English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 14/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ,
Letter to the Romans 12/01-08/:”I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 13-14/2022
Berri broaches situation with Mikati, meets MP Abou Faour, Sheikh Al Khatib
No dialogue: Berri calls for 10th president election session
Rahi meets Grillo in Bkerki
FPM bloc proposes parliamentary probe into Salameh's 'offenses'
LF rejects Berri's call for dialogue, says it violates constitution
Geagea: New president must regain strategic decision, win trust of Arab nations
Iranian embassy: Lebanon's enemies blocked aid to Lebanese people
Capital control to restrict transfers to hospitalization, studies abroad
Mikati briefs Berri on 'positive' KSA meetings
Iran Smuggling Venezuelan Gold To Finance Hezbollah: Document/Mojtaba Pourmohsen/Iran International/December 13/2022
Morocco's World Cup clash with France kicks off new allegiances in Lebanon/Nada Homsi/The National/December 13/2022
The five European countries investigating Lebanon's bank chief Riad Salameh — and why/Nada Maucourant Atallah/The National/December 13, 2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 13-14/2022
Video Pannel From FDD/Iran's Nuclear Proliferation Strategy: U.S. Policy Options/Suzanne Maloney, Mahsa Rouhi, Michael Eisenstadt
UK Sanctions Russian Military Commanders, Iranian Businessmen
Iran Imposes Sanctions on British, German Entities, Individuals
Footballer Union ‘Sickened’ as Iranian Player Risks Death Sentence
Taming West Bank Chaos Remains a Challenge for Israel
Biden Administration Refuses to Rule Out Sanctions Relief for Iran
Russia rejects Zelenskiy call for troop pullout, saying Ukraine must accept 'realities'
Russian gas chemical projects face delays after foreign partners exit -cbank
Russia has destroyed all efforts to forge better ties since the Cold War by invading Ukraine, NATO chief says
Germany to pledge additional 50 million euros in winter aid for Ukraine
Ukraine Energy Minister: World Must Rethink Nuclear Safety
Bombing of Putin’s Most Feared Fighters Infuriates Russia
U.S. close to providing Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine -officials
The UK defense chief read out the numbers on Russia's war losses, and they're bleak
Cornered in Ukraine, Putin ditches annual news conference
Netanyahu ally chosen as new Israel parliament speaker
Netanyahu promises to govern for all Israelis amid rise of religious nationalists
Iraq Receives $8 Mn from UN Compensation Commission After Full Payment to Kuwait
1 bn euros pledged for Ukraine at Paris aid conference
EU agrees to give Bosnia candidate status

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 13-14/2022
The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple the Ayatollah Martes/Karim Sadjadpour/The New York Times/December 13/2022
Elon Musk's Twitter Files Dump/Peter Schweizer/Gatestone Institute/December 13, 2022
Saudi Arabia and China’s Strong Ties/Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al Awsat/December 13/2022
Talk of ‘Abrahamic’ Religions is an Ecumenical Farce/Raymond Ibrahim/December 13/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 13-14/2022
Berri broaches situation with Mikati, meets MP Abou Faour, Sheikh Al Khatib
NNA/December 13, 2022
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday received at the Second Presidency in Ain El-Tineh, Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, with whom he discussed the general siryation, political developments, legislative affairs and the results of the latter's visit and meetings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during his participation in the Arab-Chinese Summit. Speaker Berri also received in Ain El-Tineh, Deputy Head of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council, Sheikh Ali Al-Khatib, Berri later met with “Democratic Gathering” MP Wael Abou Faour, with whom he broached the current political developments and legislative affairs.
On emerging, MP Abou Faour said ‘’ We believe in dialogue and we affirm Speaker Berri's call for dialogue,’’ adding, "Dialogue does not contradict with the constitutional mechanism for electing the President of the Republic nor does it annul the constitutional mechanism.”

No dialogue: Berri calls for 10th president election session
Naharnet/December 13, 2022
There will be no dialogue on Thursday, the Berri-owned NBN TV said Tuesday. The parliamentary session will be "exclusively for electing a president", the media outlet said, as the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement refused to participate in a dialogue that might have replaced the presidential election session. Earlier on Tuesday, The LF warned against replacing the election session with a dialogue, "categorically" rejecting participating in it. Berri had announced last week that he would turn Thursday’s presidential election session into a dialogue if the blocs agree to such a move. On Tuesday, he officially called for a presidential election session on Thursday, after the LF said in a statement that turning the election session into a dialogue would be a clear disruption to a constitutional requirement, asking Berri to withdraw his call for dialogue and to call instead for open sessions until a president is elected.

Rahi meets Grillo in Bkerki
NNA/December 13, 2022
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi, on Tuesday welcomed in Bkerki, French Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo.

FPM bloc proposes parliamentary probe into Salameh's 'offenses'
Naharnet/December 13, 2022
Twelve lawmakers from the Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc on Tuesday submitted a draft law aimed at “forming a parliamentary panel of inquiry into the offenses committed by Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh.”“The Lebanese judiciary has refrained from prosecuting him despite the lawsuits filed against him in several foreign nations, and in the file of financial transfers to abroad,” the bloc said. The proposal was signed by the MPs Cesar Abi Khalil, Samer el-Tawm, Farid al-Bustani, Salim Aoun, Charbel Maroun, Edgard Trabulsi, Nada al-Bustani, George Atallah, Nicolas Sehnaoui, Ghassan Atallah and Jebran Bassil. The long-serving governor, 72, is among top officials widely blamed for Lebanon's unprecedented economic crisis, dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent world history. In June, a Lebanese prosecutor probing Salameh on suspicion of financial misconduct requested charges be issued against him based on preliminary investigation findings, a court official said at the time. Lebanon opened a probe into Salameh's wealth last year, after the office of Switzerland's top prosecutor requested assistance in an investigation into more than $300 million which he allegedly embezzled out of the central bank with the help of his brother. Both Salameh brothers have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The central bank chief has remained at the helm despite Lebanese courts slapping him with a travel ban and investigating him in connection with several other cases.
He also faces lawsuits in European countries, including France and Britain, on charges of financial misconduct.

LF rejects Berri's call for dialogue, says it violates constitution
Naharnet/December 13, 2022
The Lebanese Forces said Tuesday that they will not participate in a parliamentary dialogue that Speaker Nabih Berri might call for. Berri had announced last week that he would turn Thursday’s presidential election session into a parliamentary dialogue if the blocs agree to such a move. "We categorically reject the call for a dialogue on Thursday," the LF said in a statement, as it described it as "a clear disruption to a constitutional requirement."The statement warned against replacing the presidential election sessions with a dialogue, adding that those obstructing the election of a president must be held accountable, as they are exacerbating the economic crisis by extending the presidential vacuum. The LF said it would not reject a dialogue in principle when held in the right time, asking Berri to withdraw his call for dialogue and to call instead for open sessions until a president is elected.

Geagea: New president must regain strategic decision, win trust of Arab nations

Naharnet/December 13, 2022
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that the country’s new president must “act 180 degrees contrary to what we witnessed over the past six years, especially as to returning the strategic decision to the state.”“The new president must also fight corruption fiercely, not through statements, and must not let his people and those around him commit major corruption with every sunrise,” Geagea added, in an interview with Saudi newspaper Okaz. The country’s new head of state should also win “the confidence of Arab states, especially Gulf nations,” the LF leader went on to say, noting that the Gulf would “help Lebanon overcome its crises” should such a president be elected. As for Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for dialogue over the new president, Geagea said “any dialogue table over the presidency would be useless, because the previous dialogues proved futile.” Asked about reports that Hezbollah might make a new alignment regarding the Taif Agreement and the defense strategy, Geagea said: “I wish that would happen from the bottom of my heart, because that would solve the problem in Lebanon.”“If Hezbollah carries out a revision and a re-interpretation of the situation in Lebanon and the current events in the region, and accordingly changes its policy, that would help us in Lebanon resolve all problems,” the LF leader added. Asked about the security situation in the country, Geagea said he does not fear for security in the presence of the army and the Internal Security Forces, describing the latest Ashrafieh incident as regrettable yet unpremeditated. “It did not happen based on a political decision from any political party. It should be treated as a traffic accident and it should not be repeated,” Geagea added.

Iranian embassy: Lebanon's enemies blocked aid to Lebanese people
Naharnet/December 13, 2022
The Iranian embassy in Lebanon on Tuesday lamented that “Lebanon’s enemies” have prevented Tehran from assisting the Lebanese people amid the current crisis. “Iran had several times proposed to offer aid to the brotherly Lebanese people to help them overcome their crisis, but Lebanon’s enemies obstructed and exerted pressure to prevent things from reaching happy endings under frail excuses and alibis,” the embassy said in a tweet. “These parties do not want to help Lebanon and are seeking to prevent others from offering assistance,” it decried.
The embassy also tweeted a video highlighting the offers that Iran has made to Lebanon in the energy field.

Capital control to restrict transfers to hospitalization, studies abroad
Naharnet/December 13, 2022
The joint parliamentary committees convened Tuesday to resume discussing the capital control draft law. "We have specifically modified the needed exemptions in the capital control," Bou Saab said after the meeting. He added that the overseas transfers will be restricted to medical procedures abroad and students who study at foreign universities. An article related to local withdrawals hasn't been discussed yet. But the majority of the MPs are inclined to allow transfers for hospitalization purposes in Lebanon and abroad, Bou Saab said. The committees will resume discussing the rest of the draft law articles after the holidays. The capital control, a law required by the IMF to unlock aid for Lebanon, will be put aside once parliament approves it, pending the adoption of a comprehensive recovery plan.

Mikati briefs Berri on 'positive' KSA meetings

Naharnet/December 13, 2022
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday held talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh. Speaking to LBCI television after the meeting, the premier said he briefed the Speaker on his “positive” meetings in Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of the Arab-Chinese summit.

