English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 28/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews21/english.april28.21.htm
 

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Bible Quotations For today

The loaves and two fish Miracle
John 06/01-15: “After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 27-28/2021

Ministry of Health: 1182 new coronavirus cases, 26 deaths
Pope Francis Says ‘Lebanon Can’t Lose its Identity’
File of smuggled drugs to Saudi Arabia: President Aoun briefed by Interior Minister on course of measures taken at yesterday’s Baabda meeting
Bukhari Details Drug Hauls from Lebanon Seized by KSA
Lebanon Seeks to Reverse Saudi Produce Ban
Aoun says Lebanon is keen to maintain best relations with Arab countries
Presidency Press Office: Hassan Mohammed Deqqo was not mentioned in the 2018 nationalization decree
Lebanon Maronite Patriarch: No justification for failure to form gov't
Lebanon makes multiple moves to end Saudi ban on produce imports
Hariri hits out at Aoun after meeting with Pope
Israeli Army Says It Downed Hizbullah Drone
Prominent Lebanese Composer Samir Sfeir 'Arrested' in KSA
Judge Aoun Appeals Oueidat's Decision before State Council
Oweidat orders investigations into complaint against four people for breaking and entering Mecattaf company premises
Patriarch Rahi receives 'Strong Republic' delegation
Diab chairs economic meeting focused on rationing card and social support programs
Berri welcomes diplomats in Ain El-Tineh
UK specialist team trains Land Border Regiments of the Lebanese army
Iraq Grants Lebanese Army $2.8 Million in Food, Fuel Aid
Police Thwart Drug Smuggling Attempt via Airport
Sami Gemayel: Security Agencies Infiltrated by Hizbullah

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 27-28/2021

Quebec reports blood clot death of woman after receiving AstraZeneca vaccine
US, Israel agree to form working group focused on Iran’s drones, ballistic missiles
Iran, U.S. Warships in First Tense Mideast Encounter in a Year
IRGC boats harassed US Coast Guard in Persian Gulf - report
Iran’s FM preaches regional dialogue in Baghdad as Tehran flexes muscles
Iran Orders Probe into Leaked Zarif Audio 'Conspiracy'
'Incident' Strikes Saudi Port of Yanbu in Red Sea
UN Chief 'Realistic' as Cyprus Rivals Seek 'Common Ground'
Human Rights Watch: Israel commits crime of apartheid, UN must apply sanctions
Human Rights Watch demonizes Israel via propaganda of apartheid - opinion
John Kerry denies he informed Iranian FM about Israeli strikes in Syria
Palestinians mull cancelling ballot over Jerusalem row with Israel
UK Sanctions 22 Individuals Involved in Serious International Corruption
India Records 320K Cases as Foreign Help Arrives
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 27-28/2021

Le génocide arménien*, la reconnaissance américaine et les dilemmes d’un meurtre fondateur/Charles Elias Chartouni/April 27/2021
Analysis: Syrian missile explodes near Israeli nuclear facility/Joe Truzman/April 27/2021
Kick Russia Out of the Iran Nuclear Talks/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/April 27/2021
The Real Iran Nuclear Talks: Why Did Bill Burns Go To Baghdad?/Michael Rubin/19fortyfive.com/April 27/2021
China Is Extending Its Totalitarian Controls to the Rest of the World/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute./April 27/2021
Climate change: Striding forward with baby steps/Rami Rayess/Al Arabiaya/ April 27/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 27-28/2021

Ministry of Health: 1182 new coronavirus cases, 26 deaths
NNA/April 27/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 1182 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 522763.
26 deaths have been registered over the past 24 hours.

Pope Francis Says ‘Lebanon Can’t Lose its Identity’
Naharnet/April 27/2021
Pope Francis on Tuesday sent a letter to President Michel Aoun emphasizing that “Lebanon cannot lose its identity, nor the experience of brotherly living, which made this country a message to the whole world,” the Presidency said in a statement. The Pope also renewed his desire to visit Lebanon “and its beloved people”, affirming his warm prayers that Lebanese maintain courage and hope, in the current ordeal they are witnessing. In his letter, the Pope thanked Aoun for his congratulatory book on the occasion of the 8th year of his pontificate. Pope Francis also thanked Aoun for the message which he had sent following his visit to Iraq, which included an official invitation to visit Lebanon. Pope Francis raised prayers for God that “political officials (in Lebanon) work relentlessly for the common good in the land of the Cedars”.“I entrust your dear nation to protect the Lady of Lebanon, asking the Prince of Peace to bless you and preserve Lebanon, and all its children” Pope Francis concluded.

File of smuggled drugs to Saudi Arabia: President Aoun briefed by Interior Minister on course of measures taken at yesterday’s Baabda meeting
NNA/April 27/2021
As part of his follow-up on ongoing investigations into the file of smuggling of narcotic substances into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, phone called the Interior Minister, Mohamed Fahmy, who informed him of the results of the ongoing investigations and the course of measures taken in the expanded meeting held yesterday at the Presidential Palace. Minister Fahmy briefed President Aoun on the latest details related to this issue, and the information available to the security apparatuses.
In addition, the Interior Minister also informed President Aoun about a call he had made with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, confirming Lebanon's condemnation of the smuggling operation and everything that affects the KSA’s security, stability and the safety of its people, and briefed him on Lebanese measures, taken in this regard.-- Presidency Press Office

Bukhari Details Drug Hauls from Lebanon Seized by KSA
Naharnet/April 27/2021
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari on Tuesday announced that his country seized 57,184,900 narcotic pills smuggled from Lebanon in the period from early 2020 until April 2021, days after Riyadh said it had seized Captagon pills from Lebanon in a pomegranate shipment.
Below are the details of the shipments seized by the kingdom according to a tweet by Bukhari:
- 5,383,400 pills hidden in a pomegranate shipment
- 20,190,500 pills hidden in a grape shipment
- 5,580,000 pills hidden in a grape shipment
- 4,335,000 pills hidden in an apple shipment
- 6,480,000 pills hidden in a potato shipment
- 15,216,000 pills hidden in a grape shipment
- 2,466,563 pills hidden in a pomegranate shipment
 

Lebanon Seeks to Reverse Saudi Produce Ban
Naharnet/April 27/2021
Lebanon authorized caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi to communicate with authorities in Saudi Arabia to uncover the perpetrators behind an alleged drug smuggling operation that initiated a ban on fresh produce imports, media reports said on Tuesday. “We are keen to respect national security and Saudi society, and we hope that the crisis with Saudi Arabia will be resolved and exports will return,” Fahmi said in remarks to al-Arabiya television station. He assured that security forces would be ordered to “double down to prevent all smuggling from Lebanon,” noting that “four individuals suspected of having links to the drug shipment are under investigation by the anti-narcotics bureau.” Riyadh on Friday announced the suspension of fresh produce shipments from Lebanon, saying they were being used to hide drugs and accusing Beirut of inaction. On Monday, President Michel Aoun headed a meeting attended by prime minister, several Cabinet ministers and heads of security agencies that discussed Saudi Arabia’s decision last week. Officials agreed to task Fahmi with talks with Saudi Arabia and vowed to investigate and institute strict new measures.

Al-Joumhouria daily said that Fahmi’s assignment was done as part of a plan that could lead to his travel to Saudi Arabia, carrying the results of investigations that were launched immediately, to clarify to Saudi authorities the various aspects of the case. The move will be backed by the diplomatic and political support it deserves, added the daily. Lebanon Monday urged Saudi Arabia to rethink the ban, a day after the suspension came into force over alleged drug smuggling. The decision deprives Lebanese growers of one of their top export destinations, in a country already mired in its worst economic crisis in decades. The Saudi news agency reported Friday that customs officials in the Red Sea port of Jeddah seized 5.3 million banned captagon pills hidden in a consignment of pomegranates from Lebanon. The Lebanese officials have asked the state prosecutor to follow up on the investigation into the shipment, adding that Lebanon strongly rejects that its facilities are used as a point for such "criminal acts."

Aoun says Lebanon is keen to maintain best relations with Arab countries
Reuters/April 27/2021
BEIRUT: Lebanon's President Michel Aoun asked the security forces to step up operations against smuggling after Saudi Arabia banned imports of Lebanese produce, blaming an increase in the illicit drugs trade. Aoun made his comments at the start of a meeting with caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab on the topic. Lebanon tasked its interior minister with coordinating with Saudi Arabia to uncover the culprits and prevent a repeat of the previous incidents. Lebanon also asked its public prosecutor to follow up with investigations on the issue and keep Saudi officials informed of results, a statement by the presidency said.
 

Presidency Press Office: Hassan Mohammed Deqqo was not mentioned in the 2018 nationalization decree
NNA/April 27/2021

The Presidency Press Office indicated that the Twitter account “WikiLeaks Lebanon” published false news, in which it claimed that the name of the person accused in Captagon smuggling, Hassan Mohammed Deqqo, was included in the 2018 naturalization decree, for claiming that he had acquired the Lebanese nationality under it. In referring to the official text of the aforementioned decree, it shows that the published version on this account is forged, as it is clear that the name Mr. Bernard Allam Bashour was withdrawn from the original version and replaced by Hassan Mohammed Deqqo.The Presidency Press Office points out to media and social networking sites, on the danger of spreading such fake news which exposes its promoters to legal prosecution.

