English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 08/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
The Holy Saturday/Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 27/62-66/:"The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, "After three days I will rise again."Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, "He has been raised from the dead", and the last deception would be worse than the first.’Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone."

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 07-08/2023
Calm returns to southern Lebanon after Israeli bombing
Lebanon: Army Finds Rocket Launcher in Marjayoun
Agence France Presse/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Lebanon files UN complaint over Israeli bombardment
Lebanon dismantles loaded rocket launcher primed to fire at Israel
Israel bombards Lebanon, Gaza after rocket fire from both
UK's Foreign Secretary condemns rocket attacks from Lebanon's South
France says supports Israel's 'security' and Lebanon's 'sovereignty'
Israeli shelling of south Lebanon causes damage, kills livestock
Israeli airstrikes target area in Lebanon's Tyre region
Lebanon caught in the crossfire: Rockets launched and questions unanswered
Scattered danger: The ongoing threat of landmines and cluster bombs in Lebanon
Lebanon's electricity sector regulator: Appointment delayed by twelve years
French judiciary indicts Marwan Kheireddine with embezzlement and corruption
French Judiciary Summons Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor for Interrogation in Paris
UN Concerned over Life of Investigating Judge in Beirut Port Blast
Ibrahim Murad, President Of The Lebanese Syriac Union Party: Iran Is Occupying Lebanon By Means Of Hizbullah; Bashar Al-Assad Is Merely An 'Employee' Of Russia And Iran
Former Lebanese MP Dr. Mustapha Allouch: There Should Be No Armed Factions in Lebanon Besides the Lebanese Army; Hizbullah’s Actions Constitute Terrorism
Lebanese Social Media Reactions to Rocket Strikes on Israel/Erik Yavorsky, Faris Almaari/The Washington Institute/Apr 07/2023
Israel, Lebanon's Hezbollah agree to avoid confrontation, but for how long?/Ben Caspit/Al Monitor/April 07/2023

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 07-08/2023
Israel Reinforces Troops after Violence along Lebanon, Gaza Borders
Israeli authorities say attack kills one, wounds 6 in Tel Aviv
Two Israelis killed, third in critical condition in West Bank attack
Two Killed during West Bank Shooting Attack
CIA director visited Saudi Arabia, aired 'frustration' over Iran, Syria thaw
ISIS Kills 9 Members of Liwaa al-Quds in Less than 72 hours in Syrian Desert
French Top Diplomat in Rare Meeting with Iran Counterpart in Beijing
Rapper Held in Iran Protests Needs 'Urgent' Treatment
Protected Iran critic speaks at sentence in plot against her
US sanction officials plan missions to clamp down on Russia
US official says coalition can communicate effectively with China on Russia sanctions
Russia warns West: we may work around the Black Sea grain deal
While America burns, Xi Jinping’s plot to dominate the world is quietly succeeding
Georgia's former president says he's dying in prison because of Putin, and calls on the US to save his life
President Biden should pardon Trump. It's the right thing to do.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 07-08/2023
The Trump Trials: Changing the Subject/Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/April 07/2023
World Health Day: Health Is Not For All/Dr. Amal Moussa/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
Türkiye: Waiting for Spring/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
The World Needs a Renewal of Commitment to Put People’s Health First/Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
Crisis in the Arab World… And a New Arab Initiative/Saleh ِAl-Qallab/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
What is Easter Sunday?/Got Questions/April, 07/2023
Don’t Throw Good Arab Money After Bad in Syria/Andrew J. Tabler/The Washington Institute/Apr 07/2023
 

