English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For January 11/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today

Those who do not obey God’s Gospel will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
Second Letter to the Thessalonians 01/01-12/:”Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgement of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marvelled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfil by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 10-11/2021

Health Ministry: 3743 new cases of Corona, 16 deaths
Coronavirus: Lebanon debates closure of supermarkets, airport amid a surge in cases
Al-Rahi Renews Call for Aoun, Hariri to Hold 'Reconciliation Meeting'
Aoun Calls Emergency Higher Defense Council Meeting
Israeli jets flying low over Lebanon airspace daily as tensions run high
Israeli Jets, Drones Stage Intensive Overflights in Lebanon Airspace
Lebanon to Reportedly Harden Anti-Coronavirus Measures
Daily Low Flying Israeli Jets over Lebanon Spread Jitters
Mustaqbal Slams Bassil's 'Obstacles' and 'Sectarian Standards'
Bassil Slams 'Lebanese Rustom Ghazaleh', Says Hariri, Others Want to Eliminate FPM
Geagea Urges Govt. to Impose 'Complete, Strict Lockdown'
Jumblat: Amid Corona Invasion, Political Debate Has No Value
Abdel-Samad contacts Fahmy, affirms that media professionals are excluded from curfew decision on all days, including Sundays
Army denies news of armed gang intercepting a bus transporting soldiers
Virtual meeting between Abdel-Samad, Hassan, Shankiti and Bizri, agreement to include media professionals in first vaccination lists
Al-Kosseifi follows-up with security forces on issued fines against media professionals
Enemy warplanes violate the national airspace at low altitudes over the South, Beirut and Aley regions
Bassil calls for Hariri to excuse himself from forming government/Najia Houssari/Arab News/January 10/2021
The Life of Iran’s Most Celebrated Mass Killer/A new biography of Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani/Peter Theroux/The Tablet Magazine/January 10/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 10-11/2021

Mine-free River Jordan shrine ends 50 year wait for Epiphany procession
Pope, Queen Elizabeth Join Vaccine Drive as German Deaths Top 40,000
Pope Calls for U.S. Sense of Popular 'Responsibility'
Reports: Pence to Attend Biden's Inauguration
Pompeo lifts 'self-imposed restrictions' on U.S.-Taiwan relationship
Iran will expel UN nuclear inspectors unless sanctions are lifted lawmaker
Iranian Guards hold naval parade in Gulf amid tensions
South Korean diplomat in Iran over seized ship, frozen funds
US envoy visits Western Sahara, consecrates Washington’s stance
Indonesia Locates Black Boxes from Crashed Plane
Israel Records Four S. African Covid-19 Variant Cases
Elated Qataris Stream into Saudi after Border Re-opened
Pakistan Hit by Nationwide Power Blackout
Sudan voices frustration as latest Nile Dam talks stall

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 10-11/2021

The Divided Nation and the Widening Chasms/Charles Elias Chartouni/January 10/2021
Why the Iranian people don’t want a return to normality/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/January 10/2021
GCC’s diversity can help bring peace to region/Nadim Shehadi/Arab News/January 10/2021
Why Biden has chance to reopen door to Turkey/Yasar Yakis/Arab News/January 10/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 10-11/2021

Health Ministry: 3743 new cases of Corona, 16 deaths
NNA/January 10/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced, on Sunday, that 3743 new Corona cases have been reported, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 219,296.
It also indicated that 16 death cases were also registered during the past 24 hours.

Coronavirus: Lebanon debates closure of supermarkets, airport amid a surge in cases
Rawad Taha and Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Sunday 10 January 2021
The advisory committee tackling the coronavirus pandemic in Lebanon issued a recommendation of a complete, one-week shutdown that includes closing Beirut’s international airport, shops, and supermarkets amid an unpreceded surge in cases following the holidays. Al Arabiya English reached out to a senior airport official who clarified that airport officials are pushing for mandatory PCR testing upon arrival, followed by at least a 10-day quarantine at a hotel. “Our economy can’t endure such a decision, and it makes no sense to close the airport as only around 15 to 20 positive coronavirus cases are recorded from abroad on a daily basis,” the official told Al Arabiya English. The Higher Defense Council is expected to meet on Monday morning to announce details of the complete shutdown. Lebanon’s health minister is also expected to announce a decision to convert all government hospitals to coronavirus hospitals. Local media reported that it is expected that citizens will be given a 48-hour notice period before the new procedures come into effect for them to secure their consumer needs. Lebanon has been experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the past week. The country recorded a record 5,540 new cases and 17 deaths on Friday. The surge in cases is directly linked to the state and citizen’s failure in implementing precautionary measures during the holiday celebrations when the government eased the restrictions amid a worsening economic situation.

Al-Rahi Renews Call for Aoun, Hariri to Hold 'Reconciliation Meeting'
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday reiterated his call for President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to hold a “personal reconciliation meeting.”“Shouldn’t domestic and foreign obstacles vanish before the salvation of Lebanon’s fate and reviving the state of institutions?” al-Rahi asked in his Sunday Mass sermon. “What is the value of a government of specialists should its independence and capabilities be eradicated through picking partisan ministers who are not at the level of responsibility?” the patriarch added. “These dangerous questions prompt us to renew the call for His Excellency the president and Mr. PM-designate to hold a personal reconciliation meeting, in which they would renew the confidence required by their high responsibilities,” al-Rahi said.
He added that Aoun and Hariri should not end such a meeting without announcing a new cabinet according to “the text and spirit of the constitution.”

Aoun Calls Emergency Higher Defense Council Meeting
Naharnet/January 10/2021
President Michel Aoun on Sunday called for an emergency meeting for the country’s Higher Defense Council. A statement issued by the Presidency said the extraordinary meeting will be held on Monday at 3:00 pm to discuss the health situation in the country and the circumstances of the medical sector. Lebanon had on Saturday registered a new staggering tally of 5,414 coronavirus cases while 5,440 cases were recorded on Friday. The high tallies come in the beginning of a 25-day lockdown aimed at reining in a major spike in virus cases in the wake of the holiday season, in which tens of thousands of visitors flew into the country to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. First responders in the country hit by a severe economic crisis say they have been transporting nearly 100 patients a day to hospitals that are now reporting near-full occupancy in beds and intensive care units. Lebanon saw new infections begin to increase during the summer, following a massive explosion in Beirut's port in August that shook the city and its heath sector, killing over 200 people and injuring around 6,500. August's numbers increased by over 300% from July as a result and have been climbing since.

Israeli jets flying low over Lebanon airspace daily as tensions run high
The Associated Press, Beirut/Sunday 10 January 2021
Israeli military jets carried out several low flying flights over Beirut as reconnaissance drones also buzzed overhead Sunday in what has become a daily occurrence. Israel regularly violates Lebanon airspace, often to carry out strikes in neighboring Syria. On Christmas Eve, Israeli jets flew low late into the night, terrorizing Beirut residents who are no strangers to such flights. They were followed by reported Israeli strikes in Syria.The frequency of low flying warplanes over the capital has intensified in the last two weeks, making residents jittery as tensions run high in the region on the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Israel rarely comments on these reports. Many fear conflict may erupt in the area before Trump leaves office in retaliation for the US killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq last year, or to scuttle efforts by the incoming administration of Joe Biden to negotiate with Iran.
On Friday, the Lebanese army recorded an Israeli flight that lasted nearly six hours in the country’s south. A Twitter account that tracks aircraft movement in the Middle East, #Intel_Sky, has recorded dozens of Israeli jets flying over Lebanon, including mock raids, since the start of the year. #Intel_Sky called Sunday’s flights “mock raids.”At one point this summer, the Lebanese army said Israel violated its airspace nearly 30 times in two days, flying reconnaissance drones and jets into Lebanese territory. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon says Israel enters Lebanese airspace on a daily basis in violation of UN resolutions and the country’s sovereignty. Between June and October 2020, UNIFIL recorded a daily average of 12.63 airspace violations, totaling 61 hours and 51 minutes in flight time, a significant increase from the previous four months. Drones accounted for approximately 95 percent of the violations, UNIFIL said. Israel and Lebanon are technically at war. Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, is a sworn enemy of Israel and the two have had a series of confrontations, including a full-scale war in 2006. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a year-end interview, said Israel’s efforts to curb his group’s ability to acquire precision-guided missiles have failed. He boasted that Hezbollah now has twice as many such missiles as it had last year. Israel has in recent months expressed concern that Hezbollah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision-guided missiles.

Israeli Jets, Drones Stage Intensive Overflights in Lebanon Airspace
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Israeli warplanes and surveillance drones on Sunday staged heavy overflights in Lebanon’s airspace, including over Beirut and its suburbs, sparking panic among the residents of a nation still reeling from the devastating August 4 explosion at Beirut’s port. LBCI television said Israeli warplanes overflew Beirut, Sidon and Keserwan at low altitude. Al-Jadeed TV said Israeli jets also violated Lebanon’s airspace at low altitude over the southern regions of Tyre and Bint Jbeil. Israel has intensified its overflights in Lebanon’s airspace in recent weeks and it regularly bombs targets in neighboring Syria, sometimes from Lebanese skies.

Lebanon to Reportedly Harden Anti-Coronavirus Measures
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Lebanon, which began a 25-day lockdown Thursday to curb a huge surge in Covid-19 cases, is inclined to toughen the measures further in light of the dire health situation, TV networks said on Sunday. “There is an inclination to toughen the anti-coronavirus measures and close the airport for a week,” al-Jadeed TV reported. “There is an inclination to impose a curfew and close all public institutions and administrations except for some essential ministries,” it added. It also said that the anti-coronavirus committee has recommended the closure of shops and supermarkets. LBCI television for its part said that “the anti-coronavirus committee will submit recommendations to the ministerial committee demanding the closure of the Rafik Hariri International Airport, the borders and most sectors for seven days.”The committee will also ask for ending lockdown exceptions and the Higher Defense Council will announce the date of the new measures, LBCI added. Privately-owned al-Markazia news agency meanwhile reported that the caretaker cabinet is inclined to take a decision to shut down the country from Wednesday until February 1. Earlier in the day, President Michel Aoun scheduled a Monday emergency meeting for the Higher Defense Council to discuss the health situation in the country and the circumstances of the medical sector. Lebanon already began implementing a 25-day lockdown on Thursday in a bid to rein in the deteriorating situation. The current lockdown is the third since the first case was reported in Lebanon in late February. It has shut down most businesses and limited traffic by imposing an odd-and-even license plate rule on alternating days. It has also reduced the number of flights at the country's only international airport. A daily 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew has also been enforced.
Lebanon on Saturday registered a new staggering tally of 5,414 coronavirus cases while 5,440 cases were recorded on Friday. The high tallies come in the wake of the holiday season, in which tens of thousands of visitors flew into the country to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. First responders in the country hit by a severe economic crisis say they have been transporting nearly 100 patients a day to hospitals that are now reporting near-full occupancy in beds and intensive care units. Lebanon saw new infections start to increase during the summer, following a massive explosion in Beirut's port in August that shook the city and its heath sector, killing over 200 people and injuring 6,000. August's numbers increased by over 300% from July as a result and have since been climbing.