Lebanon Maronite Patriarch: No justification for failure to form gov't
MEM/April 27, 2021
Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai said yesterday that "there is no real justification for not forming a government". Following his meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Al-Rai stressed the need to form the government and overcome obstacles to that end. "I am not mediating, I am talking to everyone; based on my role and the church's role and out of my national position, I meet with all the Lebanese to reach a solution in the government formation file," he added. Due to political differences between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and President Aoun, Hariri has been unable to form his government since October. Hariri wants to form a government of non-partisan technocrats, and accuses Aoun of trying to obtain a third of the cabinet portfolios for his Free Patriotic Movement and his allies, including the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

Lebanon makes multiple moves to end Saudi ban on produce imports
The Arab Weekly/April 27/2021
BEIRUT--Lebanese security forces announced the detention of a suspected drug smuggler at Beirut airport on Tuesday, a day after Lebanon pledged to crack down on the crime to persuade Saudi Arabia to lift its ban on Lebanese fruit and vegetables. The Beirut airport security forces said the detained man was trying to smuggle 11 kg of cocaine into the country on a Qatar Airways flight from Brazil. Lebanon on Monday urged Saudi Arabia to rethink a ban on Lebanese fruit and vegetable imports, a day after the suspension came into force over alleged drug smuggling. Riyadh announced Friday the suspension of the fresh produce shipments from Lebanon, saying they were being used to hide drugs and accusing Beirut of inaction. Other Gulf Arab states have said they support of the Saudi ban, raising fears in Lebanon, which faces an unprecedented economic crisis, that they may follow suit. The Saudi decision deprives Lebanese growers of one of their top export destinations, in a country already mired in its worst economic crisis in decades. Lebanese President Michel Aoun headed a meeting Monday to discuss the ban.
“Those attending hoped Saudi Arabia would review the decision to forbid Lebanese agricultural products entry to Saudi Arabia,” the presidency said in a statement afterwards. The Saudi news agency reported Friday that customs officials in the Red Sea port of Jeddah seized 5.3 million banned captagon pills hidden in a consignment of pomegranates from Lebanon. The head of the Lebanese fruit and vegetable exporters and importers syndicate however claimed it was a shipment from Syria that had transited through the country. “Lebanon categorically rejects being associated with such crimes, as a route or passageway,” the presidency said. Security forces would be ordered to double down to prevent all smuggling from Lebanon, especially to the Gulf, it said. Saudi Arabia was the top destination for Lebanon’s exported agricultural products in 2019, accounting for 22.1 percent of those exports, a government report found last year. Arab countries — mainly Gulf nations — accounted for 77.8 percent of Lebanon’s total exports. The agricultural sector had been struggling for years before the latest financial crisis hit in late 2019. Main overland trade routes to the Gulf and Iraq were disrupted due to the war that broke out in neighbouring Syria in 2011.Captagon is an amphetamine manufactured in Lebanon and probably also in Syria and Iraq, mainly for consumption in Saudi Arabia, the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) says. Lebanon regularly carries out drug busts on its soil. In February, Lebanese customs seized five million captagon pills at Beirut’s port. Moreover, in 2015 a Saudi prince was detained as he tried to smuggle out two tonnes of the amphetamines on a private plane from Beirut airport. Saudi Arabia has taken a step back from its former ally Lebanon in recent years, angered by the influence of Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, which is backed by Riyadh’s rival Tehran.

Hariri hits out at Aoun after meeting with Pope
Rosabel Crean/The Tablet/April 27/2021
Lebanon’s prime minister designate Saad Hariri met with Pope Francis last week and requested the Pope’s help to save Lebanon from total collapse, whilst hitting out at Lebanon’s Maronite Christian President. “I explained to His Holiness Pope Francis the problems we are suffering from and asked His Holiness for help. His Holiness the Pope is keen on coexistence in Lebanon, and he views the Lebanese as one body,” Hariri said. The private 30-minute audience at the Vatican between Hariri and Francis comes at a critical time for Lebanon, which is in the midst of a debilitating economic and political crisis that is posing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. Since being nominated premier last October, Hariri has failed to form a government after disagreeing with President Michel Aoun over the number of seats in cabinet. French President Emmanuel Macron has demanded an 18-member cabinet of nonpartisan specialists to implement overdue reforms. After meeting with Francis, Hariri spoke of the stalled cabinet formation process, taking a swipe at Aoun: “The French initiative is still in place, and I think that the Vatican knows more than everyone the root of the problem in Lebanon.”
Due to Lebanon’s sectarian power sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Catholic, with the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. However, the division is not without complications and Hariri has accused Aoun of demanding veto power for his Maronite Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).
FPM politician Edy Maalouf told The Tablet that it is good to see the Pope meet different leaders from Lebanon “especially if they are Muslim,” but claimed the Vatican does not share Hariri’s opinion on the governmental crisis.
“It is good that Mr Hariri went to the Vatican, but the speech he made after the meeting with the Pope was a little bit, how can we say, a little bit, bizarre” Maalouf said, whilst adding that Hariri “made an attack” on Aoun. Lebanon, the only Arab country with a Christian head of state, is engulfed in a crippling economic depression caused by decades of state corruption and negligence. The local currency has lost 90 per cent of its value since 2019, and forced over half of the country’s 6 million people into poverty and unemployment. Over the last few months, Hariri has been making various international trips to garner support. But critics, including the FPM, have accused him of wasting time. At the Vatican Hariri addressed the criticism, saying his tours are “for work and research on how to help Lebanon.”The director of the Holy See press office, Matteo Bruni commented after the meeting that the Pope reaffirmed his admiration for the people of Lebanon, “who are experiencing a moment of great difficulty and uncertainty.”He said the Holy See called on “all political forces to urgently commit themselves to the benefit of the nation.”Hariri confirmed the Pope will visit Lebanon, but only once a government has been formed. Maalouf said this was a sensible move by Francis. “When he comes to Lebanon, he doesn’t want to appear that he is with one side or another side.”

Israeli Army Says It Downed Hizbullah Drone
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/April 27/2021
The Israeli army on Tuesday said it shot down a drone belonging to Hizbullah that entered Israeli airspace. In a short statement, the military said it had monitored the aircraft throughout the incident after it "crossed from Lebanon into Israeli airspace in the eastern part of the Blue Line."It also said troops earlier in the day found the remnants of a Hizbullah drone shot down several weeks earlier after crossing into Israeli airspace from Lebanon. There was no immediate comment from Hizbullah or the Lebanese government. Israel and Hizbullah are bitter enemies that fought a month-long war in 2006. A U.N.-brokered cease-fire has largely kept the border area quiet since then, but the sides have had several small clashes in the years since, most recently last summer. In November, the Israeli army also said it downed a Hizbullah drone that entered Israeli airspace. The Israeli army said it would "continue to operate in order to prevent any attempt to violate Israeli sovereignty." In February, Hizbullah said it had downed an Israeli drone that flew over the Blue Line, with Israel acknowledging an unmanned aircraft had crashed.

Prominent Lebanese Composer Samir Sfeir 'Arrested' in KSA
Naharnet/April 27/2021
Prominent Lebnaese music composer Samir Sfeir was arrested days ago in Saudi Arabia following his arrival in the kingdom at the invitation of a Saudi information ministry official, media reports said. Al-Akhbar newspaper said the Lebanese Foreign Ministry contacted the Saudi embassy in Beirut over the issue after which Sfeir’s wife was granted a permission to visit him. “But when she went to see him, she was not allowed to,” al-Akhbar added. “Up until Monday evening, Saudi authorities were refusing to respond to the Lebanese requests for information about the reasons behind his arrest,” the daily said. Sfeir is a vocal supporter of President Michel Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement. He has also voiced support on Twitter for Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. News about his disappearance or arrest in the kingdom have sparked a wave of solidarity with him among Lebanese social media users, especially those who support Aoun and the FPM. A media report meanwhile said that Sfeir was arrested a week ago after his Saudi residence was raided by over ten unarmed Saudi security agents. “They asked him to give them his laptop and he answered that he did not have any laptop. When they asked him about the other devices that he owns, he handed them two iPhones – one containing a Lebanese line and the other a Saudi line,” the report said. The agents then “searched the house carefully without finding any contraband material. They then took Sfeir along with his two devices to the Dalhoun prison,” the report added. “Sfeir has only communicated with his family one time to inform them of his whereabouts,” the report said.

Judge Aoun Appeals Oueidat's Decision before State Council
Naharnet/April 27/2021 
Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun announced Tuesday that she has filed an appeal before the State Shura Council against the state prosecutor’s decision that stopped her from looking into financial cases.
“I filed an appeal today before the State Shura Council through my counsel, the lawyer Bashir Aoun, to annul the administrative decision issued by the state prosecutor, who exceeded his powers by usurping legal jurisdiction belonging to me according to clear legal texts,” Aoun tweeted. “All hopes remain pinned on an independent judiciary that rectifies the course and protects rights,” the judge added. State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat had recently tasked Judge Samer Lichaa to be in charge of financial files that had been in the hands of Judge Aoun. But Aoun defied Oueidat’s decision, staging several raids on the offices of the Mecattaf money exchange firm in Awkar, accompanied by State Security agents and demonstrators from the Free Patriotic Movement and the Mottahidoun civil society group. Aoun’s moves sparked political and judicial controversy in the country. The judge has since been referred to judicial inspection over her actions in the Mecattaf case and also over other cases.

Oweidat orders investigations into complaint against four people for breaking and entering Mecattaf company premises
NNA/April 27/2021  
Public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Judge Ghassan Oweidat, assigned the Central Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the complaint filed by the attorney of Mecattaf money transfer company, Alexander Najjar, against four people who accompanied Mount Lebanon Prosecutor, Judge Ghada Aoun, and were accused of the offence of breaking and entering the company premises in Aoukar, and stealing some of its offices' contents.
One of the four defendants has been interrogated, with others to follow respectively.
 

Patriarch Rahi receives 'Strong Republic' delegation
NNA/April 27/2021   
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rahi met Tuesday in Bkerki with a delegation of the "Strong Republic" parliamentary bloc, chaired by MP Strida Geagea. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, MP Geagea indicated that the visiting delegation expressed full support for the Patriarch's endeavors to save Lebanon, especially his call for the country's neutrality. Moreover, she renewed rejection of local investigations into the Beirut port blast, calling for an international probe in that respect. Also, she said that the Lebanese Forces were not interested in the formation of the new government which, according to her, would be a replica of its predecessor. "The solution lies within the reproduction of the ruling power," she underlined. She also called upon the "Strong Lebanon" bloc to resign from the Parliament, in coordination with the "Strong Republic."

Diab chairs economic meeting focused on rationing card and social support programs
NNA/April 27/2021    
Caretaker Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, in the afternoon chaired, at the Grand Serail, an economic meeting attended by Ministers Zeina Akar, Ghazi Wazni, Raoul Nehme, Mohamed Fahmy, Imad Hoballah, Michel Najjar, Ramzi Musharrafieh, Raymond Ghajar, Hamad Hassan, Lamia Yammine and Abbas Mortada, in addition to the Director General of the Presidency of the Republic, Dr. Antoine Choucair, PCM Secretary General, Judge Mahmoud Makie, Economic Adviser to the President of the Republic, Charbel Cordahi, and PM Advisor, Khodor Taleb. The meeting deliberated on the rationing card and social support programs. -- Press Office

Berri welcomes diplomats in Ain El-Tineh
NNA/April 27/2021   
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri welcomed this Tuesday in Ain El-Tineh the ambassadors of Canada, Chantal Chastenay, Denmark, Merit Juhl, and Sweden, Anne Dismore. The situation in Lebanon and the region was tackled.In the afternoon, Berri received the Egyptian ambassador, Yasser Alawi, with whom he discussed the latest political developments and bilateral relations. Alawi made no statement prior to his departure.
 