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 07-08/2023
Calm returns to southern Lebanon after Israeli bombing
Najia Houssari/Arab News/April 07/2023
BEIRUT: Caution prevailed on both sides of the border between southern Lebanon and Israel on Friday after Israeli airstrikes at dawn, which caused material damage but no reported casualties. Lebanon announced that it has decided to file a complaint with the UN Security Council, protesting Israel’s “flagrant violation of its sovereignty,” and claiming that Israel had contravened Resolution 1701 and threatened the stability of southern Lebanon. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said on Friday that the Israel Defense Forces had informed it that Israeli forces would begin an artillery response to Thursday’s rocket launches from Lebanon. Immediately after, UNIFIL said its personnel heard loud explosions around the city of Tyre. UNIFIL said its Head of Mission and Commander Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, was speaking with the authorities on both sides of the Blue Line — the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel and Lebanon and the Golan Heights.“Our liaison and coordination mechanisms are fully engaged,” it said. “Both sides have said they do not want war.”
At 4 a.m. on Friday, Israeli planes targeted an open area planted with banana trees between the Rashidieh camp for Palestinian refugees and the Maaliyeh plain near the coastal road leading to Naqoura, with three artillery shells.
The Israeli army claimed in a statement that its planes “targeted infrastructure and targets of the Hamas movement in southern Lebanon.”The army also warned that it would not allow Hamas to operate from Lebanon and said that Lebanon would be held responsible for all attacks carried out from its territory.
The Israeli army later announced the end of its attacks in Lebanon, but added that it would continue its attacks against the Gaza Strip.The Litani River Authority in Lebanon announced: “The Israeli attack has directly damaged the facilities of the Qasimiyah irrigation project in the Qlaileh area, which is one of the villages of Tyre, about 95 kilometers from the capital, Beirut. The attack targeted a ferry and part of the Qasimiyah irrigation canal that irrigates the orchards in the Qlaileh area and beyond.”
The strike caused damage to an electrical transformer and some damage to homes and cars.
On Thursday night, the Lebanese anxiously awaited the Israeli response to dozens of rockets fired from Lebanon at the Upper Galilee region. No party claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the finger of blame was pointed at Hamas. The attacks are believed to have been carried out in response to Israeli aggression at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A team of engineering experts specializing in the disposal of shells and explosives from both UNIFIL and the Lebanese army inspected the location of the Israeli attack and found an unexploded missile at the entrance to the Rashidieh camp, near a Lebanese army checkpoint. At the same time, Israel put its front border posts on alert and its air force conducted sporadic reconnaissance sorties, while the Lebanese army and UNIFIL carried out intensive patrols along the border and in villages and towns within UNIFIL’s remit.
The Lebanese army later announced that a rocket launcher was found in the Marjaayoun plain containing several rockets, and that work was underway to dismantle the device.
In a statement, Hamas condemned “blatant Zionist aggression against Lebanon.”
The Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the UN called for urgent action to stop Israel’s aggression.
In meetings with Palestinian resistance factions in Beirut, Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas, took a bullish stance, saying: “These factions will not sit with their arms crossed in the face of Israeli aggression against Al-Aqsa.”Haniyeh added: “We hold the occupation’s government fully responsible for the brutal aggression against the blessed Al-Aqsa and worshippers.”Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had held meetings in the second half of March with leaders of Palestinian factions, including Ziad Al-Nakhala, the leader of Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, and Hamas officials, including Saleh Al-Arouri.
In response to the escalation at the border and Hamas’ use of Lebanese lands, some activists on social media mocked what they described as a “ridiculous play.”Likaa A-Joumhouria, headed by former President Michel Suleiman, said it rejected any notion of “transforming Lebanon into a platform to launch rockets and convey messages” and warned of “the situation’s gravity and impact on Lebanon politically, socially and economically. It also called for authorities to take “the necessary measures to put an end to such security stunts and to identify and punish the perpetrators.”
Former MP Fares Souaid, head of the National Council for Ending Iranian Occupation, said that what happened was “a breach of resolution 1701. It poses a great danger to Lebanon’s sovereignty.”He added: “It is Hezbollah’s friend, Hamas, that escalated the situation” and said that “trying to outsmart Israel gave it a pretext to attack Lebanon and turn it (Lebanon) into a mailbox. This is an indictable crime, turning the Lebanese into sandbags.”Fouad Abou Nader, former leader of the Lebanese Forces, called on Lebanese authorities to arrest Haniyeh and immediately deport him, claiming that he is “a traitor to Lebanon and the Palestinian cause.”He added: “All the activities that Ismail Haniyeh has carried out and continues to carry out have served Netanyahu and united the political scene in Israel.” He emphasized that Lebanon has “paid a heavy price for the Palestinian cause.”

Lebanon: Army Finds Rocket Launcher in Marjayoun
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 07 April, 2023
The Lebanese army found on Friday a deserted rocket launcher in the southern town of Marjayoun that contained several unlaunched rockets. The army leadership said in a statement that efforts are underway to dismantle it. The encounter came following a flare-up in violence and major salvoes of rockets that were fired at northern and southern Israel on Thursday from Lebanon and Israel's military replied at dawn on Friday with strikes in Lebanon near Al-Rashidiya Palestinian refugee camp and Gaza in occupied Palestine.

Agence France Presse/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Lebanon and Israel "said they do not want war," the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Friday. The U.N. peacekeepers -- deployed in southern Lebanon to buffer the two sides -- called on "all parties to cease all actions" on both sides of the border after the Israeli army launched strikes Friday at dawn following the firing of rockets into Israel from Lebanese territory. UNIFIL's Head of Mission and Force Commander, Major General Aroldo Lázaro, is "speaking with authorities on both sides of the Blue Line," a UNIFIL statement said. "Our liaison and coordination mechanisms are fully engaged," Lázaro added, warning that "the actions over the past day are dangerous and risk a serious escalation."

Lebanon files UN complaint over Israeli bombardment
Naharnet/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Following consultations with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib asked Lebanon’s permanent mission to the U.N. to file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council over the dawn Israeli bombardment of areas near the southern city of Tyre. “The deliberate Israeli shelling and aggression at dawn today of areas in south Lebanon represent a flagrant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and a blatant breach of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701,” the Foreign Ministry said. The Israeli attack “threatens the stability that the Lebanese south was enjoying,” the Ministry added.

