeo’s trip appeared to illustrate a new US commitment to listening to Athens and Nicosia, rather than appeasing Ankara’s aggression. The trip raised eyebrows in Ankara where leaders have gotten used to bashing the US while also having a direct line to the White House.
Most recently, Pompeo aimed criticism at Turkey for fueling tension in Azerbaijan and Armenia because Turkey had said it could support Azerbaijan militarily. He also expressed concern that Syrian mercenary fighters, many of them wanted for looting in Afrin and Libya and known for religious extremism, had been recruited by Ankara to fight Armenia.
For the first time, the US appears to be confronting Turkey over its fueling of conflicts across the region. In the last year Turkey has invaded Syria, bombed Iraq, threatened Greece with forcing refugees across the border, stoked tensions in Idlib, signed deals with Russia, sent arms and Syrians to Libya illegally, threatened to “liberate” Jerusalem from Israel’s control, threatened the UAE, bashed the Israel-UAE deal, hosted Hamas terrorists, encouraged war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and continued to put journalists and opposition politicians in prison.
Pompeo has a mixed record on Turkey’s role. On the one hand, his State Department has pushed pro-Turkish envoy James Jeffrey on the region. This resulted in the US misleading Kurdish civilians in eastern Syria in 2019, to the extent that days before a Turkish invasion US officials were telling Kurdish activists such as Hevrin Khalaf that Ankara would not attack them. Days later, on October 12 she was dead, murdered by Turkish-backed extremists.
Ankara’s far-right media called her murder a successful “neutralization.”
However, the Secretary of State has also been critical of Turkey over its turning of the historic church and museum, Hagia Sophia, back into a mosque. He has also said Ankara would not be allowed to slaughter Kurds. The State Department also critiqued Turkey’s President for hosting Hamas terrorists.
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The recent trips to Cyprus and Greece seem to have caused Turkey to wonder if Pompeo has finally changed tack on Turkey.
Instead of the double game where the US coddles Turkey with some diplomats but expresses concern with others, the trip purposely avoided meeting Turkish officials. Over the years Ankara’s officials have gotten used to meeting with Russia and Iran while always bashing European and western leaders. Turkey does not take the West seriously and thinks slandering the US, France, Germany, Austria, Holland and other countries is how to get progress from western officials. Turkish pro-government media for instance, regularly bashes the US while not critiquing Russia and Iran the same way.
Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, recently threatened US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Turkey has also bashed Joe Biden for critical comments. Cavusoglu has called Europe “spoiled, racist children” and threatened to “crash and kick out to sea” critics in Greece. It is hard to find a week in the last year that Turkish officials have not attacked some western country, while at the same time demanding they work with Turkey.
Now the top US diplomat, who is also one of the key figures in the Trump administration and central to the US’s role in the world today, is more critical of Turkey. That the US State Department has slammed Ankara for hosting Hamas and also for sending Syrians to Azerbaijan, appears to show that Washington understands that Turkish aggression is harming US interests and allies.
For years the pro-Ankara lobby in Washington sold the White House on a theory that Turkey would work with the US against Iran. However, Turkey supported trade with Iran and opposed US sanctions, and wanted the Iran Deal to remain. Turkey regularly hosts Iranian delegations and greets them warmly. Turkey works with Iran and Russia in Syria to sideline the US. Ankara accuses the US of working with “terrorists” in Syria but has never used similar language against Iran. It may be that the US State Department is merely playing both sides, but Pompeo’s high level visits to Greece and Cyprus appear to show a shift in attitude. Turkey has sunk political support into bashing Biden and supporting Trump. It has gambled since 2016 that it could interfere in US domestic politics to get the results it wanted. When the Turkish President visited the US in 2017 Turkish security even beat up US peaceful protesters in Washington, a sign that Ankara felt it controlled Washington.
To show the US who was boss Ankara harassed a US soldier at an airport in Turkey, detained a US pastor on false charges, and imprisoned a US consular employee, as well as harassing US journalists. Ankara believed the US would appease its policies and get into line. Now Ankara’s attempt to control US foreign policy may be slipping away.

A Fifth War Won't Do Turkey Any Good
Burak Bekdil//Gatestone Institute/October 05/2020
On August 28, a former MP from Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party, Metin Külünk, published a map of "Greater Turkey" which illustrates the extent of Turkey's revisionist ambitions. It includes areas of Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, Georgia and Armenia.
In a similarly threatening statement, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar provocatively advised Greece to remain silent "so as not to become a meze [snack] for the interests of others."
Erdoğan's fifth war would be one with no winners. But Erdoğan's Turkey would be the bigger loser.
Threats from Turkey have been coming in unprecedented abundance. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently said: "... Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear up immoral maps and documents imposed on itself. Either they will understand this with the language of politics and diplomacy or through painful experiences on the battlefield... A century ago, we either buried them in the ground or threw them into the sea..." Pictured: Erdoğan speaking in Ankara on September 17, 2020. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
During the 20th century, the Turks and their traditional Aegean rivals, the Greeks, fought four conventional wars: The First Balkan War (1912-1913); the First World War (1914-1918); the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922); and the Cyprus War (1974). So it is not the first time during an expanse of peace that newspapers across the world are telling their readers that the Aegean Sea is on the brink of war. "Peace" across the Aegean has always been cold-to-very-cold except for brief periods of relative warmth. It looks as if Turks and Greeks live in neighboring homes built on a centuries-long blood feud.
Charles King, in his book Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, wrote about the early post-Ottoman years in Istanbul and the nation-building efforts of the infant Republic of Turkey:
"Istanbul's non-Muslim minorities fell from an estimated 56 percent in 1900 to 35 percent by the late 1920s. Other cities had more dramatic decreases. Izmir, the former Smyrna, went from 62% non-Muslim to 14%... But the demographic revolution changed virtually everything in the old minority neighborhoods of Istanbul. In the rush to leave, Greeks, Armenians and Jews dumped the contents of their houses and apartments onto the secondhand market, hoping to gain at least a small amount of cash before boarding a ship or train...