UK specialist team trains Land Border Regiments of the Lebanese army
NNA/April 27/2021  
As part of the UK package of support following the donation of 100 RWMIK Land Rover vehicles in January, a team of specialist UK soldiers has completed the first 4-week package of training and mentoring for officers and soldiers from all four Land Border Regiments. During a visit to the Bekaa earlier this month, the Head of the British Embassy, Dr. Martin Longden, and the UK Defence Senior Advisor to the Middle East and North Africa (DSAME) Air Marshal Martin Sampson, saw first-hand the training of Lebanese troops at a border post near Baalbek, operated by the Fourth Land Border Regiment. Over the past four weeks, a UK team of specialist soldiers from the Pathfinders, part of the UK’s 16 Air Assault Brigade; have trained 48 officers and soldiers from across the Lebanese army’s four Land Border Regiments. The training aims to provide skills to operate the RWMIK vehicles in the rugged terrain of the Lebanese-Syrian border, and enable them to project effectively into the more remote areas of the frontier and to interdict terrorist threats and illegal cross-border activity. This is the first of a planned series of these training packages, demonstrating the UK’s enduring commitment to support the Lebanese army in securing its land border. Head of the British Embassy Dr. Martin Longden said: “I was delighted, and proud, to see first-hand the progress being made on this important agenda. The cooperation and partnership between the UK’s Armed Forces and the LAF, in support of the State’s capacity to control the country’s borders, is a critical part of Lebanon’s security, sovereignty and prosperity. We will continue to do all we can to support this.“ -- British Embassy in Beirut

Iraq Grants Lebanese Army $2.8 Million in Food, Fuel Aid
Naharnet/April 27/2021  
Iraq has approved a request for assistance from the Lebanese Army, Iraqi government spokesman and Culture Minister Hassan Nazem said on Tuesday. Iraqi sources meanwhile told al-Jadeed TV that the food and fuel aid is worth $2.8 million and that it was agreed following a letter from Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun to the Iraqi military institution. “The letter was recited by the Iraqi defense minister during a cabinet session,” the sources added. “The aid will consist of food portions for the army and prisons in addition to 500,000 tons of fuel,” the sources said. “The shipment took off from the Um Qasr port to Lebanon by sea,” the sources added.

Police Thwart Drug Smuggling Attempt via Airport
Naharnet/April 27/2021  
Police at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International airport said an attempt to smuggle 11 kilograms of cocaine into Lebanon via Brazil has been thwarted on Tuesday. The airport security said they received information from the Internal Security Forces Directorate about a suspect planning to smuggle the drugs.
The suspect, a Lebanese national carrying a Brazilian passport, was flying in from Brazil with 11 kilograms of cocaine in his possession. The finding came one day after Lebanon pledged to double down to prevent all smuggling, to persuade Saudi Arabia to reverse a ban on fresh produce from Lebanon.

Sami Gemayel: Security Agencies Infiltrated by Hizbullah
Naharnet/April 27/2021  
Kataeb party chief Sami Gemayel on Tuesday said the Lebanese people are “hostage” to an authority “complicit” with Hizbullah, adding that security agencies in Lebanon are infiltrated by Hizbullah. “We consider that the security services are infiltrated by Hizbullah. Some officials in the security forces have links to the Hizbullah regime and all its followers,” said Gemayel in remarks to al-Arabiya television station. “The Lebanese people are hostage to an authority exploiting Lebanon as a military platform to export fighters to the world, and also to carry out money laundering operations of the money brought in from drugs and international mafias,”he added. “Unfortunately the people and Lebanese growers are paying the price of an authority complicit with Hizbullah and facilitating all these operations through the border and state institutions,” the Kataeb chief said. His remarks come in the aftermath of a Saudi ban on the import of fresh produce from Lebanon over 5 million pills of an amphetamine drug known as Captagon hidden in a shipment of pomegranates smuggled to Saudi Arabia from Lebanon. Gemayel said the export of illegal products is taking place through legal border crossings between Lebanon and Syria. “According to information we obtained it confirms that the export passes through the legitimate crossings," he said, noting that "some officials cover the act and let the trucks pass perfectly knowing what it bears.”The head of the Lebanese fruit and vegetable exporters and importers syndicate however claimed it was a shipment from Syria that had transited through the country. On Hizbullah’s influence in Lebanon, Gemayel said:
 

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 27-28/2021

Quebec reports blood clot death of woman after receiving AstraZeneca vaccine
The Canadian Press/April 27/2021
MONTREAL — The Quebec government has announced that a woman in her 50s has died of a blood clot that occurred after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Public health director Dr. Horacio Arruda told a news conference Tuesday that the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks, and the province always knew that rare complications were possible. Health Minister Christian Dube said the province is currently investigating four cases of serious complications out of some 400,000 people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Currently the province is offering the vaccine to Quebecers between the ages of 45 and 79, and Arruda said there are no plans to change that strategy. The news came as health officials reported fewer than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the province for the second day in a row, with 899 new infections. There were 14 additional deaths, including three in the last 24 hours. Hospitalizations rose by three, to 667, and 170 people were in intensive care, an increase of three. Premier Francois Legault said the situation has improved enough to allow primary schools to reopen next week in Quebec City and the Chaudiere-Appalaches region, with some exceptions in harder-hit zones. The province is also pushing back the curfew in Montreal and its northern suburb of Laval to 9:30 p.m. from 8 p.m. as of Monday. Legault said further easing of restrictions will be done gradually to avoid a resurgence in cases. Also on Tuesday, Quebecers with physical or intellectual disabilities or autism were able to start booking vaccine appointments. The province administered 45,757 doses of vaccine since the last update, for a total of 2,916,897 shots. This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 27, 2021.

US, Israel agree to form working group focused on Iran’s drones, ballistic missiles
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/27 April ,2021
The United States and Israel agreed Tuesday to form a partnership focusing on the threat of drones and precision-guided missiles produced by Iran and distributed to its proxies in the region. The new working group was agreed on during a meeting in Washington between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat. Sullivan invited the latter to Washington during a call earlier in the month after Tel Aviv grew increasingly concerned over what it said was a lack of US transparency regarding its indirect talks with Iran. Washington and Tehran will begin their third round of indirect talks over a new nuclear deal after the 2015 deal, known as the JCPOA, was abandoned by former President Donald Trump. “The US and Israeli officials discussed their serious concerns about advancements in Iran’s nuclear program in recent years. The United States updated Israel on the talks in Vienna and emphasized strong US interest in consulting closely with Israel on the nuclear issue going forward,” the White House said after Tuesday’s meeting. As for the Iranian threat, the officials agreed to establish an inter-agency working group to “focus particular attention on the growing threat of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Precision Guided Missiles produced by Iran and provided to its proxies in the Middle East Region.” Iranian proxies and militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah continue to threaten Israel and vow to “wipe it off the map.”While Israel has said it will not abide by any potential US-Iran deal that does not serve its own interests, the White House said that US officials told their Israeli counterparts on Tuesday of “President Biden’s unwavering support for Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Iran, U.S. Warships in First Tense Mideast Encounter in a Year
Agence France Presse/April 27/2021
American and Iranian warships had a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, the first such incident in about a year amid wider turmoil in the region over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday. Footage released by the Navy showed a ship commanded by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April 2. The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea. Iran did not immediately acknowledge the incident in the southern reaches of the Persian Gulf, which resulted in no injuries or damage. "The U.S. crews issued multiple warnings via bridge-to-bridge radio, five short blasts from the ships' horns, and while the (Iranian) Harth 55 responded to the bridge-to-bridge radio queries, they continued the unsafe maneuvers," Rebarich said. "After approximately three hour of the U.S. issuing warning and conducting defensive maneuvers, the (Iranian) vessels maneuvered away from the U.S. ships and opened distance between them."The Wall Street Journal first reported on the incident, which involved the Iranian Harth support ship and three Iranian fast-attack craft. The Coast Guard units operate out of Bahrain as part of Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, its biggest unit overseas. The interaction marked the first "unsafe and unprofessional" incident involving the Iranians since April 15, 2020, Rebarich said. However, Iran had largely stopped such incidents in 2018 and nearly in the entirety of 2019, she said. In 2017, the Navy recorded 14 instances of what it describes as "unsafe and or unprofessional" interactions with Iranians forces. It recorded 35 in 2016, and 23 in 2015. The incidents at sea almost always involve the Revolutionary Guard, which reports only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Typically, they involve Iranian speedboats armed with deck-mounted machine guns and rocket launchers test-firing weapons or shadowing American aircraft carriers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil passes. Some analysts believe the incidents are meant in part to squeeze President Hassan Rouhani's administration after the 2015 nuclear deal. They include a 2016 incident in which I ranian forces captured and held overnight 10 U.S. sailors who strayed into the Islamic Republic's territorial waters. "U.S. naval forces continue to remain vigilant and are trained to act in a professional manner, while our commanding officers retain the inherent right to act in self-defense," Rebarich said. The incident comes as Iran negotiates with world powers in Vienna over Tehran and Washington returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, talks due to resume Tuesday. It also follows a series of incidents across the Mideast attributed to a shadow war between Iran and Israel, which includes attacks on regional shipping and sabotage at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.
 

IRGC boats harassed US Coast Guard in Persian Gulf - report

Jerusalem Post/April 27/2021
Three boats swarmed a US vessel in the Persian Gulf just a day after an announcement about talks to return to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal. A group of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels harassed two US Coast Guard ships in the Persian Gulf at the beginning of April, Navy officials told The Wall Street Journal on Monday. The incident took place on April 2, just a day after the US, Iran and European nations announced that they would conduct talks to return to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal. The US and European nations are currently conducting talks with Iran in Vienna.
Some three fast-attack boats and one ship called the Harth 55 swarmed two Coast Guard ships in the southern Persian Gulf, coming as close as 70 yards to the bows of the two vessels, Navy officials stated. One of the two US vessels, the Wrangell, was forced to make defensive maneuvers to prevent a collision.
The incident took place over a three-hour period, with the American crews issuing multiple warnings to the Iranian ships. While Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, told the Journal that the crew of the Iranian Harth 55 responded to bridge-to-bridge radio queries from the American vessels, it is unclear what they stated in the communication. “After approximately three hours of the US issuing warnings and conducting defensive maneuvers, the IRGCN vessels maneuvered away from the US ships and opened distance between them,” Rebarich said in a statement, according to the report. The Navy referred to the incident as "unsafe and unprofessional." This was the first such incident since April 2020 and the first one recorded using a vessel as large as the Harth 55. In an interview leaked by Iran International and The New York Times on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated that the IRGC had interfered with diplomatic issues and had attempted to torpedo the JCPOA deal in the past. Zarif specifically pointed to a visit by former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani to Moscow in 2015, which he said had the objective to "destroy the JCPOA."The report comes after a series of alleged maritime incidents were reported between Iran and Israel throughout the region, with attacks on both Iranian and Israeli vessels being reported.