Iran Smuggling Venezuelan Gold To Finance Hezbollah: Document
Mojtaba Pourmohsen/Iran International/December 13/2022
A confidential document from Lloyds Marine insurance company has revealed the Islamic Republic’s illegal schemes through Venezuela to finance Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In a confidential warning to its clients seen by Iran International, London-based Lloyds Marine Insurance Company said that the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah illegally send gold from Venezuela to Iran to finance the terrorist activities of Tehran-backed militias in Lebanon, bypassing sanctions.The document issued on October 28 is titled: Illicit trade and transfer of gold and Iranian oil – IRGC Quds Force and Hezbollah.
“The purpose of this e-alert is to inform the market of the illicit shipment of gold by the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah from Venezuela to Iran to raise funds for terrorist activities, facilitated by the sale of Iranian oil, in contravention of sanctions,” reads the letter.
Lloyds further added that flights from Caracas to Tehran via Mahan Air are being used as an illicit channel to ship gold to pay for Iranian oil, in breach of applicable sanctions.
Mahan Air is a privately owned Iranian airline linked to the IRGC sanctioned by US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for weapons transfers.
“The gold is then sold in Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries, to generate funds for terrorist activity,” the leaked document alleged.
Lloyds also identifies some people who have been easing the illegal shipment of gold from Venezuela on behalf of the IRGC Qods Force.
The first actor, according to Lloyds, is Hezbollah’s representative in Iran Ali Kassir, who is also a US OFAC designee under the SDGT program (Global Sanctions Regulation against Terrorism).
The other is Muhammad Jaafar Kassir, who is a senior Hezbollah official also designated by OFAC for his illegal activities linked with the militant group.
The Iranian airline Mahan Air is introduced as the third actor in the unlawful acquisition and shipment of gold from Venezuela on behalf of the IRGC Quds Force.
World’s largest marine insurance company has also called on its clients to observe enhanced due diligence measures if any of the entities mentioned are involved, as the coverage provided could indirectly expose the managing agents to risks of terrorist financing, money laundering and tax evasion.
US former Special Representative for Venezuela, Elliot Abrams for the first time in April 2020 announced that Iran is receiving gold for sending gasoline to Caracas.
Iranian officials denied receiving payment for fuel shipped to Venezuela by that time. However, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, a top Revolutionary Guards officer, who is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's advisor in military affairs, told state media later in 2020 that “We gave gasoline to Venezuela and received gold bullion and we brought the gold with airplanes to Iran to prevent any incident during transit.”
Argentina grounded an Iran-linked Venezuelan Boeing 747 cargo plane on June 12, 2022 after it landed in Buenos Aires without any prior announcements.
Washington on August 3 asked permission to confiscate the plane impounded in Argentina on suspicions of links to international terrorist groups.
Based on revealed documents, there are other airplanes that are used for taking gold from Caracas to Tehran, but the seizure and future confiscation of the Boeing, which is already in Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires, is a major step to erode Hezbollah’s economic resources.
The illegal gold sale operation revealed by the Lloyd’s company was also facilitated by a fixer called Seyed Badroddin Naiemael Moosavi.
The 47-year-old Iranian businessman controlled the load of gold that he obtained at a discounted price in exchange for the oil shipments to Venezuela. He was the person, who sold the golds on the black market in Turkey, and as a result millions of dollars were used to finance Hezbollah’s terrorist acts in the Middle East.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202212124467

Morocco's World Cup clash with France kicks off new allegiances in Lebanon
Nada Homsi/The National/December 13/2022
With usual favourites Brazil and Germany out, many Lebanese are backing the Atlas Lions — despite tensions
World Cup support in Lebanon is traditionally reserved for two of the globe's strongest teams — five-time winners Brazil and four-time champions Germany. But with both teams eliminated from this year’s tournament, some Lebanese fans are pinning new hopes on “consolation” teams. With Argentina, Morocco, France and Croatia contesting the competition's semi-finals, some fans have turned to Argentina out of loyalty to all-time great Lionel Messi — who is almost universally adored in the Arab world. Others respect Croatia's impressive defensive performances, which have put them within touching distance of their second successive World Cup final, if they can beat Argentina on Tuesday. A subset of Lebanese fans support France — the former colonial power that has traditional links to the Christian community. But with Morocco’s advance to the semi-finals after a stunning victory over Portugal last week, many fans have become fans of the Atlas Lions overnight, upholding the North African nation’s victory as one for Arabs everywhere. “Brazil was my team,” said Samaa Saadeh, a sporting goods store owner who resides in Ashrafieh, a predominantly upper-class and Christian neighbourhood of Beirut. “Now I’m with Argentina, because they’re my second-favourite team. But I don’t mind if Morocco wins the match because their wins were so unexpected and they’ve played so well.” Widespread support for Morocco challenges notions that Lebanon’s national identity is split along confessional lines, amid fears that the France vs Morocco match on Wednesday could inflame tensions from the 1975-1990 Civil War-era, which roughly divided the nation into pro-Arab and pro-French camps.
During the war, Lebanon's militias fought for political influence by exploiting the country's religious rifts. Ms Saadeh spoke to The National next her stall at a festive Christmas market located in the centre of the neighbourhood. That Christmas market was a location of tense clashes last week when dozens of fans on motorbikes from the predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of Tariq Al Jdideh passed through Ashrafieh in celebration of Morocco’s win against Portugal. The revellers waved Moroccan and Palestinian flags and chanted “Allahu Akbar” — “God is great” — a chant often used by Arab fans and sports commentators. It led to an altercation between them and the neighbourhood’s residents and prompted an intervention by the Lebanese Army. The clashes elicited a range of extreme reactions online. Critics said the procession was a provocation, calling for the neighbourhood to increase self-policing measures and threatening to retaliate. Others defended the Lebanese football fans' rights to celebrate anywhere, pointing out the convoy had experienced no trouble in other neighbourhoods of Beirut. But most people who spoke to The National said the motorbike procession and the violent clashes that followed did not represent their own convictions. Many from both Christian and Muslim neighbourhoods said they supported Morocco — although not all forms of celebration. Hossam, from the nearby neighbourhood of Zoukak Al Blat, was happy to see Morocco’s progression to the semi-finals.
“I’m a diehard Argentina fan but I don’t even mind if Morocco wins. I’m happy to see an Arab team make it so far,” he said.
But he criticised some fans who had come to celebrate in Ashrafieh, accusing them of causing trouble. Hossam dismissed fears that Wednesday’s match could create a rift: “What does football have to do with religion? It’s the politicians who use religion to control us.”
It is a widely acknowledged cliche that Lebanon’s entrenched confessional politics — under which highest offices are proportionately reserved for representatives from certain religious communities — spill into daily life, complicating the country's national identity.
But within the small nation’s complicated landscape of competing confessional, political and national identities, football allegiances rarely follow a rational orthodoxy. While Brazil’s traditional rivals are fellow South Americans Argentina, Lebanese fans consider Germany to be the Brazilians' biggest foe — with ultra-fans often coming to blows. And while French is taught in schools and spoken overwhelmingly in some neighbourhoods and cities, with a sizeable Lebanese diaspora residing in France, the country's football team is not among the most popular teams in Lebanon. “Even most France-loving people support either Germany or Brazil,” said Mario Tarshihi, an Ashrafieh resident and staunch fan of the England team. With England eliminated from the tournament by France, Mr Tarshihi now hopes Morocco will win. Although the clash in Achrafiyeh stirred fears that the France vs Morocco match could inflame further tension, many in the neighbourhood still hope for a Morocco win. Pia, a half-French half-Lebanese resident of the neighbourhood, told The National that, while she was a staunch France supporter, she was torn about who she wanted to win. “This World Cup made me fall in love with Morocco. I’ll support France because I have more attachment to the country,” she said. “But if Morocco wins, it's also a win for me.”

The five European countries investigating Lebanon's bank chief Riad Salameh — and why
Nada Maucourant Atallah/The National/December 13, 2022
Banque du Liban governor's personal wealth has come under intense scrutiny over past two years
For almost 30 years, Lebanon's central bank governor Riad Salameh was widely lauded for keeping the financial sector thriving as boss of one of the country's only sources of hard currency — and as a source of national pride.
That changed in late 2019, when the Lebanese economy began showing signs of collapse after decades of corruption and the squandering of public funds. Many blame the country's entrenched elite, including Mr Salameh, for the economic disaster that followed.
He now faces demands for accountability over alleged wrongdoing, as well as investigations by several European nations into his personal finances. The Swiss Attorney General’s office opened the first criminal inquiry into Mr Salameh's dealings in October 2020, with courts all over Europe launching investigations soon after, including France, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Germany. These probes are investigating Mr Salameh for the alleged money laundering of more than $330 million from the central Banque du Liban (BDL) and €5 million through contracts awarded to his entourage.
Prosecutors are trying to determine if profits from the alleged embezzlement of public funds were channelled to Europe, where the governor has large investments, especially in property. If found guilty, Mr Salameh could serve up to five years in prison and the confiscation of his assets in Europe.
He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He claims his wealth, which he estimates at $23 million, has been lawfully acquired and comes from investments he made while working at Merrill Lynch as a banker, before becoming the BDL governor in 1993. Given the complexity of the case, which involves a multilayered set-up of companies and transactions across various countries, European courts have set up an international investigative team to exchange information. Prosecutors are not allowed to comment on continuing cases but some information about the investigations has been leaked to the media.
Here is what is known:
Switzerland
Most information on the Swiss investigation comes from a leaked request for mutual legal assistance that Switzerland sent to Lebanon in January last year. According to the document, Switzerland's Attorney General suspects Mr Salameh of embezzling about $330 million in public funds through Forry Associates, a company registered in the Virgin Islands owned by his brother Raja Salameh. Under a brokerage contract signed in 2002, commercial banks paid commissions to Forry when they bought certificates of deposit — an investment instrument offered to banks — from the BDL. While it is not unusual for central banks to use intermediaries to sell their financial products, the opacity of this contract has raised suspicions among Lebanese financiers. Lebanese banks and BDL’s Central Council — which includes the governor, our vice governors and the directors general of the economy and finance ministries — all said that they had never heard of Forry. Reuters said banks did not know they were paying commissions to a company owned by Mr Salameh’s brother, as the ultimate recipient of the commissions was not mentioned in the contracts between the central and commercial banks. Mr Salameh had said at the time that Forry's only job was to gather commissions and fees and redistribute them “according to instructions". Swiss prosecutors found that most of the commissions was transferred to Raja Salameh’s account in Switzerland, then some of it transferred to his accounts in five Lebanese banks. The rest was transferred to three other companies that Mr Salameh is suspected of owning: Westlake Commercial, SI2SA and Red Street 10.
France
In June last year, France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) opened a preliminary investigation into Mr Salameh’s fortune, after two complaints by anti-corruption organisations. A month later, French anti-corruption judge Aude Buresi took over the case. On July 14, she indicted Anna Kosakova, 46, a former partner of Mr Salameh with whom he has a daughter, according to a birth certificate seen by The National. French investigators suspect her of criminal conspiracy, organised money laundering and aggravated tax fraud laundering as they found elements connecting her with Raja's company, Forry.
The French investigative journal Mediapart revealed that Ms Kosakova is one of the beneficiaries of Raja Salameh's company, through a different, similarly named company called Forri, which stands for First Overseas Relation for Realty and Investment Ltd, a group she created in Cyprus in 2004, according to the country's trade register.The investigators, as Mediapart reported, managed to retrace an alleged money-laundering network. They unveiled an elaborate scheme involving public funds siphoned via Forry and funnelled to France though vast property investments.
One of the companies Mr Salameh allegedly used to channel the money is SCI ZEL. The property investment company initially managed by Raja Salameh, then by Ms Kosakova after 2015, has acquired at least €14.3 million ($15 million) worth of property in France, according to deeds of sale seen by The National. This includes two apartments in Paris’s 16th arrondissement on Avenue Georges-Mandel, where Ms Kosakova and Mr Salameh lived, and offices on the upmarket Champs-Elysees for €8.7 million.
These offices form a second part of the French probe. SCI ZEL rented them to another company owned by Ms Kosakova, Eciffice Business Centre, with which the BDL had signed a lease contract in September 2010. The Parisian offices were used as a “recovery centre”, which provides a back-up server for BDL’s data to preserve continuity in case of failure in the Beirut main office. The BDL has paid almost €5 million to Eciffice since 2011 in rent as part of contracts that Ms Kosakova and Mr Salameh co-signed and renewed several times. As the Champs-Elysees offices are not registered with the French authorities, BDL does not have to justify any formal purposes for the lease. The investigators looked into the specific services provided by Eciffice, as well as the choice of the location, on one of the most expensive avenues in the world. SCI ZEL is 99 per cent owned by BET, an asset management company established in Luxembourg in 2007, whose sole shareholder is Ms Kosakova. In 2020, she transferred the bare ownership to her daughter while keeping the right of usufruct, which is the right to benefit from the company. It means BDL rent money was transferred to a company owned mostly by Mr Salameh's daughter. The French judiciary suspected that the contracts may have been part of another scheme to funnel millions of euros in public funds, leading police to raid the office premises in October last year to gain access to the company's accounts.
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein’s Prosecutor General said in November last year that the country had launched a “money-laundering investigation” into Mr Salameh. Most of what we know comes from a leaked request for judicial assistance that Liechtenstein sent in June to the Lebanese judiciary.
According to the document sent by the Liechtenstein Court of First Instance, the investigation is specifically looking into two Liechtenstein-based companies — Crossland Ltd and its sole shareholder, a trust company called Salamandur Trust — on suspicion of money laundering. The companies’ ownership is unknown, as trusts in Liechtenstein are not required to disclose public information about their shareholders. But a report in 2020 by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Daraj, an Arabic media platform, claimed the companies were linked to Mr Salameh.
The report revealed that Crossland, registered in Panama as Crossland Assets before moving to Liechtenstein in 2018, bought stakes in Crossbridge capital, a London wealth management firm where the governor’s son, Nady Salameh, used to work. Under Lebanese law, the BDL governor should not engage in any type of activity in a company or any other professional work, whether remunerated or not. After the purchase, Crossbridge Capital then transferred the shares to a subsidiary of Bank Audi, a major Lebanese bank, in 2016. The alleged transaction between a company tied to the governor and a bank he regulates raised the issue of a conflict of interest, which the involved parties denied.
Luxembourg and Germany
What is known about investigations in Luxembourg and Germany comes from Liechtenstein's request for judicial assistance to Lebanon. According to the letter, the judicial authorities in the two countries started their inquiries after Switzerland began investigating Forry over suspicions that the company “transferred and laundered money through real estate investment” carried out by companies based in Luxembourg and Germany. The investigators are looking into three Luxembourg-based companies controlled by Mr Salameh — BR 209 Invest, Fulwood Invest Sarl and Stockwell Investissement — which have invested in properties worth at least $50 million in Germany and the UK, according to a 2020 OCCRP investigation. In March, the EU's Hague-based criminal justice agency froze €120 million ($124.3 million) of assets belonging to Riad Salameh and members of his family.
The precautionary measure includes five properties in Germany and France, and bank accounts linked to continuing investigations of money laundering. This could be an important step for Lebanon to recover assets, should the investigation reveal them as ill-gotten.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 13-14/2022
Video Pannel From FDD/Iran's Nuclear Proliferation Strategy: U.S. Policy Options
Suzanne Maloney, Mahsa Rouhi, Michael Eisenstadt
December 13, 2022
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/irans-nuclear-proliferation-strategy-us-policy-options
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
*Suzanne Maloney is vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy.
*Mahsa Rouhi is a research fellow with the Center for Strategic Research at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, where she focuses on nuclear policy and security strategy in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on Iran.
*Michael Eisenstadt is the Kahn Fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Military and Security Studies Program.
Brief Analysis
Join us for an expert webcast exploring options for the United States to influence Iranian strategic calculus away from a decision to resume active pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As Iran builds up its stockpile of high-enriched uranium—the culmination of a decades-long effort to become an advanced nuclear threshold state—concerns are growing that it may reconsider its hedging policy and return to active pursuit of nuclear weapons. Domestic unrest and succession preparations by an emboldened leadership further complicate this picture, as do the Ukraine war and great power tensions abroad. In light of this rising challenge, what can the United States do to constrain Tehran’s nuclear aspirations?
To address these questions, The Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual Policy Forum with Suzanne Maloney, Mahsa Rouhi, and Michael Eisenstadt, author of the new Institute study Iran’s Nuclear Hedging Strategy: Shaping the Islamic Republic’s Proliferation Calculus.
*Suzanne Maloney is vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. She has advised both Democratic and Republican administrations on Iran policy.
*Mahsa Rouhi is a research fellow with the Center for Strategic Research at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, where she focuses on nuclear policy and security strategy in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on Iran.
*Michael Eisenstadt is the Kahn Fellow and director of the Military and Security Studies Program at The Washington Institute, focusing on Gulf and Arab-Israel security affairs
.

