English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 09/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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Bible Quotations For today

Healing the Blind Man in Bethsaida: Jesus laid his hands on his eyes and he looked intently and his sight was restored and he saw everything
Saint Mark 08/22-26: “They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Can you see anything?’And the man looked up and said, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to his home, saying, ‘Do not even go into the village.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 08-09/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Health Ministry: 2,283 new Coronavirus cases, 43 deaths
Pope Says Next Trip Will be to 'Suffering' Lebanon
Army Chief Urges Officials to Address Situations, Vows to Protect Stability
Aoun Says Road Blockades are Acts of ‘Sabotage’
President Aoun chairs meeting over security and financial situation
Sheikh Ahmad Qabalan receives Saudi ambassador
Lebanese president calls on army to prevent protesters blocking roads/Najia Houssari/Arab News/March 08/2021
Protests, Political Messages Between Aoun, Dahieh
PSP Holds Talks with Hizbullah, Amal to Avert Security Incidents
Protesters Keep Roads Blocked as Hospitals Warn over Oxygen Supply
Lebanon's deadlock fuels seventh day of street protests
Bukhari Meets Qabalan, Says 'No Enmity with Shiite Sect'
Hizbullah lauds Pope’s visit to Iraq: We hope it will help restore country’ role, unity
Where Aoun, Bassil and Hezbollah converge/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/March 08/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 08-09/2021

Pope Francis ends historic Iraq tour, returns to Rome
Iran says former UK foreign secretary’s comments prolonged Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest
Iran says US approved release of $3 bln of Iran’s funds in Iraq, Oman, S. Korea
US military denies reports of attack on Iraq’s Al-Asad airbase
US ‘alarmed’ by escalating attacks against Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthis
Jailed Turkish philanthropist Kavala says judiciary is used to stifle dissent
Rifts threaten Fatah movement before elections
Syria’s president Assad and his wife test positive for COVID-19
Canada/Readout: Minister Garneau speaks with Ethiopian counterpart
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 08-09/2021

Iraq: Turkey Set to Attack the Yazidis?/Iraq: Turkey Set to Attack the Yazidis?/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/March 8, 2021
Iraq: Turkey Set to Attack the Yazidis?/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/March 8, 2021
US engagement necessary to keep Iran in check/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/March 09/2021
The cost of living and the Iranian regime’s risky bet/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/March 09/ 2021
Ten years of international failure in Syria/Chris Doyle/Arab News/March 09/ 2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 08-09/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/

Health Ministry: 2,283 new Coronavirus cases, 43 deaths
NNA/March 08/2021
Ministry of Public Health announced, on Monday, the registration of 2,283 new Coronavirus infections, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 397,871.
Also, it indicated that 43 deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.
 

Pope Says Next Trip Will be to 'Suffering' Lebanon
Naharnet/March 08/2021
Pope Francis has promised that his next foreign trip will be to crisis-hit Lebanon, shortly after he wrapped up a historic visit to Iraq. “Lebanon is a message… Lebanon is suffering,” the pontiff added in an in-flight press conference, vowing to visit the country as soon as possible. “Lebanon has some weakness resulting from diversity… but it has the strength of the people… who are as strong as the cedars,” the pope went on to say. He added that Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi had asked him to add a Beirut leg onto his Iraq trip but that he had declined, thinking it would be like tossing the country "crumbs," given all Lebanon's current problems. "But I wrote him a letter and promised I'd go to Lebanon. Today Lebanon is in a crisis, an existential crisis, and my next trip will be to Lebanon," the pope went on to say.

Army Chief Urges Officials to Address Situations, Vows to Protect Stability
Naharnet/March 08/2021
Army Commander General Joseph Aoun on Monday called on political officials to address the deteriorating economic and financial situations while vowing to protect “stability and civil peace.”“The army is part of this people and it is suffering alike,” Aoun said in a meeting Yarze with the army’s top officers. “The dire political situation has reflected itself on all levels, especially economically, which led to a rise in the levels of poverty and hunger. The money of depositors is trapped in banks and salaries have lost their purchasing power, and accordingly the salaries of soldiers have lost their value,” Aoun added. Addressing political officials, he said: “Where are we headed? What do you intend to do? We have repeatedly warned over the seriousness of the situation and the possibility of its explosion.”Commenting on the protests that have been engulfing the country for a week now, Aoun stressed that the army “supports the freedom of peaceful expression, which is enshrined in the constitution and international conventions, but without attacks on public and private property.” He also vowed that “the army will not allow harm to stability or civil peace.”The army chief also lamented that “the army’s budget is being lowered every year” and that “the funds are running out before the end of the year.”
 

Aoun Says Road Blockades are Acts of ‘Sabotage’
Naharnet/March 08/2021
President Michel Aoun commented on dayslong protests against the dire living conditions in Lebanon, saying that road blockades are acts of “sabotage.”During the economic and financial security meeting in Baabda, chaired by Aoun, he said: “Roads blocking goes beyond mere expression of opinion and aims for an organized act of sabotage to tamper with stability.” The President urged military and security intervention, he stated: “Even if citizens have the right to express their opinion by demonstrating, blocking the roads is considered an assault on the citizens' right for mobility especially after weeks of total lockdown. He urged the "security and military services to fully carry out their duties and implement the law without hesitation.” On the dire economic crisis, and rise of dollar exchange rate he said: “What is happening has dangerous repercussions on social and national security, and it requires swift and decisive financial, judicial and security measures to prosecute those manipulating the livelihood of the Lebanese." He asked the state administrations and related authorities to suppress violations especially manipulation and monopolization of food prices.
Aoun said he assumed his position “to make a change largely hoped by Lebanese, and I will not backtrack, I will carry on with my reform program regardless of pressures.”

President Aoun chairs meeting over security and financial situation
NNA /March 08/2021
President Aoun asserted that the security-financial situation requires to be addressed quickly “Since we are witnessing an unjustified rise in the US Dollar exchange rate, in conjunction with rumors aimed at striking the national currency, and destabilizing stability”.
“This reality requires swift and decisive measures to be taken, to prosecute those manipulating the livelihood of the Lebanese by raising prices in an unjustified manner. As for the procedures, they are of financial, judicial and security nature” the President said, warning of the seriousness of recent events because of the repercussions on social security and the threat on national security.President Aoun then asked concerned departments and authorities to suppress violations, especially the manipulation of the prices of foodstuff, their monopoly and depriving the citizens of them.
In addition, the President stressed that “It is not permissible to continue in this chaos, which harms people-livelihood, calling on security apparatuses and competent departments to carry-out their duties in this field”, asking security apparatuses to disclose all plans put in place to harm the country, especially after the availability of data concerning the existence of external bodies and platforms working on striking the state’s finance. Afterwards, the President tackled the security situation and said that if citizens have the right to express their views, road closure is an insult to the citizens’ right of transportation and going to their works, especially after the weeks of lockdown imposed by public mobilization to confront Corona pandemic.“Blocking roads is unacceptable. Security and military apparatuses must fully carry out their duties and implement the laws without hesitation, especially since the matter has gone beyond the expression of opinion, to an organized act of sabotage aimed at striking stability” President Aoun said.
PM Diab:
For his part, Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, warned that “The current situation which we have reached is extremely dangerous. There are those who are manipulating the US Dollar exchange rate, as they want, who are also controlling the fate of the country”.
“Is it acceptable that unknown platforms control the US Dollar exchange rate, when the state is unable to confront these platforms?! These platforms are political, not financial. Therefore, the real goal of these platforms is not to set the exchange rate on the black market, but rather they aim to devastate Lebanon by affecting the social and living reality to push people out to the streets” PM Diab said.
“The problem is that these platforms, although they do not actually reflect the Dollar exchange rate, have become a reference for money changers, as well as for traders in various types of goods. There are those who are pushing the country towards collapse. Dealing with this issue should be firm in blocking the way for tampering with the fate of the country by a party or parties which conspire against the people and their livelihood, in addition to tampering with social stability and national security” Premier Diab continued. Stances of President Aoun, and Premier Diab, came during the economic, security and judicial meeting which convened today at the Presidential Palace.
The session was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and National Defense Minister, Zeina Akar, in addition to Interior Minister, Mohammed Fahmy, Finance Minister, Ghazi Wazny, Economy and Trade Minister, Raoul Nehme.
Also attending the meeting were: Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, General Security Director General, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, Internal Security Forces Director General, Major General Imad Othman, State Security Director General, Major General Tony Saliba, Director of Army Intelligence, Brigadier General Antoine Kahwajy, Head of ISF Information Branch, Brigadier General Khaled Hammoud, Head of Information Affairs’ Office in General Security, Brigadier General, Youssef Medawar, the head of Communications Department in the Office, Colonel Jamal Ashmar, Head of Information Crimes Office, Major Patrick Obeid, Cassation Public Prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Ouweidat, Head of Banks’ Association, Dr. Salim Sfeir, Chairman of Money Exchangers’ Syndicate, Mahmoud Mrad, Vice-President of the Syndicate, Elias Srour, former Minister, Salim Jreisatti, Presidency Director General, Dr. Antoine Choucair, the President’s Security and Military Adviser, Brigadier General Paul Matar, Advisors: Rafic Chelala, Dr. Charbel Kordahy, and Antoine Constantine.
Meeting Statement:
After the meeting, the President’s political and media advisor, Mr. Antoine Constantine, read the following statement:
“President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, chaired and economic, financial, security and judicial meeting, today, attended by Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, ministers, heads of security apparatuses, Cassation Attorney General, Central Bank Governor and officials.
At the beginning of the meeting, President Aoun asserted that the security-financial situation requires to be addressed quickly “Since we are witnessing an unjustified rise in the US Dollar exchange rate, in conjunction with rumors aimed at striking the national currency, and destabilizing stability”.
“This reality requires swift and decisive measures to be taken, to prosecute those manipulating the livelihood of the Lebanese by raising prices in an unjustified manner. As for the procedures, they are of financial, judicial and security nature” the President said, warning of the seriousness of recent events because of the repercussions on social security and the threat on national security.
President Aoun then asked concerned departments and authorities to suppress violations, especially the manipulation of the prices of foodstuff, their monopoly and depriving the citizens of them.
In addition, the President stressed that “It is not permissible to continue in this chaos, which harms people-livelihood, calling on security apparatuses and competent departments to carry-out their duties in this field”, asking security apparatuses to disclose all plans put in place to harm the country, especially after the availability of data concerning the existence of external bodies and platforms working on striking the state’s finance.
Afterwards, the President tackled the security situation and said that if citizens have the right to express their views, road closure is an insult to the citizens’ right of transportation and going to their works, especially after the weeks of lockdown imposed by public mobilization to confront Corona pandemic.
“Blocking roads is unacceptable. Security and military apparatuses must fully carry out their duties and implement the laws without hesitation, especially since the matter has gone beyond the expression of opinion, to an organized act of sabotage aimed at striking stability” President Aoun said.
Finally, the President warned the Lebanese about the danger of the slogans raised with the intention of harming homeland unity, stirring up discord and undermining the state and its symbols, stressing that he is continuing in his reform program despite all pressures. “I have come to bring the change which the Lebanese seek and I will not back down” President Aoun asserted.
Then, Prime Minister Hassan Diab said:
“The current situation which we have reached is extremely dangerous. There are those who are manipulating the US Dollar exchange rate, as they want, who are also controlling the fate of the country.
Is it acceptable that unknown platforms control the US Dollar exchange rate, when the state is unable to confront these platforms?! These platforms are political, not financial. Therefore, the real goal of these platforms is not to set the exchange rate on the black market, but rather they aim to devastate Lebanon by affecting the social and living reality to push people out to the streets.
The problem is that these platforms, although they do not actually reflect the Dollar exchange rate, have become a reference for money changers, as well as for traders in various types of goods. There are those who are pushing the country towards collapse. Dealing with this issue should be firm in blocking the way for tampering with the fate of the country by a party or parties which conspire against the people and their livelihood, in addition to tampering with social stability and national security.
Concerning smuggling and storage, frequent meetings were help with concerned ministers and heads of security apparatuses, during which clear and decisive directives were given to prevent smuggling and monopoly.
On 23/2/2021, I issued a decision mandating the Defense, Interior, Finance and Economy Ministers to develop an integrated plan to strictly implement measures which would combat monopoly and price manipulation, especially in foodstuffs and basic citizen-needs, in addition to tightening control over all border crossings, especially land crossings. Directives have also been given to establish a joint operations room which includes concerned ministries and security apparatuses, to take operational measures in order to implement all directives.
I also asked the Discrimination Attorney General to give the necessary directives to security apparatuses to prevent smuggling and to regulate this issue, especially taking legal measures against those who intentionally use old videos to create additional reactions by part of the citizens”.
Then, several participants spoke about the financial, monetary and security conditions, and the need to form a new government in accordance with the principles and provisions of the constitution that would undertake the implementation of reforms and economic recovery was emphasized.
After discussion and deliberation, it was decided:
First: To assign all security apparatuses to arrest all who violate the provisions of the Currency and Credit Law and the Law Regulating Money Exchange Profession, whether they are licensed or unlicensed money changers who practice speculation.
Second: To assign security apparatuses, based on the judiciary’s indication, to work to complete the closure of the local illegal electronic platforms and groups which set the Price of the US dollar vs Lebanese Pound, and to continue communicating for this purpose with international official bodies and global electronic platforms based on applicable international laws.
Third: To assign concerned ministries and security apparatuses to work to control the use of foreign currency except for commercial, industrial or health sectoral purposes, in order to secure basic citizen requirements.
Fourth: To assign the Foreign Affairs Ministry to intensify diplomatic work to urge donor countries to help the displaced Syrians, in their homeland.
Fifth: To emphasize the necessity and importance of preparing and approving the draft law known as Capital Control.
Sixth: To request security and military apparatuses not to allow road closure, taking into account preserving the safety of citizens, demonstrators and public and private properties.—Presidency Press Office