Iran’s FM preaches regional dialogue in Baghdad as Tehran flexes muscles
The Arab Weekly/April 27/2021
BAGHDAD – Iran’s foreign minister on Monday praised what he described as Iraq’s efforts aimed at bolstering regional stability through “negotiations and understandings” in the region. Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke to reporters during a visit to the Iraqi capital. At the same time, there were no signs that Tehran was willing to rein in its proxy militias in Iraq as they continue their attacks aimed at pressuring the United States to withdraw its troops from the country. Analysts see Iran as carrying out its agenda through Yemen’s Houthi militias suspected of being behind attacks on Saudi targets.
Riyadh has been trying to end its seven-year war in Yemen against Iran-aligned Houthi militias who have increasingly launched missiles and bomb-laden drones at the kingdom to targeting crucial sites and oil infrastructure. Ending that war could be a bargaining chip for the Iranians as they seek sanctions relief from nuclear talks in Vienna. “We welcome Iraq’s vital role in the region and we hope that day after day that strengthens Iraq’s role for the stability of the region,” Zarif said during a joint news conference with his Iraqi counterpart, Fouad Hussein. “We thank the Iraqi government for exerting its efforts,” Zarif said, without confirming the Saudi-Iran talks were indeed held in Iraq. “We hope that these efforts will lead to more negotiations and understandings in the region.”The Iranian foreign minister was hinting at reported talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran said to have taken place earlier this month in Baghdad. Riyadh has denied such contacts. Alluding to efforts deployed by Iran and its proxies to push US troops out of Iraq, Zarif said all foreign powers “will eventually leave”, but “we will stay here and we should base our relations on good neighbourliness, no interference and mutual respect.”Iraq, which has ties with both the US and Iran, has often borne the brunt of Saudi-Iranian rivalry. Hussein said Iraq’s foreign policy is to build “balanced relations with everyone and calm things.”Before meeting his Iraqi counterpart, Zarif and his delegation visited the site where the top Iranian commander Qassim Soleimani was killed last year by an US airstrike along with Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, Iraq’s high-profile Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) commander. Through his tribute to Soleimani, Zarif seemed intent on trying to appease Iranian conservatives after his leaked criticism of the Quds Force’s disproportionate influence in his country’s diplomacy. During his visit to Iraq, Zarif met top officials, including Iraq’s Prime Minster Mustafa al-Kadhimi, parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri, heads of nomad tribes, Shia and Sunni leaders and the world head of Chaldean Catholics in Baghdad. He also visited the holy Shia city of Najaf. On Tuesday, he left the Iraqi capital for the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Erbil, where he will be meeting with high-ranking Kurdish officials, including the region’s president, the prime minister, the head of Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Iran Orders Probe into Leaked Zarif Audio 'Conspiracy'
Agence France Presse/April 27/2021
Iran's president has ordered a probe into the "conspiracy" of leaked audio in which the foreign minister says the military was too influential in diplomacy, a government spokesman announced Tuesday. President Hassan Rouhani ordered the investigation to identify who leaked the "stolen" three-hour-long recording by top diplomat and member of his moderate government Mohammad Javad Zarif, the spokesman said. The tape, which comes ahead of presidential elections in June, has dominated the discussion in the Islamic republic since its publication by media outlets outside Iran on Sunday. "We believe this theft of documents is a conspiracy against the government, the system, the integrity of effective domestic institutions, and also against our national interests," government spokesman Ali Rabiei told reporters. "The president has ordered the intelligence ministry to identify the agents of this conspiracy," he added.
The file was "stolen for clear reasons", he said, without elaborating further. Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh did not deny the authenticity of the recording but said on Monday that it was cut from a seven-hour interview that included "personal opinions". Zarif did not comment on the controversy, but published on Tuesday a brief audio message on Instagram, saying "I believe you should not work for history... I say that don't worry about history so much, but worry about God and the people". He did not specify when he recorded this message. The leaked remarks sparked harsh criticism from conservative media and politicians, with the mention of Iran's slain general Qasem Soleimani hitting a nerve. Soleimani, considered one of the prominent architects of Iranian regional policy, was killed early last year in an American drone strike in Baghdad, ordered by former US president Donald Trump. The leak and probe come ahead of presidential elections on June 18, which will see the moderate Rouhani step down after two terms in office and after conservatives fared well in parliamentary elections last year.
'Character assassination'
The ultra-conservative Vatan-e Emrooz newspaper published a large black and white picture of Zarif on its front page, with the headline "Despicable" written in red. "Diplomacy must follow the path of increasing the system's power," it said, criticising Zarif's comments regarding the military. It added that his stance confirmed that "America's constant demand about negotiating Iran's regional power and missile capabilities" stemmed from Iranian diplomats' "wishes and cooperation with this demand". Javan daily said Soleimani was "physically assassinated (upon) the order of the most wretched creature of the world... America's president". But Zarif had "assassinated (Soleimani's) character". Ultra-conservative Kayhan daily inferred that the audio may have been leaked by Rouhani's government to force "Zarif into (political) suicide" in a bid to save itself from the judgement of "public opinion". It said Zarif, while being "sacrificed like a simple pawn", had broken rules of "confidentiality" and provided Iran's enemies with "intelligence and ammunition" for their psychological war against the country. For their part, the reformist papers sought to question which faction stood to gain from the leak. Shargh daily on its front page wrote "Who leaked it, who benefited?"
 

'Incident' Strikes Saudi Port of Yanbu in Red Sea
Associated Press/April 27/2021
A U.K. maritime organization is reporting an "incident" off the Saudi port of Yanbu as a private security firm is warning of a possible attack on a ship. Details were scarce Tuesday on the incident in the Red Sea. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which is run by the British navy, simply said it was "aware of reports of an incident. Private maritime security firm Dryad Global said it had reports a ship had been "attacked," without elaborating. Maritime security firm Neptune P2P Group reported that black smoke was seen billowing near the south entrance of the Yanbu port. Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the incident. It comes as shipping across the Mideast has been targeted in attacks as part of an ongoing shadow war between Israel and Iran amid negotiations over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers.

UN Chief 'Realistic' as Cyprus Rivals Seek 'Common Ground'
Agence France Presse/April 27/2021
The UN chief was "realistic" as rival Cypriot leaders and their backers were set Tuesday to begin informal talks in Geneva, his spokesman said, four years after their last peace talks failed. The United Nations is trying to mediate a deal for the divided island, almost six decades since it first deployed peacekeepers.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has travelled to Geneva to oversee the three days of talks in various formats. "The secretary-general is realistic," his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in Geneva. "This is an issue that he knows well. He has participated in discussions before. So he is realistic."
The spokesman stressed that the talks were "informal" and were meant "to determine whether a common ground exists for the parties to negotiate a lasting solution to the Cyprus issue within a foreseeable horizon."The two Cypriot delegations taking part will be headed by Nicos Anastasiades, head of the Greek Cypriot-run Republic of Cyprus and his counterpart in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Ersin Tatar. Turkey has also been invited to the latest talks, along with Greece and Britain -- the three guarantors of the island's 1960 independence.
Divided since 1974
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey occupied the northern third in response to a coup orchestrated by an Athens-backed junta seeking to annex the island to Greece. The Turkish-occupied zone later declared independence, but remains heavily dependent on Ankara.A UN-controlled buffer zone separates the breakaway state from areas controlled by EU member the Republic of Cyprus. Negotiations for a solution have repeatedly failed, with the last round stalling in 2017. Those talks, held in Switzerland, had aimed to secure reunification in a federation. But they floundered over the withdrawal of tens of thousands of Turkish troops and over Ankara's status as a guarantor power. And since then, several factors have added to the traditional sticking points over security guarantees, political equality, territorial adjustments and refugees' property rights. Obstacles to the process include rising tensions in the eastern Mediterranean over conflicting claims to offshore oil and gas involving Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. Speaking in a plane en route to Geneva on Tuesday, Anastasiades said this week's talks were "crucial". He said his delegation was going in with "determination and political will", and was eager to find a way to "restart substantive negotiations." "I hope the other side will come with the same will and the same evaluation, because any diversion will not only be at the expense of the Greek Cypriots, but also to the detriment of the Turkish Cypriots," he said.
'New vision for Cyprus'
But after decades of negotiations based on the idea of reunifying the island through the creation of a federal state, the TRNC is now advocating for that approach to be abandoned in favour of a two-state solution. On Saturday, Tatar, a hardliner and protege of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan elected in October, urged the international community to "acknowledge the existence" of two states in Cyprus. "We are going to Geneva with a new vision for Cyprus, one based on the realities on the island," he said in a statement. "There are two peoples with distinct national identities, running their own affairs separately."
That diverts from the UN mandate of delivering a federal solution for a reunited Cyprus.

Human Rights Watch: Israel commits crime of apartheid, UN must apply sanctions

Jerusalem Post/April 27/2021

Israel met the legal definition for crimes of apartheid as set out by the Rome Statute, Human Rights Watch said in a 213-page report. US-based NGO Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of the crime of apartheid for the first time in the organization’s 43-year history.
Israel met the legal definition for crimes of apartheid as set out by the Rome Statute, it said in a 213-page report scheduled to be released on Tuesday entitled, “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.”
HRW called on the United Nations to verify the claim and then apply an arms embargo against Israel until verifiable steps are taken to end such crimes. “Prominent voices have warned for years that apartheid lurks just around the corner if the trajectory of Israel’s rule over Palestinians does not change,” HRW executive director Kenneth Roth said Monday in a press release that accompanied a preview of the report. “This detailed study shows that Israeli authorities have already turned that corner and today are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution,” he said.
“While much of the world treats Israel’s half-century occupation as a temporary situation that a decades-long ‘peace process’ will soon cure, the oppression of Palestinians there has reached a threshold and a permanence that meets the definitions of the crimes of apartheid and persecution,” Roth said.
The Israeli left-wing NGO B’Tselem issued a similar first-time declaration in January.The right-wing Israeli group NGO Monitor condemned the apartheid accusations, saying they were part of larger global campaign to discredit Israel and undermine its identity as a Jewish state.
“HRW’s report is part of a concerted NGO campaign over the past 18 months to interject the term ‘apartheid’ into discourse about Israel,” it said. “Indeed, HRW reiterates, cites and quotes many of these NGOs in its publication.” “In a broader context, this report is another move in the decades-long series of obsessive attacks against Israel and its legitimacy as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” NGO Monitor said. HRW’s report distanced its accusation of apartheid from any comparisons with South African apartheid, which is often used to discredit that claim. Instead, HRW spoke of a three-pronged definition: an intent to maintain racial domination by one group over another; a context of systematic oppression of one group over another; and inhumane acts. Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, both within and outside sovereign Israel, met this definition of the crimes of apartheid, HRW said. The report did not take direct issue with Israel’s identity as an ethnically national Jewish state. But as an example of discrimination, it cited Israel’s Law of Return, which grants citizenship to Jews who want to immigrate to Israel. Palestinian refugees and their descendants who had lived on territory now under Israeli sovereignty did not have that same right of return, it said. HRW took issue with the 2018 Nation State Law that shored up Israel’s identity as a Jewish state without speaking of equity for its minority citizens. The report addressed Israeli policies against the Palestinians in the West Bank, including settlement activity, demolition of Palestinian homes and lack of freedom of movement and access for Palestinians. NGO Monitor said many of the report’s examples were taken out of context and diminished the security threats faced by Israelis and Jews who wanted to immigrate to Israel. Israel was not the only country with preferential immigration policies, it said, adding that nations such as Ireland, Spain and Germany had similar laws. The Law of Return was created in the aftermath of the Holocaust to allow Jews to seek a safe haven in Israel from global persecution, NGO Monitor said. “The sharp rise in physical violence and other forms of antisemitism around the world in recent years only highlights the need for Israel as a safe refuge from persecution,” it said. The Law of Return was consistent with the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) that allowed certain special measures for racial or ethnic groups to protect fundamental freedoms, NGO Monitor said. “As noted by the UN Committee, but erased in the HRW report, this provision seeks to remedy ‘inequalities resulting from the circumstances of history’… and to prevent ‘further imbalances from arising,’” it wrote.