Lebanon dismantles loaded rocket launcher primed to fire at Israel
Agence France Presse/Friday, 07 April, 2023
The Lebanese Army said Friday it had dismantled a launcher loaded with rockets ready to be fired at Israel, hours after Israel shelled Lebanese territory in response to the biggest rocket salvo since 2006. The dawn bombardment, also targeting the Gaza Strip, was in retaliation for several dozen rockets fired on Thursday at Israel from both Lebanon and the Palestinian territory. A statement by the Lebanese Army said "a rocket launcher was found armed with rockets that had not been fired yet in the Marjayoun plain" near the Israeli border. The army said it had dismantled the multiple rocket launcher which it found abandoned in an olive grove. It published pictures on Twitter of the launcher still loaded with six rockets that had not been fired. On Thursday, the Israeli army said more than 30 rockets had been fired from Lebanese territory into Israel in the largest escalation on the northern border since Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war in 2006. Israel retaliated at dawn Friday with a barrage of fire on the Tyre region. The Israeli army said it "struck targets including terror infrastructures belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in southern Lebanon."It was the first time Israel has confirmed an attack on Lebanese territory since April 2022. Shells hit a field and damaged a house near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh, an area from where rockets were fired at Israel. One shell hit a banana grove in the village of Qlayle, another area from where rockets were fired. "There are no Hezbollah or Palestinian military positions here. The Israeli are unleashing their anger on banana groves," Mohsen Mortada, a resident of Qlayle, told AFP. The Israeli army has blamed Palestinian militants for the rocket fire from Lebanon. "We know for sure it's Palestinian fire," Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said on Thursday. "It could be Hamas, it could be Islamic Jihad." Hezbollah has a good relationship with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh is currently in Lebanon. The latest flare-up of violence comes after Israeli police clashed Wednesday with Palestinians inside Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque -- Islam's third-holiest site.

Israel bombards Lebanon, Gaza after rocket fire from both
Agence France Presse/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip and Lebanon before dawn on Friday, saying it was targeting Palestinian militant group Hamas in retaliation for several dozen rockets fired at Israel from both territories. It was the biggest salvo fired from Lebanon since Israel fought a devastating 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 and the first time Israel has confirmed an attack on Lebanese territory since April 2022. The bombardment was launched around 4 am (0100 GMT), hitting both the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, an Israeli army statement said. The military "struck targets including terror infrastructures belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in southern Lebanon," it said. Explosions were heard by AFP journalists in Lebanon's Tyre region as well as the Gaza Strip, where Israeli air raids had begun before midnight. AFP journalists in the Tyre area said they heard at least three blasts shortly after Friday's bombardment, and a resident of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp said he "heard explosions.""At least two shells fell near the camp," Abu Ahmad told AFP. Tensions have soared between Israel and Palestinians during what is both the Jewish Passover and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, prompting international calls for restraint. The latest flare-up of violence comes after Israeli police clashed Wednesday with Palestinians inside Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque -- Islam's third-holiest site. On Thursday, the Israeli army said more than 30 rockets had been fired from Lebanese territory. The Lebanese army said it had found and dismantled a multiple rocket launcher in an olive grove in the Marjayoun area near the border, still loaded with six rockets primed to fire at Israel. In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said it had hit two tunnels and "two weapon manufacturing sites" belonging to Hamas "as a response to the security violations of Hamas during the last few days."The army said air defenses intercepted 25 rockets, while five hit Israeli territory. The Israeli army said it "will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to operate from within Lebanon and holds the state of Lebanon responsible for every directed fire emanating from its territory."
'A heavy price' Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht blamed Palestinian militants for the rocket fire from Lebanon. "We know for sure it's Palestinian fire," he told reporters. "It could be Hamas, it could be Islamic Jihad."Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Israel's response, tonight and in the future, will exact a heavy price."Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, condemned the "appalling Israeli aggression" and said it "holds the Israeli occupation fully responsible for the consequences." The Palestinian health ministry said "partial damage" was done to the Al-Dorra children's hospital in Gaza City in the overnight strikes, condemning the "unacceptable" act. Hecht said the Israeli army was aware of the Palestinian allegation and looking into it. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which patrols the area along the Israeli border, urged restraint.
"Both sides (Lebanon and Israel) have said they do not want a war," UNIFIL said in a statement. "The actions over the past day are dangerous and risk a serious escalation," it warned. Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, had on Thursday ruled out any "escalation" from Lebanon after the rocket attack. Israeli emergency services reported one man lightly wounded by shrapnel and a woman injured while running to a shelter. Inspecting his damaged office in the town of Shlomi, 46-year-old Shlomi Naaman told AFP: "I heard the siren, I heard the boom, I was in my home, it was very, very scary."
Mosque raid -Israeli riot police had on Wednesday stormed the prayer hall of Al-Aqsa mosque in a pre-dawn raid aiming to dislodge "law-breaking youths and masked agitators" they said had barricaded themselves inside. The violence sparked an exchange of rockets and air strikes with militants in the Gaza Strip. The United States said it recognized "Israel's legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called on "all actors to exercise maximum restraint."
Hamas and Islamic Jihad informed Egypt, a longstanding mediator between Israel and the militant groups, that "the Palestinian factions will continue their rocket fire if Israel continues its aggressions and air strikes but, if these aggressions stop, they will cease fire," Palestinian sources said. The Lebanese foreign ministry called on the international community to "put pressure on Israel to halt its escalation." The rocket fire came a day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Lebanon for a visit.Haniyeh said late Thursday that the Palestinians would not "sit with their arms crossed" in the face of Israeli "aggression" against al-Aqsa.