Daily Low Flying Israeli Jets over Lebanon Spread Jitters
Associated Press/January 10/2021
Israeli military jets carried out several low flying flights over Beirut as reconnaissance drones also buzzed overhead Sunday in what has become a daily occurrence. Israel regularly violates Lebanon airspace, often to carry out strikes in neighboring Syria. On Christmas Eve, Israeli jets flew low late into the night, terrorizing Beirut residents who are no strangers to such flights. They were followed by reported Israeli strikes in Syria. The frequency of low flying warplanes over the capital has intensified in the last two weeks, making residents jittery as tensions run high in the region on the final days of President Donald Trump's administration. "When the drone leaves, the warplanes come. When the warplanes leave, the drones return. They have seen us in our PJs, filmed us in our PJs and surveilled us in our PJs. Now what," quipped Twitter user Areej_AAH. "Of all types of panic I experienced in life in Beirut, the panic that accompanies the Israeli warplanes flying this low in Beirut is very special," Tweeted Rudeynah Baalbaky, who said it brought back memories of the 2006 war with Israel. Israel rarely comments on these reports. Many fear conflict may erupt in the area before Trump leaves office in retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq last year, or to scuttle efforts by the incoming administration of Joe Biden to negotiate with Iran. On Friday, the Lebanese Army recorded an Israeli flight that lasted nearly six hours in the country's south. A Twitter account that tracks aircraft movement in the Middle East, Intel_Sky, has recorded dozens of Israeli jets flying over Lebanon, including mock raids, since the start of the year. Intel_Sky called Sunday's flights "mock raids."At one point this summer, the Lebanese Army said Israel violated its airspace nearly 30 times in two days, flying reconnaissance drones and jets into Lebanese territory. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon says Israel enters Lebanese airspace on a daily basis in violation of U.N. resolutions and the country's sovereignty. Between June and October 2020, UNIFIL recorded a daily average of 12.63 airspace violations, totaling 61 hours and 51 minutes in flight time, a significant increase from the previous four months. Drones accounted for approximately 95% of the violations, UNIFIL said. Israel and Lebanon are technically at war. Hizbullah, the powerful Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, is a sworn enemy of Israel and the two have had a series of confrontations, including a full-scale war in 2006. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a year-end interview, said Israel's efforts to curb his group's ability to acquire precision-guided missiles have failed. He boasted that Hizbullah now has twice as many such missiles as it had last year.
Israel has in recent months expressed concern that Hizbullah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision-guided missiles.

Mustaqbal Slams Bassil's 'Obstacles' and 'Sectarian Standards'
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Al-Mustaqbal Movement said Sunday that PM-designate Saad Hariri has already presented the line-up of a reformist cabinet to President Michel Aoun, slamming what it called Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil’s “obstacles” and “sectarian and racist standards.”“The Movement leaves it to the Lebanese people to believe or not believe (ex-)Minister Bassil, seeing as we as a Movement will not engage in political polemics that will not bring the country an anti-coronavirus vaccine nor will return the economic cycle to its right track nor will rebuild Beirut and compensate those affected by the port blast,” al-Mustaqbal said in a statement. The statement comes in response to remarks voiced by Bassil in a televised address earlier in the day. “The government is ready and (its line-up) is waiting with the President,” al-Mustaqbal said, adding that such a government “will be a mission government that undertakes the needed reforms according to the French initiative and not according to the sectarian and racist Bassilist standards.”“This is what concerns us and not anything else, no matter how much they get creative in creating obstacles and producing controversial issues,” the Movement added. Bassil had earlier in the day accused Hariri on insisting on a “government of specialists” in order to “marginalize and eliminate” Aoun, the FPM and Lebanon’s Christians. “There is no expertise nor standards nor rules in what is being proposed,” Bassil added, noting that Hariri has given the Shiite and Druze communities what they want. “We do not entrust Hariri alone with reform and to them this government is aimed at seizing control of the country and returning us to the pre-2005 era,” he charged.

Bassil Slams 'Lebanese Rustom Ghazaleh', Says Hariri, Others Want to Eliminate FPM
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil lashed out Sunday at Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and warned of a perceived attempt to return the country to the “pre-2005 era.”“What is the current specialty of the PM-designate?” Bassil said in a televised address, casting doubt on the possibility that the new government will be truly a so-called “government of specialists.”“The rule of specialty was not only broken in naming the premier but also the ministers! What does it mean to give a single minister two portfolios such as foreign affairs and agriculture or social affairs and environment or administrative development and youth and sport? What specialty is this?” Bassil asked. Lamenting that “there is no expertise nor standards nor rules in what is being proposed,” Bassil claimed that the objective is to “downsize the government and cling to 14 or 18 seats in order to aggrieve Druze and Greek Catholics.”
He added: “We do not entrust Hariri alone with reform and to them this government is aimed at seizing control of the country and returning us to the pre-2005 era.”Addressing the public opinion, he went on to say: “Do you believe that these people want a government for reform, forensic audit, combating corruption, recovering transferred and looted funds and lifting secrecy off the accounts of politicians and state employees? Who prevented them from abiding by CEDRE's reforms? No one, other than laziness, ignorance, reluctance to conduct reform and hunger for stealing public funds.”“There is a Lebanese Ghazi Kanaan and his electoral laws are present and there is a Lebanese Rustom Ghazaleh and his appointments are present,” Bassil added, apparently comparing the two late Syrian officers who were in charge of Lebanon’s file to rival Lebanese leaders. “We won’t allow a return to the era of marginalization and elimination,” Bassil stressed. Moreover, Bassil called for holding a national dialogue that produces a “common Lebanese vision for a new political system that guarantees stability for the country.” “Jumping over the system's structural problems under the excuse that Hizbullah alone is to blame for the state's collapse means that someone does not want to resolve the problem but rather to deepen it,” Bassil said. “Of course the issues of arms, defense strategy, Lebanon's position, its relations with nations and the issue of its neutrality are existential issues that should be at the heart of the needed dialogue,” he added. “We don't accept that our land be a stage for the conflicts of others nor that resistant arms be in the service of any project other than protecting Lebanon,” he emphasized. Bassil also revealed that the FPM has agreed with Hizbullah on “launching a bilateral dialogue to review our relation and the memorandum of understanding regarding key issues, including foreign relations and the building of the state, because things are not going well.”“But this bilateral dialogue is not enough and Hizbullah and us are not the entire the country,” he added. “We need a new contract between the Lebanese, which we should forge through our freewill and timing, instead of it being imposed on us by the developments and before foreign forces oblige us to make flawed settlements similar to those that led us into the current situation,” Bassil said.

Geagea Urges Govt. to Impose 'Complete, Strict Lockdown'
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Sunday called on the caretaker government to impose a “complete and strict lockdown” in the country in the face of the dramatic surge in coronavirus cases. “In light of the very dangerous deterioration in the health situations in the country, the caretaker cabinet is required to take an instant decision for a full, comprehensive, complete and strict lockdown,” Geagea said in a tweet. Should it fail to do so, “it will be responsible for the death of the Lebanese and the destruction of the health sector in Lebanon,” the LF leader warned. Earlier in the day, President Michel Aoun scheduled a Monday emergency meeting for the Higher Defense Council to discuss the health situation in the country and the circumstances of the medical sector. Lebanon had on Saturday registered a new staggering tally of 5,414 coronavirus cases while 5,440 cases were recorded on Friday. The high tallies come in the beginning of a 25-day lockdown aimed at reining in a major spike in virus cases in the wake of the holiday season, in which tens of thousands of visitors flew into the country to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. First responders in the country hit by a severe economic crisis say they have been transporting nearly 100 patients a day to hospitals that are now reporting near-full occupancy in beds and intensive care units.

Jumblat: Amid Corona Invasion, Political Debate Has No Value
Naharnet/January 10/2021
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Sunday noted that “amid the corona invasion” of Lebanon, “political debate no longer has any value or meaning.”“Some of us gets excited or drowns in local affairs while every day it becomes evident that we are going around in a vicious cycle,” Jumblat tweeted.
“The human is threatened in his existence and this issue requires awareness, away from instinctive anthems that we strongly condemn and which contradict with human values and solidarity,” Jumblat added, apparently referring to sectarian and paramilitary anthems posted on social media by Druze activists in recent days. One of the videos shows military vehicles raising the flags of Jumblat’s Progressive Socialist Party. “The pandemic will spare no one,” Jumblat warned. His tweet came five minutes after Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil delivered a fiery televised speech in which he hurled outright and veiled jabs at Jumblat and other political rivals.

Abdel-Samad contacts Fahmy, affirms that media professionals are excluded from curfew decision on all days, including Sundays
NNA/January 10/2021
Caretaker Minister of Information, Dr. Manal Abdel Samad Najd, held a phone conversation with Caretaker Interior and Municipalities Minister, Mohamed Fahmy, during which it was emphasized that media professionals are excluded from the declared curfew on all days, including Sundays, starting today, January 10, 2021, according to the Cabinet’s circular. In this connection, Abdel-Samad indicated that she had received many calls inquiring about the issue, adding that some media staff were intercepted by Internal Security Forces checkpoints and received fines for moving about, contrary to the content of the aforementioned circular. The Minister deemed the circular clear in excluding media professionals from the declared curfew on all days, including Sundays; however, she noted that in order to avoid any confusion later on, individuals can always resort to both parties directly concerned in this matter, i.e. the Ministries of Information and the Interior.