Human Rights Watch demonizes Israel via propaganda of apartheid - opinion

Gerald M. Steinberg/Jerusalem Post/April 27/2021
HRW allegations, also mirroring the other NGOs, exploit the inherent flexibility and political essence of international law, with claims based on far-fetched interpretation of the Rome Statute.
The effort to demonize Israel through comparison to the heinous legacy of the South African apartheid regime has deep roots, going back to the Soviet and Arab campaigns of the 1970s, including the infamous UN resolution declaring that Zionism is a form of racism.
Although Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that its latest contribution, A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, is based on new material, a quick read reveals the same mix of shrill propaganda, false allegations, and legal distortions marketed by the NGO network for decades. Omar Shakir, HRW’s “Israel and Palestine director,” is listed as the main author of the 217-page publication, which includes high-quality graphics and layout (with its $90 million budget, money is no object).
Shakir was hired in 2016, after a number of years as a campus activist under headings like ”Apartheid IsReal.” He led HRW’s (failed) effort to press Airbnb and the FIFA soccer association to join the anti-Israel boycott, and repeatedly invokes “apartheid” and “racism” when discussing Israel. For Shakir, who left Israel after his work visa was not renewed and a lengthy court battle, this is revenge propaganda.
In releasing this publication now, Shakir and HRW join numerous NGOs in amplifying the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s recent decision to open investigations of Israel for war crimes, including post-1967 settlements and occupation policies.
The text reiterates the main claims of a 700-page 2017 submission to the ICC from a group of NGOs (Al-Haq, PCHR, Al-Mezan, Al-Dameer) linked to the PFLP terror organization, alleging that “Israel persecutes the occupied Palestinian population and subjects them to the crimes of persecution and apartheid” and condemning what they call Israel’s effort to “ensure Israeli Jewish domination.” Other parts reproduce B’Tselem’s campaign, headlined: “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.
HRW allegations, also mirroring the other NGOs, exploit the inherent flexibility and political essence of international law, with claims based on far-fetched interpretation of the Rome Statute (the ICC’s foundation document). For example the HRW publication asserts that “Israel’s coercive policies… amount to intentional forcible transfer of civilians… a grave breach of the laws of war.” These phrases, each a distortion (or falsehood), are then pronounced to be “one of the kinds of inhumane acts that make up the crime of apartheid.”
By drawing a direct line to South Africa and labeling the Jewish state as inherently racist, the goal is to delegitimize the concept of Jewish sovereign equality, regardless of borders or policies. The South African regime was characterized by cruel and systematic, institutionalized dehumanization. In contrast, and notwithstanding the ongoing conflict, Israel’s non-Jewish citizens have full rights, including voting for Knesset representatives. Worse, exploiting the “apartheid” image in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a cynical appropriation of the suffering of the victims of the actual apartheid regime. Richard Goldstone, a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court, wrote that, “In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute.... It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel.”
Beyond South Africa, no other regime or government has been deemed to meet the international definition of apartheid, not even murderous and oppressive regimes practicing separation based on race, religion, and gender such as Saudi Arabia and China.
In pursuing this 20-year campaign, HRW, led by Kenneth Roth, has continuously invoked the “Israel apartheid” theme, including playing a central role in the notoriously antisemitic NGO Forum at the 2001 UN Durban conference. The final declaration referred to Israel and apartheid repeatedly, and called for the “complete international isolation of Israel as an apartheid state.”
After members of HRW’s board criticized this involvement, Roth replied cynically: “Clearly Israeli racist practices are an appropriate topic.” Roth and other top officials have repeated the apartheid and racist smears frequently since then. In one of many examples, in the context of the 2017 white supremacist march and violence in Charlottesville, Roth tweeted a link to a propaganda piece headlined “Birds of a feather: White supremacy and Zionism.” He included a picture depicting a Confederate and Israeli flag, commenting, “Many rights activists condemn Israeli abuse & antisemitism. Some white supremacists embrace Israel & antisemitism.” A major addition to the usual allegations is that the planned annexation of parts of the West Bank controlled by Israel under the Oslo framework (the strategic and sparsely populated Area C) constitutes apartheid (repeated 32 times in the HRW text). Indeed, at the time when Israeli officials made such statements, HRW and the NGOs issued a wave of apartheid condemnations. Now, even though the annexation was dropped, the condemnations remain, again demonstrating the centrality of slogans over substance.
In 2009, HRW founder Robert Bernstein, writing in The New York Times, took on his organization, criticizing the leaders for losing their moral compass, and “issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.” Many years later, and with much larger budgets and visibility, the organization’s delegitimization continues.
*The writer is emeritus professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, and heads the Institute for NGO Research in Jerusalem.

John Kerry denies he informed Iranian FM about Israeli strikes in Syria

Jerusalem Post/April 27/2021
A number of Republicans expressed outrage at the allegations against Kerry, blasting the former secretary of state for allegedly leaking sensitive information. Former Secretary of State and current Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry denied allegations on Monday that he had released information on Israeli airstrikes in Syria to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, after Zarif claimed in a leaked interview that he had found out about the strikes from Kerry. In a leaked interview released by Iran International and The New York Times this week, Zarif claimed that he was kept in the dark on Israeli airstrikes in Syria, saying that "It was former US foreign secretary John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria." The UK-based Persian television station cast doubt on the likelihood that this claim was true, as Israeli airstrikes in Syria had previously been reported in international media. "I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened - either when I was Secretary of State or since," tweeted Kerry. In response to a question on the leaked interview during a press briefing on Monday, State Department spokesman Ned Price stressed that the department does not comment on "purportedly leaked material" and that the alleged Israeli airstrikes in Syria were "certainly... not secret, and governments that were involved were speaking to this publicly on the record."Of course, we can’t vouch for the authenticity of it – for the accuracy of it – and so of course I’m not going to comment directly on what’s on that tape, on that recording," said Price. The report comes as Iran conducts talks with the US and European nations in Vienna in an attempt to return to the 2015 nuclear deal. A number of Republicans expressed outrage at the allegations against Kerry, blasting the former secretary of state for allegedly leaking sensitive information. “People are talking about treason – and I don’t throw that word around a lot,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, according to Politico. “John Kerry does all kinds of things that I can’t stand. But this is the one that broke the camel’s back.”Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher called it "unfathomable" that a US diplomat would leak intelligence to the "world’s leading sponsors of terrorism."While the IDF usually does not confirm individual airstrikes in Syria, it periodically releases statistics on the strikes. In December, the IDF announced that it had carried out 50 strikes against its northeastern neighbor in 2020.
*Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

Palestinians mull cancelling ballot over Jerusalem row with Israel
The Arab Weekly/April 27/2021
JERUSALEM – Egyptian officials say the Palestinian Authority plans to call off its first elections in 15 years, citing Israel’s refusal to allow voting in east Jerusalem. The decision would effectively grant Israel a veto over the holding of elections, though President Mahmoud Abbas could also benefit from the cancelling a vote in which his fractured Fatah party is expected to lose power and influence to the Islamist group Hamas. Israel told European ambassadors on Tuesday that it would not prevent Palestinian elections, but authorities have yet to say whether they will allow voting in east Jerusalem. Israel’s silence on the issue indicates that it would rather be blamed for a postponement than see elections that further empower Hamas.
Factions’ meeting
An Egyptian diplomat and an intelligence official said they had been briefed on the Palestinians’ decision to cancel the election, which will be announced Thursday at a meeting of Palestinian factions. They said Egypt is in talks with Israel to reach a compromise to allow the vote but those efforts have so far failed. The two spoke late Monday on condition of anonymity about the closed-door talks. The intelligence official said Hamas wants the elections to go ahead but that no faction wants to proceed without guarantees from the international community that voting will be held in east Jerusalem. The official said the factions are instead discussing the formation of a unity government that would include Hamas. A Palestinian official said no decision will be made until the factions meet on Thursday and that if Israel decides to allow voting in east Jerusalem, the May 22 elections will go ahead as planned. The official said Fatah is opposed to holding elections without east Jerusalem because it would mean accepting Israel’s annexation. The official was not authorised to talk to reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state and view east Jerusalem as their capital.
Thorny issue
Israel annexed the eastern sector of the city in a move not recognised internationally. It considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital and bars the Palestinian Authority from operating there. The city’s fate has been one of the thorniest issues in the peace process, which ground to a halt more than a decade ago. The Palestinian Election Commission says 6,000 voters in east Jerusalem would need to submit their ballots through Israeli post offices in accordance with past agreements while the other 150,000 could vote with or without Israeli permission. The small number of voters who require Israeli permission are unlikely to have a decisive impact on the vote, but their participation is seen as symbolically important for maintaining Palestinian claims to east Jerusalem. They also provide a pretext for Abbas to cancel a parliamentary election that his Fatah movement is expected to lose badly. Fatah has split into three rival lists, paving the way for Hamas to emerge as the biggest party in parliament.
Unwanted elections
Israel and the international community, which view Hamas as a terrorist group, would also quietly welcome delaying or cancelling the vote. Hamas’ landslide victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections sparked a crisis that culminated with the militant group seizing Gaza from Abbas’ forces and confining his authority to parts of the occupied West Bank. Alon Bar, a senior official in Israel’s Foreign Ministry, told the EU ambassadors that Israel would not prevent Palestinian elections from taking place, calling it an internal Palestinian issue, according to a foreign ministry statement. This did not address the question of voting in east Jerusalem. It did, however, quote Bar as calling Hamas’ growing strength “worrying” given its encouragement of recent violence in Jerusalem and the firing of rockets from Gaza. “Israel is acting with caution and responsibility to prevent a deterioration of the situation on the ground and expects the European countries to act in the same manner,” Bar said.
Looking for alternatives
Calling off the elections would also pose risks for Abbas, who has seen his popularity plummet in recent years as the Palestinian Authority has come to be seen by many Palestinians as increasingly corrupt and authoritarian. Nour Odeh, a parliamentary candidate for a rival list led by current and former senior Fatah members, said she was “extremely concerned” that the elections would be cancelled. She said the Palestinians should seek creative solutions to allow voting in east Jerusalem. “Holding elections in Jerusalem is part of the battle for Palestinian freedom,” she said.“Instead of waiting for Israeli permission or facilitation to hold elections through the Israeli post office, we need to come up with different solutions,” she said, including potentially placing ballot boxes in schools and religious sites.