UK's Foreign Secretary condemns rocket attacks from Lebanon's South
LBCI/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom James Cleverly expressed that the UK has condemned the "indiscriminate rocket attacks from southern Lebanon and Gaza," calling parties across the region to de-escalate tensions. During the statement, in which he recognized "Israel's right to self-defense," he expressed that during the convergence of Passover, Ramadan, and Easter, the UK urged all parties to respect the "historic Status Quo arrangements at Jerusalem's holy sites and cease all provocative action." Foreign Secretary James Cleverly affirmed that the UK supports freedom of religion and belief and calls to respect places of worship. "We value Jordan's important role as custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem and condemn the Israeli police violence at the Al Aqsa Mosque." "When Israeli security forces conduct operations, they must ensure they are proportionate and in accordance with international law. Israel and the Palestinian Authority must take steps to honor the commitments agreed at Sharm el-Sheikh and Aqaba," the statement continued. Cleverly said that peace will be sustainable when Israelis and Palestinians commit to a negotiated settlement, which leads to a two-state solution "of a secure Israel side by side with a viable Palestinian State."

France says supports Israel's 'security' and Lebanon's 'sovereignty'
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Friday, 07 April, 2023
France on Friday vowed "unwavering" support for both "Israel's security and Lebanon's stability and sovereignty," hours after a major border flare-up. Israel unleashed rare airstrikes on Lebanon and bombarded the Gaza Strip late Thursday and early Friday, an escalation that sparked fears of a broader conflict following days of violence over Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. The early morning Israeli strikes followed an unusually large rocket barrage fired at Israel from southern Lebanon — what analysts described as the most serious cross-border violence since Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Israeli strikes seemed designed to avoid drawing in Hezbollah, which Israel considers its most immediate threat. The Israeli military said its warplanes struck infrastructure belonging to Palestinian militants that it accused of firing the nearly three dozen rockets that slammed into open areas and northern Israeli towns on Thursday. Nonetheless, the Israeli military said it believed the Palestinian militants acted with the knowledge of Hezbollah, which holds sway over much of southern Lebanon. There were no reports of serious casualties, but several residents of the southern Lebanese town of al-Qlayleh, including Syrian refugees, said they were lightly wounded.

Israeli shelling of south Lebanon causes damage, kills livestock
Naharnet/Friday, 07 April, 2023
The Israeli shelling at dawn of areas near the Palestinian refugee camp of al-Rashidiyeh in south Lebanon led to the death of six sheep and several birds and damages to a livestock barn, the National News Agency said. The bombardment also damaged an electricity transformer, a bridge and a number of homes and cars, NNA added. A number of Syrian refugee families who work in agriculture in the Ras al-Ain area meanwhile fled to other areas to escape the shelling. Israel said its bombardment was in retaliation to more than 34 rockets that had been fired on Thursday from the targeted area at northern Israel.

Israeli airstrikes target area in Lebanon's Tyre region
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Friday, 07 April, 2023
At least three explosions were heard in southern Lebanon's Tyre region at dawn on Friday, as Israel announced it was carrying out strikes in response to rocket fire. "At least two shells fell near" a Palestinian refugee camp near Tyre city, said camp resident Abu Ahmad, who told AFP he "heard explosions."
In an English-language tweet, the Israeli army said it struck "targets including terrorist infrastructures belonging to Hamas in southern Lebanon," warning that it "will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to operate from within Lebanon." The Israeli army also held the Lebanese state responsible for "every directed fire emanating from its territory."Al-Mayadeen television said the Israeli attack caused damages to several nearby houses. The announcement of the strikes came hours after militants from Lebanon fired nearly three dozen rockets at Israel, marking a further escalation in the region following violence at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. The Israelis also struck targets in the Gaza Strip early Friday following rocket fire into northern Israel. Palestinian militants responded with barrages of rockets.