Sheikh Ahmad Qabalan receives Saudi ambassador
NNA/March 08/2021  
Jaafarite Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Qabalan on Monday received in his office at the Dar Al-Iftaa, the Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid bin Abdullah Bukhari. Discussions between the pair reportedly touched on the current local and regional situation, as well as the means to bolster cooperation between the two countries. Ambassador Bukhari affirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia carries out its duties towards Lebanon without discrimination among its sects and segments, based on the principles of the genuine Arab brotherhood, assuring that there are no hostility nor hatred sentiments towards the sons of the honorable Shiite sect. In turn, Sheikh Qabalan stressed that the Arab and Islamic disputes only serve to further shatter Arabs and Muslims.

Lebanese president calls on army to prevent protesters blocking roads
Najia Houssari/Arab News/March 08/2021
Army chief says people have right to protest peacefully over economic and political crisis and his forces will not suppress just demands
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun on Monday told security forces to prevent roads being blocked by protesters. It came as demonstrators declared a “day of rage” amid growing anger about more than a year of economic crisis and months of political paralysis, and blocked main routes across the country for a seventh day straight. Gen. Joseph Aoun, commander-in-chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces, held a meeting on Monday with military commanders during which he stressed the right of people to engage in peaceful protest but not to damage public property. He also said that violations of the rights of the army would not be tolerated, and called on politicians to resolve the crisis.
In his first public critical comments, he said that “soldiers are hungry like the people, so what are the officials waiting for?” He added that “they launch political campaigns against us to distort our image” but said they will not succeed in doing so.“It is forbidden to interfere with our affairs or with our promotions or formations. The army is compact and its dissolution means the end of the (Lebanese) entity. The experience of 1975 (the Lebanese Civil War) will not be repeated,” he said. Gen. Aoun denied that there had been desertions from the military as a result of the economic crisis but added: “Do you want a potent army or not? The army budget is reduced every year, which negatively affects the morale of the military.”The day of rage began to spread early on Monday to all parts of Lebanon as protesters once again blocked key roads in an attempt to prevent people from going to work.
The demonstrators spoke of their concerns about “the worries of daily life, the rise in the exchange rate of the dollar, and the need for early parliamentary elections.”According to a report by the Crisis Observatory at the American University of Beirut, obtained by Arab News: “The accelerating collapse of the Lebanese pound last week and the increase of the value of the dollar on the black market to more than (10,000 Lebanese pounds) was a shock to citizens, who lost more than 85 percent of their salaries. “If the repercussions of the pound’s plunge in value are evident in the deterioration of Lebanese and other residents’ buying power, and in feverish, sometimes violent competition over subsidized goods in some shops, the worst is still to come.”The report continued: “The support obtained by the Banque du Liban (Lebanon’s central bank) covers between 85 percent and 90 percent of the value of fuel and medicine purchases so far.”
The blocking of roads by protesters, which resulted in clashes with the security services attempting to reopen them, caused alarm among politicians. During a security, financial and economic meeting on Monday morning at the presidential palace in Baabda, there were calls “not to allow roadblocks, taking into account the safety of citizens, demonstrators and public and private property.”However, Gen. Aoun made it clear that the military would not prevent peaceful demonstrations or attack protesters to suppress just demands for a resolution of the crisis. In his speech to officers, he said: “The solution to the crisis is political, and the political forces must assume their responsibilities and work toward finding a solution. They cannot blame the demonstrators nor the Lebanese army.” A protesters in the Tyre area poured gasoline over himself and tried to set himself on fire on Monday but was prevented from doing so by Lebanese Civil Defense. In Tripoli, there was a confrontation between the army and protesters calling for “the resignation and trial of all officials.”During the meeting at the presidential palace, concerns were raised about who was responsible for the latest increase to the dollar exchange rate at the weekend, when businesses were closed. President Aoun asked the security services to investigate plots to harm the country. Several measures to address the currency crisis were agreed during a meeting with security and government officials, according to an official statement, including a crackdown on anyone found to be violating monetary and credit laws, including foreign exchange bureaus.

Protests, Political Messages Between Aoun, Dahieh
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al Awsat/March 08/2021
Sources from Lebanon's Free Patriotic Movement accused on Sunday the Amal Movement of standing behind popular protests that kicked off during the weekend from Beirut's Dahieh, the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs. According to the sources, the protests which reached the Presidential Palace in Baabda, carried a political message to President Michel Aoun. “It is well-known that protests coming from Dahiyeh are either pushed for by Hezbollah or the Amal Movement of Speaker Nabih Berri. Hezbollah does not carry out such actions. However, we known which party has "motorcycles,” the sources said, hinting at the Amal Movement. “All these protests would not change any of our stances. They will only cause some tension and the block roads,” the sources noted. Meanwhile, sources close to the Amal Movement firmly denied their link to the protests that started on Saturday night. “The Amal Movement would announce if it supported any protest. There are legal measures to be taken before organizing such events,” the sources affirmed. They also reiterated the position of Berri, who called on his supporters a few months ago to stop protesting in streets. Hezbollah and Amal had also issued a joint statement on Sunday night denying having any links to the incidents. During the weekend, protesters in Lebanon took to the streets, blocking roads with burning tires and lashing out at political leaders for failing to form a new government and causing a severe economic crisis.The rallies continued until Monday morning. The National News Agency reported that protesters have cut off highways in Kosba, Byblos, Zouk Mosbeh, Mazraat Yachouh, Antelias, Sidon, Tyre, Adloun, Jiyyeh, Chekka and the Bekaa with tires and trash dumpsters.

PSP Holds Talks with Hizbullah, Amal to Avert Security Incidents
Naharnet/March 08/2021  
The Progressive Socialist Party announced Monday that it has held phone talks with Hizbullah and Amal Movement officials to prevent any sectarian discord resulting from any incident linked to the road-blocking protests that are engulfing the various Lebanese regions. “People have the right to expression in rejection of this entire dire situation, and the PSP adheres to this on the basis of refraining from harming civil peace and stability,” the party said in a statement. It added that ex-minister Ghazi Aridi, tasked by PSP chief Walid Jumblat, has called Hizbullah official Wafiq Safa and Speaker Nabih Berri’s adviser Ahmed Baalbaki to “stress the need that citizens’ protests should not be exploited to create any strife.” The PSP added that it rejects the blocking of roads “in the face of the people,” noting that “freedom is a right for protesters and non-protesters.”“The rights and protests of the people should not be exploited in directions that do not serve their legitimate demands,” the party went on to say, calling for “coordination among everyone and with the security agencies in light of what the circumstances necessitate in this regard.”
 