Army denies news of armed gang intercepting a bus transporting soldiers
NNA/January 10/2021
Lebanese Army Command - Orientation Directorate issued a statement on Sunday, in which it categorically denied recently circulated news via social media about an armed gang intercepting a passenger bus transporting Lebanese army soldiers, and robbing them of their money by force of arms. The statement clarified that, upon receiving information about the presence of armed men in Wadi Fisan aiming to attack and rob citizens, an army patrol headed to the area where it arrested three of them, while the rest fled to an unknown destination. The detainees were handed over to the concerned authorities, while search is still ongoing to arrest the remaining militants.

Virtual meeting between Abdel-Samad, Hassan, Shankiti and Bizri, agreement to include media professionals in first vaccination lists
NNA/January 10/2021
A virtual meeting took place today between Caretaker Ministers of Information, Dr. Manal Abdel Samad Najd, and Public Health, Dr. Hamad Hassan, alongside the World Health Organization’s Representative in Lebanon, Dr. Iman Shankiti, and Head of the National Committee for Communicable and Infectious Diseases and Specialist in Bacterial Diseases, Dr. Abdel-Rahman El-Bizri, with the novel Coronavirus vaccine toping their discussions. It was agreed on pursuing cooperation and coordination regarding the vaccine, emphasizing "the need to include media professionals in the first vaccination lists against Corona,” which will be part of the media plan that will be launched soon pertaining to the vaccine. In this context, Abdel-Samad pointed to "the importance of raising awareness about the vaccine on medical-scientific grounds," explaining that "media professionals are in the front lines of raising awareness about the Coronavirus and covering all news and information related to it, which renders them very vulnerable to catching infection while they are engaged in direct on-ground coverage of news events taking place in the country or from inside hospitals and clinics, or through their conducting interviews and meetings.”It is noteworthy that the World Health Organization has included globally media professionals in the first lists of people to be vaccinated across the world.

Al-Kosseifi follows-up with security forces on issued fines against media professionals
NNA/January 10/2021
Lebanese Press-Editors Syndicate Dean, Joseph al-Kosseifi, announced in a statement today, that he “received calls from various colleagues complaining that they were stopped at some internal security forces’ checkpoints, which prevented them from moving around and issued fines against them, contrary to what was stipulated in the cabinet’s circular that excluded media professionals from the declared curfew." In this connection, Kosseifi immediately contacted the relevant ISF authorities who expressed surprise at the matter, affirming that the cabinet’s circular was clear about excluding media professionals from the curfew and that the security forces are committed to implementing said circular. Accordingly, the Syndicate Dean urged the concerned authorities to closely ensure that the ISF checkpoints in all Lebanese regions are properly implementing the governmental circular, hoping that such incidents are not repeated with media staff and that the strong relationship between the media and the security services remains well-preserved.

Enemy warplanes violate the national airspace at low altitudes over the South, Beirut and Aley regions
NNA/January 10/2021
National News Agency correspondents, on Sunday, reported that the Israeli enemy warplanes have staged a series of air violations over different Lebanese areas throughout the day. In details, the enemy’s warplanes flew this morning in the skies of Marjayoun’s district at low altitude, and over the city of Sidon and its vicinity where they executed mock raids at low altitudes. The enemy's warplanes also breached at medium altitude the airspace of Khaldeh and Beirut and their surroundings, while intensive Israeli reconnaissance over-flights were also heard within the vicinity since the early morning hours. The southern skies and the Zahrani region also witnessed a breach by enemy aircrafts at low altitudes, as well as the skies of Nabatiyeh, Iqlim al-Tuffah, and the course of the Litani River, where the enemy launched mock raids at medium altitudes. Additionally, Israeli warplanes circled at medium altitudes over the central sector of Bint Jbeil district, and flew heavily over Aley and the Upper Metn regions at low altitudes.

Bassil calls for Hariri to excuse himself from forming government
Najia Houssari/Arab News/January 10/2021
Saad Hariri’s Future Movement bashes Bassil’s ‘racist and sectarian standards’
‘We don’t entrust Hariri alone with reform in Lebanon,’ Bassil said
BEIRUT: The head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Gebran Bassil, on Sunday attacked Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, arguing that there is no trust in his ability to reform the country. He told a group of supporters during a speech: “We do not trust Saad Hariri alone to implement reforms. We hold his political approach responsible for the (current) economic and financial policy. How can we trust the same person with the same people? He would not accept the replacement of any of them. Does he want us to blindly hand the country over to him?”A source close to Hariri told Arab News: “This is an attempt at luring Hariri to excuse himself from the mission he has been assigned to since October”Bassil’s statement came a few hours after the sermon of Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rai, who is trying to find a solution to the political dispute between President Michel Aoun, who is supported by the FPM, and Hariri.
Al-Rai said in his sermon: “Are portfolios, quotas and naming ministers more important to those responsible for forming the government than a cry of a mother who cannot feed her children and the pain of a father who cannot find a job to support his family?”He added: “When I visited the president last Thursday, we affirmed the necessity of accelerating the formation of a non-political rescue government that would undertake its reform tasks and be the gateway to resolving political, economic, financial, and social crises. Don’t internal and external obstacles disappear for the sake of saving Lebanon and reviving a state of institutions? Why insist on associating this rescue with the game of nations and the conflict of axes?”
The Free Patriotic Movement leader, Gebran Bassil, implicitly criticized Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who wants the forensic audit to include all state institutions, not just the central bank. Al-Rai renewed his call for the president and Hariri to “hold a one-on-one reconciliation meeting, in which they renew the confidence required by their supreme responsibility,” adding: “They must not end the meeting without announcing a government in accordance with the text and spirit of the constitution. It is shameful to continue to disagree over this or that name, this or that portfolio, and the quotas while the state is almost completely collapsing, and we do not know in whose favor this suicide is.”Bassil also implicitly criticized Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who wants the forensic audit to include all state institutions, not just the central bank.
Bassil said: “They make the stone bigger so that we cannot throw it. In whose custody are institutions, funds, and councils in the first place? And who robbed them? They threaten to audit the electricity file when they are the mafias of generators, diesel, and fuel. As for us, you will not find a penny linked to corruption.” Bassil described accusations from opponents that he was obstructing the formation of the government as “a joke and ridiculousness.”
The head of the FPM also criticized the previous governments of Rafik Hariri: “Do you believe that they want a government that implements reform, carries out the forensic audit, fights corruption, returns transferred funds, recovers looted funds, and exposes the accounts of politicians and state employees? They want a government that will restore their control over the finance, economy, security, and the judiciary, as was the case before 2005.”Are portfolios, quotas and naming ministers more important … than the pain of a father who cannot find a job to support his family?
He added: “They want to expel us, as they did before 2005. We have remained silent until now about the accusations and lies, but enough is enough.”Bassil refused to allow Hariri to name the Christian ministers in the government. He said: “Are we second-class citizens?” He added that “the constitution stipulates that the president of the republic issues the government decree in agreement with the prime minister, not that the designate submits a lineup of all ministers to the president for approval.”Bassil said that his movement “does not want to be a partner in the next government,” adding: “We will give confidence to the government if we are convinced of its composition and program and if it respects the principles of the constitution, sectarian rights accord, and representation.”He also supported a peace with Israel, provided it is “based on justice and the restoration of rights in accordance with the initiative proposed by King Abdullah in the Beirut summit.”The Future Movement responded to Bassil’s speech by emphasizing that “the government is ready and awaits the approval of the president to be a mission government that implements the required reforms according to the French initiative and not according to Bassil’s sectarian and racist standards.”The Future Movement said that “political polemics will not produce a vaccine for COVID-19, restore the economy, rebuild Beirut, or provide compensation for those affected by the port explosion.”

The Life of Iran’s Most Celebrated Mass Killer/A new biography of Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani
Peter Theroux/The Tablet Magazine/January 10/2021
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/qassem-soleimani-shadow-commander