Lebanon caught in the crossfire: Rockets launched and questions unanswered
LBCI/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Two days after the attacks on Palestinian worshipers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and in conjunction with the visit of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, to Lebanon, the front opened in south Lebanon. Around thirty rockets were launched from within southern Lebanese territory towards the occupied Palestinian territories. This is not the first time Lebanon has been used as a platform to send messages across the border. Still, many questions need answers from all parties involved. How can platforms carrying this number of rockets move between houses undetected by the authorities supposed to maintain control in that area? Where are the UNIFIL forces deployed in the south of the country, whose mission is to protect the border area? And where is the Lebanese army? Accusations were directed toward Hamas from the very beginning. There are three Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon: the Al-Burj al-Shamali camp, the al-Bas and al-Rashidiya camp in Tyre, and the Ain el-Helweh and al-Mieh Mieh camps in Sidon. Whoever the perpetrators are, for how long will Lebanon serve as a post office and an arena for settling scores of others?

Scattered danger: The ongoing threat of landmines and cluster bombs in Lebanon
LBCI/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Long years have passed, and landmines and cluster bombs are still scattered in the fields of Lebanon. In areas marked with a red sign, there are landmines left over from the Lebanese civil war and terrorist organizations and Israeli invasions, which also dropped cluster bombs, especially in the south and along the Blue Line border.The Lebanese Army's Mine Action Center, in cooperation with international and local associations and organizations, is working to detonate these landmines and bombs and ensure public safety. These entities have been working for years in the face of difficulties, especially with the reluctance of the relevant parties, specifically Israel, to hand over maps showing the distribution of the bombs they dropped. In Lebanon, there are approximately 1,000 minefields covering an area of 14 million square meters, 650 cluster bomb fields covering an area of 6 million square meters, and around 4.5 million square meters of suspected areas. LBCI accompanied one of the organizations that detonates mines under the supervision of the Lebanese Army in a contaminated area with cluster bombs near residential houses, and the neighbors were notified before detonation. The number of victims of landmines and cluster bombs until now is 2,388. Many have lost their lives, and others have become amputees due to the danger of these devices and hazardous areas. The Lebanese Army is carrying out campaigns for all ages and areas to raise awareness about this danger.
Because we don't want to lose anyone else due to the effects of wars, don't forget to report any suspicious areas or devices to 0524578.

Lebanon's electricity sector regulator: Appointment delayed by twelve years
LBCI/Friday, 07 April, 2023
By the end of March 2023, the application process for the regulatory body of the electricity sector, which had been extended since mid-January, will be closed.
The appointment was supposed to take place twelve years ago. The Ministry of Energy has prepared the terms and conditions for applying for this position in cooperation with the World Bank and the MEDREG organization, which includes regulatory bodies in Mediterranean countries. They have developed the organizational structure for managing the regulatory body and distributing roles within based on best global practices. LBCI's sources confirmed that the concerned party had received around sixty resumes. They will be reviewed by a committee composed of Caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayyad, the president of MEDREG, and one of the Energy Minister's advisors specialized in electricity affairs. After the initial evaluation, interviews will be conducted with the qualified candidates, including those with experience abroad, and then the names will be vetted according to the assessment. However, will the deadline be extended to accept more applications? A source in the ministry responded that it is related to the CVs and how well they match the requirements, and the evaluation process may take one to two months. After the evaluation is completed, Caretaker Minister of Energy Walid Fayyad will submit a recommendation to the Council of Ministers to make the necessary decision and appoint the committee. The World Bank insisted on expediting the issuance of a decree to appoint the committee members as part of a transparent selection process based on competence while ensuring that the committee operates in a self-sufficient and independent manner. The Ministry of Energy is still insisting on its demand to make the necessary amendments to the law by the Parliament, especially in terms of clarifying and separating the powers between the committee responsible for regulating the sector through issuing licenses and setting tariffs on one hand, and the state which remains responsible for setting sector policy and determining the framework for private sector participation on the other hand. The ministry also prefers to amend the number of committee members to six instead of five, as stated in the law, in accordance with the requirements of Consensualism, which stipulates equal representation in first-class positions or their equivalent.

French judiciary indicts Marwan Kheireddine with embezzlement and corruption
LBCI/Friday, 07 April, 2023
The French judiciary formally indicted former minister and Chairman of the board of Al-Mawarid Bank Marwan Kheireddine in Paris at the end of last March, in the French judicial investigation into the assets of the Banque Du Liban Governor Riad Salameh in Europe, according to a source familiar with the file, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The source explained that the accusations against Kheireddine are as follows: the formation of a "criminal gang" with the aim of embezzling public funds by a public official at the expense of the Lebanese state, breach of trust, and corrupting a public employee. European investigators heard Kheireddine in Lebanon last January, noting that he is also being pursued on charges of money laundering in an organized gang, and the French judiciary has placed him under judicial control. Marwan Kheireddine served as a Lebanese Minister of State from July 2011 to February 2014. He also was a member of several ministerial committees.  He also served on the Board of the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE) as financial advisor to the Chairman and on several terms on the Association of Banks in Lebanon board.