"Turkey as a whole became more Muslim, and more Turkish, more homogeneous and more rural — because of the flight of non-Muslim minorities from cities — than it had ever been. Some of the families who would go on to become the mainstays of Istanbul's economy emerged [by]... keeping an eye on changing fortunes and translating political connections into economic advantage once the Greek and other minority businesses went up for sale. There was nothing necessarily dishonest about their dealings, but they rested on a massive transfer of wealth whose origins lay in the republic's preference for national purity over the old cosmopolitanism of the imperial capital."
After three wars at the beginning of the century, Turkish-Greek tensions would next explode in Cyprus, where Turkish and Greek Cypriots lived side by side and in peace until after the 1950s, when they started to slaughter each other. Ethnic strife led to the Turkish military operation in July 1974 that ended with its occupation of the northern third of the island. Cyprus has remained divided along ethnic lines ever since.
In 1996, the Turkish and Greek militaries came close to a hot engagement over sovereignty claims over a tiny islet in the southern Aegean Sea. A few years after successful U.S. mediation averted war, few Turks or Greeks even remembered the name of that 9.9-acre, uninhabited islet: Imia (Kardak in Turkish).
Today's tensions, stretching from the Aegean to the Eastern Mediterranean, look more serious than two teenagers in a tug-of-war over a piece of rock.
When the head of Israel's Mossad, Yossi Cohen, reportedly said in August that "Iranian power is more fragile but the real threat is from Turkey," he had a point. These days, threats from Turkey have been coming in unprecedented abundance.
In a recent speech in Istanbul, Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, gave not-so-subtle hints about his irredentist views, with particular reference to the 1923 Treaty of Sèvres which, with other pacts, established the borders of modern Turkey:
"They will understand Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear up immoral maps and documents imposed on itself. Either they will understand this with the language of politics and diplomacy or through painful experiences on the battlefield... A century ago, we either buried them in the ground or threw them into the sea. I hope they do not pay the same price now."
Robert Ellis, who writes about Turkey, reminded the public about what Abdullatif Şener, a one-time staunch Erdogan ally and now an opposition MP, had stated in an interview six years ago: Erdoğan would even be prepared to drag Turkey into a civil war to maintain his grip on power.
Metin Külünk, a former MP from Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party, on August 28 published a map of "Greater Turkey," which illustrates the extent of Turkey's revisionist ambitions. It includes areas of Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, Georgia and Armenia.
In a similarly threatening statement, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar provocatively advised Greece to remain silent "so as not to become a meze [snack] for the interests of others."
All that inflammatory war talk has sent several messages at different wavelengths to the west side of the Aegean Sea and beyond. Greece said it was bolstering its military arsenal and troops to be prepared for open conflict with Turkey. On September 13, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece would acquire 18 new French-made Rafale fighter jets to replace its aging Mirage 2000 fighters, buy four navy helicopters and four new frigates, and was refurbishing another four frigates. Mitsotakis also said his government was planning to extend mandatory conscription term to 12 months from the present nine months. An open conflict in and around the Aegean is against Western interests. Western nations, however, are right when they do not remain indifferent or submissive to Turkish threats. On September 1, Washington announced that it was partially lifting a 33-year-old arms embargo on the (Greek) Republic of Cyprus, a move immediately condemned by Turkey. In a related move, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Cyprus on September 12 in a bid to broker a peaceful solution to tensions with Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean.
"We remain deeply concerned by Turkey's ongoing operations surveying for natural resources in areas over which Greece and Cyprus assert jurisdiction over the eastern Mediterranean," Pompeo told reporters in Nicosia. During his visit, the U.S. and Cypriot governments signed a memorandum of understanding which Ankara absurdly protested, alleging that it may damage peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Aegean conflict and its repercussions also concern the European Union. The MED7 group of southern European countries, hosted on September 10 by France, expressed its full support and solidarity for Greece and Cyprus regarding the repeated violations of their sovereign rights from Turkey. The European Council will convene on September 24-25 to discuss whether to impose sanctions on Turkey.
Greece also has the backing of two other Mediterranean heavyweights, Egypt and Israel, as well as the support of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
Erdoğan can only win the fifth war at home. If he avoids a military conflict, he will have averted a losing war for Turkey. At home, his assertive foreign policy, tough-guy manners and I-am-challenging-the-entire-world rhetoric may bring him a few more votes and additional popularity. Erdoğan's fifth war would be one with no winners. But Erdoğan's Turkey would be the bigger loser.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The United Nations: Erdogan’s Favorite Platform for Trolling the World
Aykan Erdemir and Philip Kowalski/FDD/October 05/2020
The United Nations General Assembly, which meets every September, offers authoritarian heads of state their favorite platform for trolling the world. For this year’s 75th annual session, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his trademark mockery of multilateralism by lecturing members that “the world is bigger than five,” his euphemism for reshuffling the UN Security Council to get Turkey a permanent seat. Erdogan’s calls to reform the United Nations might have found a sympathetic audience had it not come from a strongman who institutionalized one-man rule at home by destroying democratic governance and the rule of law during his nearly 18 years in office.
Between his annual pitches to redesign the United Nations to his own advantage, Erdogan found time to hurl anti-Semitic remarks. This year, he referred to Israel as “the dirty hand that reaches the privacy of Jerusalem,” prompting a walkout from Israeli envoy Gilad Erdan, who accused the Turkish president of continuing “to spout anti-Semitic and false statements against Israel.” Last year, Erdogan compared developments in Gaza to the Holocaust, eliciting a similar response from Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz via Twitter: “There is no other way to interpret Erdogan’s crude and vile words—it is antisemitism, clear cut.”Rather than represent a genuine desire to fix the United Nations, where authoritarian regimes have secured clout over the last decade to shield themselves from international scrutiny, Erdogan offers a classic example of a strongman bent on exploiting intergovernmental organizations.
The Turkish president’s disregard for UN conventions, resolutions and sanctions is well documented. For example, a 376-page report the UN Panel of Experts on Libya issued in December 2019 found that Turkey, among others, violated a 2011 embargo by delivering arms and fighters to the war-torn North African country. The panel stated that the transfers to Libya were “repeated and sometimes blatant, with scant regard paid to compliance with the sanctions measures.”