Protesters Keep Roads Blocked as Hospitals Warn over Oxygen Supply
Agence France Presse/Associated Press
Protesters angry with Lebanon's ruling class blocked major roads leading to the capital Monday, causing traffic jams and prompting the head of the country's hospital union to warn they were preventing oxygen supplies from reaching medical centers treating coronavirus patients.The country is in the grips of its worst economic crisis in decades, compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. Prices have soared and more than half of the population are living below the poverty line, but the divided political class has for more than six months been unable to form a cabinet. Black smoke billowed up from overturned rubbish dumpsters and tires set ablaze by protesters at various entrances to Beirut from early morning. "We've closed off all the roads today to tell everyone: It's over, we have nothing left to lose," said Pascale Nohra, a protester blocking the northern road into Beirut. "We've even lost our dignity." She said it was time to revive the mass cross-sectarian protests of late 2019 against an entrenched political class, that has dominated the country since the 1975-1990 civil war. "We want everybody to show solidarity," said the former real estate worker. "We need to return to the streets and revive our revolution." Another protester, Anthony Doueihi, said: "The people, this country are dying, collapsing. "If we don't come out now, these corrupt barons will continue ruling us for another thirty years."Similar protests were held Monday in the northern port city of Tripoli. In the southern village of Abbasiyeh, a man poured gasoline on his body and tried to set himself on fire before civil defense members and soldiers intervened and sprayed his body with water.
'Worst is still to come'
Lebanon's currency has lost more than 80 percent of its value since the fall of 2019, plunging to an all-time low of nearly 11,000 pounds to the greenback. In a country that imports most of its food, state subsidies have until now helped to partially stem the inflation. But with foreign currency reserves dwindling, the authorities have warned they will not be able keep them up much longer. As Lebanese brace to slide deeper into poverty, footage circulated last week of a fight in a supermarket over subsidized milk formula. The Crisis Observatory at the American University of Beirut warned that the situation would likely worsen. "If the repercussions of the pound's plunge in value are evident in the deterioration of Lebanese and other residents' buying power, and in feverish, sometimes violent competition over subsidized goods in some shops, the worst is still to come," it said in a report. President Michel Aoun said blocking roads was "unacceptable", and security and military forces would ensure they were opened to traffic.
He called for authorities to clamp down on "the manipulation of food prices."
'Policy inaction' -
Mohammad Faour, a research fellow at University College Dublin, said the pound's free-fall was a "continuation of a clear downward trend in the exchange rate since the very beginning of the crisis, and the concurrent policy inaction".Lebanon has been without a fully functioning government since a massive blast in Beirut's port last August killed more than 200 people and ravaged swathes of the capital. The government stepped down after the disaster, but the political class cannot agree on a new cabinet to launch sweeping reforms desperately needed to unlock billions in international aid. The international community has repeatedly demanded reforms in the public and banking sectors, but analyst Mike Azar argued they were unlikely any time soon. "It is easier for the political leadership to do nothing, push the losses slowly onto the public, and rule over a much poorer country, than to do any of the reforms," he said. That is because the reforms needed would "hit directly at the political parties' clientelist system" as well as influential bank shareholders or large depositors, he explained.
Monday's protests came on the same day as Lebanon entered a new phase in easing a lockdown aimed at keeping Covid-19 infection rates in check. A major medical oxygen supplier called on protesters to allow its trucks through to reach hospitals treating patients with serious cases of coronavirus. Lebanon has recorded almost 400,000 coronavirus cases and more than 5,000 deaths.Suleiman Haroun, President of the Syndicate of Hospitals in Lebanon, meanwhile told The Associated Press that after a two-day weekend when there is no oxygen distribution, some hospitals are running low and urgently need supplies, especially to treat COVID-19 patients. "This is not a joke. It is a matter of life and death," Haroun said urging protesters to allow vehicles carrying supplies of oxygen to pass. There are several oxygen plants around Lebanon and they supply hospitals throughout the country, including some in remote areas.

Lebanon's deadlock fuels seventh day of street protests
BEIRUT (Reuters)/March 08/2021
Lebanon’s president told security forces to prevent roadblocks after protesters shut main roads across the country for a seventh straight day on Monday in anger at more than a year of economic crisis and months of political paralysis. Measures agreed in a meeting with security and government officials included ordering a crackdown on anyone violating monetary and credit laws, including foreign exchange bureaus, a statement said. Since the Lebanese pound, which has lost 85% of its value, tumbled to a new low last week, protesters have blocked roads daily. “We have said several times that there will be an escalation because the state isn’t doing anything,” said Pascale Nohra, a protester on a main highway in the Jal al-Dib area. As Lebanon’s financial crisis erupted in late 2019, a wave of mass protest rocked the country, with outrage boiling over at leaders who have overseen decades of state graft. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, bank accounts have been frozen and many have been plunged into poverty. On Monday, three main roads leading south into the capital were blocked while in Beirut itself, protesters briefly closed a road in front of the central bank. In Tyre in the south, one man tried to burn himself by pouring gasoline on his body but civil defence members stopped him in time, the state news agency said. In Tripoli in the north, one of Lebanon’s poorest cities, demonstrators built a brick wall one metre high to prevent cars from passing through allowing a pathway for emergency cases.Lebanon’s army chief held a separate meeting with military commanders also on Monday in which he stressed the right to peaceful protest but without damage of public property. General Joseph Aoun warned however of an unstable security situation, adding that military officers were also suffering economic hardship. “The officer also is suffering and is hungry, to the officials I say, where are you going? What are you waiting for? What are you planning to do?” he said in a statement.
PRESSURE
“The new developments on the financial and security fronts must be tackled quickly,” the presidency statement said. After a port explosion devastated whole tracts of Beirut in August and killed 200 people, Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government resigned. But the new prime minister-designate, Saad al-Hariri, is at loggerheads with President Michel Aoun and has been unable to form a new government that must carry out the reforms needed to unlock international aid.On Saturday, Diab threatened to quit even caretaker work to raise the pressure on those blocking the formation of a new government. Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai hit out at politicians in his Sunday sermon: “How can the people not revolt when the price of one dollar has surpassed 10,000 Lebanese pounds in one day, how can they not revolt when the minimum wage is $70?”Rai has called for an U.N.-sponsored international conference to help Lebanon.

Lebanon’s political deadlock fuels seventh day of street protests
The Arab Weekly/March 08/2021
BEIRUT--Lebanon’s president asked security forces to prevent roadblocks after protesters shut main roads across the country for a seventh straight day on Monday in anger at more than a year of economic crisis and months of political paralysis. Measures agreed in a meeting with top security and government officials included ordering a crackdown on anyone “violating the monetary and credit” law, including foreign exchange bureaus, a statement said. Since the Lebanese pound, which has lost 85% of its value, tumbled to a new low last week, protesters have blocked roads daily. “We have said several times that there will be an escalation because the state isn’t doing anything,” said Pascale Nohra, a protester on a main highway in the Jal al-Dib area. As Lebanon’s financial crisis erupted in late 2019, a wave of mass protest rocked the country, with outrage boiling over at leaders who have overseen decades of state graft. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, bank accounts have been frozen and many have been plunged into poverty. On Monday, three main roads leading south into the capital were blocked while in Beirut itself, protesters briefly closed a road in front of the central bank. In Tyre in the south, one man tried to burn himself by pouring gasoline on his body but civil defence members stopped him in time, the state news agency said. In Tripoli in the north, one of Lebanon’s poorest cities, demonstrators built a brick wall one metre high to prevent cars from passing through, allowing a pathway for emergency cases.
PM ups the pressure
“The new developments on the financial and security fronts must be tackled quickly,” the presidency statement said. After a port explosion devastated whole tracts of Beirut in August and killed 200 people, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government resigned. But the new Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is at loggerheads with President Michel Aoun and has been unable to form a new government that must carry out the reforms needed to unlock international aid. On Saturday, Diab threatened to quit even caretaker work to raise the pressure on those blocking the formation of a new government. He warned that the country was quickly headed toward chaos and appealed to politicians to put aside differences in order form a new government that can attract desperately needed foreign assistance. “What are you waiting for, more collapse? More suffering? Chaos?” Diab said, chiding senior politicians without naming them for grandstanding on the shape and size of the government while the country slides further into the abyss. “What will having one minister more or less (in the cabinet) do if the entire country collapses,” he asked. “Lebanon is in grave danger and the Lebanese are paying the price.” Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai also hit out at politicians in his Sunday sermon: “How can the people not revolt when the price of one dollar has surpassed 10,000 Lebanese pounds in one day, how can they not revolt when the minimum wage is $70?”
Rai has called for an UN-sponsored international conference to help Lebanon.
Unprecedented crises
As pressure built up to end the political deadlock, the currency continued its rapid collapse against the dollar, trading at nearly 11,000 Lebanese pounds on the black market for the first time in its history. The crash in the local currency has resulted in a sharp increase in prices as well as delays in the arrival of fuel shipments, leading to more extended power cuts around the country, in some areas reaching more than 12 hours a day. The crisis has driven nearly half the population of the small country of 6 million into poverty, wiped out savings and slashed consumer purchasing power. “The dollar is 10,500 (pounds) and everyone has four or five children on their neck, including their parents. They (corrupt politicians) need to feed us,” cried one Lebanese protester. “They vaccinated themselves from corona but they opened the country so that people could die,” he added, referring to a group of lawmakers who inoculated themselves in parliament last month without prior approval, a move that led the World Bank to consider suspending its financing of vaccines in Lebanon. Another protester who identified himself only by his first name, Ali, said he was frustrated that other Lebanese were still sitting at home. “Where are the Lebanese people? The dollar is now 10,500 (pounds) and it will reach 15, or 20 (thousand). Why are we in homes? We have to go down!” Lebanon has been in desperate need of foreign currency, but international donors have said they will only help the country financially if major reforms are implemented to fight widespread corruption, which has brought the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.

Bukhari Meets Qabalan, Says 'No Enmity with Shiite Sect'
Naharnet/March 08/2021
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari held talks Monday with Shiite religious leader Sheikh Ahmed Qabalan, who is the country’s grand Jaafarite mufti and the son of Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan, the head of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council. The talks, at Qabalan’s office, tackled “the local and regional situations and means to boost cooperation between the two brotherly countries,” Lebanon’s National News Agency said. Speaking after the meeting, Bukhari said: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia performs its duties towards Lebanon without discriminating among its sects and groups.”“There is no rivalry nor enmity with the sons of the dear Shiite sect,” the ambassador added. Qabalan for his part called on Saudi Arabia to play an “active role” to resolve Lebanon’s crisis, warning that the “let Lebanon fall” idea would have “disastrous consequences.”“KSA has been a brotherly country and an aide in the Lebanese memory and it must remain so, instead of turning into a political party,” Qabalan added.
 

Hizbullah lauds Pope’s visit to Iraq: We hope it will help restore country’ role, unity
NNA/March 08/2021
In a statement issued on Monday, Hezbollah hailed Pope Francis’s visit to “brotherly Iraq” and “its positive outcome”, especially his meeting with His Eminence, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Moreover, Hezbollah hoped that this visit would be a starting point for Iraq to restore its role on the international and regional arena, to strengthen its national unity, as well as to practice its natural right to sovereignty and stability. The statement finally stressed the important role that spiritual leaders play throughout the world in confronting aggression and occupation, exposing terrorism, and confirming the values of harmony and peaceful coexistence.