UK Sanctions 22 Individuals Involved in Serious International Corruption
Naharnet/April 27/2021
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has announced the UK’s first sanctions under the new Global Anti-Corruption regime. A statement issued by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the UK said the sanctions target 22 individuals involved in notorious corruption cases in Russia, South Africa, South Sudan and throughout Latin America. Raab vowed to stop corrupt individuals using the UK as a “safe haven for dirty money.” The new sanctions regime “stops those involved in serious corruption from entering and channelling money through the UK,” the statement said. Individuals involved in some of the world’s most serious cases of corruption will no longer be able to channel their money through UK banks or enter the country thanks to the new sanctions announced by Raab on Tuesday, the statement added. The UK has, for the first time, imposed asset freezes and travel bans against 22 individuals under the new Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regime which gives the UK unprecedented power to “stop corrupt actors profiting from the UK economy and exploiting our citizens,” the statement said. “Corruption hurts individuals and undermines global trade, development and the rule of law. Over 2% of global GDP is lost to corruption every year, and corruption increases the cost of doing business for individual companies by as much as 10%,” the statement added. “Corruption also threatens our national security by exacerbating conflict and facilitating serious and organised crime, creating space for terrorist and criminal groups like Daesh and Boko Haram to operate,” it said. This new regime will allow the UK to “combat serious corruption, in particular bribery and misappropriation. It will promote effective governance, robust democratic institutions and the rule of law – demonstrating our powers as a force for good around the world,” the statement added. Raab meanwhile said: “Corruption has a corrosive effect as it slows development, drains the wealth of poorer nations and keeps their people trapped in poverty. It poisons the well of democracy. The individuals we have sanctioned today have been involved in some of the most notorious corruption cases around the world.”“Global Britain is standing up for democracy, good governance and the rule of law. We are saying to those involved in serious corruption: we will not tolerate you or your dirty money in our country,” he added. The measures are “deliberately targeted, so the UK can impose sanctions on corrupt individuals and their enablers, rather than entire nations,” the statement said. They are being taken partly in tandem with the U.S., which is on Tuesday also announcing further corruption sanctions. “Acting together sends the clearest possible signal that corruption comes with a heavy price,” the British statement said.
The UK’s first wave of sanctions under this new sanctions regime is targeting:
“ - Those involved in the diversion of $230 million of Russian state property through a fraudulent tax refund scheme uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky -- one of the largest tax frauds in recent Russian history.
- Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta and their associate Salim Essa, for their roles in serious corruption. They were at the heart of a long-running process of corruption in South Africa which caused significant damage to its economy.
- Sudanese businessman Ashraf Seed Ahmed Hussein Ali, widely known as Al Cardinal, for his involvement in the misappropriation of significant amounts of state assets in one of the poorest countries in the world. This diversion of resources in collusion with South Sudanese elites has contributed to ongoing instability and conflict.
- Several individuals involved in serious corruption in Latin America, including facilitating bribes to support a major drug trafficking organisation and misappropriation that has led to citizens being deprived of vital resources for development.”
The Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regime builds on “the success of the Global Human Rights sanctions regime established in July 2020, which has resulted in the UK imposing sanctions on 78 individuals and entities involved in serious human rights violations, including from Myanmar, Belarus, China and Russia,” the statement said. “The UK will continue to use a range of means to tackle serious corruption around the world, including funding the International Corruption Unit in the National Crime Agency. The International Corruption Unit and its predecessors have restrained, confiscated or returned over £1.1 billion of stolen assets, stolen from developing countries since 2006,” it added.

India Records 320K Cases as Foreign Help Arrives
Associated Press/Agence France Presse
India recorded more than 320,000 new cases of coronavirus infection Tuesday as a grim surge of illness and death weighed on the country and its sinking health system started getting much-needed support from foreign nations.
Tuesday's 323,144 new infections raised India's total past 17.6 million, behind only the United States. It ended a five-day streak of recording the largest single-day increases in any country throughout the pandemic, but the decline likely reflects lower weekend testing rather than reduced spread of the virus. The health ministry also reported another 2,771 deaths in the past 24 hours, with roughly 115 Indians succumbing to the disease every hour. The latest fatalities pushed India's fatalities to 197,894, behind the U.S., Brazil and Mexico. Experts say even these figures are probably an undercount. Foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted photos Tuesday of the first shipment of medical aid India received from Britain. It included 100 ventilators and 95 oxygen concentrators. Other nations like the U.S., Germany, Israel and Pakistan have also promised medical aid. The countries have said they will supply oxygen, diagnostic tests, treatments, ventilators and protective gear to help India at the time of crisis, which World Health Organization's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called "beyond heartbreaking." The surge, spurred by insidious variants of coronavirus, has undermined the Indian government's premature claims of victory over the pandemic. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people is facing a chronic shortage of space on its intensive care wards. Hospitals are experiencing oxygen shortages and many people are being forced to turn to makeshift facilities for mass burials and cremations.
India's top health official on Monday urged Indians to wear masks at home to prevent the spread of the virus. "It's time people start wearing masks inside their homes as well," said Dr. V.K. Paul, the head of a government committee on medical emergency preparedness.
India has also called on its armed forces to help. India's chief of Defense Staff, General Bipin Rawat, said oxygen supplies would be released from armed forces reserves and its retired medical personnel would join health facilities to ease the pressure on doctors.
Meanwhile, in a bid to tackle the shortage of beds, Indian authorities are turning to train carriages, which have been converted into isolation wards. India has also started airlifting oxygen tankers to states in need. Special trains with oxygen supplies are also running in the country. France was sending breathing machines, ICU gear and eight oxygen generators in a shipment expected to be sent later this week. Each generator can equip a hospital of 250 beds for several years, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said. France will also send breathing machines, pumps and containers of liquid medical oxygen aimed at helping up to 10,000 patients per day, according to the French Foreign Ministry. That first oxygen shipment is expected to arrive from Europe to India next week. The White House was moving to share raw materials for the AstraZeneca vaccine by diverting some U.S. orders to the Serum Institute of India. White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients told The Associated Press the administration was working on other requests, namely for personal protective equipment, tests and oxygen supplies.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
— Japan will set up a large vaccination center in Tokyo and Osaka beginning in late May in a bid to speed up its snail-paced inoculation campaign so that at least the elderly people will finish their second shots by the end of July, officials said Tuesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters a Tokyo vaccination center will be set up as early as May 24 to give shots for about three months. Details for the Osaka center are still being decided. Each will use the Moderna vaccine, whose approval by the health ministry is expected in May. Inoculations so far have covered only about 1% of Japanese people. Japan started its third state of emergency in Tokyo, Osaka and two neighboring areas Sunday to curb a rapid resurgence of the virus three months ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
— Sri Lanka on Tuesday closed schools in the capital and suburbs for four days and made work-from-home plans for state workers to contain a growing outbreak. After weeks of reporting fewer than 300 new cases daily, Sri Lanka confirmed 997 during the past 24 hours. Most were in the Colombo district that includes the capital. Health officials have warned of an expected increase because people engaged in crowded celebrations and shopping during the traditional new year festival that fell on April 14. From Tuesday, half of state employees would be called to offices while the balance would work from home. Already, the government has imposed lockdowns on nearly a dozen of villages in different parts of the country.
— Philippine officials are assessing whether to extend a monthlong lockdown in the Manila region amid a grim spike in cases or relax it to fight a recession, joblessness and hunger. The country has recorded more than 1 million cases, including more than 16,800 deaths. A spike last month prompted President Rodrigo Duterte's administration to reimpose a lockdown in the Manila region, where several hospitals reported being overwhelmed. Cabinet officials and medical experts are to meet Tuesday to recommend whether to continue the lockdown, and Duterte may announce the decision Wednesday. — Australia will halt flights from India for two weeks due to its virus surge. Prime Minister Scott Morrison also announced Australia will give India 509 ventilators and 100 oxygen concentrators with tanks as well as personal protection equipment. Morrison said further aid would follow. Morrison announced last week plans to reduce the number of Australian citizens and permanent residents returning from India by 30%. But the number of travelers testing positive in Australian hotel quarantine jumped from 90 to 143 in a week, Morrison said.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 27-28/2021

Le génocide arménien*, la reconnaissance américaine et les dilemmes d’un meurtre fondateur
Charles Elias Chartouni/April 27/2021
شارل الياس شرتوني: المجزرة الارمنية، الاعتراف الاميريكي واشكاليات جريمة تأسيسية
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/98321/charles-elias-chartouni-le-genocide-armenien-la-reconnaissance-americaine-et-les-dilemmes-dun-meurtre-fondateur-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa/