Erdogan’s record is even more disconcerting in northern Syria. In a report the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released on September 15, the panel accused Turkey’s jihadist proxies of committing war crimes, including hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, rape and pillaging. The panel also accused Ankara’s proxies of violating international humanitarian law by looting and destroying cultural property. Such violations, the report stated, “may entail criminal responsibility for [Turkish] commanders who knew or should have known about the crimes, or failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or repress their commission.”
Erdogan’s Syria policies prompted criticism from another UN agency—the United Nations Children’s Fund—in March, after Turkey-backed armed groups interrupted the flow of water from the Alouk water station to regions of northeast Syria, where close to 500,000 reside, including tens of thousands of internally displaced persons sheltered at camps. The agency warned that the “interruption of water supply during the current efforts to curb the spread of the Coronavirus disease puts children and families at unacceptable risk.”
The latest UN agency to clash with Erdogan was the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which expressed its deep regrets for the Turkish president’s conversion of Istanbul’s sixth-century Byzantine church, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque. The conversion breached Ankara’s legal commitments in accordance with the monument’s status as a museum on the World Heritage List.
The Turkish president’s abuse of the United Nations also extends to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In June 2016, 230 NGOs from around the world penned an open letter to ECOSOC criticizing the politicization of the United Nations’ Committee on NGOs. Over the years, Turkey has received criticism for playing a large role in that politicization by using procedural tactics to block the granting of consultative status to NGOs, or withdraw that status from NGOs as a form of reprisal.
Both the United States and the European Union have expressed concern over the number of deferred applicants and called for an end to arbitrary questioning of NGOs at the committee. In February 2018, Geneva-based human rights watchdog UN Watch condemned the election of Turkey as the vice chair of the committee that accredits and oversees the work of human rights groups at the world body.
Erdogan’s lofty general assembly speech and calls for reform and multilateral cooperation will not find a sympathetic audience beyond fellow authoritarians who share an interest in making a mockery of international norms. The Turkish president’s key motivation for “fixing” the United Nations is to open it and other intergovernmental organizations to further abuse. Erdogan and others hope to bully their neighbors and trample upon vulnerable individuals and communities around the world without international scrutiny. It is imperative for democratic nations to join forces for genuine reform at international institutions, to deny impunity to autocrats and prevent them from adding insult to injury from their podiums.
*Aykan Erdemir (@aykan_erdemir) is the senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament.
*Philip Kowalski (@philip_kowalski) is a research associate at the Turkey Program of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

CIA Director Haspel and the Anti-Trump Conspirators
Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute/October 05/2020
What is most interesting is the timing of Gina Haspel's last tour as London Station Chief -- from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and "utility government operative" Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.
The CIA Station Chief is the top intelligence official in any given country. The FBI must inform the Station Chief of what they planned to do and get Station Chief approval. The FBI hates that, but those are the rules. Because the various intelligence agencies are sensitive, they do not use the word "approved." Instead, they use the word "coordinated." Jargon aside, nothing would have happened without Haspel's okay.
That carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Trump. People around President Trump were prosecuted and/or had their lives destroyed based on a scheme of U.S. government lies. Who appears to have been "in on it" from Day One? Gina Haspel.
The FBI is not allowed to penetrate and subvert a presidential campaign. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9, "Undisclosed Participation in Organizations in the United States," prohibits it in plain language... That legal prohibition is the reason the FBI felt the need to manufacture a "foreign counterintelligence threat" in the UK and then "import" the investigation back into the United States.
Gina Haspel is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Haspel is the first career clandestine service officer to become director, and the first woman. She was the CIA Chief of Station in London -- twice, and that repeat assignment is very unusual. What is most interesting is the timing of Haspel's last tour as London Station Chief -- from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and "utility government operative" Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.
Nothing speculative here -- the Justice Department Inspector General pegged the exact date of the FBI/Halper meeting as August 10, 2016. Halper had been on contract (again) with the U.S. government since the Iowa Caucuses began in October 2015. For the sake of brevity, I am not discussing Halper's role in targeting former Defense Intelligence Agency Director, Lieutenant General Mike Flynn. That is another column for another day -- and certainly Haspel knows a great deal about that, as well.
The timeframe (2014-2017) matters, because Haspel, as London Station Chief would have been briefed on the FBI's counterintelligence plan before any actions were approved to go forward. The CIA Station Chief is the top intelligence official in any given country. The FBI must inform the Station Chief of what they planned to do and get Station Chief approval. The FBI hates that, but those are the rules. Because the various intelligence agencies are sensitive, they do not use the word "approved." Instead, they use the word "coordinated." Jargon aside, nothing would have happened without Haspel's okay.
Think about this for a while: The current CIA director was an active, knowledgeable party to the efforts to target candidate Trump with a contrived foreign counterintelligence investigation. That carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Trump. People around President Trump were prosecuted and/or had their lives destroyed based on a scheme of U.S. government lies. Who appears to have been "in on it" from day one? Gina Haspel.
So, when we read in an article by Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, that Haspel is personally resisting the declassification and release of records on "Russiagate," we are not surprised. In fact, we are relieved, because a few of us have been shouting from the mountaintops about Haspel for years, to no avail. The smarmy James Comey is easier to identify and loathe than the elusive Haspel.
For those seeking more information on Haspel, Shane Harris of the Washington Post wrote a nauseating hagiography of Haspel in July 2019. Consistent with WaPo's standards there are several factual errors and loads of opinion masquerading as "tough reporting." Harris (and one assumes Haspel) makes sure readers know that Haspel and company "boils down" presidential intelligence briefings to "a few key points that they think Trump absolutely needs to know." We are supposed to also believe that "Trump favors pictures and graphics over text." Of course, the CIA director's office did not cooperate with Harris. No, not at all. The FBI is not allowed to penetrate and subvert a presidential campaign. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9, "Undisclosed Participation in Organizations in the United States," prohibits it in plain language. Historically, the prohibition is a consequence of U.S. Army Counterintelligence penetrating Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the behest of the FBI during the 1960s -- among other abuses of power and authority. That legal prohibition is the reason the FBI felt the need to manufacture a "foreign counterintelligence threat" in the UK and then "import" the investigation back into the United States.