French Judiciary Summons Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor for Interrogation in Paris
Beirut - Youssef Diab/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 07 April, 2023
The Lebanese judiciary has received a French judicial writ summoning Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh to appear before French judge Aude Buresi in Paris, an informed judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat. The source said the French questioning is separate from the investigations that Paris is running in Beirut with other European legal teams.“Buresi set Salameh’s hearing at 9:30 a.m. on May 16, and allowed him to be accompanied by a lawyer,” the source noted, adding that the hearing session will revolve around financial accounts and real estate that Salameh owns in France.
Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun had previously issued a travel ban against Salameh. However, the judicial source said “Aoun’s decision would not constitute an obstacle to his departure to Paris, and that the Lebanese judge could cancel her decision not to obstruct the French investigation.
“Salameh has the option not to attend the French hearing,” the source explained. However, he stressed that the Governor’s failure to show up at the court may entail legal measures against him. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s judiciary has received letters from judicial authorities in Belgian and Luxembourg informing Beirut that judicial delegations will join a French judicial team headed by Buresi as part of the European investigations with Salameh. Informed sources in the Palace of Justice in Beirut said it expects to receive a similar request from Germany in the coming days.
Salameh will face a third round of European investigations starting next April 25. The round is expected to be intense, as the European legal team will question prominent Lebanese figures, including a current minister. In January, the European investigators interviewed banking officials in Beirut about the transfer of funds to countries where Salameh has significant assets. Later in March, a European legal team conducted in Beirut two days of questioning of the Governor in a money-laundering probe. At the third round of investigation this month, the European legal teams are expected to question Raja Salameh, the governor's brother, and Marianne Hoayek, his assistant, in addition to four other persons, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. Refusing to name the four Lebanese figures, the sources said they include “two major bank directors, a former official in the Banque du Liban, and a minister in the current government who will be questioned for the first time as witnesses.” The sources also said that the Belgian ambassador to Lebanon visited Beirut First Investigative, Judge Charbel Abu Samra, who supervises and directs the European interrogation sessions from April 25 to May 6, and discussed with him facilitating the task of the Belgian judicial team participating in the European delegation. At the Lebanese level, Judge Charbel Abu Samra postponed looking into the State Prosecution's lawsuit against Salameh, his brother Raja Salameh, and his assistant Marianne Hoayek, until May 18.

UN Concerned over Life of Investigating Judge in Beirut Port Blast
Washington - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 07 April, 2023
UN Special Rapporteur Margaret Satterthwaite has expressed grave concern over interference in the investigation into the 2020 port explosion in Beirut, including threats against investigating Judge Tarek Bitar.
“I am deeply disturbed by reports that former State officials and others who have been implicated in the case have disingenuously resorted to recusal proceedings and other challenging actions directed at the investigating judges appointed to examine the case,” Satterthwaite said.
“This has led to the replacement of an investigating judge in February 2021, as well as several suspensions of the investigation in recent months”.
The UN expert pointed to reports that since the explosion was referred to the Lebanese Judicial Council for investigation, authorities have rejected judicial requests to lift parliamentary immunity and allow questioning of security officials.
The government has also failed to execute arrest warrants against former ministers.
Bitar has faced increasing obstacles and threats to carry out his work, the Special Rapporteur said. Satterthwaite noted that to date, no one had been tried for the August 2020 explosion, which left 218 people dead, 7,000 injured and 300,000 displaced. “The blast destroyed Beirut's port, caused extensive damage to the city, and released dangerous chemicals that can harm human health and the environment,” she said. “On 23 January 2023, Judge Bitar announced that, after a pause, he would resume investigations into the port explosion. Two days later, he was charged with several offenses, including 'usurpation of power' and a travel ban was imposed,” the expert said. “A number of motions have been filed with the intention of removing Judge Bitar from the case, and there is an ongoing campaign on television and social media to discredit him,” she said. Satterthwaite said the judge had reportedly received credible death threats and currently has military protection.
“I urge Lebanese authorities to ensure that these threats are investigated and that the judge, his colleagues, and his family are adequately protected”.
“Judges should never be threatened or subjected to criminal or disciplinary action simply for doing their job,” the UN expert said.
“The victims of the explosion and their families have been seeking justice for more than two years,” Satterthwaite said. She urged Lebanese authorities to take immediate steps to protect the independence and integrity of the investigation and ensure that those responsible for the explosion can be held accountable. “Those affected by the blast have a fundamental right to the protection of the law and to effective remedies,” the UN expert said. “That can only happen if the independence of the judiciary is upheld.”