Late in Arash Azizi’s fluent and groundbreaking new biography of the late Qassem Soleimani, The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the U.S., and Iran’s Global Ambitions, the author tells us that the summer before Soleimani was killed, “Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert spoke of his old adversary Soleimani in a radio interview: ‘There is something that he knows, that he knows I know, that I know he knows, and both of us know what that something is.’ He paused for a moment and added: ‘What that is, that’s another story.’”
Welcome to the shadows. Azizi reads Olmert’s remarks as a threat, and perhaps they were, but amid the apocalyptic and violent threats launched from Tehran over 40 years—mostly directed at Olmert’s country—the former Israeli PM sounds positively neighborly. Soleimani’s hatred of Israel was obsessive. So many things he touched were named Quds (Jerusalem by its Arabic name)—the Quds Training Barracks, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, and a couple of operations in the Iran-Iraq War.
Soleimani endured a Dickensian rural boyhood of shame due to impoverishing family debt and menial jobs. He moved on to steady work, a love for karate, a fondness for Scarface-style men’s fashion outfits, and religious radicalization. With the coming of the revolution and Iran-Iraq War, he sought ever closer engagement at the front, as a member of the nascent IRGC, a militia “which grew to overshadow and dwarf the army … [Soleimani’s] calm and quiet demeanor did little to hide his ambition. He planned to make this war his own.” He was wounded in the grandly titled Operation Path to Jerusalem, which more modestly did liberate the town of Bostan from Iraqi control.
The recapture of Khorramshahr was followed by a string of regional events that might have ended the war: signal Iranian victories, the Palestinian attempt to murder Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London, and the resulting Israeli push into Lebanon to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization. By now “Saddam had his back against the wall” and so withdrew his forces from Iran and declared a ceasefire, a face-saving tactic accompanied by his invitation to Iran to join him in an “anti-Zionist” front against Israel along with the Palestinians, Lebanon, and Syria. An end to the war in 1982 would have allowed Iran to emerge victorious and saved many thousands of lives, especially since Iranian tactics still involved the use of suicidal waves of young men, adolescents, and children serving as human minesweepers. Yet the IRGC urgently lobbied Ruhollah Khomeini to remain at war, export the revolution, topple Saddam, and destroy Israel. Khomeini followed this catastrophic advice until 1988, when a defeated Iran accepted a ceasefire, leaving both Saddam Hussein and Israel unscathed. Humiliated, Khomeini attempted to restore his menacing reputation by ordering the massacre of thousands of political prisoners, mostly from the Mojahedin-e Khalq opposition group.
The Iraq war showcased Soleimani’s fearlessness within the young man’s damaged psyche. His role in operations Dawn 8 and Karbala 4 are noted twice; both were debacles. The butcher’s bill of Karbala 4 and 5, indeed the whole futile Iranian war against Iraq from 1982-88, was atrocious—James Buchan called it the greatest catastrophe to befall Iran since the Mongol invasions—but in Soleimani’s world view there was no disaster or guilt.
The self-aggrandizement and tolerance for slaughter that were planted in Soleimani’s youth achieved their greatest scope in the destruction of Syria in order to buttress the Assad regime and the near destruction of Lebanon through the arming of Hezbollah and backing of its attacks on Israel. Soleimani was also particularly proud of the IRGC’s role in arming Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and training their bomb-makers and logistics officers to wage missile warfare and suicide attacks. Azizi offers a superb account of the latter group’s suicide bomb attack at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa in October 2003 and of the IRGC’s real-time delight at the bloodshed from the Quds Force safe room in Damascus. “As Yasser Arafat condemned the attack in the strongest terms,” we read, “the Iranians were jubilant at the credibility it would bring them.”
Following the terror attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, American diplomat Ryan Crocker opened a diplomatic channel to the Iranians on working together against al-Qaida. Shortly thereafter, in January 2002, President George W. Bush scolded Tehran as being part of an “Axis of Evil.” In D.C. mythology, the president’s description of Tehran’s elites—“an unelected few repress[ing] the Iranian people’s hope for freedom” and “pursuing nuclear weapons”—so offended the Iranians that their negotiators quit, and American diplomats experienced a “traumatic moment.” At the State Department, Bill Burns was especially dejected.
My own tiny mind boggles at the fact that a regime that kept up a daily stream of insults at the United States, with “Death to America” being chanted in its parliament, mosques, schools, along with ritual immolation and trampling of the American flag for four decades retreated to a fainting couch at a single insulting reference in a speech and ruled out working together against al-Qaida—many of whose surviving leaders found refuge in Tehran.
Whether Soleimani and his IRGC cohort preferred to partner with Osama bin Laden, or whether Bush’s words were the cause, Soleimani was spared the prospect of partnering with the United States until negotiations came to fruition in Barack Obama’s second term. The first locus of that cooperation was in support of the mass-murdering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, whose survival Obama committed early on in his presidency to recognizing as an Iranian “interest” that the United States would accommodate in his blueprint for a new regional security architecture. This would “balance” enhanced Iranian power, guaranteed by the United States, against the power of traditional American allies and Iranian enemies including Israel and the Gulf states.
Yet the Iranian regime itself was hardly unanimous in its embrace of Syria’s brutal and corrupt tyrant. “We knew Assad was a dictator with no religion,” a Quds Force member says. “Some people grumbled about this early on. But when it became clear that the leader had decided personally on this strategy, we all obeyed.”
By the time the Arab Spring reached Syria, Tehran had decided that this Baathist domino must not fall, and the Iranian foreign ministry and army were sidelined to give the entire pro-Damascus project to the IRGC. “Iran would later link its massive armed intervention in Syria to the rise of ISIS,” Azizi writes, but “evidence suggests otherwise. From the very moment Assad faced popular protests, the Quds Force and Tehran were ready to do all they could to save the rule of the Baath Party.”
ISIS—“an American-Zionist group,” in Soleimani’s words—became the IRGC’s target in Iraq after the Americans agreed to withdraw. The Iranian war inside Iraq was part of a decidedly imperialist Iranian strategy of controlling foreign lands through powerful militias that answered to Tehran. After Hezbollah in Lebanon came Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq among others, which included Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries recruited by Iranian agents with Iranian—and later American—money. The formerly discreet Soleimani now strutted around these ruined domains like a Roman proconsul, seeing only proud conquest—his basis of comparison being poverty, carnage, and short, brutal lives that had become normal in Iran under Khomeinist rule.
Azizi is a skillful interpreter of Soleimani’s moves, and an astute analyst of how Iran’s “living martyr” lied, schemed, and abetted the ugly torture and murder of true revolutionaries and Muslims across the Middle East, and wherever else the IRGC’s reach permitted. The supposedly humble and obedient patriot from Kerman sought and achieved authority in the highest altitudes of Iran’s military and terrorist power structure, and was the second-most-powerful man in the regime at the time of his death.
Even so, some of Azizi’s revelations verge on the amazing. He records Soleimani’s direct order for a Houthi sniper to kill former President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. In a well-sourced work of history, this nugget is not footnoted, but it seems consistent with Soleimani’s callousness, especially given Saleh’s on-and-off ties to the United States and Saudi Arabia. Yet how many critics of the American action to kill Soleimani knew of the latter’s own order to murder a foreign head of state—and a Shia Muslim one at that? Further, Azizi asserts that the militias rioting and siege at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in January 2020—almost a mirror image of Tehran in 1979—occurred on a direct order from Soleimani.
Azizi is also at his best sketching out the complex and shifting array of the pre-revolution feuds and alliances among Iranians in the diaspora. The devout, canny, Qom-born Sayyid Musa Sadr in Lebanon exemplified one model of patriotic soft power—“one of the most successful transnational transplantations of a political figure in modern history.” Azizi also places Ali Shariati, Mostafa Chamran, and Ebrahim Yazdi in this company. Had Tehran gone the Shia soft power route, versus its choice to export the revolution, it might today be a dominant and peaceful regional power enjoying good relations with Washington and the West. Soleimani’s death was greeted with both mourning and rejoicing inside Iran. Azizi describes the joy of Syrians whose country had been savaged by the Baath regime and its Iranian overlords. Iranians, particularly the young and freedom-seeking, would have remembered the paramilitary violence against protesters that Soleimani had personally urged on. They may also have appreciated that the American missiles that incinerated him had spared them his final ambition: “In November 2019, [Soleimani] asked some of his men to look into a presidential run.”
Against a backdrop of solid history and groundbreaking reporting, it seems almost churlish to note a few errors of fact in Azizi’s fine book. Richard Nixon served in the U.S. Congress as a representative and senator from California, not its governor, as Azizi writes. The Lebanese Phalange Party’s armed men, not the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army, committed the massacres in Sabra and Shatila. There are other such examples, none of them major.
Osama bin Laden merits understandably few mentions in Azizi’s book, since the two killers never met, and yet to grasp Soleimani it is worth a comparison with his Arab coeval (the two men may have been born less than a week apart in March 1957; historians spar over the three possible birth dates for Soleimani, with Azizi favoring the earliest one). They had much in common: high intelligence, a flair for theatrics and motivational speaking, and similar pathologies rooted in early-life humiliation. Both showed the world, and their closest confidants, modest, humble, and soft-spoken exteriors that masked ruthless egoism and bloodlust. Some parallels originate in the two regional wars birthed by the Islamic revolution. Iran’s torching of its relations with its American ally, and the diplomatic isolation brought on by the hostage-taking of American diplomats—plus the purge of its own senior military personnel (possibly exceeding 12,000, according to historian Abbas Amanat)—emboldened the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to invade Iran, two aggressions unthinkable had the shah been in power. The Afghan jihad shaped Osama as the Iran-Iraq War shaped Qassem. Both budding psychopaths experienced slaughter at an early age, and both men’s world views were formed during the barbarities of those wars, both of which were consequences of a revolution that was a disaster not only for Iran but for multiple neighboring countries—yet is still often treated as a somehow necessary and desirable consequence of the shah’s rule, for which the United States is assumed to bear a large portion of responsibility.
Shaped by the consequences of the Iranian revolution, bin Laden and Soleimani became new-style heroes of anti-American jihad running vivid but divergent public relations campaigns. In the mid-2000s, bin Laden suddenly ceased appearing in open-air al-Qaida propaganda videos. The doe-eyed mujahid, raised in Saudi Arabian luxury, had seemed to relish a soldierly image, clambering over boulders for the camera with his sidekick Ayman al-Zawahiri, or humping his backpack and Russian rifle over rugged terrain in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets. A wide-shot video clip of a heavily armed Osama and Ayman navigating a steep hike down a gully, stepping like mountain goats while preaching jihad to the camera, probably altered his fondness for outdoor theatrics: Legend has it that the U.S. intelligence community ran the clip past botanists, geologists, and lepidopterists, who studied the rock formations, birdsong in the background, butterflies, and the slant of the sun, and are said to have identified almost to the exact day and square kilometer the site in Helmand Province where the clip was shot. Bin Laden quickly adapted to a more cautious Punch-and-Judy puppet show format where he spoke within a sort of little stage within a tent with a colorful fabric background, until he later dispensed with video altogether in favor of audio maledictions.
Soleimani’s trajectory when it came to discretion versus preening was the opposite. After 20 years in the shadows, he hit his stride in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and seemed to relish that he enjoyed the de facto protection of American power after the 2015 nuclear deal. His threats grew bolder, promising a “bloody intifada” in Bahrain in June 2016 and mocking President Trump in a famously boastful speech in July 2018. He promiscuously immortalized visits to his militia fighters in Iraq with selfies. Whereas bin Laden knew he was being hunted, Soleimani seemed confident that he wasn’t. Azizi cites Ryan Crocker as observing that the general “allowed his ego to overcome his judgment … The shadow commander came out of the shadows. He did not live long beyond that world of shadows.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 10-11/2021

Mine-free River Jordan shrine ends 50 year wait for Epiphany procession
Reuters/Sunday 10 January 2021
A shrine near the traditional site of Jesus’ baptism on the River Jordan hosted an Epiphany procession for the first time in more than 50 years on Sunday after it was declared free of landmines. Father Francesco Patton, the custodian of the Holy Land for the Roman Catholic church, led Franciscan friars towards a shrine in what was once a war zone between Israel and Jordan. Although the two countries have been at peace since 1994, seven churches laid abandoned for more than 50 years in the area of de-mining operations. The area lies about a kilometer from the Qasr al-Yahud baptism site in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is a major draw for Christian pilgrims. “Today, we are back to pray,” Father Ibrahim Faltas, one of the clergymen at the ceremony, said. Attendance at the procession, which commemorates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, was capped at 50 due to COVID-19 restrictions. Israeli de-mining efforts began in 2018 and included support from the Halo Trust, a Scottish-based mine clearance group, an Israeli official said. As of 2021, “the danger has been completely removed,” a branch of Israel’s defense ministry said. After visiting the shrine, the friars passed fading signs reading “DANGER - MINES!” in English, Arabic and Hebrew as they went down to the river to pray.