The FBI plotters needed to establish a foreign counterintelligence "event" to run their operation. The UK was the easiest and operationally safest/friendliest place to pull it off, especially with Stefan Halper's connections to Cambridge. Haspel was clearly fully informed and had "coordinated" the operation. She also enjoyed cordial relationships with MI6 and GCHQ. Now we (largely, but imperfectly) know what transpired. Halper under oath, in public, would fill in a lot of blanks. Gina Haspel, under the same circumstances and conditions, might just complete the puzzle. Should President Trump be reelected, it might just happen. A President Biden guarantees we will never hear another syllable of the rest of the story.
Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer. For the past 20 years, he has served as the Director of Investigations & Research for Judicial Watch. The views expressed are the author's alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

China's Religious Persecution And Its Accomplices
Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMRI/October 05/2020
The Chinese Communist persecution of Muslims and Christians is not new, and dates to the beginnings of the regime. Fierce persecution of Christians in the 1950s was matched by a concerted and successful regime effort to change the demographic character of the Muslim majority of Xinjiang by bringing in millions of Han Chinese settlers.[1]
But if tension between Chinese and Turkic Muslims in Central Asia is an old, indeed ancient, story, the current wave is very new. Accelerating under the regime of President Xi Jinping, the brutal Chinese repression of religion, particularly Muslims and Christians, is particularly worrying because it comes wrapped inside both technological innovation and a global will to power.
Chinese re-education camps for more than a million Muslims (the number of detainees may be as high as three million), forced abortions and sterilization, forced labor, and the destruction of the region's physical religious heritage by destroying mosques, shrines and cemeteries have been matched by the growth of a police state unparalleled even in China.[2] The implementer on the ground of this coercive totalitarian surveillance state is a regime official previously in charge of controlling and suppressing China's restive Tibetan population. China even has plans to rewrite the Quran to fit the regime's ideological values.[3]
The Bible is already being rewritten by the regime, as persecution of Christians also soars. The blasphemous regime rewriting of the passage of Jesus and the Woman Taken in Adultery in the Gospel of John makes Jesus a murderer, but also enforces a message of obedience to the state and its officials.[4]
There is a difference between the persecution of Muslims and Christians in China, of course. First of all, there may be more Chinese Christians than Muslims. But, more importantly, most Christians in China are ethnic Han Chinese, not ethnic minorities such as Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples who are also found in specific zones. Christians are imprisoned and persecuted, but have not as yet been placed in concentration camps by the millions as Muslims have been. However, there have historically been many cases of individual Christians who spent decades jailed for their faith in China.[5]
But the "Sinicization" campaigns targeting Christians and Muslims are similar in many ways.[6] Both campaigns are widespread, coercive, and destructive. Both aim, through social engineering, technology, and raw power, to prevent the growth of these faiths, to stop adherents from raising their children in their faith, and to strip these religions of their distinctiveness and make them "fit" into the dominant ideology promoted by the party and the state.[7] The growth of both religions is seen as a major threat to that ideology.[8]
One would think that the jailing of millions, the indoctrination, the violence, the blowing up of mosques and churches, and the rewriting of holy writ would have led to massive global repudiation and anger against China. After all, the burning of ONE Quran in Florida once led to riots. The printing of content insulting the Prophet Muhammad by one publication has actually now led to three terrorist attacks (2011, 2015, 2020) on Charlie Hebdo, and violent riots against the publication broke out in Niger, Algeria, Jordan, and Pakistan.
But it isn't just the sensitivities of Muslims. Is there no more loudly trumpeted value in the liberal West than "freedom?" The freedom to believe or to dissent, to do what you want – which would presumably include believing in a religion and worshiping in peace. But the astonishing reality is that there has been more global turmoil over the actions of the Minneapolis police in killing one man than there has been over a coldly calculated massive campaign of state terror and savage repression targeting tens of millions of people. China's repression of religion has cost them little in terms of trade or economic relations.
The lust for profit and greed has trumped what political activist Maajid Nawaz has called "the most technologically sophisticated genocide in history."[9] Muslim states that stridently trumpet their Islamic credentials – Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan – have not only been largely silent about China but actually seek closer ties with Beijing while all this is going on. But the same is true in the West. Emblematic Western institutions – Hollywood, the National Basketball Association, powerful social media companies, elite Western universities – are not only silent but actually go out of their way not to offend the Chinese regime.[10] These are the same institutions exquisitely attuned to leading in the latest causes or trends assailing the West, from identity politics to gender issues. The Trump administration has been much more openly critical than others – including previous American administrations and the European Union – on China, but that difference is only in relative terms, because those others were so shamelessly obsequious for so long.
Obviously, part of this global complicity is deeply rooted in greed. That would certainly be true of Western institutions. For Muslim states, greed is also an element, but what China is doing is not that different than what many regimes already do. Many Muslim states also discriminate on the basis of ethnicity and religion, using national security as an excuse. Xi Jinping locks up Muslims and persecutes Christians. But so do Erdogan and Khamenei. And while Western liberal states haven't gone that far, there is a coercive and intolerant element in Western liberal institutions, especially when it comes to religion, and this element seems to be growing.[11]
Contempt for religion is, increasingly, a Western liberal trait,[12] and in this, China and Western progressives' worldviews overlap. Both see organized religion as an obstacle to their plans. China's "Great Firewall" (which began as the "Golden Shield Project) to surveil citizens and control content, including religious content, was built with the help of American companies, including Cisco.[13]
With Western and Muslim institutions largely indifferent to China's savage religious persecution campaign, what is to be done? A logical step would be a drawing together of Muslims and Christians, along with others of good will, to aggressively challenge this infamy. It will not be easy given longstanding grievances between the two faiths, and the bitter reality that in most of the Muslim world, official Islam is cynically controlled and manipulated by the state – states that are often collaborators and enablers of China. Institutions like the Holy See, which could play a useful convening role in such a struggle, are paralyzed because of a controversial accord between the Vatican and China which has yielded very few real benefits to Chinese Catholics.[14]
But a way forward must be found. Regardless of the challenges of this low, dishonest decade, we must speak out. We must be bold in exposing and documenting the Chinese regime's crimes against people of faith, all of them, and at the very least seek to raise the reputation costs for their willing collaborators, whether in American boardrooms or European councils or in the lands of Islam.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] Fpri.org/2013/07/playing-the-long-game-unrest-and-changing-demography-in-xinjiang/#:~:text=Chinese%20censuses%20chronicle%20the
%20rise,million%20to%20over%2021%20million, July 1, 2013.