UK Sanctions Russian Military Commanders, Iranian Businessmen
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 13 December, 2022
Britain on Tuesday said it had sanctioned 12 Russian military commanders implicated in missile strikes on Ukrainian cities as well as Iranian businessmen involved in the production and supply of military drones used in the attacks. On Monday, Ukraine said Russian missiles, artillery and drones had hammered targets in eastern and southern Ukraine. Britain said Iranian-manufactured drones had played a central role in attacks on civilians, citing US information showing Iran has become one of Russia’s top military backers, sending hundreds of drones to Russia. Tehran and Moscow have denied Western accusations that Russia is using Iranian drones to attack targets in Ukraine. "Russian forces’ calculated attacks on cities and innocent civilians in Ukraine will not go unanswered," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said. "The Iranian regime is increasingly isolated in the face of deafening calls for change from its own people and is striking sordid deals with Putin in a desperate attempt to survive."Britain said among those sanctioned were Major General Robert Baranov, believed to be the commander of a unit responsible for programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles.

Iran Imposes Sanctions on British, German Entities, Individuals
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 13 December, 2022 -
Iran imposed on Monday sanctions on the UK’s domestic spy agency (MI5) and military along with British and German political figures. The move comes in response to the “illegal sanctions” imposed on Tehran by Europe, according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani. During a weekly press conference, Kanaani accused the Europeans and British of “intervening in the domestic affairs” of Iran, revealing that the sanctions “are coming into effect today.”Britain and Germany have been particularly vocal in their criticism of Iran's response to almost three months of protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, last September, three days after her arrest by the morality police who accused her of violating Iran's dress code for women. Iran imposed its sanctions on 32 individuals and entities ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels. The ministers issued a statement Monday urging Tehran to cease its destabilizing activities in the form of political, military or financial support, including to non-state actors, in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. “The EU urges Iran to stop all actions or attempts that disrupt or threaten the safety and freedom of navigation in and around maritime routes in the wider Gulf region,” the EU ministers said. Iran’s sanctions list named Ken McCallum, director general of domestic spy agency MI5, and Chief of the Defense Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. Others sanctioned include current and former members of the British parliament and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Several German political figures and companies are also listed. These include Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former head of the Christian Democratic Union party, and Claudia Roth, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Also sanctioned are the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Persian-language division of Radio Free Europe, a sister network of Voice of America. Those sanctioned will not be able to enter Iran, and they will be subject to asset freezes. Last month, Britain and the EU expanded sanctions against Iranian officials and organizations over Iran's protest crackdown. On Friday, Britain announced further sanctions after Iran carried out its first announced execution connected with the protests. Last Thursday, Iran has announced the first execution of a protester, Mohsen Shekari, convicted over the recent anti-government unrest.

Footballer Union ‘Sickened’ as Iranian Player Risks Death Sentence
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 13 December, 2022
The world union of professional footballers FIFPRO said it was "shocked and sickened" by the risk of Iranian footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani being sentenced to death in connection with protests which have shaken the country for three months.  Nasr-Azadani was arrested in the city of Isfahan two days after allegedly taking part in an "armed riot" in which three security agents were killed on September 16, Isfahan's judiciary chief Abdullah Jafari said, quoted Sunday by Iran's ISNA news agency.  Jafari said the 26-year-old had been accused of "rebellion, membership in illegal gangs, collusion to undermine security and therefore assisting in moharabeh" -- or "enmity against God" -- a capital crime in the country. "FIFPRO is shocked and sickened by reports that professional footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani faces execution in Iran after campaigning for women´s rights and basic freedom in his country," the union wrote on its Twitter page late Monday.  "We stand in solidarity with Amir and call for the immediate removal of his punishment." The alarm comes after a global outcry following the execution by Iran in the past days of two young men arrested over the protests. Nasr-Azadani, who played at Under-16 level for the national team, began his football career with Tehran team Rah-Ahan, with whom he played for the first time in Iran's top flight league. The defender briefly played for Tractor SC under former Wales coach John Toshack and is currently at FC Iranjavan Bushehr. Former Iranian international star Ali Karimi, a strong supporter of the protests, backed the footballer in a tweet, saying "Do not execute Amir". The Iranian national team took part in the World Cup in Qatar and staged their own protest by refusing to sing the national anthem in their opening match against England. However, they rolled back to sing the anthem for subsequent matches against Wales and the USA.  Iran is facing protests sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who died after she was arrested by morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women. According to Amnesty International, 11 people have been confirmed to have been sentenced to death over the protests and at least another nine, including Nasr-Azadani, risk being sentenced to death. Iran calls the protests "riots" and says they have been encouraged by its foreign foes. Prominent former international star Voria Ghafouri was arrested in Iran last month after he backed the protests and condemned the crackdown but was later released on bail.


Taming West Bank Chaos Remains a Challenge for Israel
FDD/December 13/2022
Latest Developments
Gunfire killed a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, Jana Zakarna, late on Sunday during a fight that erupted when Israeli special forces entered the West Bank town of Jenin to detain terrorists. Palestinian authorities were quick to blame Israel, which acknowledged that its forces may have shot the teenager by accident and voiced regret. An initial investigation found that she was standing next to a gunman on a rooftop, and an Israeli sharpshooter may have confused the two in the dark.
Expert Analysis
“The alacrity with which Israel is ready to hold itself to account is commendable. Both its prime minister and defense minister offered public statements of remorse over Zakarna’s death. We would hope a U.S. president and defense secretary would do the same concerning a single collateral casualty in a conflict zone. Israeli leaders correctly have advocated for the morality and professionalism of their armed forces, whose overall precision in waging eight months of nearly nightly counterterrorism sweeps in Jenin and nearby Nablus is commendable.
“While the death of an innocent is tragic, the real question that should be asked here is why it hasn’t happened more often, given the tactical challenges facing Israel in the warrens of Jenin and Nablus. The answer is, clearly, the restraint of Israel’s special forces. But by all accounts, the challenges are only getting more acute, with troops facing more intensive gunfire and boobytraps with each raid. This should be no surprise: Jenin and Nablus are relatively small areas of operation, and the terrorists ruling them adapt fast. Israel should continue to assess the security benefits of Operation Breaking the Wave versus the risks posed to friendly forces and civilians.” — Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal
Israel Does Not Deliberately Target Civilians
The incident, which follows the May 11 accidental killing in Jenin of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, coincided with a reporting visit to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip by Virginia Gamba, the United Nations special representative for children and armed conflict. Israel has reportedly briefed Gamba about Operation Breaking the Wave, the West Bank sweep it launched after a string of Palestinian terrorist attacks killed Israeli civilians in the spring. Israel says the Palestinian death toll since has included armed terrorists but also minors — some killed by accident, others actively involved in hostilities.
Palestinian Authority Is Losing Control of the West Bank
The Palestinian Authority has lost control of many parts of the West Bank. Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) now dominate cities such as Jenin and Nablus, aiming to destabilize the Abbas regime. Terrorist activity in the West Bank rose throughout 2022, reaching a peak of 169 incidents just in the month of October. Since the spring, Israeli security forces have arrested more than 2,000 Palestinians and disrupted dozens of attacks.