Pope, Queen Elizabeth Join Vaccine Drive as German Deaths Top 40,000
Agence France Presse/Peter Theroux/The Tablet Magazine/January 10/2021
The pope and Britain's Queen Elizabeth became the latest high-profile figures to join the global vaccination campaign against the coronavirus as Germany on Sunday reported 40,000 fatalities since the pandemic began a year ago. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the worst was still to come. More than 1.9 million people worldwide have now died from the virus, with new variants adding to soaring cases and prompting the re-introduction of restrictions on movement across the globe -- even as with mass inoculation drives underway.
Pope Francis urged people to get the vaccination saying he would be inoculated against the virus himself next week when the Vatican begins its campaign and denouncing opposition to the jab. "There is a suicidal denial which I cannot explain, but today we have to get vaccinated," the pontiff tells Canale 5 in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip received their Covid-19 vaccinations on Saturday, said Buckingham Palace. A source told the Press Association news agency that the queen, 94, and Philip, 99, were given the injections by a royal household doctor at Windsor Castle. More than 1.5 million people in Britain have so far been inoculated, in the biggest immunization program in national history, with the elderly, their carers and health workers first in line. Countries across the world are following suit with coronavirus shots approved including those by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and domestically made jabs from Russia and China. Britain is racing to protect as many people as possible as a new variant believed to be more contagious pushes infections and deaths to unprecedented levels. Health authorities announced more than three million coronavirus infections since the pandemic began last year. The total UK death toll stands at 80,868, one of the highest in Europe.
'Worse to come', warns Merkel
Germany's topped 40,000 fatalities on Sunday, the center for disease control announced. In her weekly video message, Chancellor Merkel had warned Saturday that the full impact of socializing over the Christmas and New Year's period had yet to be felt. The coming weeks will be "the hardest phase of the pandemic" so far, she said, with hospitals stretched to their limits. More than 1.9 million people have been infected so far, with almost 17,000 new cases added since Saturday. Belgium also passed a significant threshold Sunday, recording 20,000 deaths, more than half in retirement care homes, said health officials. With a population of 11.5 million people, that gives it one of the highest death rates in the world, at 1,725 per 100,000 people, according to an AFP tally. Cases and deaths also continue to spiral in the United States, the world's worst-hit country. With the 24-hour death toll exceeding 3,000 in recent days -- more than 4,000 on Saturday -- the total figure stands at 372,051 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Tighter restrictions
India will launch one of the world's most ambitious coronavirus free vaccination drives next Saturday, aiming to reach 300 million people by July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. India is the second worst-hit country with more than 10 million cases, though the death rate is one of the world's lowest. Cuba, meanwhile, said it would test its most advanced Covid vaccine candidate in Iran, after Tehran banned the import of already-proven U.S. and British-produced vaccines. Governments are being forced to reintroduce restrictions that helped slow the spread of the virus last year, but badly disrupted their economies. France was to extend its Covid-19 curfews to a further eight departments on Sunday evening. After a rise in cases, Burundi will close its land and lakeside borders from Monday and impose a seven-day quarantine on travelers arriving by plane, officials said.
- New British strain -
On Saturday the streets of the Australian city of Brisbane were quiet as its more than two million residents were ordered back into lockdown, after authorities detected a single infection of the new strain from Britain. "Quite surreal, like something from a movie set," local man Scott told AFP in Brisbane's deserted downtown, before adding: "It's necessary."Israel said four people had tested positive for the new South African strain, which is also more infectious than the original. It had already recorded the new British variant. In China, where the original coronavirus first emerged in late 2019, authorities also tightened restrictions on two cities near Beijing to stamp out a growing cluster. Beijing also insisted Saturday that preparations were still ongoing for a World Health Organization mission to Wuhan to investigate the origins of Covid-19, following a rare rebuke from the UN body over delays to the long-planned trip.
 

Pope Calls for U.S. Sense of Popular 'Responsibility'
Agence France Presse/January 10/2021
Pope Francis on Sunday called on Americans to show their "sense of responsibility" and support for democratic values as he lamented the midweek storming of the Capitol in Washington. Among five deaths during the incident was a U.S. Capitol police officer who died of injuries sustained during clashes with a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters who overran a session of Congress. "I urge the State authorities and the entire population to maintain a high sense of responsibility in order to soothe tempers, promote national reconciliation, and protect the democratic values rooted in American society," the pontiff said during Sunday prayers broadcast from the Vatican. Francis said he was sending a "loving greeting" to the U.S. people "shaken by the recent assault on Congress" and said he was praying in memory of the five people killed "in those dramatic moments." "I reiterate that violence is always self-destructive -- nothing is gained by violence and so much is lost," the Argentinian pope concluded in his Angelus prayer. Earlier, in an interview with Italian broadcaster Canale 5, the pontiff had said he was "amazed" by Wednesday's assault on Congress. Pope Francis made his comments with Trump facing a potential second impeachment attempt as he enters the final days of his presidency after losing November's presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. The article of impeachment charges that Trump committed a criminal act by "willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States" by repeatedly insisting he had defeated Biden. He also addressed supporters and told them the election outcome was "an egregious assault on our democracy," and urged them to "walk down to the Capitol" to show their displeasure at the result.

Reports: Pence to Attend Biden's Inauguration
Agence France Presse/January 10/2021
Mike Pence will attend the upcoming inauguration of Joe Biden, multiple media reports said, the vice president becoming the latest longtime loyalist to abandon an increasingly isolated President Donald Trump. Relations between Trump and Pence -- previously one of the mercurial president's staunchest defenders -- have nosedived since Wednesday, when the vice president formally announced Biden's victory in November's election. A mob of far-right demonstrators stormed the US Capitol the same day in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden's win, in a riot blamed on Trump that left five dead. Multiple media reports on Saturday cited senior administration officials as saying that Pence -- who was forced to take shelter from the intruders during the riot -- had decided to attend Biden's inauguration on January 20. The president-elect earlier in the week said Pence would be welcome at his formal swearing-in, due to take place in a scaled-down format due to the coronavirus. "I think it's important that as much as we can stick to what have been the historical precedents of how an administration changes should be maintained," Biden told reporters. "We'd be honored to have him there, and to move forward in the transition." In his final tweet before being removed from Twitter on Friday, Trump said he would not attend the inauguration. The outgoing president has been accused of provoking Wednesday's violence, and now faces an unprecedented second impeachment, expected to begin on Monday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Democrats would launch the process unless Trump resigned or Pence invoked the 25th Amendment, in which the cabinet removes the president from office. While Pence has not spoken publicly on the subject, the New York Times reported Thursday he was against invoking the mechanism, never used before in U.S. history.

Pompeo lifts 'self-imposed restrictions' on U.S.-Taiwan relationship
NNA/Reuters/January 10/2021
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday said he was lifting restrictions on contacts between U.S. officials and their Taiwanese counterparts, a move likely to anger China and increase tensions between Beijing and Washington in the waning days of President Donald Trump's presidency.
China claims democratic and separately ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and regularly describes Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in its ties with the United States. While the United States, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, the Trump administration has ramped up backing for the island country, with arms sales and laws to help Taiwan deal with pressure from China. In a statement, Pompeo said that for several decades the State Department had created complex internal restrictions on interactions with Taiwanese counterparts by American diplomats, service members and other officials.
"The United States government took these actions unilaterally, in an attempt to appease the Communist regime in Beijing," Pompeo said in a statement. "Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions," he added. The move appeared to be another part of an effort by Pompeo and Trump's Republican administration to lock in a tough approach to China before Democratic President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20. Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said examples of the restrictions included Taiwanese officials not being able to enter the State Department, but instead having to meet at hotels. "The Biden administration will rightly be unhappy that a policy decision like this was made in the final days of the Trump administration," Glaser said. An official with Biden's transition said that once Biden was in office he would continue to support "a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan." The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States in Washington, which serves as Taiwan's unofficial embassy, said the move showed the "strength and depth" of the United States' relationship with Taiwan. "Decades of discrimination, removed. A huge day in our bilateral relationship. I will cherish every opportunity," Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's de facto ambassador in Washington, tweeted. Pompeo, who has taken an increasingly hard-line stance toward China and identified it as the principal long-term threat faced by the United States, has repeatedly used the red-button Taiwan issue to push back against Beijing.In November, he appeared to call into question the long-standing U.S. "one-China policy" by stating in a radio interview that Taiwan "has not been a part of China," causing Beijing to warn that behavior that undermined "China's core interests and interferes with China's domestic affairs will be met with a resolute counterattack." The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, will visit Taiwan next week for meetings with senior Taiwanese leaders, prompting China to warn on Thursday they were playing with fire. Chinese fighter jets approached the island in August and September during the last two visits: by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith Krach, respectively.
The United States is Taiwan's strongest international backer and arms supplier, and is obliged to help provide it with the means to defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. "The United States government maintains relationships with unofficial partners around the world, and Taiwan is no exception. ... Today's statement recognizes that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship need not, and should not, be shackled by self-imposed restrictions of our permanent bureaucracy," Pompeo said.

Iran will expel UN nuclear inspectors unless sanctions are lifted lawmaker
NNA/Reuters/January 10/2021 
Iran will expel United Nations nuclear watchdog inspectors unless U.S. sanctions are lifted by a Feb. 21 deadline set by the hardline-dominated parliament, a lawmaker said on Saturday. Parliament passed a law in November that obliges the government to halt inspections of its nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency and step up uranium enrichment beyond the limit set under Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal if sanctions are not eased. Iran's Guardian Council watchdog body approved the law on Dec. 2 and the government has said it will implement it.
"According to the law, if the Americans do not lift financial, banking and oil sanctions by Feb. 21, we will definitely expel the IAEA inspectors from the country and will definitely end the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol," said parliamentarian Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani. The comments, referring to texts governing the IAEA's mission and activities, were carried by several Iranian media outlets. In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran had an obligation to allow the inspectors access. "Once again the Iranian regime is using its nuclear program to extort the international community and threaten regional security," Pompeo said. Iran said on Monday it had resumed 20% uranium enrichment at an underground nuclear facility, breaching the nuclear pact with major powers and possibly complicating efforts by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the deal.
Iran began violating the accord in 2019 in response to President Donald Trump's withdrawal of the United States from it in 2018 and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions that had been lifted under the deal. Tehran often says it can quickly reverse its breaches if Washington's sanctions are removed. --- Reuters

Iranian Guards hold naval parade in Gulf amid tensions
The Arab Weekly/January 10/2021
TEHRAN--Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday held a naval parade in the Arabian Gulf, state TV reported, amid heightened regional tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program. The naval rally was performed near Iran’s Farsi Island, where Iranian forces in January 2016 seized two US navy boats and 10 crew members for less than a day. State TV said the maneuvre was held to coincide with the anniversary of the seizure. Footage showed scores of vessels taking part in the maneuvre. State TV said hundreds of boats participated.Last week, Iran seized a South Korean oil tanker and its crew members in the Gulf, and continues to hold the vessel at an Iranian port. The Islamic Republic has apparently sought to pressure Seoul ahead of negotiations over billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks, amid a US pressure campaign targeting Iran. Iran similarly seized a British-flagged oil tanker in 2019 and held it for months after one of its tankers was held off Gibraltar. Iran periodically holds military maneuvres in the Gulf waters and elsewhere in the country, which it says aim to “improve the readiness of its armed forces”. The moves are considered provocative by the US and its regional allies. On Tuesday, Iran held a massive drone-only drill coordinated across different parts of the country.