[2] Theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/25/thousands-of-xinjiang-mosques-destroyed-damaged-china-report-finds, September 25, 2020.
[3] English.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/12/27/china-to-rewrite-quran-bible-to-reflect-socialist-values, December 27, 2019.
[4] Ucanews.com/news/chinese-catholics-angry-over-book-claiming-jesus-killed-sinner/89619#, September 22, 2020.
[5] Telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11396106/Catholic-bishop-dies-in-China-after-14-years-in-prison.html, February 6, 2015.
[6] Bitterwinter.org/sinicization-of-religion-is-a-sign-of-weakness, January 5, 2019.
[7] Asianews.it/news-en/Henan,-church-banned-for-children-under-18:-%E2%80%98taking-the-legs-from-under-the-Christian-community%E2
%80%99s-growth-among-young-people-43646.html, April 17, 2018.
[8] Cfr.org/backgrounder/christianity-china, October 11, 2018.
[9] Twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1310851685531648001, September 29, 2020.
[10] Washingtonpost.com/sports/nba/dont-be-mad-at-the-nba-hundreds-of-us-companies-have-sold-out-to-chinas-regime/2019/10/07/
799efd8a-e91c-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html, October 7, 2019.
[11] Firstthings.com/article/2017/04/polite-persecution, April 2017.
[12] Theweek.com/articles/443225/why-many-liberals-despise-christianity, October 8, 2014.
[13] Wired.com/2008/05/leaked-cisco-do, May 28, 2008.
[14] Foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/17/china-francis-vatican, September 17, 2020.

No Time to Die
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/October 05/2020
The young man read the news and expressed his discontent. I assumed that Covid-19 had achieved a new record, or that Donald Trump’s doctors announced the deterioration of his conditions. Soon I realized that I was mistaken. The news has nothing to do with the world health or the situation of America and its president.
The story, in short, is about the release of the new James Bond movie, titled “No Time to Die,” starring British superstar Daniel Craig. The name of James Bond has an exceptional resonance in the movie market. “Specter” reaped about USD 800 million in the world in 2015, while the revenues of “Skyfall” in 2012 exceeded one billion dollars. This means that every return of the “Agent 007” to the screens is an artistic and economic event for the film industry.
The film was initially scheduled to hit the market in April. But then the world was overwhelmed with scenarios of fear, lockdown, infection counts, and distancing. As people were not aware of the resilience of the visiting beast, it was decided to postpone the release of the film to November.
The new date was set based on optimism that these advanced laboratories would not stand helpless in the face of the “Chinese virus”, and they would certainly find a vaccine capable of facing it and medications that reduce its pain and the number of its victims.
Adding to the excitement is that the USD 200 million movie marks the fifth and final time that Craig has played the role of James Bond.
The producer could not risk releasing the film. Cinemas are also on the list of the Coronavirus victims, similar to many industries related to entertainment, tourism and travel. Moreover, an important part of the proceeds comes from European markets, which have returned to record high casualties and renewed talks about types of lockdown. The concerned party had no choice but to drink the poison again and announce the postponement of Bond’s arrival to the market until April 2021, hoping that the global village and its cinemas would have been liberated from the wave of wolves unleashed by Covid-19 in every direction.
I am not claiming that I was eagerly awaiting the release of “No Time To Die”. The bleak profession we practice forces us into unpleasant preoccupations, especially as we come from a region rife with conflicts. But I still have a longing for the amount of excitement that spies' stories provide, especially when they crossed the Iron Curtain to the other camp, and gambled with their safety and sometimes with their lives and the reputation of their countries.
But the most important aspect to me is the amazing success of British novelist and former spy, Ian Fleming, in creating in the 1950s the James Bond character, and for this character to survive to our days. Then I further admired Bond when I learned that Vladimir Putin esteemed him, and he did not hesitate to launch his spies on similar thorny missions on European soil. In fact, there is a certain similarity between Craig and Putin.
I tried to alleviate the discontent of the young man, so I told him that the world is busy today with more serious and urgent issues, especially since the number of deaths due to the Coronavirus exceeded one million and the infections surpassed the threshold of 35 million.
He replied saying that he fully understood that and knew that the world would not return to what it was; but he was sad because the image of James Bond was damaged in his mind. Bond used to break through the defense, settle confrontations, hunt secrets, deliver crushing blows, succeed and win. The story is now different.
The pandemic has taken this role and Bond no longer dares to go down to the halls, because fans of his movies may choose to stay away from closed spaces and avoid the conditions of social distancing.
“The Coronavirus disease has forced James Bond to cancel scheduled dates, and it became clear that the epidemic was stronger than Agent 007,” the young man told me.
The damage done to the James Bond movie is far less than the harm that many others have incurred. The world held its breath when the president of the most powerful country in the world and the supreme commander of the most powerful military machine in history announced that he was infected with Covid-19. The entire world was watching Donald Trump taken to the hospital. The only question in near and far capitals was about Trump’s health and whether the treacherous virus was hiding surprises.
The role and safety of the man sitting in the White House is more important than that of James Bond. The president could not continue the policy of underestimating the virus. Covid-19 imposed the rules of the game. No one is sure of the deadlines that should not be broken. Will Trump be present in the elections? Will he be exhausted when it is time to use his excessive vitality to rally voters’ support? For four years, the world has been living on the rhythm of the Twitter master. Will the Coronavirus allow these appointments to continue or cancel them? Covid-19 has spoiled the world’s bliss. Shaking hands, hugging, and mixing are now prohibited. The virus tampered with calendars and appointments. It imposed distance learning and remote work… Those places that used to warmly welcome students and employees are now cold, full of sterilization tools, and spacing signs.