Where Aoun, Bassil and Hezbollah converge
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/March 08/2021
No one knows how deep Lebanon can fall. The value of the dollar has exceeded 10,000 Lebanese pounds and there is no indication that President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, understand the significance of this. Even the resigned Prime Minister Hassan Diab, with his less than modest political culture, is beginning to fathom the issue. Diab suddenly discovered that he had nothing to do but carry out i’tikaaf — that is to refrain from conducting business, — in order to push for the formation of a government that could negotiate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In his surprise appearance on television Saturday, Diab forgot one thing. He forgot what he said before — that his government has delivered 97% of its promises. Where have all of these achievements gone? If the country’s bankruptcy is an achievement, then the head of the resigned government has indeed brought the country to the point that those like him wanted it to reach. Lebanon’s situation is quite frightening. The most frightening aspect of it is that the party that controls all the political joints — Hezbollah — does not share any of Lebanon’s concerns.
Whether Lebanon remains or disappears is of secondary importance to Hezbollah, which has a one-item agenda: To serve Iran’s expansionist project in the region. This project is now at a dead end, especially since it does not have any model that it can present to the countries of the region or to Iran itself. There is a point at which Hezbollah converges with Aoun and Bassil. That point is their indifference to what befalls Lebanon and the Lebanese. Aoun has only one concern, and it is Bassil’s ascension to Baabda Palace when the president’s term ends on October 31, 2022.
It is clear why Hezbollah cannot look back at its record and admit responsibility for Lebanon’s current situation, or in more accurate terms, for Lebanon’s collapse.
In the end, the party is only a brigade in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has never concealed the fact that his reference point is the Iran’s “supreme guide,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. What is not yet known is how the Lebanese president can avoid admitting that his son-in-law can never be president of the republic and that Hezbollah will not be able to repeat the 2016 experience that brought Aoun to Baabda. At that time, Hezbollah tested Aoun for ten years and found out that he was willing to cover up everything the party does, including its participation in the war on the Syrian people.
What cannot be ignored is that US sanctions are imposed on Bassil under the Magnitsky Corruption Act. What Aoun does not know, or perhaps does not want to understand, is that these sanctions are not only American, but were preceded by consultations between the previous US administration and several European countries. It is difficult to get rid of US sanctions on their own. It is even more difficult when other countries also played a role in imposing the sanctions. There is no guarantee that any future elections will be held in Lebanon, neither parliamentary nor presidential.
Suppose parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place by the end of Aoun’s term in office. The question would then remain: Under what law will these elections be held? Will it be in accordance with the law established by Hezbollah and on the basis of which the May 2018 elections were held?
This election law was only enacted to divide the Sunnis and enable the party to control the parliamentary majority. IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani was very sincere when he declared immediately after Lebanon’s 2018 legislative elections that Iran had then clinched a majority in parliament. New developments in Lebanon over the past few weeks include not only the dollar’s breach of the 10,000 Lebanese pound barrier and its continued rise and people taking to the streets. They also include Bassil sending his staff, which includes a group of geniuses, to Baabda Palace to assert that he is the de facto president of the republic.
From Diab’s words, to the continuous fall of the Lebanese pound, to the tragedies befalling the poor of Lebanon and the prevailing chaos in the Lebanese street where Hezbollah and the “Amal” movement are closing roads for internal Shia reasons, nothing indicates even a glimmer of hope for Lebanon. There is no political leadership in Lebanon. There is no one who wants to form a government. If Aoun wanted to form such a government, he would have agreed to the list that Saad Hariri put into his hands which was in full conformity with the terms of the French initiative that the president had previously approved.
What can be done in a country ruled by Hezbollah, which sees Lebanon as nothing more than an Iranian card, under a president willing to dispense with the existence of the government if this government is not a means to guarantee the political future of one particular person.
This person is Bassil, who has no political future. His future is nil for several reasons. Among these reasons is why Lebanon is without electricity. Even if we put aside the US sanctions on Bassil, sooner or later, he will have to answer the questions related to electricity and Turkish generator-ships that were called upon to supply Lebanon with electricity, even if partially. In the end, the electricity sector has been under the watch of the president’s son-in-law for 12 years. Whoever spends a dozen years managing a specific and crucial file and then fails abysmally cannot aspire to be president of the republic one day. He will not even be able to if Hezbollah decides to make him president. It is no secret that French officials, led by President Emmanuel Macron, know who has caused their initiative to fail in Lebanon.
They know that the core of the problem is Aoun and Bassil, and that there is no hope in the near future without overcoming this hurdle. For this reason and not for others, the French have given up on Lebanon and decided only to focus on forming a government as soon as possible. Their goal is to at least stop the country from going into free fall and hitting rock bottom.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 08-09/2021

Pope Francis ends historic Iraq tour, returns to Rome
The Arab Weekly/March 08/2021
BAGHDAD--Pope Francis ended his historic tour of Iraq on Monday, departing by plane from Baghdad after visiting conflict-torn cities, meeting Muslim and Christian leaders and preaching peace and coexistence over war. Francis waved one last time from before boarding a plane flying the Vatican and Iraqi flags from its cockpit windows. President Barham Salih accompanied the 84-year-old pontiff down a red carpet to his flight. During his trip, the first ever papal visit to Iraq, Francis toured four cities, including Mosul, the former ISIS stronghold where vast areas still lie in ruins, telling Iraqis that “peace is more powerful than war.”He said Iraq would “always remain with me, in my heart.”At every turn of his trip, Francis urged Iraqis to embrace diversity — from Najaf in the south, where he held a historic face-to-face meeting with powerful Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to Nineveh to the north, where he met with Christian victims of ISIS terror and heard their testimonies of survival. The pontiff’s visit witnessed scenes unimaginable in war-ravaged Iraq just a few years ago. Pope Francis (C), accompanied by the President of the autonomous Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani (R), greets people dressed in traditional outfits upon his arrival at Erbil airport on March 7, 2021, in the capital of the northern Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region. (Reuters) Pope Francis (C), accompanied by the President of the autonomous Kurdistan Region . In Iraq’s south, Francis convened a meeting of Iraqi religious leaders in the deserts near a symbol of the country’s ancient past — the 6,000-year-old ziggurat in the Plains of Ur, also thought to be the birthplace of Abraham, the Biblical patriarch revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims. The gathering brought religious representatives across the country rarely seen together, from Muslims, Christians, Yazidis and Mandaeans. The joint appearance by figures from across Iraq’s sectarian spectrum was almost unheard-of, given their communities’ often bitter divisions.

The pope called on them to work together and make peace.
In the city of Najaf, Francis held a private meeting with the notoriously reclusive al-Sistani, among the most influential and revered Shia clerics, and together they delivered a powerful message of peaceful coexistence and affirmed the rights of Iraqi Christians. It was a powerful message the Vatican hopes can preserve the place of the thinning Christian population in the tapestry. Sistani is one of the most senior clerics in Shia Islam, deeply revered among Shias in Iraq and worldwide. His rare but powerful political interventions have helped shape present-day Iraq. Their meeting in Sistani’s humble home, the first ever between a pope and a grand ayatollah, was months in the making, with every detail painstakingly negotiated beforehand. In the northern city of Mosul, Francis prayed in a square containing the remnants of four churches — Syriac Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean — nearly destroyed in the war to oust ISIS from the city. Later, in the Christian town of Qaraqosh, where an entire Christian community was forced out by the brutality of ISIS militants, Francis urged Christians to forgive their oppressors and rebuild their lives.
People gathered in crowds to catch a glimpse of the pope wherever he went, fuelling coronavirus concerns. Few wore facemasks, especially during Francis’s stops in northern Iraq on Sunday. That day ended with an open-air mass in a stadium that drew nearly 10,000 people. Security was tight and most events were strictly controlled. Public health experts had expressed concerns ahead of the trip that large gatherings could serve as superspreader events for the coronavirus in a country suffering from a worsening outbreak where few have been vaccinated. The pope and members of his delegation have been vaccinated but most Iraqis have not. Iraq is in the midst of another wave of the coronavirus, spurred by a new, more infectious strain that first appeared in the UK. Authorities in Iraq recorded 4,068 new infections on March 6, according to health ministry figures, up significantly from infection rates at the start of the year. In total 13,500 people have died among a total 720,000 infections.

Iran says former UK foreign secretary’s comments prolonged Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s arrest
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/08 March ,2021
An Iranian official on Monday accused Britain’s former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt of prolonging the release of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe by “years” through what he called “destructive actions.”Iran released Zaghari-Ratcliffe at the end of her five-year prison sentence, but she has been summoned to court again on another charge, her lawyer said on Sunday. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at a Tehran airport in April 2016 as she was about to leave Iran after visiting family in the country. She was later convicted of plotting to overthrow the regime in Tehran – charges which she denies. “Jeremy Hunt’s hypocritical remarks do not cover up his destructive actions from a few years ago... and he knows that if his destructive actions had not taken place,” Zaghari-Ratcliffe would have been freed “a few years ago,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh alleged on Monday. Khatibzadeh did not elaborate any further. His remarks came after Hunt called Iran’s treatment of Zaghari-Ratcliffe “beyond cruel” and urged the country’s authorities to allow her to return to Britain. “Beyond cruel to toy with an innocent mother & six year old child in this way. @JZarif she has served five years: let her come home,” Hunt said in a tweet on Sunday. Zaghari-Ratcliffe “must be released permanently so she can return to her family in the UK, and we continue to do all we can to achieve this,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said following news of her release. Several dual and foreign nationals are currently under arrest in Iran. Regime critics accuse Tehran of arresting foreign nationals on trumped-up charges and using them as hostages in an effort to win concessions from other countries.

Iran says US approved release of $3 bln of Iran’s funds in Iraq, Oman, S. Korea
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/07 March/2021
The United States has agreed to the release of $3 billion in Iranian funds that have been frozen in Iraq, Oman and South Korea due to Washington’s sanctions, Iranian trade official Hamid Hosseini told the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday. Hosseini, board member of the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, had tweeted on Friday that Washington approved the release of frozen Iranian assets at the Trade Bank of Iraq, without mentioning the value of the assets. Hosseini on Sunday confirmed that the US agreed to the release of $3 billion in Iranian frozen assets in the three countries.
US sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump have prevented Iran from accessing tens of billions of its assets in foreign banks. Iranian frozen assets in Iraq amount to more than $6 billion, according to Iranian officials. The head of the Iran-South Korea Chamber of Commerce said in October Iranian frozen funds in South Korea are worth $8.5 billion and added that their release depended on the outcome of the US presidential election. Iranian officials have not commented on the value of Iran’s frozen assets in Oman. Iran’s economy has been hit hard since 2018 when Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and reimposed sweeping sanctions on the country. Iran’s chances of gaining access to billions of dollars of its frozen assets abroad have risen significantly since Trump, who pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran, left the White House. Under President Joe Biden, Washington has signalled its willingness to return to talks to revive the nuclear deal, which saw Iran limit its nuclear program in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. The Biden administration revoked snapback sanctions claimed by the Trump administration against Iran and also revoked travel restrictions on senior Iranian diplomats at the United Nations. Last month, South Korea said it reached an agreement with Iran over the release of Tehran’s frozen funds in its banks but signalled that the agreement was effectively subject to US approval.
 

US military denies reports of attack on Iraq’s Al-Asad airbase
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/08 March ,2021
The US military Monday played down reports of an attack on an Iraqi airbase hosting troops. Reports circulated that the Al-Asad airbase, which has been targeted on multiple occasions by Iran-backed militias, came under attack late Monday. However, the US Central Command denied these reports. “This is a training event, not indirect fire at Al-Asad Airbase,” a CENTCOM spokesperson told Al Arabiya English. Just last week, Al-Asad was hit by several Katyusha rockets. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, nor has the US attributed the barrage of missiles to a specific group. A US civilian contractor died during the attack, the Pentagon confirmed. After a similar attack hit a separate base housing US troops and personnel last month, President Joe Biden ordered an airstrike against Iran-backed militias on the Syria-Iraq border. US forces have come under increased attacks from Iranian proxies in the region as Biden seeks to persuade Tehran to re-engage in direct talks over the now-defunct nuclear deal. Biden has made many foreign policy moves, including releasing billions of dollars in frozen funds and removing Iran-backed militias from the US terror list. Still, Iran continues to refuse to talk to the Biden administration.
Earlier Monday, a White House spokeswoman said there were no updates on talks with Iran. Washington has been waiting on Iran for weeks after sending an invite for direct negotiations hosted by the European Union.