Ibrahim Murad, President Of The Lebanese Syriac Union Party: Iran Is Occupying Lebanon By Means Of Hizbullah; Bashar Al-Assad Is Merely An 'Employee' Of Russia And Iran
MEMRI/April 07/2023
Source: The Internet - "Saw Beirut International Radio on YouTube"
Ibrahim Murad, the president of the Lebanese Syriac Union Party, said in a March 27, 2023 show on Sawt Beirut International Radio (Lebanon) that Lebanon has been destroyed by the Syrian occupation and later by Hizbullah, which he said is occupying Lebanon on behalf of Iran. Murad also said that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is not free to make his own decisions because he is an "employee" of Russia and Syria.
Ibrahim Murad: "The people who came and destroyed this country had a strategic ideology and plan. They followed this plan and divided the country. It's not only the Christians who are divided..."
Interviewer: "Who do you think destroyed this country?"
Ibrahim Murad: "At first, it was the Syrian occupation, and later, Hizbullah, which is implementing the Iranian plan in the region, obviously..."
Interviewer: "You mentioned the Syrian occupation. Is there an Iranian occupation of Lebanon today?"
Murad: "Of course. It is represented by Hizbullah.
"The Syrian president will not discard Iran, because it was Iran – through Russia – that tried to help his regime back on its feet. He is trying to play tricks, and return to the Arab League without meeting all the conditions, or by creating hope that he will, gradually, but as far as I know, there is a complete refusal [to allow Syria back], before [Al-Assad] makes the final decision to end Iran's control of Syria."
Interviewer: "Can Bashar Al-Assad make such a decision?"
Murad: "I think he cannot, because he is not free to make his own choices.
"He is sort of employee, working for Iran and the Russians..."
Interviewer: "Bashar Al-Assad is sort of employee?"
Murad: "Of course. He cannot make his own decisions. When the Russian president came to Syria, Bashar Al-Assad went to visit him, not the other way around."
Interviewer: "To where does Hizbullah export killers-for-hire?"
Murad: "To the countries abroad where it is fighting and embroiling us in wars.
"When [the leader of] a political party says: 'All our weapons, food, drink, and money come from Iran,' and it is implementing Iran's schemes throughout the region – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine – this is... Receiving foreign money is an offense punishable by law, so what about receiving foreign weapons?"
https://www.memri.org/tv/lebanese-politician-murad-syriac-union-iran-occupying-lebanon-hizbullah-assad-employee-russia

Former Lebanese MP Dr. Mustapha Allouch: There Should Be No Armed Factions in Lebanon Besides the Lebanese Army; Hizbullah’s Actions Constitute Terrorism
MEMRI/April 07/2023
OTV (Lebanon)
Former Lebanese MP Dr. Mustapha Allouch said in a March 22, 2023 interview on OTV (Lebanon) that Hizbullah’s actions are terrorism and that no organization other than the Lebanese Army should be allowed to have weapons in Lebanon. Allouch also said that he supports the Arab Peace Initiative.
Interviewer: "What is your advice to Hizbullah today?"
Dr. Mustapha Allouch: "That it disappears.
"Hizbullah's actions in Lebanon and abroad are 100% terrorism, but this is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about their political ideology.
"First of all, I do not want there to be any armed faction in Lebanon that is not [subject] to the Lebanese state. Regardless of whether the state is weak or not, nobody should have weapons except for the Lebanese army and security forces.
"I support the Arab Peace Initiative, which is based on international legitimacy, the rights of the Palestinians, and all of those things. But does it not entail recognition of the existence of Israel? When you want to reach a settlement... Why is it called a 'settlement?'"
Interviewer: "Would you make compromises over the rights of the Palestinians?"
*Dr. Mustapha Allouch: "If the Palestinians accept this, are we supposed to say: 'No, we do not agree?' The Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords. Did I sign the Oslo Accords, or was it Yasser Arafat, the historic leader of the Palestinian revolution?"
https://www.memri.org/tv/fmr-lebanese-mp-allouch-hizbullah-terrorists-should-not-have-guns