Biden Administration Refuses to Rule Out Sanctions Relief for Iran

FDD/December 13/2022
When asked last week whether nuclear negotiations with Iran were still ongoing, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We continue to believe that ultimately diplomacy is the most effective way to deal with this, but that’s not where the focus is.” In short, the administration still wants to lift sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limited nuclear concessions, even though the clerical regime is cracking down violently on nationwide protests and helping Russia attack Ukraine. Blinken’s statement explains why the administration has withheld full-throated support for Iran’s protest movement and refrained from working with European allies to restore the UN arms embargo on Iran.
Expert Analysis
“The Biden administration is hedging against the Iranians taking to the streets in favor of an anti-American, terror-sponsoring regime that’s helping Russia attack Ukraine. President Biden should work with allies to restore international sanctions on Iran at the UN Security Council and articulate a clear U.S. policy in support of the Iranian people’s desire to bring down the regime that has oppressed them for 40 years.” – Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
Nuclear Deal Would Subsidize Russian Attacks on Ukraine, Violence against Women
The Biden administration has yet to formally withdraw its offer of sanctions relief for the Islamic Republic. The deal on the table would provide the regime with $274 billion of relief in its first year and $1 trillion by 2030. The agreement would also lift U.S. sanctions on the top financiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — the U.S.-designated terrorist organization responsible for cracking down on Iranian protesters and supplying Russia with drones to attack Ukraine. These financiers include the Central Bank of Iran and the National Iranian Oil Company, both of which funnel billions of dollars to the IRGC.
UN Snapback Would Help Iranian Protesters and Ukraine
Pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the international arms embargo on Iran expired in 2020, and a missile embargo will expire next October. The resolution, however, came with a provision to restore all UN sanctions if Iran exceeded the nuclear limits set by the deal. Iran’s continued nuclear escalation makes this “snapback” mechanism available at any time. If the United States worked with Britain, France, or Germany to trigger this “snapback,” which neither Russia nor China could prevent, the regime in Tehran would find itself further politically isolated, while its financial sector could enter freefall as the market rules out the possibility of U.S. sanctions relief.

Russia rejects Zelenskiy call for troop pullout, saying Ukraine must accept 'realities'
LONDON (Reuters)/December 13, 2022
-Russia on Tuesday dismissed a peace proposal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that would involve a pullout of Russian troops, saying Kyiv needed to accept new territorial "realities". Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said those realities included Russia's addition of four Ukrainian regions as its "new subjects" - annexations it proclaimed in September but which most countries of the United Nations have condemned as illegal. He was responding to a request by Zelenskiy to leaders from Group of Seven powers on Monday for more military equipment, support for financial and energy stability, and backing for a peace solution that would start with Russia withdrawing troops from Ukraine, beginning this Christmas. "These are three steps towards a continuation of hostilities," Peskov said. "The Ukrainian side needs to take into account the realities that have developed during this time," he added when asked about the proposed Russian troop withdrawal. "And these realities indicate that new subjects have appeared in the Russian Federation. They appeared as a result of referendums that took place in these territories. Without taking these new realities into account, no kind of progress is possible."There could be "no question" of Russia starting to pull out its troops by the end of the year, he said. Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed as illegal shams the "referendums" that Peskov referred to in four regions of south and eastern Ukraine that Russia partly occupies, saying they were conducted at gunpoint. Since the annexations, Russia has lost significant ground in the south and east of Ukraine and has spoken more frequently of its willingness to hold peace talks. But it says it does not see Ukraine and the West, which is supplying Kyiv with weapons, as ready to negotiate. Moscow has rejected charges that its talk of diplomacy is an attempt to buy time to allow its depleted forces to regroup after nearly 10 months of war and a series of defeats and retreats. Ukraine says Russia must halt its attacks and withdraw from all territory it has occupied, and Zelenskiy urged G7 leaders on Monday to back his idea of convening a special Global Peace Summit. The summit would be focused on the implementation of Kyiv's 10-point peace plan that insists on, among other things, Russia's withdrawal of all its troops from Ukraine and no territorial concessions on Kyiv's part. "No matter what the aggressor intends to do, when the world is truly united, it is then the world, not the aggressor that determines how events develop," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Monday.

Russian gas chemical projects face delays after foreign partners exit -cbank

MOSCOW (Reuters)/December 13, 2022
Russian gas chemical gas projects, led by energy giant Gazprom and privately held Sibur, are facing delays over decreased foreign involvement, a December report by the central bank showed. Numerous foreign companies from major economic sectors, from retail to oil and gas industry, left Russia after Moscow had started special military operation in Ukraine in February. "The timing for the implementation of some projects has shifted: the construction of a gas chemical complex in the Amur region due to the postponement of imported equipment supply," central bank said. It said the timing for a complex to processing ethane-containing gas in the Leningrad region also changed "due to exit from the project of a European contractor". The bank did not publish new expected timings for the implementation of the projects, nor reveal the name of foreign companies which had decided not to participate. The Amur Gas Chemical Complex, with investments of up to $11 billion, had been initially set to start producing 2.3 million tonnes of polyethylene and 400,000 tonnes of polypropylene per year beginning in 2024-2025. A Sibur official told Russian media in September the company saw the start of operations in 2025-2026 following sanctions. The Gazprom-led project on the Baltic Sea coast is designed to process 45 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year, produce 13 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), 3.6 million tonnes of ethane and up to 1.8 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The first stage of the Ust-Luga complex is set to come on stream in 2024, while the second is to be launched in 2025. Sibur declined comments, Gazprom did not respond to a request for comment. Central bank said investments into oil and gas production rose by 10.9% in January - September. It also said the departure of foreign investors and suspension of oil servicing companies' operations did not have a significant impact on projects implementation in Russia.

Russia has destroyed all efforts to forge better ties since the Cold War by invading Ukraine, NATO chief says
Sinéad Baker/ Business Insider/December 13, 2022
"After the end of the Cold War we established institutions [like the] NATO-Russia Council, when I was prime minister of Norway I remember that President Putin attended NATO summits ... so this was a different time when we worked for a better relationship. Russia has walked away from all of this," he said. The Cold War ended in 1991, and the NATO-Russia Council was founded in 2002, with the aim of working as partners in areas of common interest. Stoltenberg also said the invasion of Ukraine had destroyed relations to the extent that they could not be healed even with an end to the conflict. "Even if the fighting ends, we will not return to some kind of normal, friendly, relationship with Russia. Trust has been destroyed," he said. Russia's invasion has been widely condemned by the West and by many other countries around the world, leaving it the most isolated it has been in decades. The war has also ramped up military and political tensions between Russia and NATO specifically. Russia's President Vladimir Putin partly justified his invasion, which he launched in February, by saying that he was worried NATO was expanding eastwards, including into Ukraine. Ironically, the invasion has only led to NATO's likely expansion closer to Russia: Sweden and Russia neighbor Finland applied to join the alliance in light of the invasion, and are now in the final stages of the process. Ukraine also applied to join the alliance in September. While this could take years, NATO has repeatedly said that it supports Ukraine joining one day, when it meets the criteria. Stoltenberg said last month that NATO will continue to support Ukraine for "as long as it takes".Officials and leaders in eastern European NATO member countries told Insider earlier this year that they felt many Western nations had been too confident in the past in believing they could trust Russia and change it through diplomacy and dialogue.

Germany to pledge additional 50 million euros in winter aid for Ukraine
BERLIN (Reuters)December 13, 2022.
- Germany will approve another 50 million euros ($52.68 million) in winter aid for Ukraine in response to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure there, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at a donors' conference in Paris on Tuesday. This comes on top of 160 million euros already pledged by Berlin at a conference in Bucharest earlier in the year. Baerbock said Germany was working to deliver generators, blankets and heating fuel to Ukraine over Christmas, as Russia's pummelling of power facilities causes power shortages in many parts of the country. The Russian president wants to break the people of Ukraine "and we will not allow this," the German minister told reporters. Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February, has increased attacks on energy facilities in recent weeks, saying strikes on vital infrastructure are militarily legitimate. Ukraine says attacks intended to cause civilian misery are a war crime. ($1 = 0.9491 euros)

Ukraine Energy Minister: World Must Rethink Nuclear Safety
Asharq Al-Awsat/December, 13/2022
The world must "rethink nuclear safety" after Russia's seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, Ukrainian energy minister German Galushchenko told AFP ahead of a Tuesday conference in Paris. The international gathering hosted by France aims to raise funds to repair Ukraine's damaged infrastructure as well as highlight the country's support for Kyiv in its fight against Russia, AFP said. With at least 40 percent of Ukraine's energy infrastructure demolished in the past two months, Galushchenko will join the conference to ask for materials and funds to get Ukrainians through the winter.
Speaking to AFP on Monday, he said Russia's war in Ukraine "completely changes our understanding of nuclear security", pointing to the capture of the Zaporizhzhia plant as a turning point. The nuclear plant, located in Ukraine's east, was seized by Russian troops in March, and shelling has continued around the site. Despite Western powers and the UN atomic energy agency raising the alarm over safety at the plant -- which has six nuclear reactors -- talks aimed at demilitarizing the area have stalled. "Nobody expected that someone could capture a nuclear plant... This situation absolutely pushes us to rethink what we should do from the point of view of safety," Galushchenko told AFP. He added that Russia's seizure of a nuclear plant "destroyed" any semblance of a safety net provided by agreements established by Western countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "That's a question, too, to all the countries of the world," he said. "It's not only a Ukrainian issue of nuclear safety. It means that any missiles which could fly, let's say, up to 2,000 kilometres, could reach any nuclear reactor."
'Crazy game'
Since Zaporizhzhia's capture, Galushchenko said Moscow's forces have continued shelling power lines connecting the plant to Ukraine's energy grid. The power plant has gone into blackout mode "five times", he added. His main worry is that a nuclear power plant needs a constant power supply to cool the fuel. If it gets disconnected, it could be a "classic Fukushima scenario", Galushchenko said, referring to the 2011 disaster in Japan. "They shell Ukrainians lines, destroy the lines, then the station starts on diesel generators and it means you are one step ahead of an accident," he said. But even after the power lines have been repaired and the electricity supply to the plant resumed, the worrying process begins once more with the start of fresh shelling, Galuschenko said. "This is a crazy game around nuclear security," he said. Since October, Russia has switched tactics and begun airstrikes targeting Ukraine's energy network -- plunging millions into cold and darkness at the onset of winter. The conference in France will focus on ways in which Ukraine's Western allies can provide immediate support to keep the country's civil infrastructure functioning amid incessant bombing. Ukraine is dependent on nuclear power for more than 50 percent of its electricity. Despite the alarm over Zaporizhzhia's situation, the country has no intention of giving up its use of nuclear power, Galushchenko said. "But we need to think on military threats and that is absolutely new -- not even for us, but also as the world, this is something we should think about together," he told AFP.