Malgré les enjeux et difficultés aussi bien moral que politique qu’évoque le génocide arménien (1894- 1924, 1.500000-1.800.000)et ses corollaires grec, assyro-chaldéen, syriaque (1.400.000), la grande famine qui a décimé la montagne maronite (200.000 victimes entre 1915-1918), les transferts de population, la destruction des terres ancestrales de l’ensemble de ces communautés ethno-nationales, et la répudiation turque des traités successifs de Sèvres (1920,1921) qui concédaient aux arméniens la majeure partie de l’Arménie occidentale, la Thrace Orientale aux grecs, et le statut d’autonomie aux Assyro-Chaldéens au sein de la présumée province kurde autonome, et un siècle de recherches sur les sujets en question**, la Turquie s’installe dans un déni aussi pathologique que conflictuel. Loin de s’en étonner, cela fait partie d’une amnésie forcée par un ethos collectif qui ne se reconnaît pas dans les notions de culpabilité morale et métaphysique (la banalité du mal, Banalität des Bösen), ou même celles d’une culture de la honte qui a du mal à s’accommoder avec la réputation ternie par le sang.
Cette culture du déni a été remise en question par le grand écrivain turc Orhan Pamuk, l’historien Taner Akçam qui a étudié les correspondances se rapportant au génocide*, le petit fils de Cemal Pacha, Hassan Cemal reconnaît que la Turquie a été maintenue dans l’obscurité quant aux réalités du génocide arménien moyennant une politique étatique négationniste, comme le dit Vincent Duclert “on est dans la recherche d’un passé enfoui sous la superstructure de la république…., la question est de faire baisser le nationalisme qui nourrit le négationnisme “, le politologue Gengis Aktar lance une pétition en 2008, en coordination avec d’autres intellectuels, en vue de demander pardon aux arméniens ” pour la grande catastrophe qu’ils ont subie en 1915″. Dans son livre “l’appel au pardon“***, Aktar estime que “le temps de l’action est venu, et qu’il y’a une tentative sérieuse de développer une politique de la mémoire.” Par ailleurs, l’usage du label de la grande catastrophe au lieu de génocide trahit une incapacité à pouvoir assumer le qualificatif génocidaire “Bien sûr que c’est un génocide, mais le mot ne passerait jamais. La reconnaissance par l’État comme préalable est irréaliste “, concède t’il. La militante des droits de l’homme au sein de l’association IHD, Ayse Gürnaysu, considère,en revanche, que “sans reconnaissance rien ne peut se passer. C’est une position morale. Nous devons tous ressentir cette honte”. Taner Akçam****, estime pour sa part qu’il doit sa conversion à Hassan Cemel et au journaliste arménien assassiné par les Islamo-nationalistes, le courage du premier, selon lui, a marqué un tournant “c’est lui qui a déverrouillé mon esprit, [alors que] que c’est Hrant Dink qui a ouvert mon cœur”.
Le révisionnisme de l’islamisme néo-ottoman propulsé au devant de la scène politique et médiatique par Erdogan, s’inscrit dans la continuité du negationnisme turc et s’articule sur des prémisses idéologique et stratégique similaires à celle des génocides du début du XX siècle, et tente de les instrumenliser au profit d’une nouvelle politique impériale, amplement attestée dans le dernier conflit du Nagorno-Karabakh, où Erdogan a clamé, haut et fort, son alignement sur la politique génocidaire du siècle dernier, et affiché son intention de détruire la partie Est de l’Arménie historique qui correspond à l’actuelle république d’Arménie. La reconnaissance du génocide arménien par la Présidence américaine (24 Avril 2021) succède à la déclaration commune des deux chambres du Congrès Américain( 12 Décembre 2019), et marque une étape essentielle dans la formalisation de la reconnaissance du Génocide Arménien par les États Unis, la nécessité de poursuivre le travail diplomatique en vue de la reconnaissance par l’ensemble de la communauté internationale, la consolidation du débat au sein des cercles intellectuel et politique en Turquie, et la continuation de la lutte pour les politiques de réparation, de renégociation des droits sur les territoires de l’Arménie occidentale sous occupation Turque, et de l’endiguement des velléités néo-impériales de l’islamisme turc. La démarche du Président Biden s’avère de bon augure, sous maints rapports, et surtout au niveau de la mise en phase des impératifs de la Realpolitik et des valeurs de la démocratie libérale et ses connotations en politique étrangère.
* Benny Morris, Dror Ze’evi, The Thirty-Year Genocide, Turkey’s
Destruction of its Christian Minorities, Harvard 2019.
**Le génocide des arméniens, un siècle de recherche, 1915-2015,
Armand Colin, 2015.
*** Gengis Aktar, l’appel au Pardon, des turcs s’adressent aux
arméniens, CNRS, 2010.
****Taner Akçam, Shameful Act, From Empire to Republic, Turkish
Nationalism and Armenian Genocide, Henry Holt and Cie, 2007.
Killing orders, Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian
Genocide, Palgrave-Mc Millan, 2016.
*****Les photos ont été prises lors de la célébration du vote du
Congrès Américain de la résolution qui a reconnu les génocides arménien, assyro-chaldéen, syriaque et la famine maronite (12 décembre 2019), Raffi Hamparian (Armenian National Committee),Toufic Baaklini, Richard Gazal, Charles Chartouni ( in Defense of Christians).

Analysis: Syrian missile explodes near Israeli nuclear facility
Joe Truzman/April 27/2021
On Thursday morning the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) bombed several Syrian anti-aircraft batteries in a retaliatory response to an anti-aircraft missile exploding within 30 kilometers of Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor.
The IDF published a statement acknowledging the incident and its retaliation against the Syrian forces.
“A surface-to-air missile was fired from Syria to Israel’s southern Negev. In response, we struck the battery from which the missile was launched and additional surface-to-air batteries in Syria,” the IDF tweeted.
IDF spokesperson Hidai Zilberman elaborated further about the incident and stressed that he did not believe the attack targeted the country’s nuclear reactor in the southern Negev.
“There was no intention of hitting the nuclear reactor in Dimona,” Zilberman remarked.
Additionally, the IDF acknowledged that it had launched an investigation into why its air defense systems failed to intercept the Syrian missile.
Syrian state-controlled media, citing a military source, reported Israel’s attack resulted in the injury of four Syrian soldiers and some material losses.
“At about 1:38 am today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression with bursts of rockets from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the vicinity of Damascus, and our air defense media confronted the aggression’s missiles and downed most of them. The aggression resulted in the wounding of four soldiers and some material losses,” SANA reported.
Official statements casts doubt, leads to a more probable explanation
Although both actors published statements, lack of evidence and detail supporting the official explanations about the incident casts doubt on what transpired Thursday morning.
The Syrian media statement claimed an attack occurred at 1:38 am local time, which was around the time a Red Alert (missile warning system) was activated for southern Israel. However, there were no local reports of an Israeli attack underway in Syria that would prompt Syrian air defense systems to launch an anti-aircraft missile.
It wasn’t until approximately an hour after the alert was made that the IDF attacked anti-aircraft batteries in southern Syria in retaliation for the missile exploding in southern Israel.
Which brings into question why the Syrians would fire an anti-aircraft missile if there was not an Israeli attack underway inside Syria.
It is the assessment of FDD’s Long War Journal that Syria likely fired an anti-aircraft missile targeting Israeli fighter jets in northern Israel in a preemptive attack. The missile missed its target and deviated towards southern Israel causing the Red Alert activation.
The assessment is primarily based on the lack of reliable sources reporting an attack prior to the Syrian’s targeting of Israeli fighter jets and the expectation of an imminent Israeli airstrike against a probable weapons shipment from Iran.
It is likely the Syrians were anticipating an Israeli airstrike due to a possible weapons shipment by a known IRGC-affiliated cargo plane that had arrived at Damascus airport on Wednesday. Additionally, an Israeli intelligence-gathering aircraft was reported by military aircraft observers during the arrival of the weapons shipment thus creating speculation that it was collecting intelligence for a future airstrike.
Also, there were no official statements by the IDF explicitly stating an Israeli fighter jet was targeted, despite some Israeli media claiming otherwise. The IDF may not have wanted to mention an aircraft was targeted, perhaps to avoid having to explain why its fighter jets were targeted in the first place.
The statement from Syrian media about an Israeli attack at 1:38 am is misleading and doesn’t mention the IDF’s retaliation for the Dimona incident which occurred about an hour after the time frame mentioned in the report. Moreover, the Syrian statement failed to mention that a captain in a Syrian air defense battalion was killed as a result of Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes.
Both statements seemed to be carefully worded and likely made to play down the incident that could have easily turned into a serious confrontation.
The targeting of Israeli fighter jets may indicate a change in Syrian tactics vis-à-vis Israel’s eight-year “between the wars campaign” against Iran’s PGM (Precision Guided Munition) project in Syria.
Considering Israel’s past responses to attacks by Syria, it remains to be seen if it will remain satisfied with destroying a few Syrian anti-aircraft batteries or if a more extensive operation is planned to deter possible preemptive attacks against its fighter jets in the future.
Joe Truzman is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.
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Kick Russia Out of the Iran Nuclear Talks
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/April 27/2021
Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program just got more interesting. And if President Joe Biden wants them to succeed, he should insist they proceed with one fewer member.
The news from Vienna this week is about a recording made in March for an oral history project. On the recording, which was first leaked to the Persian news channel Iran International and then the New York Times, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledges that he was often undermined and overruled by his country’s own security forces in negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal. The disclosure proved a point critics of those negotiations have often made: Zarif is merely a representative of, not a counterbalance to, Iran’s hardliners.
The most revealing moment of the recording involves Russia’s opposition to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Zarif says that Russia “put all its weight” against the deal because, as the Times dryly explains, “it was not in Moscow’s interests for Iran to normalize relations with the West.” That is an extraordinary admission considering that Russia was one of six countries negotiating the deal with Iran.
To illustrate Russia’s opposition to the nuclear deal, Zarif points to the late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani’s visit to Moscow shortly after the completion of the negotiations. While there, Soleimani cemented a separate agreement between Russia and Iran to aid Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war. At the time, the U.S. and its allies were supporting the moderate factions of Assad’s resistance. Zarif says Soleimani’s visit was meant to “demolish our achievement,” meaning the nuclear deal.
Zarif’s candor helps explain other concessions made by the U.S. and western countries as the negotiations wound down. It was Russia, for example, which insisted on sunsetting a United Nations ban on conventional weapons sales to Iran that expired last year. The final deal also no longer required the International Atomic Energy Agency to certify that Iran’s past nuclear work was not part of a weapons program. Perhaps Russia’s foreign ministry believed these concessions would be poison pills in Washington.
As it turns out, they were not. The separate Iranian-Russian pact did not deter President Barack Obama’s administration from pushing skeptical Democrats in Congress to support the deal. Nor did other last-minute concessions.
All of this helps explain why the deal, from which the U.S. withdrew in 2018, is so weak. But it also raises another important question: At this point, what justification is there for Russia to be one of the six nations negotiating with Iran?
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The argument for including Russia in the initial negotiations was based on an assumption that Russia and the U.S. had a common interest in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. In addition, the Obama administration did not believe it could coerce Iran into a nuclear deal without a united front. If Russia and China were to undermine America’s crippling sanctions, then Iran would never feel the economic pressure necessary to join the nuclear negotiations.
This argument has been discredited by the success of the sanctions the U.S. unilaterally re-imposed on Iran in 2018 and 2019, which caused foreign banks and oil companies to stay away. America’s economy is just too powerful to risk the wrath of the U.S. Treasury Department.
The question persists: Why is Russia participating in the nuclear negotiations at all? It only gives the Kremlin another piece of unearned leverage with Biden, who campaigned on taking a hard line against President Vladimir Putin.
Iran understands that only America can provide it with the kind of economic relief it believes it is owed. Including Russia in the current talks in Vienna is just an invitation for more diplomatic mischief. If you don’t believe me, just ask Javad Zarif.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