The Coronavirus has canceled many dates and made them icy. A thousand thanks to technology for avoiding complete paralysis, but the world looks bleak, with no handshakes and close encounters.
The UN session was hit, so were the Olympic Games in Japan. The World Economic Forum, Expo 2020, the Festival of Cannes, the Oscars, the Rio Carnival, and regional and international summits will all be held remotely.
From Bond’s relapse to Trump’s infection, one concludes that the world has to fight hard to maintain its spirits. “No time to die,” says the James Bond movie. The truth is, we are tired of death. We are tired of the numbers and pictures of frightened and tearful eyes… from the pictures of loved ones leaving without saying goodbye.
The remote farewell law breaks the heart. Humanity is fighting an arduous battle with death. There is no choice but hope. This time, the new James Bond will emerge from a laboratory, announcing that the vaccine will enter the battle to deter the epidemic. The world will admire the new engineer more than the British novelist who invented Agent 007.

Milton Friedman Was Wrong. Look at Income Inequality.
Joe Nocera/Bloomberg/October, 05/2020
In the summer of 1982, when I was 29, I was given a front-row seat as Milton Friedman’s famous dictum began to be put into practice.
I had recently joined the staff of Texas Monthly, where my first assignment was to profile a man I’d never heard of, T. Boone Pickens Jr., the founder and chief executive officer of Mesa Petroleum in Amarillo, Texas. My timing was spectacular: Pickens was secretly preparing his first hostile takeover attempt. Soon after I embarked on the story, his takeover bid became public, at which point he invited me to New York to sit in his hotel suite and watch him try to pull it off.
Not surprisingly, I became caught up in the excitement of the hostile bid, which was full of dramatic twists and turns. A business newbie, I also absorbed the doctrine that was its rationale. It was Friedman’s dictum, the one he had laid out 50 years ago in the New York Times Magazine: The responsibility of corporate executives, he wrote, “is to conduct the business in accordance with [shareholders’] desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible ... .” 1 The idea that businesses had social responsibilities, he added, was deeply wrongheaded.
In academia, Michael Jensen was the most prominent carrier of the Friedman torch; the landmark 1976 paper he wrote with William Meckling, 2 Theory of the Firm, argued that executives spent too much time thinking about “the physical appointments of the office, the attractiveness of the office staff, the level of employee discipline, the kind and amount of charitable contributions” and not nearly enough time thinking about maximizing profits for shareholders. CEOs needed to start aligning their interests with those of shareholders, Jensen and Meckling wrote.
Out in the field, if we can call it that, men like Pickens, Carl Icahn, Ron Perelman and a few dozen others — corporate raiders, they were labeled — used this same argument to justify their hostile takeover attempts. In his suite that summer, Pickens never tired of telling me (and anyone else within hearing distance) how the shareholders owned the company, how the sole job of a CEO was to make money for shareholders and how terrible it was that CEOs owned so little stock in their own companies.
Although corporate executives resisted the raiders at first, they eventually came around, especially once they realized that stock options could make them rich if the company’s share price rose. (And since this was the 1980s bull market, stocks did pretty much nothing else.) Once it went mainstream, Friedman’s doctrine became known as “maximizing shareholder value.”
It wasn’t just CEOs who started to preach shareholder value — so did everyone else in the business world. Wall Street became extremely impatient if a company spent “too much” on research and development, or if it failed to lay off workers quickly enough during any kind of downturn. Newly minted MBAs wanted to work for jazzy companies with fast-rising stocks. When I was at Fortune magazine in the late 1990s, our favorite CEO coverboys were those who combined managerial skill with eye-popping stocks, like Roberto Goizueta at Coca-Cola Co. and Jack Welch at General Electric. It always bothered me that CEOs were now making such incredible sums — and that the gap between their compensation and that of the average worker was getting wider by the year. But aside from that, I drank the Kool-Aid, too.
In his book “Transaction Man,” Nicholas Lemann notes that around the turn of the century, Jensen began to doubt that shareholder value was the panacea he had once thought it to be. Among the events that shook his faith were the scandals that rocked the country in the early 2000s: “the collapse of such companies as Enron, WorldCom and Nortel, which had used fraudulent accounting to make themselves look far more successful than they were.”
That’s when I began to change my mind, too. Enron executives were obsessed with the company’s stock price — they were all big shareholders, after all — and did whatever they needed to beat Wall Street’s quarterly expectations. Their moves included posting profits that never existed and using an off-balance-sheet special purpose entity secretly controlled by the company’s chief financial officer to manipulate earnings, all in the name of maximizing shareholder value.
As income inequality became a more obvious problem, so did the realization that at least some of it — and maybe a lot of it — could be attributed to maximizing shareholder value. It wasn’t just that CEOs were getting richer; it was also that employees were getting poorer. There were large corporations — healthy companies that made a lot of money — that paid its lowest level employees so little they needed government assistance. How did it make sense to reward shareholders at the expense of employees?
Pharmaceutical companies had long had a culture of indifference toward the stock market. But the 1990s ushered in the era of blockbuster drugs, and Big Pharma became as caught up in shareholder value as most other sectors. The result was the unstoppable rise in drug prices that have made drugs unaffordable to many patients who need them.
Were the fatal mistakes Boeing Co. made with the 737 Max — which led to 346 deaths and the grounding of the plane by regulators — the result of trying to maximize shareholder value? Yes. Was the implosion a few years ago of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Ltd. — a company that rolled up other pharma companies, cut their R&D staff and jacked up the price of their drugs — the result of trying to maximize shareholder value? Yes again. There are plenty of other examples.
“Maximizing shareholder value has meant doing whatever is necessary to boost the share price this quarter and the next,” the Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein wrote last year. He continued:
Over the years, it has been used to justify bamboozling customers, squeezing workers and suppliers, avoiding taxes and lavishing stock options on executives. Most of what people find so distasteful about American capitalism — the ruthlessness, the greed, the inequality — has its roots in this misguided notion about what business is all about.
In 1997, the Business Roundtable, embracing Friedman, put out a mission statement saying that “maximizing value for shareholders” should be the sole purpose of a corporation. Last year, it issued a new mission statement.