Bombing of Putin’s Most Feared Fighters Infuriates Russia
Allison Quinn/The Daily Beast/December 13, 2022
The Russian mercenaries hailed by their leader as the most skilled and experienced soldiers in the war against Ukraine have gotten themselves blown up over the weekend. Pro-Kremlin Russian media channels were the first to reveal the strike Sunday on a hotel in the occupied Luhansk region, furiously noting that “the enemy used HIMARS to hit the hotel in Kadiivka where Wagner fighters were located.”Photos showed the building, a hotel called “Zhdanov’s Guest House,” blown to smithereens, though no details were immediately given on how many Wagner fighters were killed. Russian state-run media was largely mum on the whole affair (with the exception of a Kremlin-friendly tabloid saying the site had been targeted because the U.S. knew Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin frequented the private army’s headquarters there.) Ukrainian authorities say the Russian military is “carefully concealing” its losses in the strike. Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, confirmed the strike and quipped on Telegram that “many” Wagner mercenaries would undoubtedly be absent for their next roll call. On Tuesday, Haidai issued a statement saying “hundreds” of Wagnerites have been killed before reaching the frontline in the last week and a half, either by “‘explosions’ caused by smoking in their headquarters or their barracks.”Meanwhile, Bild reported Tuesday that a selfie taken in front of the hotel in Kadiivka may have alerted Ukraine’s military to the Wagner fighters’ whereabouts and sealed their fate. Russian media channels circulated the photo, speculating that the Russian soldier shown grinning in front of “Zhdanov’s Guest House” was none other than Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the Wagner founder, who previously said his son was serving in the ranks of the private army. It was not immediately clear when the selfie was taken, and Prigozhin himself denied that his son had been impacted by the HIMARS strike. The Daily Beast has not independently verified the authenticity of the photo and its potential links to the bombing.“Don’t worry, my son is fine,” the Putin-friendly businessman said in a statement Sunday.

U.S. close to providing Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine -officials
Reuters/Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart/December 13, 2022
The United States is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, a decision that could be announced as soon as this week, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday. Ukraine has asked its Western partners for air defenses, including U.S.-made Patriot systems, to protect it from heavy Russian missile bombardment including against its energy infrastructure. Ground-based air defense systems such as Raytheon Technology Corp's Patriot are built to intercept incoming missiles. The Patriot is considered to be one of the most advanced U.S. air defense systems and is usually in short supply, with allies around the world vying for it. "It's very, very significant," said Alexander Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who led Ukraine policy at the White House during the Trump administration. "These are going to be quite capable of dealing with a lot of different challenges the Ukrainians have, especially if the Russians bring in short-range ballistic missiles" from Iran. Two of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the announcement could come as early as Thursday but was awaiting formal approval from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and President Joe Biden. The Pentagon declined comment on reports about the Patriot system at a news briefing. One of the officials said Ukrainian forces would likely be trained in Germany before the Patriot equipment was sent to Ukraine. Vindman said the training could take several months. Details such as the version of the Patriot missile defense system, its range or how many units would be sent were not immediately available. It was unclear if the United States would limit how the Ukrainians employ the Patriot system. Washington has restricted use of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers to targets inside Ukraine.
RUSSIAN WARNING
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned NATO against providing Ukraine with Patriot missile defenses, and it is likely Moscow will view the move as an escalation. The Pentagon says Russia's recent surge in missile strikes in Ukraine is partly designed to exhaust Kyiv's supplies of air defenses so it can dominate the skies above the country. For that reason, the United States and its allies have been delivering more air defenses for Kyiv, providing everything from Soviet-era systems to more modern, Western ones. For the United States, this has included NASAMS air defense systems that the Pentagon says have flawlessly intercepted Russian missiles in Ukraine. U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly raised the possibility of NATO allies sending Patriot systems to Ukraine in October. The Patriot system is usually used against more advanced threats including aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles and typically includes launchers along with radar and other support vehicles. The United States has provided Ukraine with $19.3 billion in military assistance since Russia's invasion of Ukraine started on Feb. 24.

The UK defense chief read out the numbers on Russia's war losses, and they're bleak
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/December 13, 2022
Ben Wallace, the UK's defense chief, unveiled the latest figures on Russian military losses.
He said in an update that over 100,000 soldiers are either "dead, injured, or have deserted."
Additionally, Moscow has lost mountains of armored vehicles, aircraft, and artillery systems.
After nearly 10 months of war in Ukraine, the UK's defense chief revealed this week a bleak set of figures on Russian military losses. "We can say that we estimate over 100,000 Russians are either dead, injured, or have deserted," UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Monday as he delivered updates on the war to London's House of Commons. This figure reflects a similar estimate from top US Gen. Mark Milley, who said in early November that over 100,000 Russian soldiers had been "killed and wounded" since Moscow launched its large-scale invasion on February 24. At the time, he noted that Ukraine's military has "probably" seen similar casualties. Additionally, Wallace noted Russia has lost 4,500 armored vehicles, 63 fixed-wing aircraft, 70 helicopters, 150 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 12 naval vessels, and over 600 artillery systems. He did not specify the make and model of each of these weapons systems. According to the open-source intelligence operation Oryx, Russian forces have lost over 8,400 vehicles or pieces of equipment — meaning it was either destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured. Specifically, the country has lost over 1,500 tanks, more than 700 armored fighting vehicles, 160 multiple rocket launchers, and nearly 300 self-propelled artillery systems.  Russian troops abandoned massive amounts of weaponry, ammunition, and equipment during Ukraine's lightning-fast counteroffensive in the country's northeast Kharkiv region. The blitz-style campaign saw Kyiv liberate thousands of square miles of territory earlier in the fall that was previously under Russian occupation. As they quickly fled their positions in the face of the advancing Ukrainians, Russian forces abandoned an overwhelming amount of military equipment. And adding to its many problems, Russia has been rapidly burning through its stockpiles of munitions faster than it can replenish them, forcing it to rely on older, less reliable weapons and ammunition pulled from storage and to turn to pariah states like Iran and North Korea for assistance. Beyond just weapons and personnel, Wallace said that Russia has also "failed to capture a single one of its major objectives from day one," adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin's "three-day war, 'or special operation,' ... turns out to be a disaster for him and his army."His remarks appear to reference Putin's pre-war expectations that Kyiv would fall in a matter of days and the term "special military operation" that the Russian leader has used to avoid calling the conflict what it actually is — a war. Months later, the bloody campaign continues to show no signs of slowing down. The Kremlin rejected a Ukrainian call for Russia to withdraw troops at Christmas. In November, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Department of Defense, said that the Russian military has "suffered a massive strategic failure" in Ukraine, adding that "Russia will emerge from this war weaker than it went in."

Cornered in Ukraine, Putin ditches annual news conference
The Associated Press/December 13/ 2022
President Vladimir Putin has ditched his annual marathon news conference following a series of battlefield setbacks in Ukraine — a tacit acknowledgment that the Russian leader's war has gone badly wrong. Putin typically uses the year-end ritual to polish his image, answering a wide range of questions on domestic and foreign policy to demonstrate his grip on details and give the semblance of openness even though the event is tightly stage-managed. But this year, with his troops on the back foot in Ukraine, it could be impossible to avoid uncomfortable questions about the Russian military's blunders even at a highly choreographed event. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Monday that Putin wouldn’t hold the news conference this month without explaining why. “Although questions are almost certainly usually vetted in advance, the cancellation is likely due to increasing concerns about the prevalence of anti-war feeling in Russia,” the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote in a commentary on Twitter. “Kremlin officials are almost certainly extremely sensitive about the possibility that any event attended by Putin could be hijacked by unsanctioned discussion about the ‘special military operation,'” it said, using Moscow's term for the war. Some of his previous performances lasted for more than 4 1/2 hours, during which he has sometimes faced some pointed questions, but used them to mock the West or denigrate his domestic opponents. Putin also has canceled another annual fixture this year, a televised call-in show in which he takes questions from the public to nurture his father-of-the-nation image. And he has so far failed to deliver the annual televised state-of-the-nation address to parliament, a constitutional obligation. No date has been set for Putin’s address. The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its invasion of Ukraine from the liberal anti-war camp, shutting independent media outlets and criminalizing the spread of any information that differs from the official view — including calling the campaign a war. But it has faced an increasingly vocal criticism from Russian hardliners, who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for ramping up strikes on Ukraine.
Political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said in a video commentary that the decision not to hold the news conference was likely because Putin “has nothing to say from the point of view of strategy.”Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, claiming Moscow was forced to “demilitarize” the country in the face of NATO's refusal to offer Russia guarantees that Ukraine wouldn't be invited to join the alliance. Ukraine and much of the world denounced the Russian attack on its neighbor as an unprovoked act of aggression. Putin and his officials hoped to rout the Ukrainian military in a few days, but a fierce Ukrainian resistance — bolstered by Western weapons — quickly derailed those plans. After a botched attempt to quickly capture the Ukrainian capital, the Russian troops pulled back from areas around Kyiv in March. In September, Ukraine won back large swaths of land in the northeastern Kharkiv region, and last month it reclaimed control of the strategic southern port city of Kherson. A mobilization of 300,000 reservists that Putin ordered in September so far has failed to reverse battlefield fortunes for Russia. The mobilization order has prompted hundreds of thousands of Russians to flee abroad to avoid recruitment, and those who have been called up reported glaring shortages of key equipment and supplies. In a rare acknowledgement last week that the war in Ukraine is taking longer than he anticipated, Putin acknowledged that wrapping up the campaign could be a “lengthy process.” At the same time, he continued to claim that it was going according to plan and would achieve its goals. Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political expert, noted that Putin's decision to ditch the news conference and his failure so far to deliver the state-of-the-nation address reflected his hesitancy about the future course of action. “Shall we forge ahead and defeat the enemy?" he wrote, reflecting hardliners’ calls for ramping up missile strikes on Ukraine. “Or on the contrary, shall we prepare for a difficult but necessary compromise?”

Netanyahu ally chosen as new Israel parliament speaker
Associated Press/December 13, 2022
Israel's parliament elected a close ally of prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu as its new speaker Tuesday to oversee the passage of legislation that will help his formation of a government. Yariv Levin, a senior member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, was chosen as speaker to replace Mickey Levy from outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party. Levin may not be speaker for long, with some Israeli political pundits forecasting he will be tapped for a prominent cabinet role in Netanyahu's new coalition, which is expected to be the most right-wing in Israeli history. But before that government can be formed, parliament must first pass a measure allowing one of Netanyahu's most powerful allies, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader Aryeh Deri, to serve in cabinet despite past convictions for tax evasion. Deri, who heads the Shas party, has been promised the interior and health ministries in the incoming Netanyahu government. But the attorney general has ruled that under current law, his convictions bar him from serving in cabinet. Levin is expected to move quickly to pass legislation removing that barrier. In a general election last month, Netanyahu and his allies won 64 of parliament's 120 seats, giving them the opportunity to form a majority government after an unprecedented period of political gridlock that forced five elections in less than four years. But Netanyahu's coalition talks have proved complicated, with controversial far-right leaders demanding sensitive posts. Last week, President Isaac Herzog gave Netanyahu an extension to conclude his coalition negotiations.