US ‘alarmed’ by escalating attacks against Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthis
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/08 March ,2021
The US is “alarmed” by the escalating attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militia against Saudi Arabia, a senior White House official said Monday. “We continue to be alarmed by the frequency of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Escalating attacks like these are not the actions of a group that is serious about peace,” Psaki said in response to a question from Al Arabiya. She condemned the attacks as “unacceptable and dangerous,” adding that the US was working in close cooperation with Saudi Arabia “given the threat … that they are facing on a frequent basis from these attacks.”
“As a part of our interagency process, we’ll look for ways to improve support for Saudi Arabia’s ability to defend its territory against threats,” Psaki said. Separately, the State Department condemned the Houthis for attacking Saudi Arabia and called for the Iran-backed militia to show that it was “serious about peace.”“These attacks are unacceptable and dangerous and put lives of civilians at risk, including those of US citizens,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
 

Jailed Turkish philanthropist Kavala says judiciary is used to stifle dissent
Reuters, Istanbul/08 March ,2021
After more than three years in jail without a conviction, one of Turkey’s highest-profile detainees, Osman Kavala, is “not optimistic” that President Tayyip Erdogan’s planned reforms can change a judiciary he says is being used to silence dissidents. Kavala, 63, a philanthropist, told Reuters that after decades of watching Turkey’s judiciary seeking to restrict human rights, it was now engaged in “eliminating” perceived political opponents of Erdogan’s government. Kavala was providing written responses via his lawyers to Reuters’ questions days after Erdogan outlined a “Human Rights Action Plan” that the president says will strengthen rights to a free trial and freedom of expression. For critics at home and abroad, Kavala’s case illustrates what they call a crackdown on dissent and the politicization of the judiciary under Erdogan, especially since a failed coup in 2016. The government says its measures are aimed only at protecting national security. “As someone who has been subjected to worsening injustice for more than three years, and at the same time observed other political cases, I can’t be optimistic about the future of the relationship between politics and the judiciary,” Kavala said of the reforms.
First detained in late 2017 on charges related to 2013 nationwide protests that began in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, Kavala was acquitted of those last year. But he was immediately re-arrested over charges related to the 2016 coup attempt. A court agreed in January to combine the two cases against him, after an appeals court overturned the acquittal verdicts against nine people, including Kavala, in the Gezi trial. “Ever since I can remember, I have witnessed rights being restricted in Turkey through the judiciary,” Kavala said. “But giving the judiciary a key duty in eliminating political dissidents, and the judiciary taking this on, is new.”Responding to Kavala’s claims, the Ministry of Justice said Turkey’s judiciary was independent.
‘Foreigners care more’
Erdogan on March 2 spelled out few specific reform measures and instead listed principles to improve the justice system which he said were a step towards a new constitution. Erdogan has faced accusations of increasingly autocratic rule and his critics said the “action plan” failed to address concens about an erosion of human rights. Turkey ignored a 2019 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights demanding Kavala’s immediate release. The court said his detention was groundless and served to silence him. The Committee of Ministers, the 47-nation Council of Europe body that oversees adherence to ECHR judgments, meets this week to discuss Kavala’s case for a fourth time. US President Joe Biden’s administration has also called for Kavala’s release, prompting a rebuttal from Ankara. Kavala, detained in Istanbul’s Silivri jail, said that while international interest was heartening, “it is extremely sad that foreigners care more” than Turkish civil servants and leaders. Following Kavala’s acquittal last year, Erdogan described the Gezi unrest as part of a series of attacks culminating in the coup bid. He has called Kavala a sponsor of the protests. Kavala said “baseless accusations” against him began to surface before his arrest, coinciding with government claims that the protests were organized by foreign powers to topple it. The subsequent charges over the 2016 coup attempt, he said, were “much more absurd and surreal” and impossible to counter because they lacked “evidence, concrete fact, or reality”.
Kavala said he now spends most of his time reading, watching concerts and film re-runs. He has not been able to see his elderly mother and has missed friends’ funerals. “It makes the injustice feel like persecution,” he said.

Rifts threaten Fatah movement before elections
The Arab Weekly/March 08/2021
RAMALLAH - A Fatah central committee meeting scheduled for Monday in Ramallah, under the chairmanship of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, could witness further rifts within its leadership as the final deadline to submit candidacy lists for upcoming elections approaches. Legislative elections are scheduled for May while presidential elections are slated for July. Sources within the Fatah movement said Abbas intends to push for sanctions against Fatah leader Nasser al-Qudwa in retaliation against his decision to run on an independent list. Qudwa, a longstanding member of Fatah’s central committee, confirmed that he does not intend to attend the committee’s meeting on Monday. Qudwa, a nephew of the late Yasser Arafat, the founder of the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said that the Palestinians are “tired of the current situation” that is marked by “the absence of rule of law, inequality, and injustice.” Informed Palestinian sources expect that Qudwa will not be the only one sanctioned by Abbas, as new lists are likely to surface soon after Fatah’s list for legislative elections headed by Abbas is announced.
Party lists for legislative elections are scheduled to be announced on March 20. Abbas has ruled autonomous areas in the West Bank by decree for more than a decade. Decrees continue to be issued by Abbas to hinder other Fatah leaders’ candidacies in elections. The decrees have displayed a level of confusion within the leadership of the PA and Abbas’s circle in particular. Members of this circle have not concealed their concern over the growing number of Fatah leaders interested in running for elections on independent slates. The battle is now focused on Qudwa, who insists on running outside the still undisclosed official list of Fatah candidates. Qudwa and others within the movement believe that Abbas’s list will not meet the requirements of stature and merit, which they believe Fatah needs in these elections. Instead of seeing in the pluralism of Fatah lists an additional asset in case his list falters, Abbas is said to be acting as though his list will definitely win popular support, and that votes for independent lists will be deducted from those that should be going to his list.
Leading figures from within the Fatah movement have described Abbas’s close circle as “frightened” over calls for total adherence to the “movement’s list” and for expelling those who dissent from the movement. Palestinian sources close to Fatah wonder, “What is the reason for the panic if Hamas itself, the traditional rival of Fatah, has become a friend of Abbas’s team, and it might merge with it in one list?” The same sources explained the concerns by pointing to the Palestinian president’s team’s fear of a growing reformist trend within Fatah that could secure a victory in elections
Palestinian writer Adly Sadiq said, “it is possible that the head of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement could take a reckless step by trying to expel the member of the movement’s central committee, Nasser Al-Qudwa, a noted political figure who has headed the Palestine Mission to the United Nations in the most important and high profile stages of Palestinian political action.”Sadiq, who previously held diplomatic positions, told The Arab Weekly, “Qudwa did not improvise his step, but rather worked early-on to forge an alliance with moderate and influential leading figures, elements reputed for their integrity, as well as prominent social figures.”“Trying to exclude him would have been a risky move for Abbas at the apex of his power, let alone now that panic is obvious from his decrees and appeals,” he said. Speculation has grown that Abbas may cancel presidential elections for fear of a potential electoral challenge from Marwan Barghouti, a popular Fatah leader jailed in Israel.
Abbas’s office denies it plans to delay or cancel presidential elections. aid he hoped to see his list headed by Barghouti, who has long been floated as a possible successor to Abbas. Barghouti did not specify whether he would join the list or run for the presidency. He and his lawyer declined to be interviewed for this article. But opinion polls indicate that if he runs he will defeat Abbas, as well as leaders of the Hamas movement that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, by a comfortable margin. Two Western diplomats said European countries have urged Abbas not to backtrack on his pledge to hold elections as scheduled.
One of the diplomats said, “There are concerns that Abbas might see a compromise in allowing the legislative elections to take place but delay or cancel the presidential elections.” According to critics, the Palestinian political system seems to be lurching towards authoritarianism and autocracy, as the base for decision-making is narrowing and the gap is widening between the small ruling elite and society at large. Abbas has strengthened his authoritarian grip on power by fully controlling the Fatah movement and the PLO through general conventions during which he has consecrated the alliance of the corrupt power class with a parasitic commercial class that thrives on clientelist ties to both Israeli occupation and the PA. Mohamed Masharqa, director of the London-based Centre For Arab Progress, attributed the “democratic awakening” of some Palestinian leaders to global transformations, most importantly the transfer of power in the United States to the Democrats and a decision by Fatah to enter into arrangements with Hamas. These arrangements were described as a result of understandings between two leaders, Jibril Rajoub and Saleh al-Arouri, reached in Istanbul, with the aim of preserving the interests of a narrow ruling class of in the two authorities. “The Palestinian issue is prey to unprecedented tension and accusations of treason, conspiracy and division of ranks. Incitement has reached the point of death threats targeting anyone who seeks to escape the grip of the (Fatah) central committee,” Masharqa told The Arab Weekly.
He added, “This raised concerns and fears that mobilisation and polarisation could reach the point of armed clashes, and perhaps go beyond that, by canceling the elections and replacing them with the formation of a national unity government with Hamas.”

Syria’s president Assad and his wife test positive for COVID-19
The Arab Weekly/March 08/2021
DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife Asma have tested positive for COVID-19 after showing minor symptoms, his office said on Monday. The Syrian leader and his spouse, who announced her recovery from breast cancer in 2019, were in good health and would keep working in isolation at home, the statement said. Syria has seen a sharp rise in infections since mid-February, a member of the government’s coronavirus advisory committee told Reuters last week as the country kicked off its vaccination campaign. Health and aid officials say it remains difficult to gauge the full size of the outbreak given the lack of testing facilities in a fragile health system devastated by a decade of war. As of Sunday, the health ministry reported 10,374 infections and 1,063 related deaths out of a population of around 18 million. Assad joins a growing list of world leaders who have tested positive for COVID-19, alongside Britain’s Boris Johnson, France’s Emmanuel Macron and former US President Donald Trump. Health workers said the authorities underplayed the size of the outbreak for most of last year, when official figures remained low as hospitals were overwhelmed and death notices appeared in newspapers. The government denied undercounting the figures and has acknowledged in the last two months the country could be on the verge of a major spike. It has urged people to wear face masks, take sanitary measures and avoid crowded areas. Officials and businessmen say the sanctions-hit government can ill afford a full lockdown given the dire state of the economy and growing poverty. After a decade of war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and uprooted millions, Assad’s military has reclaimed most of the country with Russia and Iran’s help.
 