“While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders,” the business lobby said. Stakeholders included not only shareholders but also employees, customers and communities. “We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.”
We’re in a pandemic now. Millions of Americans are out of work. Tens of thousands of small businesses have closed. Millions more Americans are trying to work from home while juggling child care and remote learning. One would be hard pressed to think of a time when quarterly profits ought to matter less. What does it matter if the stock price is up or down if we are on the precipice of a depression? Who cares if a company beat its quarterly estimates?
Yet big companies like Ford, Coke and AT&T are laying off workers, exacerbating the country’s pain. It appears that companies aren’t yet ready to embrace the Business Roundtable’s message, not even during a terrible time such as the one we’re in now. Old habits die hard.
I have asked the question before, but it’s worth asking again: What is an economy for? It’s not simply to shovel profits to shareholders. The purpose of an economy is to allow people to prosper. In the end, Friedman’s doctrine has warped our understanding about the people an economy is supposed to serve. It’s not just shareholders. It’s all of us.

War in the Caucasus Will Draw in Russia and Turkey
James Stavridis/Bloomberg/October,05/2020
The “frozen conflict” between Armenia and Azerbaijan has turned very hot. What may seem to many Westerners a minor clash in a remote corner of the world actually has significant implications for regional security, energy markets and the ambitions of two problematic strongmen: Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
The fighting, which goes back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, centers on a small enclave of ethnic Armenians inside Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh. The mountainous self-declared republic (which is not even formally recognized by its patron, Armenia) has a population of 150,000 but is highly militarized. The Azeris lost control of the area in a conflict in the 1990s that cost 30,000 lives, and despite much saber-rattling have been unable to get it back though diplomatic or military means.
In my time at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I visited both countries several times. Dislike and distrust permeated the environment. The two defense chiefs at the time hated each other, and although both nations were nonmember partners with NATO (and had small troop contingents in Afghanistan), all that either man wanted to talk about was the duplicity and venality of the other. Unfortunately, each was accurately channeling the national view toward their neighbor in the Caucasus. Neither side seemed willing to give an inch, either literally and figuratively.
Over the four years I was at NATO, there were a number of half-hearted military thrusts by the Azeris, which were easily stopped by the Armenians. Our intelligence assessments found that the Armenians were almost certain to win if things came seriously to blows. The Russian Federation was supplying arms and training to both sides, and the Russians actually had a somewhat calming effect. You know things are bad when Putin is playing peacemaker.
In this latest escalation, as usual, both sides are claiming that the other attacked first; there were exchanges of fire in July leading to about a dozen Azeris killed (most of them soldiers). Casualties are now approaching 100. On Sunday, each side mobilized troops and declared martial law. On Tuesday, Armenia reported that one of its jets had been shot down by a Turkish F-16; Turkey denies the accusation.
There is a lack of any real push from outside nations to step in and negotiate a new cease-fire, something that has helped calm matters in the past, at least temporarily. The most recent effort was mediated by the so-called Minsk Group, with France, Russia and the US in the lead, but collapsed in 2010.
What is particularly dangerous in this latest flare-up is that Turkey and Russia are strongly backing different horses. The Turks dislike the Armenians and support their fellow in Azerbaijan. (In Armenia, memories of massacres by the Ottoman Turks over a century ago remain a significant factor in national thinking.) Russia has a formal defense treaty and warm military-to-military relations with Armenia.
Bear in mind that the other nations adjacent to the fighting are ever-unstable Georgia and one of America’s most determined enemies, Iran. And that oil-rich Azerbaijan — with 7 billion barrels of proven reserves and large amounts of natural gas — has vulnerable pipelines that run as close as 10 miles from the Armenian border.
While I’ve been in the region several times when tensions were high, this time feels dangerously different. Washington is utterly distracted by the upcoming election. Turkey and Russia are on opposite sides (as they are in Syria and Libya as well). And the European Union is absorbed by the Brexit endgame and tensions at sea in the eastern Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey. NATO, which still has partnerships with Armenia and Azerbaijan, says “both sides should immediately cease hostilities” and there is “no military solution to this conflict,” but offers no concrete proposal.
The chances of a peaceful settlement seem bleak. A new version of the Minsk group that would include Turkey could build confidence for a deal. Putin is close to the leaders of both countries, although Russia tilts strongly to fellow Christian Orthodox Armenia. Perhaps the US, Russia and Turkey, working together, could convince the two sides to turn away from the catastrophic path they are headed down.
An approach might begin with some symbolic return of land to the Azeris; a commitment by both nations to forswear use of firearms and explosives (just as China and India did after their recent small conflict at the “line of control” in the Himalayas); and a step-by-step approach on new border openings. Admittedly, none of that feels promising.
“The Black Garden,” a brilliant 2003 book by Thomas de Waal, traces the roots of the conflict. In the concluding pages, he says, “Any just solution to the [Nagorno-Karabakh] dispute will entail painful compromises on both sides, and it will have to balance radically opposing principles.” At the moment, such compromises seem far less likely than a small war with potentially large consequences.

Trump Confronts a New Form of Risk, More Personal and Perilous
Matt Flegenheimer/,The New York Times•October 5, 2020
President Donald Trump’s relationship to risk has often come down to an abiding self-belief: It will all probably work out for him because it generally has.
“Whatever happens, happens,” he said in 1991, declaring himself a “great fatalist” as his business fortunes wobbled.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said of North Korean nuclear diplomacy two years ago, blithely predicting that all would be fine.
“Risk plays a part in everything we do,” he advised in one of his pre-presidential how-to books. “I could get hit by a bus while I am crossing the street. Things happen.”
Yet the things that have happened this time — a president who has consistently played down the dangers of a deadly virus joining the ranks of hospitalized patients in his high-risk demographic — are nothing like the circumstances of Trump’s past feats of political, financial and reputational survival.
He is, instead, facing something almost entirely unfamiliar to him: genuine uncertainty and peril, a moment when the comforts of his office and surname can only take him so far.
If anything, the toll of the virus, on Trump and his nation, has reinforced how little his life of chance-taking had prepared him for the cold math of infectious disease.