Netanyahu promises to govern for all Israelis amid rise of religious nationalists
Dan Williams/Reuters/December 13, 2022
Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Tuesday to govern in the interests of all Israelis, as religious-nationalist parties slated to join his new coalition pressed ahead with contested legislation. One bill submitted for preliminary parliamentary review could potentially grant Defence Ministry powers to far-right politician Bezalel Smotrich to encourage Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians seek statehood. Other bills would consolidate cabinet authority over police for fellow ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, and enable ultra-Orthodox Jewish politician Arieh Deri to serve as finance minister despite his having been convicted of tax fraud. Netanyahu's conservative Likud party placed first in the Nov. 1 election. He is courting the religious-nationalists after being shunned by some mainstream parties over his ongoing trial for corruption. "We were elected to lead in our way, the way of the nationalist-right and the way of the liberal-right, and so shall we do," he told the Knesset, to heckling from centre-left lawmakers. The prospective new government has stirred concern at home and abroad for the future of Israel's secular values, frayed ethnic relations and stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.
'STATUS QUO'
But Netanyahu - who has already held top office for a record 15 years - said that, under his watch, "everyone will live in accordance with their own faith. This will not become a nation of religious law. It will be a country in which we tend to all citizens of Israel, without exception."
"We will preserve the status quo," Netanyahu said, using a term that has been applied both to freedom of worship in Israel and to the management of access to a contested Jerusalem holy site that has at times ignited violence with the Palestinians. The site houses Al Aqsa, a major mosque. It is also the most sacred site for Jews, as vestige of their two ancient temples, but Jewish prayer is barred there under an Israeli pact with Muslim authorities. Ben-Gvir has called for that ban to end. ‮B‬en-Gvir and Smotrich were among 40 lawmakers - a third of parliament - who signed a petition calling on outgoing Defence Minister Benny Gantz to end the detention without trial of two West Bank settlers suspected of militant ties, saying they had been denied due process of law. Gantz on Tuesday rejected the petition, calling it a "tailwind for terrorism". Israel also holds 835 Palestinians under so-called "administrative detention", Palestinians say. Outgoing centrist Prime Minister Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu, 73, of posing a threat to Israeli democracy. "Netanyahu is weak, terrified of his trial. People who are younger than him - more extremist and determined than him - have taken over," Lapid told the Knesset. Netanyahu has until Dec. 21 to finalise a government. Otherwise it could mean another election.

Iraq Receives $8 Mn from UN Compensation Commission After Full Payment to Kuwait
Kuwait - Merza al-Khuwaldi/Asharq Al Awsat/December 13/2022
The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) received the remaining sum from the UN Compensation Fund after paying all compensations to Kuwait relating to the invasion of Kuwait during the rule of late President Saddam Hussein in 1990. In a statement, CBI said it received $7.9 million, the remaining money in the compensation fund, after delivering the last instalment of Kuwait's compensations. It explained that the amount was returned to Iraq after auditing the accounts, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2621 (2022) concerned with completing the compensation file resulting from the invasion. Iraq announced in 2021 that it had terminated all necessary banking arrangements with the US Federal Reserve Bank to stop the automatic deduction of Kuwait's compensation from the revenues of Iraqi crude oil exports after paying the remaining amount of payment. The UN Compensation Commission (UNCC) was formed in 1991, the same year the US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The Commission was tasked with paying $52.4 billion to Kuwaiti individuals, companies, government agencies, and other organizations that suffered losses due to the war. Compensation funds come from a tax imposed on sales of Iraqi oil and its products. Iraq paid the last compensation in February. In total, Iraq paid around $52 billion. The Security Council later announced the end of the mandate of the Compensation Commission. Chairman of the UN Compensation Commission, Michael Jaffe, said that 2.7 million claims had been submitted seeking compensation of $352 billion, explaining that a total of $52.4 billion was awarded to 1.5 million claimants, and the final payment from the Commission was on January 13, 2022. It represents approximately 15 percent of the total amounts claimed and reflects the comprehensive review conducted by the Commission. The most significant single claim approved by the Commission was compensation to the Petroleum Corporation, estimated at $14.7 billion, after Iraqi forces set fire to oil wells as they left Kuwait.

1 bn euros pledged for Ukraine at Paris aid conference
Associated Press/December 13/2022
Countries gathered at an aid conference for Ukraine in Paris have pledged aid worth around one billion euros to help the war-hit country this winter, France's foreign minister said on Tuesday. Catherine Colonna said these were "new commitments, thanks to the holding of this conference. It is aid, or gifts in kind. It is not loans." She said the aid would be "rolled out in the next days and during the months of winter which will help strengthen the resilience of civilian infrastructure."Almost half of the aid -- around 400 million -- is for the Ukraine energy sector which is buckling under a wave of Russian air strikes. "We cannot leave them (Ukrainians) alone faced with winter, faced with their aggressor which is seeking to inflict difficulties on them," she told a press conference. Colonna also confirmed the launching of a new platform to coordinate civil aid for Ukraine, enabling donors to see Ukraine's needs and pledges from other countries. The new so-called "Paris Mechanism" will be a real-time platform, managed by the European Commission. "For us in Ukraine, this is a very powerful signal," Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told reporters. "It shows that the whole of the civilized world is supporting Ukraine," he added. Colonna underlined that Tuesday's conference was attended by Bahrein, Cambodia, Qatar, India, Indonesia and Turkey among others. "You rarely see these countries in international conferences for Ukraine," she told reporters.

EU agrees to give Bosnia candidate status
Agence France Presse/December 13/2022
EU countries agreed Tuesday to grant Bosnia "candidate status" to join the union, diplomats told AFP, putting the volatile Balkan nation at the start of a long road to membership. Russia's war on Ukraine has breathed fresh life into the European Union's willingness to consider letting in more of its eastern neighbors after years at a standstill. The EU is concerned that other powers, such as Russia or China, might spread their influence into the Balkans if countries hopeful of joining the bloc are thwarted. European affairs ministers meeting in Brussels gave the green light to Bosnia becoming a candidate after the bloc's executive arm in October recommended that they launch the membership process. The step is expected to be signed off formally by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels on Thursday. The move comes despite long-standing concerns over the political situation in Bosnia, a country of three million people burdened with ethnic divisions since its devastating war three decades ago. It remains partitioned between a Serb entity and a Muslim-Croat federation connected by a weak central government. It has a dysfunctional administrative system created by the 1995 Dayton Agreement that succeeded in ending the conflict in the 1990s, but largely failed in providing a framework for the country's political development. The EU's executive branch, the European Commission, has laid out 14 priorities for reform that it insists Bosnia must make good on before it can move on to the next stage of opening formal accession negotiations. EU enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi has told Bosnia it is now at "a crucial juncture" on its path to the bloc. Bosnian politicians insist it is high time that the country be granted candidate status. "It is time for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina to receive a positive message from the European Union," Denis Becirovic, the Bosnian member of the country's tripartite presidency, said last week. "But of course, that will only be the beginning of the real work."A stand-off has seen Bosnia's Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, block state institutions and cause "virtual paralysis" in the reform process, the EU has said. There are also concerns over calls by Serb leaders for closer ties with Russia and the entity's nationalist president Milorad Dodik has vowed to stall the push towards the EU if it means more centralization of power in Bosnia. Bosnia will join seven other nations with candidate status: Turkey, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. The process to join the European Union can take many years as candidates implement reforms that have to be rigorously evaluated by Brussels. It can also grind to a halt, which is the case with Turkey's bid. Ukraine and Moldova were the most recent countries to be made candidates when they were given the status in June, four months after Russia unleashed its war on Kyiv. Kosovo has announced its intention to apply for membership before the end of the year.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 13-14/2022
The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple the Ayatollah Martes,
Karim Sadjadpour/The New York Times/December 13/2022
The protests in Iran now in their third month are a historic battle pitting two powerful and irreconcilable forces: a predominantly young and modern population, proud of their 2,500-year-old civilization and desperate for change, versus an aging and isolated theocratic regime, committed to preserving its power and steeped in 43 years of brutality.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the only ruler many protesters have known, seems to be facing a version of the dictator’s dilemma: If he doesn’t offer his people the prospect for change the protests will continue, but if he does, he risks appearing weak and emboldening protesters.
The protests were set off by the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, after she was detained by the morality police for allegedly improper hijab. Although Iranian opposition to the regime is unarmed, unorganized and leaderless, the protests continue despite a violent crackdown by the regime. More than 18,000 protesters have been arrested, more than 475 have been killed and 11 people have been sentenced to death so far. On Thursday, a 23-year-old man, Mohsen Shekari, who was arrested during the protests, was hanged.
However the protests are resolved, they seem to have already changed the relationship between Iranian state and society. Defying the hijab law is still a criminal offense, but women throughout Iran, especially in Tehran, increasingly refuse to cover their hair. Videos of young Iranians flipping turbans off the heads of unsuspecting Shiite clerics are popular on social media.
Symbols of the government are routinely defaced and set on fire, including, according to social media reports, the ancestral home of the revolution’s father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Laborers, bazaar merchants and petrochemical workers have gone on intermittent strikes, reminiscent of the tactics that helped topple Iran’s monarchy in 1979.
The ideological principles of Ayatollah Khamenei and his followers are “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” and insistence on hijab. Mr. Khamenei’s ruling philosophy has been shaped and reinforced by three notable authoritarian collapses: The 1979 fall of Iran’s monarchy, the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Arab uprisings of 2011. His takeaway from each of these events has been to never compromise under pressure, and never compromise on principles. Whenever Mr. Khamenei has faced a fork in the road between reform and repression, he has always doubled down on repression.
The rigidity of Iran’s hard-liners is driven not only by ideological conviction, but also by a keen understanding of the interplay between the rulers and the ruled. As Alexis de Tocqueville put it, “The most perilous moment for a bad government is one when it seeks to mend its ways”.
Mr. Khamenei understands that rescinding compulsory hijab will be a gateway to freedom and will be interpreted by many Iranians as an act of vulnerability, not magnanimity. That Iranians will not be placated merely with the freedom of dress, but will be emboldened to demand all the freedoms denied to them in a theocracy — including the freedom to drink, eat, read, love, watch, listen and, above all, say what they want.
There are signs of disarray within the ruling elite. While some officials have suggested the notorious morality police will be abolished, others have suggested this is merely a temporary tactic to restore order. “The collapse of the hijab is the collapse of the flag of the Islamic Republic”, said Hossein Jalali, a clerical ally of Mr. Khamenei and a member of the Cultural Commission of the Iranian Parliament. “Head scarves will return to women’s heads in two weeks”, he declared, and women who refuse to comply could have their bank accounts frozen.
The Iranian regime’s repressive capacity — at least on paper — remains formidable. Ayatollah Khamenei is commander in chief of 190,000 armed personnel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who oversee tens of thousands of basij militants tasked with instilling public fear and morality. Iran’s nonideological conscription army, whose active forces are an estimated 350,000, are unlikely to take part in mass repression, but hopes from protesters that they will join the opposition have so far been in vain.
Until now the political and financial interests of Ayatollah Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards have been intertwined. But persistent protests and chants of “Death to Khamenei” might change that. Would the Iranian security forces want to continue killing Iranians to preserve the rule of an unpopular, ailing octogenarian cleric who is reportedly hoping to bequeath power to Mojtaba Khamenei, his equally unpopular son?
The internal deliberations of Iran’s security services remain a black box. But it is likely that like the Tunisian and Egyptian militaries in 2011 some of them have begun to contemplate whether cutting loose the dictator might preserve their own interests.
The sociologist Charles Kurzman wrote in his seminal book, “The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran”, that the paradox of revolutionary movements is they are not viable until they attract a critical mass of supporters, yet to attract a critical mass of supporters they must be perceived as viable.
The protest movement has not yet reached that tipping point, but there are ample signs that a critical mass of Iranian society has doubts about the regime’s continued viability. “What the people want is regime change, and no return to the past”, said Nasrin Sotoudeh, a renowned human rights attorney and political prisoner who had long called for reform instead of revolution. “And what we can see from the current protests and strikes that are now being initiated is a very real possibility of regime change”.
Like many autocratic regimes, the Islamic Republic has long ruled through fear, but there are growing signs that fear is dissipating. Female athletes and actors have begun to compete and perform without the hijab — a criminal offense that has earned other women double-digit prison sentences — inspiring others to do the same. Political prisoners like Hossein Ronaghi have remained defiant despite imprisonment and torture. Rather than deter protesters their killings often lead to mourning ceremonies­­­­­ that perpetuate the protests.
If the organizing principles that united Iran’s disparate opposition forces in 1979 was anti-imperialism, the organizing principles of today’s socioeconomically and ethnically diverse movement are pluralism and patriotism. The faces of this movement are not ideologues or intellectuals, but athletes, musicians and ordinary people, especially women and ethnic minorities, who have shown uncommon courage. Their slogans are patriotic and progressive — “We will not leave Iran, we will reclaim Iran”, and “Women, Life, Freedom”.
The demands of the current movement are brilliantly distilled in Shervin Hajipour’s song, “Baraye”, or “For”, which has become the anthem of the protests and articulates a “yearning for a normal life” rather than the “forced paradise” of a religious police state.
Senior American and Israeli intelligence officials have recently stated they don’t believe Iran’s protests constitute a serious threat to the regime. But history has repeatedly illustrated that no intelligence service, political science theory, or algorithm can accurately predict the timing and outcome of popular uprisings: The C.I.A. assessed in August 1978, less than six months before the toppling of Iran’s monarchy, that Iran wasn’t even in a “pre-revolutionary situation”.
This is because not even the protagonists themselves — in this case the Iranian people and regime — can anticipate how they will behave as this drama unfolds.
Abbas Amanat, a historian of Iran, observed that one of the keys to Iran’s civilizational longevity, which dates to the Persian Empire of 2,500 years ago, is the power of its culture to co-opt its military invaders. “For nearly two millenniums Persian political culture, and in a broader sense, a repository of Persian civilizational tools, successfully managed to convert Turkic, Arab and Mongolian conquerors”, he told me. “Persian language, myth, historical memories, and time-keeping endured. Iranians persuaded invaders to appreciate a Persian high culture of poetry, food, painting, wine, music, festivals and etiquette”.
When Ayatollah Khomeini acquired power in 1979, he led a cultural revolution that sought to replace Iranian patriotism with a purely Islamic identity. Ayatollah Khamenei continues that tradition today, but he is one of the few remaining true believers. While the Islamic Republic sought to subdue Iranian culture, it is Iranian culture and patriotism that is threatening to undo the Islamic Republic.
Four decades of the Islamic Republic’s hard power will ultimately be defeated by two millennium of Iranian cultural soft power. The question is no longer about whether this will happen, but when. History has taught us that there is an inverse relationship between the courage of an opposition and the resolve of a regime, and authoritarian collapse often goes from inconceivable to inevitable in days.
*Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/the-question-is-no-longer-whether-iranians-will-topple-the-ayatollah/