Canada/Readout: Minister Garneau speaks with Ethiopian counterpart
March 8, 2021 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today spoke with Demeke Mekonnen, Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Minister Garneau expressed Canada’s concern regarding the continued crisis in Tigray region and its impact on millions of civilians. Minister Garneau reiterated the critical importance of ensuring all civilians, including refugees, are protected and can access the life-saving humanitarian assistance they urgently need. He welcomed efforts by Ethiopia to expand access for humanitarian assistance and journalists and to restore critical services and infrastructure. He further urged Ethiopia to allow humanitarian actors to deploy and use essential telecommunications equipment such as satellite phones in Tigray.
Minister Garneau shared Canada’s deep concern regarding credible reports of human rights violations and abuses, including sexual and gender-based violence. He took note of the important efforts of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and welcomed Ethiopia’s commitment to hold perpetrators accountable and provide justice for victims and survivors. Minister Garneau welcomed Ethiopia’s commitment to credible, transparent, independent and impartial investigations and offered Canada’s full support toward this end.
The ministers took this opportunity to re-affirm the deep and enduring friendship between Canada and Ethiopia, noting the recent call between the countries’ prime ministers, as well as their mutual support for Ethiopia’s ongoing reform agenda.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 07-08/2021

Iraq: Turkey Set to Attack the Yazidis?
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/March 8, 2021
If Turkey targets Sinjar, it will not be the first Turkish military assault against the region. In 2017, Turkish warplanes dropped bombs on Sinjar, hitting a civilian clinic.
"'[A]nalysts should understand that the fundamental reason that Yezidis join military units is to defend the land from a genocidal invasion.... no one, including Turkey, has the right to expel Yezidis from their homeland under the pretext of the conflict with PKK." — Pari Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, interview with Gatestone, February 3, 2021.
"We want Sinjar to be under the control of formal Iraqi security forces.... according to the rule of law. Turkey wants much more than Sinjar. Turkey wants to use various excuses to expand its military presence in Iraq and Syria. The whole PKK claim is just an excuse for Turkey's expansionism in the region." — Murad Ismael, former executive director of Yazda, interview with Gatestone, February 12, 2021
"Yezidis literally suffered a genocide at the hands of ISIS... Turkey did not take any steps whatsoever to combat ISIS before, during, or after the ISIS atrocities. But now, when Yezidis have been left homeless and are striving to rebuild our land, Turkey warns that it may unilaterally and illegally attack Sinjar.... this is our homeland. It is not a battleground for other forces to use as they see fit." — Pari Ibrahim, interview with Gatestone, February 3, 2021.
Judging from statements by Turkish officials, Turkey intends to expand its military offensives in Iraq and Syria. Yazidis fear that Turkey will once again target Sinjar, their ancient homeland in Iraq. The Turkish Air Force has bombed Sinjar on numerous occasions in the past few years. Pictured: Bomb-damaged buildings in the town of Sinjar, Iraq, photographed on February 5, 2019. (Photo by Zaid Al-Obeidi/AFP via Getty Images)
Turkey's armed forces launched a military operation called "Operation Claw-Eagle 2" against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq on February 10. The assault resulted in the deaths of 13 Turkish hostages, including military and police personnel who were being held by the PKK in a cave complex in the mountainous Gara region.
Turkey's military operation, in the form of airstrikes, was completed on February 14. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that 48 PKK members had been "neutralized" in the operation, adding that the PKK had shot the hostages dead -- one in the shoulder, and the rest in their heads.
The PKK, however, said that the deaths of the hostages had been caused by the "Turkish army's heavy bombardments and intense fighting outside and inside the [PKK] camp."
According to a Turkish governor, the hostages had been abducted by the PKK in 2015 and 2016. One senior Turkish security source told Reuters that Turkish intelligence personnel were among the dead. On February 15, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said:
"After the massacre in Gara [in Iraq], no country, organization, structure or person can question Turkey's military operations in Iraq and Syria."
In short, Turkey intends to expand its military offensives in Iraq and Syria.
After these developments, Yazidis fear that Turkey will once again target Sinjar, their ancient homeland in Iraq.
The Turkish government-funded TRT news channel reported on January 20:
"Turkey is closely following developments in Iraq's Sinjar district, the Turkish defense minister has said, stressing that Ankara is ready to support clearing the region of terrorists.
"'Turkey is ready to provide support for eliminating terrorists in Iraq's Sinjar region if needed,' Hulusi Akar said following his official visit to Iraq.
"'We can say that we are determined to end the terrorists as a result of our cooperation with both the regional administration and Baghdad,' he added."
Yazidis are an indigenous non-Muslim minority in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, who for centuries have faced persecution because of their religion and ethnicity.
The airstrikes would further devastate and traumatize Iraq's Yazidis, who are still trying to heal the wounds of the genocide they were exposed to at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) seven years ago.
Yazda, a global Yazidi rights advocacy organization, describes what happened at that time:
"The 3rd of August 2014 is a dark day in the history of the Yazidis. On this day, at 1 am, ISIS first attacked the southern side of Mount Sinjar. At the beginning of the attacks, in the villages of Tel-Azir, Sibai and Ger Zarek, the people resisted and fought fiercely to defend their lives, properties and temples. However, what ensued for the Yazidis was disaster. Men were killed, women and girls were enslaved, while children died from thirst and hunger on the slopes of Mount Sinjar. "
"The damage inflicted by ISIS did not end, but continued much further. They blew up our shrines, temples and everything sacred to the Yazidis. They did all this, thinking that Sinjar would become theirs. They even told the boys and women that they had exterminated all Yazidis."
On February 6, Yazidis re-buried in Sinjar the remains of more than 100 victims murdered by ISIS in the summer of 2014. A memorial service for the victims was first held in Baghdad and attended by senior Iraqi officials. The remains were then transferred to the village of Kocho in Sinjar, where a burial site is located.
If Turkey targets Sinjar, it will not be the first Turkish military assault against the region. In 2017, Turkish warplanes dropped bombs on Sinjar, hitting a civilian clinic, said Yakhi Hamza, country director of the 1st New Allied Expeditionary Force, a humanitarian nonprofit delivering medical help to Yazidis. The airstrikes killed at least five people and severely wounded several more.
Turkey appears to have turned bombing Sinjar and other areas in Iraq into a habit. In August 2018, November 2019, January 2020 and June 2020, among others, Turkey also carried out airstrikes on Sinjar.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported on February 18:
"In June 2020, Turkey escalated their attacks in the region, announcing military operations Claw-Eagle and Claw-Tiger that included airstrikes near Sinjar. These attacks have been particularly damaging to the traumatized Yazidi community, who are victims of genocide by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Reports indicate that Turkey is planning military operations in Sinjar, instilling fear in the already vulnerable Yazidi community."
Turkey's pretext for these airstrikes is that the PKK is active in the region. Pari Ibrahim, the Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, disagrees. In an interview with Gatestone on February 3, she said:
"The Free Yezidi Foundation stands in firm defense of any and all Yezidis who joined military units to defend Sinjar and defeat ISIS. Some Yezidis joined different groups, whether it is YBS [Sinjar Resistance Units], PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces], Peshmerga [the military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq], or any other group. But analysts should understand that the fundamental reason that Yezidis join military units is to defend the land from a genocidal invasion. Now, there are many competing forces in the area, and they all have their own political reasons for why they are there. But Yezidis, whether civilians or the military units, are there to defend the land against aggression. Many different actors may criticize some of these military units for different reasons, and we can understand that. But no one, including Turkey, has the right to expel Yezidis from their homeland under the pretext of the conflict with PKK."
Murad Ismael, a Yazidi activist and former executive director of Yazda, told Gatestone on February 12:
"A Turkish military operation in Sinjar would be devastating and counterproductive. If Iraq allows such an operation, it will bring about an end to its physical borders and sovereignty, and initiate a geopolitical circus that will end up with Iraq being another Yemen and Libya. A deeper infiltration of Turkish forces in Iraq would harm Baghdad and Erbil equally.
"We want Sinjar to be under the control of formal Iraqi security forces. All the armed groups in Sinjar and across Iraq should be united under the Iraqi ministry of defense and ministry of the interior according to the rule of law. We do not want Turkey to come to Sinjar. It is not their homeland. But Turkey wants much more than Sinjar. Turkey wants to use various excuses to expand its military presence in Iraq and Syria. The whole PKK claim is just an excuse for Turkey's expansionism in the region.
"As for the PKK, we, Yazidis, do not and will not allow Sinjar to become another Qandil, the PKK headquarters. The PKK helped liberate Sinjar from ISIS in 2014, and we appreciate any help given to save our people, but we will not allow the PKK to capitalize on the situation and turn our homeland into a battlefield and our people into a recruitment base. After suffering a genocide, we cannot throw the Yazidis into a regional fire much bigger than them. We need to help heal our community and rebuild our homeland.
"The Yazidis who joined the YPS (Sinjar Resistance Units) are local Yazidis who aim to protect the Yazidis and the region from ISIS and other aggressors. They didn't join to become PKK affiliates. There are currently about 5,000 Yazidi families tied to YBS, and a military operation targeting them will be seen as targeting Yazidis. I don't think the world is ready to see a war against Yazidis when smokes of their genocide are still in the sky."
Since Sinjar was largely destroyed by ISIS during the 2014 genocide, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes and become refugees or internally displaced people (IDPs). Many are still living in IDP camps in northern Iraq. The news website Rudaw reported on January 18 that suicides have recently spiked at Duhok's camps for Yazidis:
"Psychologists say the trauma that comes not just from our personal tragedies, but from our ancestors can be of serious detriment to mental health. The ISIS genocide has 'resurfaced memories' of previous massacres, leaving today's community suffering from 'multiple traumatisations,' according to an academic study by psychotherapist Michael Noll-Hussong and Yazidi psychiatrist Jan Kizilhan. In a statement Kizilhan sent to Rudaw English, he added that trauma is not the only factor driving people to end their lives. Camp living conditions, 'sexual and familial violence, financial loss, and the loss of family member' to name but a few, are also contributing factors."
Pari Ibrahim told Gatestone that another attack by Turkey against Sinjar would have destructive consequences for Yazidis and the wider region.
"The top needs for Yezidis, in our view, are trauma treatment, education, and job skills. Some believe reconstruction of Sinjar is the most pressing need. But we believe that the best way to provide aid to Yezidis is to help with trauma treatment of those who are affected, severely affected, and have trouble doing anything. We also believe that providing skills, training, and the prospect for a better future through education will help refocus the thought process of Yezidis away from the past and to a brighter future. Of course, we also hope to see the reconstruction of Sinjar and better services and infrastructure in the destroyed city and villages. But first and foremost, we want to see better care and opportunities for our people wherever they are today.
"However, the prospect of a further Turkish military assault on Sinjar, in addition to the many bombings they have already undertaken in Sinjar, would be a violation of international law. Yezidis literally suffered a genocide at the hands of ISIS, a group that incidentally grew in strength partly because of the steady stream of resources and foreign fighters that arrived to their territory through Turkey. Turkey did not take any steps whatsoever to combat ISIS before, during, or after the ISIS atrocities. But now, when Yezidis have been left homeless and are striving to rebuild our land, Turkey warns that it may unilaterally and illegally attack Sinjar. We understand the conflict between Turkey and the PKK. But this is our homeland. It is not a battleground for other forces to use as they see fit. The people of this land are homeless, their lives destroyed, their houses decimated. Surely the inhabitants of Sinjar have the right to return, not foreign actors like Turkey."
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Iraq: Turkey Set to Attack the Yazidis?
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/March 8, 2021
If Turkey targets Sinjar, it will not be the first Turkish military assault against the region. In 2017, Turkish warplanes dropped bombs on Sinjar, hitting a civilian clinic.
"'[A]nalysts should understand that the fundamental reason that Yezidis join military units is to defend the land from a genocidal invasion.... no one, including Turkey, has the right to expel Yezidis from their homeland under the pretext of the conflict with PKK." — Pari Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, interview with Gatestone, February 3, 2021.
"We want Sinjar to be under the control of formal Iraqi security forces.... according to the rule of law. Turkey wants much more than Sinjar. Turkey wants to use various excuses to expand its military presence in Iraq and Syria. The whole PKK claim is just an excuse for Turkey's expansionism in the region." — Murad Ismael, former executive director of Yazda, interview with Gatestone, February 12, 2021
"Yezidis literally suffered a genocide at the hands of ISIS... Turkey did not take any steps whatsoever to combat ISIS before, during, or after the ISIS atrocities. But now, when Yezidis have been left homeless and are striving to rebuild our land, Turkey warns that it may unilaterally and illegally attack Sinjar.... this is our homeland. It is not a battleground for other forces to use as they see fit." — Pari Ibrahim, interview with Gatestone, February 3, 2021.
Judging from statements by Turkish officials, Turkey intends to expand its military offensives in Iraq and Syria. Yazidis fear that Turkey will once again target Sinjar, their ancient homeland in Iraq. The Turkish Air Force has bombed Sinjar on numerous occasions in the past few years. Pictured: Bomb-damaged buildings in the town of Sinjar, Iraq, photographed on February 5, 2019. (Photo by Zaid Al-Obeidi/AFP via Getty Images)
Turkey's armed forces launched a military operation called "Operation Claw-Eagle 2" against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq on February 10. The assault resulted in the deaths of 13 Turkish hostages, including military and police personnel who were being held by the PKK in a cave complex in the mountainous Gara region.
Turkey's military operation, in the form of airstrikes, was completed on February 14. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that 48 PKK members had been "neutralized" in the operation, adding that the PKK had shot the hostages dead -- one in the shoulder, and the rest in their heads.
The PKK, however, said that the deaths of the hostages had been caused by the "Turkish army's heavy bombardments and intense fighting outside and inside the [PKK] camp."
According to a Turkish governor, the hostages had been abducted by the PKK in 2015 and 2016. One senior Turkish security source told Reuters that Turkish intelligence personnel were among the dead. On February 15, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said:
"After the massacre in Gara [in Iraq], no country, organization, structure or person can question Turkey's military operations in Iraq and Syria."
In short, Turkey intends to expand its military offensives in Iraq and Syria.
After these developments, Yazidis fear that Turkey will once again target Sinjar, their ancient homeland in Iraq.
The Turkish government-funded TRT news channel reported on January 20:
"Turkey is closely following developments in Iraq's Sinjar district, the Turkish defense minister has said, stressing that Ankara is ready to support clearing the region of terrorists.
"'Turkey is ready to provide support for eliminating terrorists in Iraq's Sinjar region if needed,' Hulusi Akar said following his official visit to Iraq.
"'We can say that we are determined to end the terrorists as a result of our cooperation with both the regional administration and Baghdad,' he added."
Yazidis are an indigenous non-Muslim minority in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, who for centuries have faced persecution because of their religion and ethnicity.
The airstrikes would further devastate and traumatize Iraq's Yazidis, who are still trying to heal the wounds of the genocide they were exposed to at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) seven years ago.
Yazda, a global Yazidi rights advocacy organization, describes what happened at that time:
"The 3rd of August 2014 is a dark day in the history of the Yazidis. On this day, at 1 am, ISIS first attacked the southern side of Mount Sinjar. At the beginning of the attacks, in the villages of Tel-Azir, Sibai and Ger Zarek, the people resisted and fought fiercely to defend their lives, properties and temples. However, what ensued for the Yazidis was disaster. Men were killed, women and girls were enslaved, while children died from thirst and hunger on the slopes of Mount Sinjar. "
"The damage inflicted by ISIS did not end, but continued much further. They blew up our shrines, temples and everything sacred to the Yazidis. They did all this, thinking that Sinjar would become theirs. They even told the boys and women that they had exterminated all Yazidis."
On February 6, Yazidis re-buried in Sinjar the remains of more than 100 victims murdered by ISIS in the summer of 2014. A memorial service for the victims was first held in Baghdad and attended by senior Iraqi officials. The remains were then transferred to the village of Kocho in Sinjar, where a burial site is located.
If Turkey targets Sinjar, it will not be the first Turkish military assault against the region. In 2017, Turkish warplanes dropped bombs on Sinjar, hitting a civilian clinic, said Yakhi Hamza, country director of the 1st New Allied Expeditionary Force, a humanitarian nonprofit delivering medical help to Yazidis. The airstrikes killed at least five people and severely wounded several more.
Turkey appears to have turned bombing Sinjar and other areas in Iraq into a habit. In August 2018, November 2019, January 2020 and June 2020, among others, Turkey also carried out airstrikes on Sinjar.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported on February 18:
"In June 2020, Turkey escalated their attacks in the region, announcing military operations Claw-Eagle and Claw-Tiger that included airstrikes near Sinjar. These attacks have been particularly damaging to the traumatized Yazidi community, who are victims of genocide by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Reports indicate that Turkey is planning military operations in Sinjar, instilling fear in the already vulnerable Yazidi community."
Turkey's pretext for these airstrikes is that the PKK is active in the region. Pari Ibrahim, the Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, disagrees. In an interview with Gatestone on February 3, she said:
"The Free Yezidi Foundation stands in firm defense of any and all Yezidis who joined military units to defend Sinjar and defeat ISIS. Some Yezidis joined different groups, whether it is YBS [Sinjar Resistance Units], PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces], Peshmerga [the military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq], or any other group. But analysts should understand that the fundamental reason that Yezidis join military units is to defend the land from a genocidal invasion. Now, there are many competing forces in the area, and they all have their own political reasons for why they are there. But Yezidis, whether civilians or the military units, are there to defend the land against aggression. Many different actors may criticize some of these military units for different reasons, and we can understand that. But no one, including Turkey, has the right to expel Yezidis from their homeland under the pretext of the conflict with PKK."
Murad Ismael, a Yazidi activist and former executive director of Yazda, told Gatestone on February 12:
"A Turkish military operation in Sinjar would be devastating and counterproductive. If Iraq allows such an operation, it will bring about an end to its physical borders and sovereignty, and initiate a geopolitical circus that will end up with Iraq being another Yemen and Libya. A deeper infiltration of Turkish forces in Iraq would harm Baghdad and Erbil equally.
"We want Sinjar to be under the control of formal Iraqi security forces. All the armed groups in Sinjar and across Iraq should be united under the Iraqi ministry of defense and ministry of the interior according to the rule of law. We do not want Turkey to come to Sinjar. It is not their homeland. But Turkey wants much more than Sinjar. Turkey wants to use various excuses to expand its military presence in Iraq and Syria. The whole PKK claim is just an excuse for Turkey's expansionism in the region.
"As for the PKK, we, Yazidis, do not and will not allow Sinjar to become another Qandil, the PKK headquarters. The PKK helped liberate Sinjar from ISIS in 2014, and we appreciate any help given to save our people, but we will not allow the PKK to capitalize on the situation and turn our homeland into a battlefield and our people into a recruitment base. After suffering a genocide, we cannot throw the Yazidis into a regional fire much bigger than them. We need to help heal our community and rebuild our homeland.
"The Yazidis who joined the YPS (Sinjar Resistance Units) are local Yazidis who aim to protect the Yazidis and the region from ISIS and other aggressors. They didn't join to become PKK affiliates. There are currently about 5,000 Yazidi families tied to YBS, and a military operation targeting them will be seen as targeting Yazidis. I don't think the world is ready to see a war against Yazidis when smokes of their genocide are still in the sky."
Since Sinjar was largely destroyed by ISIS during the 2014 genocide, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes and become refugees or internally displaced people (IDPs). Many are still living in IDP camps in northern Iraq. The news website Rudaw reported on January 18 that suicides have recently spiked at Duhok's camps for Yazidis:
"Psychologists say the trauma that comes not just from our personal tragedies, but from our ancestors can be of serious detriment to mental health. The ISIS genocide has 'resurfaced memories' of previous massacres, leaving today's community suffering from 'multiple traumatisations,' according to an academic study by psychotherapist Michael Noll-Hussong and Yazidi psychiatrist Jan Kizilhan. In a statement Kizilhan sent to Rudaw English, he added that trauma is not the only factor driving people to end their lives. Camp living conditions, 'sexual and familial violence, financial loss, and the loss of family member' to name but a few, are also contributing factors."
Pari Ibrahim told Gatestone that another attack by Turkey against Sinjar would have destructive consequences for Yazidis and the wider region.
"The top needs for Yezidis, in our view, are trauma treatment, education, and job skills. Some believe reconstruction of Sinjar is the most pressing need. But we believe that the best way to provide aid to Yezidis is to help with trauma treatment of those who are affected, severely affected, and have trouble doing anything. We also believe that providing skills, training, and the prospect for a better future through education will help refocus the thought process of Yezidis away from the past and to a brighter future. Of course, we also hope to see the reconstruction of Sinjar and better services and infrastructure in the destroyed city and villages. But first and foremost, we want to see better care and opportunities for our people wherever they are today.
"However, the prospect of a further Turkish military assault on Sinjar, in addition to the many bombings they have already undertaken in Sinjar, would be a violation of international law. Yezidis literally suffered a genocide at the hands of ISIS, a group that incidentally grew in strength partly because of the steady stream of resources and foreign fighters that arrived to their territory through Turkey. Turkey did not take any steps whatsoever to combat ISIS before, during, or after the ISIS atrocities. But now, when Yezidis have been left homeless and are striving to rebuild our land, Turkey warns that it may unilaterally and illegally attack Sinjar. We understand the conflict between Turkey and the PKK. But this is our homeland. It is not a battleground for other forces to use as they see fit. The people of this land are homeless, their lives destroyed, their houses decimated. Surely the inhabitants of Sinjar have the right to return, not foreign actors like Turkey."
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. © 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