South Korean diplomat in Iran over seized ship, frozen funds
The Associated Press, Seoul/Sunday 10 January 2021
A South Korean diplomatic delegation arrived in Iran on Sunday to negotiate the release of a vessel and its crew seized by Iranian forces amid an escalating financial dispute between the countries, Iranian state-run media reported. The South Korean-flagged tanker seizure by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the crucial Strait of Hormuz came as Iranian officials have been pressing South Korea to release some $7 billion in assets tied up in the country’s banks due to American sanctions. It appeared the Islamic Republic was seeking to increase its leverage over Seoul ahead of South Korea’s pre-scheduled regional trip, which included a stop in Qatar. Iran maintains the tanker and its 20-member crew were stopped in the mouth of the Persian Gulf because of the vessel’s “environmental pollution,” a claim rejected by the vessel’s owner. The crew, including sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam, remain in custody at the port city of Bandar Abbas near the Strait of Hormuz. A South Korean diplomat based in Iran met one of the crew members, a South Korean, last week, according to South Korean Foreign Ministry Spokesman Choi Young-sam. The crew member told the diplomat he and 19 other sailors were all were safe and didn’t suffer any mistreatment. South Korea has requested that Iran provide evidence to back up its claim that the South Korean ship violated environmental protocols, he added. Diplomats from Iran and Myanmar, which had 11 citizens on the ship, were separately meeting in Delhi, India to negotiate the release of the Burmese sailors aboard, according to semi-official ISNA news agency. Iran’s state-run media announced First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun’s arrival with a photo showing him meeting with his Iranian counterpart. It wasn’t clear how long the visit would last.
The South Korean delegation, including representatives from Seoul’s Central Bank, were set on Monday to meet Iran’s Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati to discuss the trapped funds, semi-official Mehr news agency reported. In recent weeks, Hemmati has complained that Iran was struggling to transfer some $220 million held in South Korean banks to pay for COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX, an international program designed to distribute coronavirus vaccines to participating countries. “It is our natural right to be able to use this money,” Hemmati was quoted as saying on Sunday. “We hope that the American pressure will also decrease.”The ship seizure was the latest in a series of escalations in the waning days of the administration of President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew the US from Tehran’s nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that the agreement had suspended. Last week, Iran ramped up uranium enrichment levels at Fordo, its key underground nuclear facility, bringing the country a technical step away from weapons-grade purity levels of 90 percent.

US envoy visits Western Sahara, consecrates Washington’s stance
The Arab Weekly/January 10/2021
RABAT--David Schenker, the highest ranking US diplomat for North Africa and the Middle East traveled Saturday to the city of Laayoune, the capital of the Western Sahara, laying the groundwork for the United States to set up a consulate in the disputed territory. Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony, mostly under Morocco’s control, where tensions with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front have simmered since the 1970s. Last year, US President Donald Trump fulfilled a decades-old Moroccan goal by backing its contested sovereignty over the Western Sahara. As part of the same deal, Morocco agreed to resuming diplomatic ties with Israel. The US Embassy in Rabat called the trip by David Schenker, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, “a historic visit”. Morocco’s official news agency MAP reported that Schenker had visited Laayoune, the capital of the Western Sahara.
Schenker, who is on a regional tour including Algeria and Jordan, also visited a United Nations base in the region, MAP said. UN peacekeepers in the Western Sahara are mandated to organise a referendum on self-determination for the region, and despite Washington’s move, the UN insists its position is “unchanged”.Schenker’s visit comes ahead of the expected opening of a provisional US consulate in the desert region on Sunday, according to diplomatic sources in Rabat. Last month the US State Department announced it would open a “virtual” diplomatic post in Western Sahara before building a consulate, slated for the southern fishing port of Dakhla. Joe Biden, who will replace Trump as president on January 20, has not publicly commented on Western Sahara. “Every administration has the prerogative to set foreign policy,” Schenker, speaking in his previous stop in Algeria, but ruling out any US military presence in Western Sahara. But, he said, “let me be clear: The US is not establishing a military base in the Western Sahara.”Over a dozen countries have already opened diplomatic offices in the territory, including the UAE and several African and Arab nations.
The Algerian-backed Polisario Front, which fought a war for “independence” from 1975 to 1991, considers such moves violations of international law. In November, the Polisario announced it regarded a 1991 ceasefire as null and void, after Morocco sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone to reopen the road. Its move only boosted the momentum for international backing to Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

Indonesia Locates Black Boxes from Crashed Plane
Agence France Presse/January 10/2021
Authorities have pinpointed the location of two black boxes from a crashed Indonesian jet, they said Sunday, referring to cockpit voice and flight data recorders that could help explain why the aircraft went down with 62 people aboard.
The announcement came as divers pulled body parts, wreckage and clothing from waters off Indonesia's capital Jakarta. "We have located the position of the black boxes, both of them," said Soerjanto Tjahjanto, head of Indonesia's transport safety agency. "Divers will start looking for them now and hopefully it won't be long before we get them." The Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-500 went into a steep dive about four minutes after it left Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Jakarta on Saturday afternoon. Indonesia's President Joko Widodo expressed his "deep condolences", and called on citizens to "pray together so that victims can be found". But the frantic search involving helicopters and a flotilla of warships appeared to offer no hope of finding any survivors. The search and rescue agency said it had so far collected five body bags with human remains as well as debris from the crash site in the Java Sea. A piece of child's clothing, a broken tire and wheel, life jackets and wreckage from the plane's body were found, according to authorities and AFP reporters on the scene. Among the passengers was Beben Sofian, 59, and her husband Dan Razanah, 58. "They took a selfie and sent it to their kids before taking off," the couple's nephew Hendra told AFP. All 62 people on board, passengers and crew, were Indonesian, authorities said. The count included 10 children.
Torn into pieces
Distraught relatives waited nervously for news at the airport in Pontianak, the city on Indonesia's section of Borneo island which had been flight SJ182's destination, about 90 minutes flying time over the Java Sea. "I have four family members on the flight -- my wife and three children," Yaman Zai said on Saturday evening as he sobbed. "(My wife) sent me a picture of the baby today... How could my heart not be torn into pieces?"Data from FlightRadar24 indicated that the airliner reached an altitude of nearly 11,000 feet (3,350 meters) before dropping suddenly to 250 feet. It then lost contact with air traffic control. The transport minister said Saturday that the jet appeared to deviate from its intended course just before it disappeared from radar. Poor weather, pilot error or a technical problem with the plane were potential factors, said Jakarta-based aviation analyst Gerry Soejatman. "But it's way too early to conclude anything," he added. "After the black box is found we can start putting the puzzle together." Sriwijaya Air, which operates flights to destinations in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, has said only that it was investigating the loss of contact.
It did not immediately comment when contacted by AFP again on Sunday.
Reputation for poor safety
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX jet crashed near Jakarta. That crash -- and another in Ethiopia -- saw Boeing hit with $2.5 billion in fines over claims it defrauded regulators overseeing the 737 MAX model, which was grounded worldwide following the two deadly crashes. The 26-year-old 737 that went down Saturday was not a MAX variant. "Our thoughts are with the crew, passengers, and their families," Boeing said in a statement, adding that it was in contact with the airline. Indonesia's aviation sector has long had a reputation for poor safety, and its airlines were once banned from entering US and European airspace. In 2014, an AirAsia plane headed from Surabaya to Singapore crashed with the loss of 162 lives. Domestic investigators' final report on that crash said major factors included a chronically faulty component in a rudder control system, poor maintenance, and the pilots' inadequate response. A year later, in 2015, more than 140 people, including scores on the ground, were killed when a military plane crashed shortly after take-off in Medan on Sumatra island.

Israel Records Four S. African Covid-19 Variant Cases
Agence France Presse/January 10/2021
Israel's health ministry said four people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus strain first detected in South Africa, with the new British variant already recorded. The cases were discovered after testing of travelers arriving from South Africa. The two new strains are more infectious than previous variants of the virus. Amid surging cases, Israel last month reimposed a national lockdown. On Friday it tightened restrictions further as the daily caseload remained high. Israel has launched a nationwide vaccination program and more than 70 percent of Israelis over the age of 60 have received a first dose, with 1.7 million jabs administered, according to the health ministry. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was given his second jab on Saturday, said in a brief statement on Israeli television that all Israelis could be vaccinated within two months and "no later than the end of March." Netanyahu announced Thursday that he had signed a deal for enough doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for all Israelis over 16 to be inoculated.Israel, with a population of nine million, has recorded over 3,600 deaths from the Covid-19 illness.