Elon Musk's Twitter Files Dump
Peter Schweizer/Gatestone Institute/December 13, 2022
It was not "Russian disinformation." Nor was it "unsafe." The executives running Twitter in the 20 days before the 2020 presidential election clearly knew that, and tried to find other justifications for what amounted to raw censorship.
Twitter's bias in censoring or banning conservative accounts for "hate speech" while happily servicing accounts for Iran's "Supreme Leader" and the Taliban is a running joke. In a series of secretly recorded interviews with Twitter employees, Project Veritas had already confirmed that "shadow-banning," manipulating the number of followers shown by certain accounts, and selectively "de-boosting" certain tweets in its algorithms was a well-established, standard manipulation of the platform's stated purpose: "We serve the public conversation. That's why it matters to us that people have a free and safe space to talk."
Kudos to Khanna for his lonely but principled stand for free speech. Taibbi also noted in his thread that Khanna was the only Democratic official to do so.
China's enticements to the Biden family are but one example of this campaign. We learned through this research how insidious and effective the Chinese government has been at co-opting not just the families of senior elected officials, but captains of industry, financial behemoths, and the wealthiest American philanthropists and educational institutions.
The Biden story also showed the ingenuity of corrupt politicians who essentially "outsource" their corruption to family members rather than risk a possible paper trail leading back to themselves. The Bidens, even more than Bill and Hillary Clinton before them, were a family influence business.
We have all learned about other stories of political interference and foot-dragging within the FBI. The public is right to wonder whether federal prosecutors are as serious about pursuing this case as Twitter's Democratic partisans were in squelching it.
Further, President Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland, continues to task the FBI with investigating the January 6, 2021 riots as a deep conspiracy, while simultaneously ignoring what certainly appear to have been well-organized efforts by Antifa to foment violence during the 2020 George Floyd riots, and violence done by pro-abortion organizations after someone on Twitter publicized the home addresses of Supreme Court justices.
For more than two critical weeks, under secret pressure from the Biden campaign and Democrats who were desperate to bury a devastating story that implicated their presidential candidate in his son's corruption by Chinese intelligence-connected businessmen. The Post's story was factually accurate, legitimately reported, and was (belatedly) authenticated by other news outlets. In short, there was no reason to do what Twitter, Roth, and Gadde did, other than pleasing a political party with whom they agreed.
The New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop was no "hack." It was not "Russian disinformation." Nor was it "unsafe." The executives running Twitter in the 20 days before the 2020 presidential election clearly knew that, and tried to find other justifications for what amounted to raw censorship.
Elon Musk's release of internal Twitter correspondence around the censoring of the New York Post's blockbuster "Hunter Biden laptop" story merely confirms what most knew already -- that Twitter under Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal was staffed with Democratic Party partisans who censored information they thought would damage their cause.
In a Tweet thread on Dec. 2, journalist Matt Taibbi exposes the smoking gun -- the frantic attempts to claim without evidence that any reference to the NY Post's story had to be banned from the platform because it might have come from "hacked materials." This, we can see now, was never seriously believed, even inside Twitter, as the email exchanges make clear.
The Post story was no "hack." It was not "Russian disinformation." Nor was it "unsafe." The executives running Twitter in the 20 days before the 2020 presidential election clearly knew that, and tried to find other justifications for what amounted to raw censorship.
With perhaps one hopeful exception, though, there is nothing new about any of this. Twitter's bias in censoring or banning conservative accounts for "hate speech" while happily servicing accounts for Iran's "Supreme Leader" and the Taliban is a running joke. In a series of secretly recorded interviews with Twitter employees, Project Veritas had already confirmed that "shadow-banning," manipulating the number of followers shown by certain accounts, and selectively "de-boosting" certain tweets in its algorithms was a well-established, standard manipulation of the platform's stated purpose: "We serve the public conversation. That's why it matters to us that people have a free and safe space to talk."
Still, Taibbi's disclosures are the paper trail proving these policies were discussed and enforced at the highest levels of the company prior to Musk's purchase. Indeed, the unfairness of these policies was apparently the very reason Musk moved to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Musk has been promising to make these disclosures public since taking over the company, and smartly gave them to Taibbi to vet before doing so.
The "one small exception" was the quiet effort documented in the release by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a very progressive Democrat whose district includes most of Silicon Valley, to appeal to Twitter's then head of legal, policy, and trust, Vijaya Gadde, to respect the principle of the First Amendment. In an email exchange, Khanna gave Gadde a robust defense of free speech (and some sound political advice), all of which fell on her deaf ears. Kudos to Khanna for his lonely but principled stand for free speech. Taibbi also noted in his thread that Khanna was the only Democratic official to do so.
The Post's story, while clearly intended as an "October surprise," still mattered because it substantiated and corroborated earlier reporting done on Hunter Biden's business deals during the time his father served as vice president under President Barack Obama. I provided some of that earlier reporting in two books, Secret Empires in 2018 and more details in Profiles in Corruption in 2020. Both books documented through public records Hunter Biden's dealings with foreign interests connected to Chinese intelligence through his company, Rosemont Seneca BHT, and his time serving without any qualifications on the board of a shady Ukrainian oil-and-gas firm called Burisma.
The researchers at the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) found the paperwork on these deals. We did not, until later, have emails from or sent to Hunter Biden that discussed these facts. We commend the reporting and research team at the New York Post for obtaining this information, performing the forensic examinations necessary to determine its authenticity, and publish the truth.
Of all the corruption stories I have investigated through the years, the web of the Biden family's corruption has been the widest and most complex. Following the money on this story has led me to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Costa Rica, Russia, and most significantly, to Communist China. The Biden family has traded on Joe's influence, with "the Big Guy's" knowledge, in these places and others.
China's enticements to the Biden family, however, are but one example of this campaign. We learned through this research how insidious and effective the Chinese government has been at co-opting not just the families of senior elected officials, but captains of industry, financial behemoths, and the wealthiest American philanthropists and educational institutions. It raised my awareness of how strategic China has been with these kinds of temptations. GAI is continuing to look at how China has corrupted and undermined America in ways both obvious and subtle. Readers can expect to hear more from GAI on this subject in the future.
The Biden story also showed the ingenuity of corrupt politicians who essentially "outsource" their corruption to family members rather than risk a possible paper trail leading back to themselves. The Bidens, even more than Bill and Hillary Clinton before them, were a family influence business. The Post's reporting on those schemes -- in the participants' own words -- was gratifying to those of us who have covered this story since 2017.
But there are still more threads here. When the Post's story first broke, I recall being relieved that the FBI had secured the original computer and its external hard drive belonging to Hunter Biden. The bureau obtained them through a subpoena in January 2020, months before Rudy Giuliani gave a copy of a copy made by the computer shop owner just before he handed both to the FBI.
However, the FBI's Hunter Biden investigation, which is based on information obtained from the laptop and from other sources, still drags on nearly three years later. In the intervening time, we have all learned about other stories of political interference and foot-dragging within the FBI. The public is right to wonder whether federal prosecutors are as serious about pursuing this case as Twitter's Democratic partisans were in squelching it.
Further, President Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland, continues to task the FBI with investigating the January 6, 2021 riots as a deep conspiracy, while simultaneously ignoring what certainly appear to have been well-organized efforts by Antifa to foment violence during the 2020 George Floyd riots, and violence done by pro-abortion organizations after someone on Twitter publicized the home addresses of Supreme Court justices, leading to one attempt on Justice Kavanaugh's life and the fire-bombing or vandalization of several pro-life pregnancy centers.
As an investigative journalist focused on government corruption, I try to stay in my lane. Yet, the impulses we see documented in Taibbi's thread by Twitter's most senior executives have a familiar ring. These are people, slightly removed from the dirty details, who are worried not about "serving the public conversation," as their corporate motto would have it, but ingratiating themselves with a political party and shielding its candidates from criticism. Principle or devotion to free speech abandoned them long ago, to be replaced by the arrogance of dictating what is good for the rest of us to read or not to read.
Yoel Roth resigned as Twitter's head of trust and safety a few weeks after Musk took control of the company. Back in 2020, Roth was instrumental in enforcing Twitter's ban on the Post's original story. In a recent podcast, Roth described the mood at that time this way: "We didn't know what to believe, we didn't know what was true, there was smoke." He explained that the story "set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 'hack and leak campaign' alarm bells." APT28 is another name for the Russian cybercrime group also called "Fancy Bear," which has engaged in disinformation efforts in the past.
Even now, Roth still tries to have it both ways. In the same answer I just quoted from, he also claimed, "ultimately for me, [the story] didn't reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter."
But remove it he did, and for more than two critical weeks, under secret pressure from the Biden campaign and Democrats who were desperate to bury a devastating story that implicated their presidential candidate in his son's corruption by Chinese intelligence-connected businessmen. The Post's story was factually accurate, legitimately reported, and was (belatedly) authenticated by other news outlets. In short, there was no reason to do what Twitter, Roth, and Gadde did, other than pleasing a political party with whom they agreed.
*Peter Schweizer, President of the Governmental Accountability Institute, is a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow and author of the new book, Red Handed: How American Elites are Helping China Win.
© 2022 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.