The Real Iran Nuclear Talks: Why Did Bill Burns Go To Baghdad?
Michael Rubin/19fortyfive.com/April 27/2021
The Biden administration has made no secret of its desire to negotiate with Iran.
During the campaign, Joe Biden repeatedly criticized the Trump administration’s decision to exit the 2015 nuclear deal and urged a quick renewal to direct diplomacy. Just days after Biden’s inauguration, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan promised to fast-track negotiations. Rather than use Iran’s dire financial straits as leverage, Biden’s team sought to rebuild Iran’s hard currency reserves even prior to any Iranian commitment to return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or, for that matter, Tehran’s nuclear non-proliferation treaty safeguards agreement.
The White House, for example, pressured Seoul to release $1 billion in frozen Iranian assets to Tehran following an Iranian seizure of a South Korean ship. White House aide Brett McGurk and State Department Iran envoy Rob Malley have likewise sought to pressure Baghdad to release nearly $4 billion from an Iran escrow account that the Iraqi government had established during the Trump administration in order to ensure that Iraq could purchase Iranian fuel while ensuring that the proceeds would not subsidize Iranian terror.
In recent weeks, Malley has traveled to Vienna to renew nuclear talks. His position has shifted quickly from tying the lifting of sanctions to Iran returning to JCPOA compliance to simply demanding a commitment to return to the status quo ante. The real talks, however, may not be in Vienna and may not involve Malley directly. In recent days, Bill Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has quietly traveled to Baghdad, according to multiple Iraqi sources on the ground I have spoken to on background. Rather than hold talks in the U.S. embassy or in any Iraqi government building, he has instead quietly met with Iranian officials in the private home of the Iraqi foreign minister.
This is par for the course for Burns. In 2001, Burns—then an assistant secretary—began secret negotiations with the Qadhafi regime in Libya that he sought to keep secret from many within the State Department. (This was the origin of the controversy at the time over ‘unmasking’ the identity of some involved in negotiations who senior officials did not know had approval to talk to the Libyans). In the last months of the George W. Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent Burns to meet Iran’s lead negotiator, scrapping an earlier promise that there would be no direct negotiations until Iran committed to suspend uranium enrichment. Burns had not gone rogue—Rice had authorized his meeting—but he does have an unusual knack to take the lead on negotiations with rogue regimes even when other diplomats seek credit or wish to be at the center of substantive talks.
Back to Iraq: While Baghdad makes sense as a locale for negotiations, it is fair for Congress to ask with whom Burns is meeting, his objective, and what Biden or Sullivan authorized him to offer. Equally important, it is worth considering the price of any such meeting. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein lost Iraq’s presidency to current incumbent Barham Salih despite McGurk trying to hand the position to Hussein. By helping broker the U.S.-Iran secret talks, Hussein may now expect as a reward renewed U.S. support for his presidency in Iraq. This would be a high price to pay indeed since Fuad Hussein’s main source of political legitimacy has been as consigliere to Kurdish leader Masud Barzani whereas Barham Salih has proven himself a more able and more consistently pro-Western bridge builder. No single meeting or even series of meetings is worth sacrificing Iraq’s long-term stability or promising its presidency to a man not competent to hold it.
Biden’s enthusiasm for rapprochement is bad enough. That he feels he must keep the real true negotiations secret does not bode well for his confidence that Congress and regional states will find his compromises wise.
*Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.
 

China Is Extending Its Totalitarian Controls to the Rest of the World
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute./April 27/2021
In the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in... Vancouver, more than 60 surveillance cameras watch 30 tables and send feeds to China. The cameras, manager Ryan Pan explains, are there to "people track" and are "part of the social credit system in China."
In 2014, China's State Council issued guidelines for the establishment of a national "social credit system" by 2020, with the feeds from about 626 million surveillance cameras and smartphone scanners and with data from a multitude of sources ... For example, criticizing Chinese ruler Xi Jinping would result in the lowering of an individual's score. There are consequences for low-scored individuals.
Why did Beijing select Ryan Pan's restaurant for such intensive collection of information? For starters, it is near to the home rented by Huawei Technologies for staff attending to Meng Wanzhou, the firm's chief financial officer. Meng is in the middle of a multi-year struggle to avoid extradition to the U.S. for alleged bank fraud relating to sanctions evasion, and she is allowed to stay in one of her homes. Beijing, therefore, wants to know what people around her are saying and doing.
In addition to posing a crucial national security risk, the secretive transmission of video to China is a violation of British Columbia law, specifically, the province's Personal Information Protection Act.
Beijing will, at some point, be able to assign a social credit score to just about everyone on the planet.... it is just a matter of time before they succeed.
China's Communist Party wants to know everything that happens everywhere on the planet. So far, the Western democracies do not seem to be putting up much of a fight.
China is surreptitiously collecting, for use in its domestic social credit system, video from a popular eatery in Canada.
In the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver, more than 60 surveillance cameras watch 30 tables and send feeds to China. The cameras, manager Ryan Pan explained to Scott McGregor and Ina Mitchell, are there to "people track" and are "part of the social credit system in China."
This restaurant is corporate-owned, one of two Haidilao locations in that port city in British Columbia. There are more than 935 of the chain's restaurants worldwide with over 36 million VIP members. The business started in China's Sichuan province.
Why do we care? Beijing is evidently extending its totalitarian controls to the rest of the world.
In 2014, China's State Council issued guidelines for the establishment of a national "social credit system" by 2020, with the feeds from about 626 million surveillance cameras and smartphone scanners and with data from a multitude of sources.
That system was designed to assign to every person in China a constantly updated score based on observed behaviors. For example, criticizing Chinese ruler Xi Jinping in a social media posting would result in the lowering of an individual's score.
There are consequences for low-scored individuals. As officials say, the purpose of the system is to "allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step." People with low scores have been denied social services, mortgages, and even the right to board trains and planes. There are also "interconnecting repercussions for family, friends, associates, and businesses both in and outside China," Mitchell, an investigative journalist and co-author with McGregor of the upcoming The Mosaic Effect, tells Gatestone.
At the moment, there are various local social credit systems in place throughout China, but they have yet to be linked together in a single, integrated one. "Today, the social credit system still remains a disjointed mix of ambitious national level targets and guidance, varying regional pilot programs, and scattered mass data collection mechanisms," write Jessica Reilly, Muyao Lyu, and Megan Robertson on the Diplomat site.
The Communist Party's Central Committee in January appears to have established 2025 as the new target for the implementation of the nationwide system. In the meantime, as Reilly, Lyu, and Robertson write, "there is a lot of information being collected."
Why did Beijing select Ryan Pan's restaurant for such intensive collection of information? For starters, it is in British Columbia's most important city for China. "Vancouver," says Mitchell, "is a gateway for the Chinese Communist Party into North America where they engage in pervasive foreign interference activity, mobilizing overseas United Front units to strategically lure political and business leaders using financial inducements and other incentives to promote the Party's agenda."
Moreover, that particular restaurant is near the house rented by Huawei Technologies for staff attending to Meng Wanzhou, the firm's chief financial officer. Meng is in the middle of a multi-year struggle to avoid extradition to the U.S. for alleged bank fraud relating to sanctions evasion, and she is allowed to stay in one of her homes. Beijing, therefore, wants to know what people around her are saying and doing.
China's officials, however, also want to keep tabs on the rest of the world. From 2012 to 2017, for instance, they secretly downloaded data from the computers housed in the Beijing-donated and Chinese-built headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia through ... Huawei servers.
Beijing's ambition does not stop there. It has provided tens of billions of dollars of subsidies to Huawei so that the Shenzhen-based giant, the world's largest maker of telecom networking gear, can provide equipment for the world's 5G networks. 5G — the fifth generation of wireless communications — makes possible the Internet of Things, which will connect virtually all the world's devices, from cars to toasters to pacemakers.
China can take data from those devices and feed it into its artificial intelligence (AI) systems, thereby making those systems robust. AI lives off data.
In addition to posing a crucial national security risk, the secretive transmission of video to China is a violation of British Columbia law, specifically, the province's Personal Information Protection Act.
You might think that Canada would care about the filching of data from hot pot devotees. You would be wrong.
So far, the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant — and China — have gotten off scot-free. "Fewer than 15% of Canadians agree with Ottawa's passive approach to the malign behavior of the People's Republic of China, including espionage," Charles Burton of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Centre for Advancing Canada's Interests Abroad said to Gatestone in the wake of the Vancouver disclosures. "One wonders how far the PRC's violations of Canadian sovereignty and security have to go before we see any response from Canada's political elite, which has been deeply co-opted by Chinese Communist Party agents of influence."
Beijing will, at some point, be able to assign a social credit score to just about everyone on the planet. Yes, it is true that its officials have yet to overcome the obstacles — mainly bureaucratic — in knitting together a China-wide social credit system for individuals, but it is just a matter of time before they succeed.
China's Communist Party wants to know everything that happens everywhere. So far, the Western democracies do not seem to be putting up much of a fight.
The Communist Party, in hundreds of millions of locations across China and in one hot pot restaurant in Vancouver, is creating what the Economist called "the world's first digital totalitarian state."
This dystopian system is, unfortunately, coming to us.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
© 2021 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.

Climate change: Striding forward with baby steps
Rami Rayess/Al Arabiaya/ April 27/2021
Official pledges led by Washington to find resolutions to long-accumulating problems of climate change could be regarded as a breakthrough. This track is doomed with additional challenges faced amidst contradictory paths between economic growth and reducing emissions.
Developing solution protocols to deal with climate change have not proven efficient due to several reasons: minimal respect from signatory states to their own pledges; loose unbinding measures that rarely led to sanctioning violating members, and pressure exerted by many international corporations to avoid any notable cut in emissions that would avoid economic growth and increase unemployment. This view was never adopted by US climate envoy John Kerry who said at the Institute of International Finance: “no government is going to solve this problem of climate change. Solutions are to come from the private sector.”
Could the private sector take the initiative?
They are heavily responsible for emissions and pollution, but doing so voluntarily would slash profits, and divert the course of production towards environment-friendly models?
The private sector is an indispensable partner in this battle, but it cannot simply lead the war against itself, its interests and its accumulating profits. Leading this process entails a drastic shift in its principles, values, and, most importantly its traditional means of production. The sharp drop in the cost of renewable energy is by no means an indicator that the private sector is willing to leap towards this fundamental change.
In addition to this, there is a huge responsibility lying beyond the capacity or the role of the private sector. In the US, for example, based on the government’s ambitious infrastructure plan $174 billion is needed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stationsIf the car manufacturers immediately shift towards the production of electric cars and the stations are not constructed and installed, then the whole effort is futile. The same applies to offshore wind turbines and solar farms. Therefore, it is PPP formula (private public partnership) that will bring about incremental change.
Such an attempt has materialized in an initiative, described as the first and largest of its kind to funnel $1 billion from governments and the private sector hand-in-hand. The US, Britain and Norway along with Amazon, Nestle, Unilever, and Salesforce announced they will supply money to countries that prove they are preserving tropical deforestation.
Despite economic slowdown in an unprecedented manner due to COVID-19, cutting down rainforests, and particularly in Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo and Bolivia, the sum made available is barely significant compared to the scale of the problem.
True, the Biden administration took a big step when revoking Trump’s unilateral decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. The incumbent President on his first day in office made a series of executive orders to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, address environmental issues and preserve biodiversity (or what is left of it).
This is just the beginning.
The central theme upon which the two-day climate summit hosted by Washington last week and attended by a large number of state leaders (including China which is America’s counterpart in extreme pollution), revolved around the concept that the US cannot undertake this enormous mission on its own. It needs partners from across the globe to foster radical change and introduce new methods of production that are environment-friendly. Basically, it needs the support of the grand industrial and rich states to proceed and eventually succeed.
Biden formally pledged during the summit that his country would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent relative to 2005 levels by 2030. The US has traditionally been the biggest emitter of carbon. China, in contrast, has been the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, a position where the US was placed second. For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to reduce coal consumption between 2026 and 2030. General pledges pave the road to leeway of escape.
Reviving international discussion on the long neglected topic of climate change is considered a necessary new beginning, but unless accompanied by concrete steps is pointless.