US engagement necessary to keep Iran in check
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/March 09/2021
Last week the US conducted a strike on Al-Bukamal, in Syria, in which 17 Iranian-backed militia members were killed. This might have been a tactical move, but it could also be the tip of a comprehensive strategy. So far, there is no clarity on US policy toward Iran. The people in charge, whether it is Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman or President Joe Biden's Iran envoy Robert Malley, are in favor of engagement with Iran. Analysts are gauging indications and trying to weave from them an overarching policy behind the Biden administration’s actions. A sound Iran policy would be a policy that brings that country back into compliance with the nuclear deal while taming its activism and that of other regional players to bring stability and de-escalate tensions.
One might think that the best way is to use sanctions as a leverage and to tie the lifting of the sanctions to Iran sorting out its differences with its neighbors. However, this is difficult as Iran is very firm in compartmentalizing its relations and not mixing the nuclear file with other files. Iran is seeking compliance for compliance, arguing that other issues can be discussed at a later stage.
In this respect, the US should take an alternative path. The International Crisis Group report suggested a face-saving exit to avoid a deadlock on compliance. It suggested that a third party, the International Atomic Energy Agency or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) committee, put a timetable for the parties to go back simultaneously to the deal. This is a good idea. However, it is not enough. It does not represent a comprehensive policy. While there should be a path back to the deal that is acceptable to both parties, a plan is also needed to mitigate Iran’s behavior in the region. Iran says that the issue of the proxies will be discussed at a later stage, but a firm policy over the proxies will prepare the groundwork when the time comes for discussing the pro-Iran militias. Here the US should show willingness to use hard power. Al-Bukamal should be part of a consistent strategy, not a tactic to respond to the attack on the embassy in Baghdad.
Today, the US can afford to do what it could not do prior to 2015. Back then, the US could not be too harsh on Iran for fear of disturbing the flow of negotiations. The US did not take action in Syria in 2013, despite dictator Bashar Assad crossing red lines, because it did not want to rock the boat with the Iranians. Similarly, in 2014 the US did not extradite a Hezbollah operative who was arrested in the Czech Republic and was involved in drug trafficking to the US because the Barack Obama administration was keen on sealing the deal, which had the more important objective of preventing Iran from going nuclear.
However, the situation today is different. There is a sealed deal that Iran does not want to tie to any other issues. If the US complies, Iran has to comply. Iran cannot refuse compliance if any of its militias is bombed or any of its allies is targeted with more crippling sanctions. Hence, the lifting of sanctions should be coupled with a hawkish policy toward its proxies in the region. Some have advocated that there should be a mechanism to monitor how the released funds are spent to make sure that they are not channeled to its regional proxies.
The hands-off attitude of Obama, which reduced Middle East policy to the JCPOA, resulted in chaos.
This, however, is a near-impossible task. Even John Kerry, following the signature of the JCPOA, admitted that some of the funds released would go to Iran-linked terrorist groups and that the US has no control over the matter. So having a solid and comprehensive policy addressing Iran’s proxies must run in parallel to the lifting of sanctions. It should send a signal to Iran that lifting the sanctions related to the nuclear file does not mean giving Tehran a free pass in the region.
However, such an approach should be conducted in a strategic manner in order not to be counterproductive. The first step is to put pressure on the enablers of Iran’s proxies in the region, such as Bashar Assad. The US should also liaise with its allies to make sure policies are coordinated and do not result in even greater havoc. While liaising with allies, it should keep them in check. A tough policy on Iran’s proxies should not be interpreted as a green light for Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, to conduct a pre-election stunt in Lebanon or in Gaza. This attitude of being firm and balanced can create a catalyst for negotiations between Arab Gulf states and Iran. The hands-off attitude of Obama, which reduced Middle East policy to the JCPOA, resulted in chaos.
In a nutshell, a sound, comprehensive and sustainable policy toward Iran requires a mix of side diplomacy, diplomacy and hard power. This might require a high degree of engagement from the US, but it is the only way to stabilize the region.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She is also an affiliate scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