Saudi Arabia and China’s Strong Ties
Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al Awsat/December 13/2022
The American mind thinks in binaries. After the Cold War had split the globe between the communist and free worlds, George W. Bush split the world into two “camps:” an axis of good and an axis of evil.
Today, President Joe Biden, per the 2022 US Department of Homeland Security Strategy, has split the world into two conflicting blocs: the democratic bloc and the totalitarian bloc. Domestically, opinion on foreign policy views splits in the Democrat Republic dichotomy.
This binary thinking shapes the debate regarding the Saudi summits with China - the bilateral, Gulf, and Arab summits. The debate revolves around whether President Xi Jinping’s visit means that Saudi Arabia and its allies have opted for allying with Beijing as an alternative to Washington. Because this binary gives rise to comparisons, analysts turned their attention to the enthusiastic handshake of the Chinese president and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. Others referred to the famous warm greetings exchanged between Crown Prince Mohammed and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the margins of the 2018 G20 Summit in Argentina. As for the conclusions, many have suggested that the Saudi summits indicate that it has entered the “new Cold War” between China and the US!
The positions Biden made in the lead-up to his visit to Saudi Arabia may have contributed to reinforcing these binary analyses. In a column he wrote for an American newspaper, he explained that his visit was partially intended to be a counterweight to Chinese influence. He then emphasized this point in subsequent statements. “I want to make clear that we can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum, a vacuum that is filled by China and/or Russia, against the interests of both Israel and the United States and many other countries.”
The fact of the matter is that scene in Riyadh and the current political moment, in which confidence in Washington has been undermined, especially in the Biden administration, encourages such hasty conclusions. It makes observers forget that this scene is the outcome of a broad and discontinuous course of events.
Aron David Millar did well to remind us of a 2004 interview between the late Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal and journalist David Ottaway in a recent article for Foreign Policy. Prince Saud al Faisal told him: “The US-Saudi relationship isn’t a Catholic marriage.” Miller then added the conclusion Ottaway drew at the time. “Saudi Arabia was not seeking a divorce from the United States.”
What was true at the time, a year after Saudi Arabia became the largest exporter of oil to China, is true today at a time when China is Saudi Arabia’s leading trade partner. Indeed, the recent summit was between the world’s largest exporter of oil and its largest importer, coming at a sensitive time for this strategic resource. It seems that the two sides are just as aware of the limits of their relationship as they are of the opportunities it presents. Beijing is conscious of the fact that it is neither willing nor able to carry the burden of offering security guarantees in the Middle East, neither to the states of the region nor to its critical corridors or international trade routes. Meanwhile, the Saudis know that there is no comprehensive alternative to the military, security, and strategic relationship with Washington.
Both sides keep these limitations in mind despite their reassurance regarding the model on which their relationship is founded, shared interests and non-interference in one another’s domestic affairs.
Saudi Arabia is well aware of where its interests lie. It knows that there is no alternative to Washington on three matters that go beyond political interest.
1- Whatever form the emerging Saudi-Chinese military relations take, Saudi armament, training, command and control centers, and the administration of the army have been entirely American for nearly 80 years. Moreover, intelligence and security coordination and cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States are crucial for the Kingdom’s security.
2- Saudi Arabia has made massive investments in US Treasury bonds and gold reserves, as well as making sovereign investments in US stock markets.
3- Saudi Arabia, as a regional and global financial, commercial and investment hub, particularly since Vision 2030, depends on integration within the international financial and monetary system, in which Washington has more power and influence than any of its partners and competitors. China is important, as is Washington. Contrary to the expectations of American binary thinking, the Kingdom is not in a position to choose between either of the two countries.
A long Foreign Affairs article explains that Crown Prince Mohammed believes that a fluid geopolitical order made up of a group of interlinked components is emerging. He believes that Saudi Arabia has a right to work with a wide array of partners to invigorate markets and develop political solutions.
This vision resembles the dream of the 1970s Non-Aligned Movement, except here, the common goal is taking every opportunity to further national interests, not giving rise to post-colonial nations. This comes at a time when allies’ confidence in Washington has been undermined around the world, not just in Saudi Arabia. Emanuel Macron’s recent “60 Minutes” interview speaks to this fact. “I do. So my point is just I want us to be allies, I want us to be friends, I want us to be partners. I want to engage with the US but I don’t want to be dependent. And I think this is very important, because just imagine, on your side, would you accept as US citizen to say, ‘My security, my— my future will depend on an election in France?’ No, I cannot imagine.” This is precisely what the leaders of the Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt have been saying… The US is a friend, but it is not the only friend invited to the party.


Talk of ‘Abrahamic’ Religions is an Ecumenical Farce

Raymond Ibrahim/December 13/2022
What if you had a deceased grandfather whom you were particularly fond of, and out of the blue, a stranger says: “Hey, that’s my grandpa!” Then—lest you think this stranger is somehow trying to ingratiate himself with you—he adds: “And everything you thought you knew about grandpa is wrong! Here, let me tell you what he really said and did throughout his life.” The stranger then proceeds to inform you that much of the good things you had long attributed to your grandfather were, not just false, but the exact opposite of what he is now attributing to your grandfather—much of which you find immensely disturbing.
Would that endear this stranger to you? Every proponent of the so-called “Abrahamic Faiths” apparently thinks so.
I will explain, but first let’s define “Abrahamism”: because the patriarch Abraham is an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three religions, according to this position, share a commonality that should bridge gaps and foster growth between them.
Pope Francis is one of the chief proponents of this view. Speaking of his recent participation at an interfaith conference in Bahrain, he said his purpose was to create “fraternal alliances” with Muslims “in the name of our Father Abraham.”
Even so, Abrahamism is hardly limited to octogenarian theologians; it’s entrenched in mainstream American discourse. Thus, even the Huffington Post (rather ludicrously) claims that “Muhammad clearly rejected elitism and racism and demanded that Muslims see their Abrahamic brothers and sisters as equals before God.” In fact, Muhammad and his Allah called for perpetual war on Christians and Jews, until they either embraced Islam or lived in humbled submission to their Muslim conquerors (Koran 9:29).
That, of course, did not stop former Secretary of State John Kerry from beating on a mosque drum and calling Muslims to prayer during his visit to Indonesia—before gushing: “It has been a special honor to visit this remarkable place of worship. We are all bound to one God and the Abrahamic faiths tie us together in love for our fellow man and honor for the same God.”
After a Muslim from an Oklahoma City mosque decapitated a woman, “an official from Washington D.C. flew in to Oklahoma to present a special thank you to the Muslim congregation,” lest they feel too guilty over their coreligionist’s actions. He read them a message from former President Barack Obama: “Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice.”
Needless to say, Obama himself has often spoken of “the shared Abrahamic roots of three of the world’s major religions.”
Meanwhile, few people seem to have given this Abrahamic business much thought: How is one people’s appropriation of another people’s heritage—which is precisely what Abrahamism is all about—supposed to help the two peoples get along?
For starters, Islam does not represent biblical characters the way they are presented in the Bible, the oldest book in existence that mentions them. Christians accept the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, as it is. They do not add, take away, or distort the accounts of the patriarchs that Jews also rely on.
Conversely, while also relying on the figures of the Old and New Testaments—primarily for the weight of antiquity and authority attached to their names—Islam completely recasts them to fit its own agendas.
One need only look to the topic at hand for proof: Abraham.
Jews and Christians focus on different aspects of Abraham—the former see him as their patriarch in the flesh, the latter as their patriarch in faith or in spirit (e.g., Gal 3:6)—but they both rely on the same verbatim account of Abraham as found in Genesis.
In the Muslim account, however, not only does Abraham (Ibrahim) quit his country on God’s promise that he will make him “a great nation” (Gen. 12), but he exemplifies the hate Muslims are obligated to have for all non-Muslims: “You have a good example in Abraham and those who followed him,” Allah informs Muslims in Koran 60:4; “for they said to their people, ‘We disown you and the idols that you worship besides Allah. We renounce you: enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah alone.’”
In fact, Koran 60:4 is the cornerstone verse that all “radical” Muslims—from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State—cite as proof that Muslims “must be hostile to the infidel—even if he is liberal and kind to you” (to quote the revered Sheikh Ibn Taymiyya, The Al-Qaeda Reader, p. 84).
Thus, immediately after quoting 60:4, Osama bin Laden once wrote:
So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility, and an internal hate from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [a dhimmi], or if the Muslims are [at that point in time] weak and incapable [of spreading sharia law to the world]. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the hearts, this is great apostasy [The Al-Qaeda Reader, p. 43].
Such is the mutilation Patriarch Abraham has undergone in Islam. Not only is he not a source of commonality between Muslims on the one hand and Jews and Christians on the other; he is the chief figure to justify “enmity and hate … between us until you believe in Allah alone.”
Islam’s appropriation of Abraham has led to other, more concrete problems, of the sort one can expect when a stranger appears and says that the home you live in was actually bequeathed to him by your supposedly “shared” grandfather. Although the Jews claimed the Holy Land as their birthright for well over a millennium before Muhammad and Islam came along, Jerusalem is now special to Muslims partially because they also claim Abraham and other biblical figures.
As a result, statements like the following from mainline Christian groups such as the Presbyterian Church USA are common: “[PCUSA] strongly condemns the U.S. President’s [Trump’s] decision to single out Jerusalem as a Jewish capital. Jerusalem is the spiritual heart of three Abrahamic faiths …”
The Muslim appropriation and mutilation of revered biblical figures is a source of problems, not solutions. When, as another example, Islam’s Jesus—Isa—returns, he will smash all crosses (because they signify His death and resurrection, which Islam vehemently denies), abrogate the jizya (or dhimmi status, meaning Christians must either become Muslim or die) and slaughter all the pigs to boot. Again, not exactly a great shared source of “commonality” for Christians and Muslims.
It is only the secular mindset, which cannot comprehend beyond the surface fact that three religions claim the same figures—and so they must all eventually “be friends”—that does not and never will get it. All the more shame, then, that supposed Christian leaders, such as Pope Francis, rely on such “logic.”
https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/12/13/talk-of-abrahamic-religions-is-an-ecumenical-farce/