Elated Qataris Stream into Saudi after Border Re-opened
Agence France Presse/January 10/2021
Qataris celebrated crossing their border with Saudi Arabia Sunday, calling the kingdom "our second country", as Doha readied its strict coronavirus measures for Saudis to enter following a Gulf diplomatic thaw. Drivers arrived at the Salwa border crossing in Saudi Arabia, 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of the capital Riyadh, from the Qatari land crossing at Abu Samrah for the second day following its re-opening, AFP correspondents reported. Saudi Arabia shut its side of Qatar's only land border in June 2017 as part of a package of sanctions it said was a response to Doha's backing of radical Islamist groups and closeness to Iran.
Qatar always denied the charges. Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, all of which had also imposed embargoes on travel and trade, agreed to lift the restrictions at a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in the kingdom on Tuesday. "Coming from Qatar is like coming to our second country, where there's no difference between them and us in their traditions," said Mohammed al-Marri, a Qatari who had travelled into Saudi Arabia. Since the re-opening of the border, 167 Qatari cars had entered Saudi Arabia, while 35 Qatari vehicles had crossed back into Qatar, said Ali Lablabi, general manager of Salwa's customs department. "This happiness -- no one can describe it," said Ghaith al-Marri, a Qatari. "There are people who started crying" when the border re-opened, he said. Qatar Airways and Saudi Airlines announced Saturday on Twitter that they would begin resuming flights between their countries from Monday. Qatar has announced strict coronavirus control measures for those arriving from Saudi Arabia. Doha will require travelers to present a negative coronavirus test, undergo another test at the frontier and quarantine in a government-approved hotel for one week. Just one hour from the Salwa border crossing lies Al-Ahsa, a desert oasis where Qatari shoppers once kept the local economy humming, crossing over to buy affordable supplies including dates and milk. The deep-pocketed residents of gas-rich Qatar -- one of the world's wealthiest countries per capita -- also pumped millions of riyals into Saudi hotels, date plantations and other real estate. But the money dried up when the embargo shut the Qataris out, unleashing economic pain and dividing extended families on both sides, an unintended consequence of a policy meant to hurt Doha's government.

Pakistan Hit by Nationwide Power Blackout
Agence France Presse/January 10/2021
Power was gradually being restored to major cities across Pakistan Sunday after it was hit by a massive electricity blackout, officials said. The electricity distribution system in the nation of more than 210 million people is a complex and delicate web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns countrywide. The latest blackout was caused by "an engineering fault" in southern Pakistan at 11:41 pm local time on Saturday (1841 GMT), which tripped the system and caused power plants to shut down, power minister Omar Ayub Khan told a press conference in Islamabad. "Our experts are trying to determine the exact location of the fault."Khan said that will take "another few hours as the area is still covered in dense fog", but that power had been partially restored in most areas of Punjab, the most populous province, as well as the economic hub Karachi in the south. "We hope to bring the system back to its full capacity by this evening, but it will take some time for nuclear and thermal power plants to get operational," Khan tweeted. People were cracking jokes and exchanging memes on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, mostly ridiculing Prime Minister Imran Khan's government and its performance after the breakdown. "Power breakdown in Pakistan is blackmailing Imran Khan," tweeted Musarrat Ahmedzeb in reference to the premier's recent statement accusing Shiite protesters of blackmailing him after killing of 10 miners. "What a start for the new year... let us seek Allah the Almighty's mercy," read another tweet, while a message on WhatsApp said: "new Pakistan sleeps in a night mode".There were no immediate reports of disruption at hospitals, which often rely on back-up generators. Netblocks, which monitors internet outages, said web connectivity in the country "collapsed" as a result of the blackout. Connectivity was at "62 percent of ordinary levels", it said in a tweet. This was Pakistan's second major power breakdown in less than three years. In May 2018, power was partially disrupted for more than nine hours. In 2015, an apparent rebel attack on a key power line plunged around 80 percent of Pakistan into darkness. That blackout, one of the worst in Pakistan's history, caused electricity to be cut in major cities nationwide, including Islamabad, and even affected one of the country's international airports.

Sudan voices frustration as latest Nile Dam talks stall
AFP/Monday 11 January 2021
Sudan warned Sunday it cannot continue the "vicious cycle" of negotiations with Egypt and Ethiopia in the long-running dispute over Addis Ababa's controversial Blue Nile mega dam. Last week, the three countries had agreed to hold further talks to agree the filling and operation of the vast reservoir behind the 145-meter (475-foot) tall hydropower Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). But the latest meetings between foreign and water ministers "failed to reach an acceptable agreement to resume negotiations", Khartoum's state-run SUNA news agency said Sunday. Sudan's water and irrigation minister, Yasser Abbas, warned that Khartoum cannot "continue this vicious cycle of indefinite talks". Tensions have been high in the Nile basin ever since Ethiopia broke ground on the dam in 2011. Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa, says the hydroelectric power produced by the dam will be vital to meet the power needs of its 110 million people. Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat. Khartoum hopes Ethiopia's dam will regulate annual flooding, but has also warned that millions of lives would be at "great risk" if no agreement was reached. It says the water discharged from the GERD dam "poses a direct threat" to the safety of Sudan's Roseires Dam downstream on the Blue Nile. The African Union, which is supporting the talks, suggested the three nations "hold bilateral meetings" with AU experts, Ethiopia's foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday. While Ethiopia and Egypt accepted this proposal, "Sudan refused to have the bilateral meeting", the statement added. Addis Ababa said it was "immediately" establishing a system to "cater for the concerns of Sudan on dam safety, data exchange and other technical issues", the ministry said. Relations between Addis Ababa and Khartoum have deteriorated in recent weeks, with clashes reported along their frontier on the sidelines of an Ethiopian military operation in the Tigray region, bordering Sudan. Ethiopia, which has said it reached its first-year target for filling the dam's reservoir, has recently signalled it would proceed with the filling regardless of whether a deal was concluded. The Nile, the world's longest river, is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to the 10 countries it traverses.Its main tributaries, the White and Blue Nile, converge in the Sudanese capital Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt to drain into the Mediterranean Sea.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 10-11/2021

The Divided Nation and the Widening Chasms
Charles Elias Chartouni/January 10/2021
شارل الياس شرتوني: الأمة المنقسمة واتساع الهوة
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“Why not to get to know some people outside your political bubble…., You’ll probably meet some very fine people who will teach you volumes about strong community, grit and resilience.” Arlie Russell Hochschield
Analysts and Commentators are striving to define the nature of what happened on Capitol Hill, January 6th 2021, and foresee their impact on national political life.
Is it an insurrection, is it a violent outburst to display the long standing estrangement growing at the heels of the lingering cultural wars, the widening circles of ruptured globalization, the unmaking of the national narrative, and the recasting of political life around the blurred markers of a dissipating bipartisan political culture.
Fortunately, Republicans and Democrats were unanimous in their condemnation of the political derailment displayed by the violent tantrums on Capitol Hill, their attachment to the constitutional rotation of power, and the foundational myths of the American Republic.
Whatever might be the outcomes of the debate on the impeachment of President Trump, the overriding focus on the immediate political repercussions, and the incoming transition acknowledged by the outgoing President, there are very few accounts on the purview of these highly significant political outbursts, besides the hackneyed political correctness revolving around the compounded themes: of white nationalism, jingoism, racialism…., as if American society has not logged decades of political, legal, civic and moral achievements towards an inclusive democracy that transcends the ballasts of history and its tricky meanders, and American Democracy is not paradigmatic and emblematic of Modern times in every respect.
The mere relegation of this act of rebellion to a mobster frenzy is a mere ideological prevarication and a deliberate misrepresentation of facts, the “fabrication of factuality” is not the preserve of “white supremacists” while it aptly applies to the alternative narratives of the identitary left, its ideological blinkers, self hatred and anti-American rhetorics.
Obviously, the Trump style of governance like any other populism (on the right or on the left) has very tenuous relationships with institutional politics, nonetheless, it reveals their downside based on oligarchic retrenchment, cultural estrangement, faked pathos and debased democratic credentials (Politikverdrossenheit).
The politics of “Make America Great Again” and its tweeting shortcuts are no hazard especially when you end up with 74,000,000 ballots and a divided landscape which features the current state of American politics.
The source of awe and exhilaration is not Trump per se, it’s “the unity of the great crowd of strangers gathered around him. If the rally would speak, it would say” we are the majority”.
Added to a promise to be lifted up from bitterness, despair, depression, the movement, as Trump has increasingly called his campaign actors, acts as a great antidepressant. “ (Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in their Own Land, Anger and Mourning of the American Right, New Press 2016).
The mayhem of Antifa, Black Lives Matter and left mavericks were not substantially different from those exhibited on Capitol Hill, neither in violence, nor ideological extremism and questioning of civil concord, both feature the unraveling of the covenantal civil religion, and the disparagement of democratic civility.
President-elect Joe Biden has to deal with the monumental task of bringing the American political life to its conventional bipartisanship, away from the sectarian overtones of political extremism, at both ends of the political spectrum, avoid claptrap political correctness, the delusions of fraudulent political messianism and retribution politics.
The Trump administration has come to an end, but the 74,000,000, who cast their ballots to it are still on the wait with their grievances, political agendas and political geography and still at a distance from Beltway politics and its priorities.
The events of last Wednesday are not the marginal upshot of hoodlum outbreaks, it’s the symptom of a long range estrangement, “ I was humbled by the complexity and height of the empathy wall, but with their teasing, good hearted acceptance of a stranger from Berkeley, the people in Louisiana, showed me that, in human terms, the wall can easily come down and issue by issue, there is a possibility for practical cooperation. Left and Right in Congress”. ( Strangers in their own Land,… )
* You can read my previous articles on American elections, November
8/15 2020, on my Facebook mural.
 

Why the Iranian people don’t want a return to normality
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/January 10/2021
د. مجيد رافيزادا: لماذا لا يريد الشعب الإيراني العودة إلى الحياة الطبيعية