In business, he has transcended consistent misfires with the risk-cushioning assistance of tax-avoidance schemes, bankruptcy court, his father’s riches and a manicured vision of televised success on “The Apprentice.”
In politics, he has survived gambits that might have ended any modern presidency before his — urging a foreign government to investigate a rival, questioning the valor of war heroes, equivocating on white supremacy — because Republican allies have wagered that he is worth the trouble.
But the pandemic could be neither browbeaten nor charmed. It is not impressed with his Nielsen ratings. It is not afraid of attack ads in a congressional primary. It does not comport with Trump’s long-standing principle that to modulate, to adjust in the face of distressing information, is to acknowledge weakness.
In a video released Saturday, Trump cast his departure from the White House as a kind of noble gamble — not the upshot of health hazards but the mark of a leader fluent in cost-benefit analyses and willing to absorb the consequences.
“I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe and just say, ‘Hey, whatever happens, happens,’” Trump said. “I can’t do that.”
The message was a functional extension of what supporters see as his swashbuckling political brand: a perpetual appeal to America’s inner dice-roller — “What do you have to lose?” he has long asked his audiences — requesting another four-year turn at the tables.
In another video Sunday, Trump said he had “learned a lot about COVID” through his first-person experience. His next move seemed to undercut his claim: Moments after posting this clip to Twitter, Trump was seen waving to well-wishers from the back of an SUV outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, raising immediate questions about the wisdom of the stunt — and the specter of exposure for those who helped him carry it out.
As Trump continues his hospital stay and doctors weigh the risks of sending him home, possibly as soon as Monday, the prospective downsides of the president’s standard impulses are impossible to ignore: The most protected man in America appears to have squandered his personal safety advantages, at once a testament to his administration’s failure to corral the virus and an encapsulation of Trumpian risk tolerance across the decades.
Those who know Trump say that a lifetime of burden-shifting has hampered his capacity to assess legitimate threats. Worrying was for the unpaid contractors, the people without draft deferments. Worrying was for those who didn’t know how to win.
“He believes that he is such a winner that there just isn’t any way this could have felled him,” Gwenda Blair, a biographer of the Trump family, said of the president’s maskless nonchalance in recent months. “He wasn’t, in his mind, running a risk because he’s pushed all the risk off onto other people — and the blame, if anything goes wrong.”
This instinct has informed his pandemic leadership from the start. He was eager to fault the Chinese, the Democratic governors, the news media. He insisted he had a plan but at times offered little more than suggestions for dubious medical treatments and casual assurances that everything would work out.
January: “It’s going to be just fine.”
February: “It’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”
March: “It’s something we have tremendous control of.”
The true course of the pandemic in the months that followed wholly contradicted Trump but rarely seemed to humble him.
He hungered for the balm of adoring crowds at his rallies, so he brought them back against the advice of public health experts, accusing opponents of “trying to COVID-shame us.”
He did not care for masks, so he did not usually wear masks, saying in May that he was “very far away from everyone,” so he would probably be OK.
As recently as Tuesday, at the debate against Joe Biden, Trump taunted the Democratic nominee for being gratuitously careful, in his estimation.
“Every time you see him, he’s got a mask,” the president said. “He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Even Thursday, after the public revelation that a top aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive for the virus, Trump took care not to betray too much concern, reverting to a favored phrase before his own results were announced: “We’ll see what happens.”
More often than not, at least before the pandemic, the lesson for Trump seemed to have been that nothing particularly terrible would happen if he followed his gut. For as long as he has been a politician, it has felt, to supporters and opponents, as if he were getting away with something — saying what you shouldn’t say, doing what you shouldn’t do — and defying the template for political risk management.
Some Republicans describe Trump as a kind of executive stuntman, trying motorcycle flips that he should probably avoid and hoping they land.
“For a lot of people, that causes admiration,” said Carlos Curbelo, a Republican former congressman from Florida who clashed at times with Trump and did not support him four years ago, “the way people would watch a daredevil.”
When harnessed appropriately, this approach can come off as distinctly American, projecting a sort of frontiersman attitude embedded in the idealized version of national swagger.
“This is America,” Trump said in his video over the weekend, never quite completing his point. “This is the United States.”
In his national stewardship during the pandemic, Trump’s defenders have sensed not a reckless disregard for science but a cleareyed appraisal of pros and cons. They note that even those closely following medical guidelines can contract the virus.
Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas and a prominent evangelical Trump supporter, said his church had followed the president’s example, reasoning that a full shutdown would be both “100% safe” and devastating to the entire enterprise.
“We have to balance risk and reward,” he said, adding that masks and distancing were encouraged at the church. “I don’t think people who are drawn to the president have a death wish.”
It is far from clear that Trump’s own view of pandemic-era risks and rewards will change now that he is among the afflicted, especially given his drive-by outing Sunday.
Earlier in the year, the ferocity of the virus appeared to resonate most with the president when events connected to him directly: his friend, Stanley Chera, falling ill and dying; his home borough of Queens suffering through scenes he had “never seen before.” But any tempering effect from these snapshots seemed brief.
Even before his illness, the president’s unruly debate performance struck some viewers as the anxious tell of a flailing man whose sundry safety nets of power and providence might be falling away.
“I think we’ve been trending toward that point anyway,” Mary Trump, his niece and a slashing critic, said in an interview. “He knows there’s things he can’t control anymore.”
She added that Trump had long viewed sickness and other physical struggles as manifestations of weakness. An acute case of the virus, she suggested shortly before his hospitalization Friday, could expose him to “a kind of pain he’s never experienced before.”
This alone might prompt a reckoning for him, or at least a recollection.
In a 2016 interview with The New York Times, Trump remembered the bleak final months of his mentor Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer who died of AIDS in 1986. As the end neared, Trump maintained a cool distance and moved his cases elsewhere without telling Cohn why, rationalizing that there was no need to hurt the feelings of someone “so weak” by then.
But at least one episode still ate at Trump three decades later: Cohn’s disbarment shortly before his death.
“They only got him because he was so sick,” the future president said ruefully. “They wouldn’t have gotten him otherwise.”