The cost of living and the Iranian regime’s risky bet
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/March 09/ 2021
For many years, the Iranian government depended on its domestic capacity to provide the Iranian people with their primary sources of living, such as food items. The government has spent a significant percentage of the country’s financial resources to avoid a shortage of essential items against the backdrop of harsh international sanctions. Its fear is that social unrest could flare up and spread, threatening the whole political system. The latest US sanctions have placed further pressure on the government’s outdated approach, coinciding with the additional negative impact of external variables such as the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the decline in oil prices and the depletion of foreign currencies.
In recent times, protests have surged among Iran’s working class, who make up nearly half of Iran’s society, over worsening living conditions and low wages amid rising inflation rates in the country. The Iranian people have expressed their feelings of anger and frustration to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, demanding, via Iranian lawmakers, that the minimum wage be doubled. To date, the government has proved to be incompetent and incapable of dealing with the harsh living conditions experienced by millions of hardworking Iranians.
The minimum amount required to survive in Iran is estimated at 9 million tomans ($360) per month for a family of four. Yet the minimum wage for workers is 3 million tomans per month, with 14 million Iranians in this wage category. Millions of retirees receive pensions that are even lower than this. If we include the families of these workers, this means that at least 40 million people, or half of Iran’s population, are living far below the poverty line.
Many or even most Iranian workers are, therefore, forced to seek more than one job to survive and feed their families. This constant struggle to stay alive has a grave psychological impact, as well as social and even security ramifications.
While Iran’s rising food cost may be less of a problem in rural areas, where people can grow their own vegetables and rear livestock, the reality is different for the country’s urban population, constituting more than three-quarters of Iran’s population. Urban residents face massive challenges, especially when soaring prices are coupled with unemployment, depression, the lack of any social safety net and skyrocketing living costs. One of the main expenses in urban areas is the cost of renting, which has increased by more than 85 percent in the capital, Tehran, in a short period, and now consumes nearly one-third of the average Iranian household’s income.
Considering the sharp decline in the exchange rate of the local currency against the dollar in the past year, the 70 percent rise in the cost of imported commodities in 2020 had an unmistakably negative impact on the prices of local food items. Imported items such as livestock and poultry feed, for example, are critical to farmers, and their additional costs were passed on to already struggling Iranian consumers via price hikes.
All these factors mean that the Iranian people are suffering from a surge in food prices generally, leaving the great majority unable to buy dietary staples. This is, of course, even worse for the poorest, with poultry prices, for example, increasing sixfold compared to mid-2013 when President Hassan Rouhani took office. Recently, the price of eggs and red meat has increased by 88 percent and 44 percent respectively in a single year.
The Iranian people might have been able to offset the negative impact of soaring food prices on their living standards if there had been an improvement in income levels. However, incomes have not changed and purchasing power has dropped because Iran’s local currency has lost its value rapidly. Iranian studies suggest that the purchasing power of urban dwellers has declined to the levels last seen in 2001.
Despite this grim picture, the Iranian government has continued to bet on the endurance of the Iranian people to cope with their harsh living conditions, a huge part of which is a direct result of economic mismanagement, foreign policy misadventures and the regional expansionist plans of the supreme leader.
Iran’s volatile economic situation and the dire living conditions of the Iranian people mean that it is not possible to rule out protests breaking out again soon.
This is an extremely risky bet, which could see the tables turned on the government and the system overnight, should socio-economic conditions continue to worsen. As was noted in the book “Factional Protests and Social Mobilization in Iran,” published by the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah) in 2019, Iran’s volatile economic situation and the dire living conditions of the Iranian people mean that it is not possible to rule out protests breaking out again soon. However, they are likely to be much more violent, threatening and deadly than those witnessed in the recent past.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is President of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). Twitter: @mohalsulami

Ten years of international failure in Syria
Chris Doyle/Arab News/March 09/ 2021
Conflicts and wars come in many forms in the 21st century but most types have been on display over the past 10 long years in Syria. The conflict there started as peaceful protests that were met with brutal repression, evolved into an armed uprising backed by regional powers on all sides, and became a fully fledged international one involving many, including the two superpowers.
Syrians have suffered from civil conflicts, sectarian and ethnic cleansing, urban siege, proxy wars, attritional aerial bombardments, Islamist extremism and chemical weapons. More than half a million Syrians met their ends at the hands of both the crudest weapons and some of the most lethal known to man.
None of this occurred in the shadows. This was not a conflict that for whatever reason the media barely covered, as is currently happening in Tigray, in Ethiopia. These were conflicts recorded in extraordinary and often graphic detail, from the earliest protests uploaded onto social networks to the 53,000 photos provided by the military police photographer, codenamed Caesar, showing the industrial torture in Bashar Assad’s prisons. Journalists, diplomats and international civil society were witnesses to major, unspeakable crimes. The mountains of rubble in urban centers bombed from above are a testament to the savage and indiscriminate bombardment by Russian and Syrian regime planes. International commissions have investigated human rights abuses from chemical weapons use. Islamist extremists belonging to Daesh and Al-Qaeda were only too happy to market their own form of carnage on high-quality video productions.
The world therefore cannot pretend it did not know. It cannot be allowed to indulge in collective amnesia or claim it was not its fault. Yes, the Syrian regime and its backers do bear primary responsibility by any fair measure of blame but this does not excuse other actors.
All too easily the world turned a blind eye to the excesses of the Assad regime prior to 2011. After the brief window of the so-called Damascus Spring, few said anything as these delicate shoots of political life were snuffed out. Little was said also about Syria’s chemical weapons stock. The CIA knew the regime had a major chemical weapons arsenal as it ran a mole deep inside the regime’s program for 14 years; 32 of 38 documented cases of chemical weapons use since the start of the Syrian conflict can be attributed to Syrian government forces.
One of the most deadly mistakes was in August 2011. President Barack Obama called on Assad to “step aside,” backed almost immediately by Britain, France and Germany. A welcome rhetorical gesture, maybe, but it encouraged Assad’s opponents to believe the US would have their backs when Obama and others knew they had no desire to get sucked into another Middle Eastern quagmire. Some of Syria’s external opposition played into this too, naively or knowingly propagating this view, when it was Syrians inside the country who would pay the price. In the end Russia and Iran have proved time and time again to be far more dedicated to keeping the regime in power than the US and the so-called friends of Syria were in backing the opposition. The US-European failure to anticipate the Russian military intervention in 2015 showed how little they understood the dynamics at play.
The US, Turkey, and others also armed the opposition to an extent. It was the CIA’s largest arm-and-equip program in decades. They sent enough weapons to keep the conflict going but never enough to finish it. Opposition fighters never got the caliber of weapons needed to remove the regime, and those weapons that did arrive often landed up in the hands of Daesh or Al-Qaeda. Disenchantment with the US and European powers led many to join the more extreme Islamist groups.
The Syrian opposition, instead of being a coherent body, was fractured, and pulled apart by myriad outside backers. The incessant squabbling was evidence of these competing regional ambitions.
After the major powers encouraged and stoked the conflicts, many Syrians might have hoped that as refugees they would be welcomed by those countries. For a few months this was the case. Europe located a temporary conscience, and to her great credit Angela Merkel opened Germany’s doors and welcomed Syrians as new Germans. The same could not be said for many other European countries, with Hungary leading the charge to build barbed wire fences. The Trump administration stopped taking in any Syrian refugees. Instead, most of the 5.6 million refugees languish in camps and communities in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, their futures as bleak as the winter storms that ravage their shacks.
For the past five years or so, Syria has played host to fighters and planes from all over the world. One Syrian friend grimly joked, “Is there no country that does not want to bomb us?” It is estimated that fighters from 110 countries joined Daesh. Today, Russian, Iranian, American and Turkish forces dominate on the ground alongside militia forces from Hizbollah, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the skies, anti-Daesh planes have bombed Syrian cities. The aerial campaign to retake Raqqa damaged or destroyed up to 80 percent of the buildings there.
As things stand, the world watches and does nothing, assuming that the conflict is frozen. The lines of control in some ways are frozen but the conflict dynamics are not. The regime and Russia persist in bombing Idlib, where on the ground Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the effective Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, faces protests against its medieval rule. Turkey still occupies large chunks of northern Syria with no indication of when its forces will leave. In the areas around Raqqa, Syrian Arabs who make up the majority resent the corrupt rule of Kurdish forces. In this area, either an Arab-Kurdish war will erupt or Daesh will return in some form.
As things stand, the world watches and does nothing, assuming that the conflict is frozen.
Syrians face today the harshest conditions of these 10 years owing to the war, the financial catastrophe and the pandemic. No major donor will fund reconstruction in Syria with the status quo intact. Syrians are not looking for the light at the end of the tunnel but wondering when they will hit the bottom of the dark pit they have been thrown into.
The Syrian crisis has been, and remains, a complete and utter international and regional failure. The international community overpromised and underdelivered. Collectively we have failed the Syrian people in every possible imaginable way. Worse, after 10 years none of the major powers gives the slightest indication, not least the incoming Biden administration, that they intend to do anything to reverse this or make up for this.
*Chris Doyle is director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding. Twitter: @Doylech