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/94765/dr-majid-rafizadeh-why-the-iranian-people-dont-want-a-return-to-normality-%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7-%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%b0%d8%a7/
The Iranian regime is facing several critical problems. First of all, its response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been severely bungled. Now, in another extremely irresponsible move, it has signaled a preference for eschewing foreign-made vaccines in favor of an unproven domestic jab that was recently rushed into production.
There are also a number of factors unrelated to COVID-19 that are going to prevent Iran returning to normal. In fact, any semblance of normality had already evaporated long before the coronavirus was even discovered. For Tehran, the arrival of the pandemic may have even been a lifeline, since it temporarily distracted its citizens’ attention from the ruined economy and multiple other social and political crises, all of which fueled massive anti-regime protests.
By all accounts, the unmitigated spread of COVID-19 interfered with nationwide activist exploits, which had been accelerating. Had it not been for the virus, there would almost certainly have been more uprisings like those seen in January 2018 and November 2019, and even the month before Iranian COVID-19 infections were confirmed in February 2020.
Even during the pandemic and amid public health concerns, multiple local protests have taken place, with people objecting to anything from water shortages to delayed wages. In the post-pandemic era, the Iranian people will have even more incentive to rise up against the regime than they had in 2019.
All the issues associated with previous uprisings — economic disaster, Tehran’s pillaging of national funds to pay for foreign terrorism and to pursue nuclear weapons, and outrage over a lack of accountability in the face of the regime’s crimes — have worsened. Added to the mix is outrage over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which opposition sources say has so far claimed the lives of close to 200,000 people and has caused enormous economic pain for the people.
Iranians are seeking accountability over the regime’s wrongdoing, mismanagement and crimes. During the protests of November 2019, an estimated 1,500 people were killed in a matter of days because they asked for regime change. The international community was largely silent.
In the post-pandemic era, Iranians will have even more incentive to rise up against the regime. In 2021, the US will come under new presidential leadership and opportunities will likely arise to change overall Western policies in a way that exerts more pressure on the theocracy in Iran. These are among the other factors that could make a return to normality almost impossible for Iran.
There are further signs of trouble for Tehran. On Jan. 22, a Belgian court will hand down a verdict in the case of Assadollah Assadi, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat accused of being involved in a plot to blow up a gathering of tens of thousands of Iranian dissidents near Paris in June 2018. Assadi, who is the first active Iranian diplomat to be formally charged with a terrorist offense, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Another trial will begin in Sweden this year that involves a former interrogator and torturer at Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran. The defendant, Hamid Noury, is accused of facilitating and even personally carrying out executions at Gohardasht. He was allegedly involved in the massacre of political prisoners in Iran in 1988, during which at least 30,000 dissidents were executed and secretly buried in mass graves. Survivors of that purge and the families of its victims — the overwhelming majority of whom were members or sympathizers of Iran’s principal opposition — have been pursuing justice for more than three decades, but Noury is the first alleged perpetrator to face the prospect of justice.
For survivors and for pro-democracy dissidents, these two court cases offer a rare glimmer of hope that the international community is finally starting to hold the regime accountable for its crimes against humanity. Unlike the people in almost every other nation worldwide, Iranians’ hope for 2021 is that things do not return to normal, because normality means international tolerance for the regime’s human rights abuses and terrorism.
That is in stark contrast to what the Iranian people have struggled for over the past 40 years: Holding the regime accountable and replacing it with a democratic, secular, non-nuclear republic. The Assadi and Nouri cases ought to inspire the new White House and its European allies to coordinate on a broader strategy to hold Tehran’s murderers accountable. If this happens, the people of Iran will be more motivated for an uprising than ever before.
Iranian citizens have made every effort to take back control of their country from the theocrats, and they have made remarkable progress. Now, policymakers in Europe and the US should be asked how much more those people might have been able to accomplish in the presence of meaningful foreign support for their democratic cause. This could be the year in which that question is finally answered.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

GCC’s diversity can help bring peace to region
Nadim Shehadi/Arab News/January 10/2021
At long last, the 41st summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) last week marked the end of a severely damaging rift that had divided its members since the summer of 2017. The “solidarity and stability” agreement, announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and mediated by Kuwait and the US, ended the boycott of Qatar and created a path toward restoring relations.
What have been described as irreconcilable differences between the members of the GCC reflect a debate with a wide range of opinions about major challenges confronting the Arab and Muslim worlds. They include such issues as political Islam, terrorism, peace with Israel, and relations with Egypt, Turkey and Iran. All these questions are entangled with the various conflicts and crises in the broader region: Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. Competition between the GCC states in support of opposing factions in these regional conflicts has had disastrous consequences.
These differences can be turned into an advantage if the GCC states cooperate to resolve the region’s conflicts. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar collectively have connections that extend from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Morocco. Their political potential is no less important than their economic and financial power. What’s more, they are favorably disposed to play a mediating role and have historically leaned toward promoting stability and resolving conflicts.
Power can be projected more effectively through being an indispensable player with a positive role. This type of soft power is more useful and sustainable than members building up their military hard power. Moreover, most of the GCC states do not have the demographic requirements to build strong permanent armies and the new generation is less disposed to the culture of conflict that has dominated the region for the last 60 years.
GCC states are united in being allies of the US and their survival depends on American protection more than on their own military capabilities. They are also united in opposition to Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.” An overall redirection toward peace in the region is the best antidote to the resistance axis and its agenda of perpetual war.
Paradoxically, if the states comprising the GCC were more united, their potential role could diminish. Their diversity of opinions and individual relations with opposing factions puts them in a unique position to play a pivotal role in establishing peace throughout the region. When they compete, they make these conflicts worse, but if they reach a consensus and convince each other to support the same side, they would then lose that role. It is to their common advantage, therefore, to agree to disagree and turn their problems into opportunities.
An overall redirection toward peace is the best antidote to the resistance axis and its agenda of perpetual war.
Instead of supporting opposite factions, they can mediate between them. They can make that positive contribution only through cooperation. For example, in the Palestinian context, Qatar has contacts with Hamas and the UAE and Saudi Arabia have influence with Fatah, but none of them can resolve all the problems on their own. It is the same in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, where they have mediating power if they cooperate.
They can also have a wider regional and international role with Turkey and Iran. Oman has a history of mediating between Iran and the US, Qatar helps with the Taliban, and Saudi Arabia — especially during the reign of King Abdullah — promoted reconciliation in Lebanon and Syria and proposed the Arab Peace Initiative for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Such an agenda for regional peace will also improve the GCC’s internal security and stability by promoting more tolerance of political dissent within each of the member states. It is only natural that, in any society, a diversity of opinions exists, especially about the big issues like the role of Islam, normalization with Israel, relations with conflict zones, and attitudes toward war and peace. Reconciliation and cooperation between the GCC states will help ease internal pressures in each of these countries.
In an era where populism and nationalism are increasing globally, with the rejection of multiculturalism and intense migration and refugee crises, the GCC states are evolving in the opposite direction. What initially began as a reliance on foreign labor has grown into richly cosmopolitan cultures that truly combine elements from several continents, moving toward more tolerance of diversity in their societies.
For too long, the image of the Middle East has been a negative one of violence, radicalism, fanaticism and wars combined with the extremes of excessive wealth and abject poverty, corruption and dictatorships. This has been changing in the last decade with the rise of a globalized new generation that is protesting against that reality and the influence of Iranian-sponsored militias. The era of complete reliance on oil wealth is almost over and what is needed is to develop alternatives that are more reliant on human capital and a peaceful environment, which the GCC can help create well beyond its own borders.
• Nadim Shehadi is the executive director of the LAU Headquarters and Academic Center in New York and an Associate Fellow of Chatham House in London.

Why Biden has chance to reopen door to Turkey
Yasar Yakis/Arab News/January 10/2021
The Turkish media continues to keep the F-35 fighter jet deal on the agenda and insists that the country has not been treated fairly on this issue. Reports in the pro-government media mostly reflect on the negative developments about the program and the hurdles it encounters.
This attitude is an expression of Turkey’s resentment at being removed from a very important NATO joint-production project and the subsequent imposition of sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Ankara was very eager to be part of the F-35 project. By ordering 100 F-35s at the outset, it was planning to equip its air force with the most advanced fighter aircraft that was scheduled to remain in service for the forthcoming five decades. It had invested $1.5 billion to manufacture 900 of the aircraft’s components. This was going to provide Turkey with an opportunity to develop its technology in the lucrative defense industry. Ankara’s contribution to the F-35 production chain was as much as 7 percent. This was a gigantic opportunity for a developing country like Turkey. This dream seems to have been shattered for the moment, unless a satisfactory exit can be found.
Turkey was removed from the F-35 program because it had purchased the Russian-made S-400 air defense system, but has the controversy reached the point of no return? The procedure to remove Turkey is now a done deal, but we do not yet know how President-elect Joe Biden will handle the issue. In view of his preference for using institutional mechanisms between countries, Turkey may find valid interlocutors in Washington in the new era.
The attitude of Pentagon professionals toward their Turkish counterparts has always been mild. Almost all of them drew to the attention of the US political decision-makers that Turkey’s removal from the project would have negative effects. In a 2018 letter to the House Armed Services Committee, then-US Defense Secretary James Mattis wrote that removing Turkey from the program could cause supply chain disruption and result in a delay in the delivery of 50 to 70 jets over a period of two years.
Vice Adm. Mathias Winter, in his capacity as F-35 program manager, also warned lawmakers that removing Turkey would slow the project’s progress across three production lines. A senior NATO military official warned of undesirable consequences if Turkey was removed from the program, and that this would violate the joint-venture agreement. And a report drafted by the US Government Accountability Office — an office that provides fact-based, nonpartisan information to Congress — pointed out that difficulties might arise with the procurement of several components if Turkey was excluded.
All these phases have now been left behind and Turkey’s removal from the project is a fact. There are judicial aspects to the controversy, but the gist of the conflict remains political. Therefore, it has to be weighed up using political criteria. In other words, certain files may be reopened.
There are judicial aspects to the controversy, but the gist of the conflict remains political.
Another important facet of the Turkey-US controversy is the CAATSA sanctions imposed on Ankara. The root cause of CAATSA is based on the F-35 and S-400 disagreements, so they are two intrinsically linked issues. The controversy over the CAATSA aspect of the problem has the potential to turn into a debate on semantics.
Outgoing US President Donald Trump has chosen the five least harmful sanctions out of a list of 12 to be imposed on Turkey. The most tangible is the one applicable to four bureaucrats in charge of Turkey’s defense industry. Turkey may challenge these sanctions on three grounds.
First is that the CAATSA text states that the sanctions will not affect the agreements and deals finalized before the adoption of the law by the US Congress. Since the Russian S-400 air defense system was purchased by Turkey before the CAATSA law was passed, the validity of these sanctions becomes questionable.
Second, the sanctions have been imposed on the head of the Defense Industry Presidency, Ibrahim Demir, and three of his colleagues. In the CAATSA text, Demir is referred to as “head of the defense procurement agency.” But his department is no longer a procurement agency. In the past, it was involved in procurement activities, but not any longer. Its main —and perhaps exclusive — task now is to develop defense industry projects and manage them. Procurements are carried out by private companies and they are not targeted by the sanctions.
Third, CAATSA sanctions are, by definition, directed at America’s “adversaries.” Turkey, a NATO ally, can hardly be considered an adversary. In fact, American interlocutors told their Turkish counterparts that they do not want to harm Turkey’s defense capabilities, as this would mean harming NATO’s own defense.
Optimistic commentators in Turkey believe that this debate leaves the door open for a rapprochement between the two countries. So we now have to wait and see how the Biden administration will approach the problem.
*Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkey and founding member of the ruling AK Party. Twitter: @yakis_yasar