Lebanese Social Media Reactions to Rocket Strikes on Israel
Erik Yavorsky, Faris Almaari/The Washington Institute/Apr 07/2023
A sampling of posts suggests fears of another catastrophic war, increased public questioning of Hezbollah as a “resistance” movement, and anger toward its cooperation with Iran in compromising Lebanon’s sovereignty.
On April 6, thirty-four rockets were launched from south Lebanon into Israel, the largest such volley since the 2006 war. The Israeli military stated that the attacks were carried out by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, whose leader Ismail Haniyeh met with Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon the previous day. Haniyeh was also photographed meeting with various Palestinian groups in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiya, where he declared, “The factions will not stand idly by in the face of this brutal aggression,” referring to the latest Israeli police action at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.
In light of Haniyeh’s meetings and the fact that the rockets were launched from Lebanese soil, Hezbollah almost certainly gave Hamas its consent for the strikes. The two groups also remain in coordination via a “Common Operations Room.” In response to the incident, Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza and south Lebanon on April 7, hitting Hamas infrastructure near Rashidiya.
Early Lebanese social media reactions to these events highlight how dramatically opinions of Hezbollah have changed since the 2006 war with Israel. Increasing numbers of citizens see the organization as an Iranian proxy, not a bona fide form of resistance against Israel. In their view, its relationship with Tehran has undermined Lebanese sovereignty and drawn attention away from the country’s failing economy and endemic corruption. Many have also voiced concern over the potential for another catastrophic conflict on Lebanese soil, which they hope to avoid at all costs.
When the 2006 war broke out, many Lebanese viewed Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement and were willing to make significant sacrifices in the name of opposing Israel. Yet events since then have altered local perceptions of the group and colored individual reactions to the latest crisis, strongly suggesting that another war would receive less popular support than in 2006.
For example, one Lebanese Twitter user condemned the rocket strikes given Lebanon’s failing economy, arguing that those who support the attack are “feeling bored and would like to indulge in war at a time when we do not have the bare minimum to survive.” Another user tweeted, “[Hezbollah’s] problem is that if an Israeli war is waged against #Lebanon, there will be no popular support for it. We won’t take anyone into our homes. 2006 will not be repeated.” And another declared, “Despite all the tragedy, this is not our war. We have had enough. Period.”
Regarding the problem of Hezbollah’s regional interventionism distracting from domestic issues, a Lebanese attorney tweeted, “We want Lebanon as an economic and cultural platform, and here it is, as a platform for frenzied missiles.” Another user wryly observed, “I wish you were as excited when the port was bombed,” implying that Hezbollah’s reaction to the 2020 Beirut port explosion and its catastrophic aftermath amounts to a hypocritical double standard. Similar posts highlighted that resistance to Israel does not address the basic kitchen-table issues that the Lebanese people are desperately seeking to resolve.
Other users have cast Hezbollah’s activities more explicitly as a national threat. One tweeted, “They went to Aleppo, Yemen, and Iraq, and now they are destroying us...[T]hey have killed more of us than of the enemy. Who among us can live through another war?” Another tweeted that the strikes were an “act of aggression by Iranian proxies and Iranian backed Palestinian factions,” emphasizing Tehran’s influence over Hamas and Hezbollah. And in an Al-Arabiya video report, Shia journalist Mustafa Fahs argued that no one can launch a rocket from south Lebanon against Israel without Hezbollah’s knowledge; he then asked whether Lebanon was back to the pre-1982 era, when the Palestine Liberation Organization was freely operating in the south.
Some official reactions to the attacks have likewise focused on the issue of sovereignty. Mark Daou, a reformist parliamentarian elected in 2022, tweeted, “Lebanon is not a missile platform serving anyone. National sovereignty is the paramount consideration. Those who fired the missiles and those who helped them committed a crime against Lebanon.” And Prime Minister Najib Mikati released a statement condemning the Hamas rocket fire toward Israel, rejecting the use of Lebanese territory as a staging ground for efforts to destabilize the region, and emphasizing that Lebanese army forces and UN peacekeepers were aiming to arrest the perpetrators.
To be sure, not all commentators have aimed their ire at Hezbollah and Hamas. Many Lebanese Twitter users rejected Mikati’s statement and argued that he has not been so forceful in condemning Israeli actions at al-Aqsa. Another user tweeted, “For Lebanon to be free, protect Lebanon’s airspace from Zionist aircraft...And liberate the section from the occupied south, otherwise Lebanon will not be free.”
Additional Reactions
The above themes have been expressed in numerous other social media posts in the hours since the rocket attack. Below is a small sampling of illustrative quotes, including expanded versions of certain posts referenced previously (some originally in English, others translated from Arabic):
“Here is the crux of the problem: You consider #Hezbollah Lebanese and that it is part of my society and yours. As for me, I consider that the party is a multinational militia organization similar to #ISIS and yes, I hold its constituents directly responsible for all the crimes it commits. The party is not separated from its popular base. This regional axis is governed by a popular incubator, which I will not come to the aid of.” (https://twitter.com/MajdolineLahham/status/1644035400518758425)
“Lebanon is not a conduit for anyone, nor for passing messages. Our choice is not war, and we will not fight the battles of others.” (https://twitter.com/yumnafawaz/status/1644005045795422209)
“I am from #Lebanon & I am against firing rockets at #Israel on behalf of anybody—Palestinian, Iranian or otherwise. If you are Lebanese & feel the same, speak up!” (https://twitter.com/FirasMaksad/status/1643962724265623554)
“I am both Lebanese and Palestinian with family [in] both places and I condemn this act of aggression by Iranian proxies and Iranian backed Palestinian factions.” (https://twitter.com/rimaanabtawi/status/1644045151101390848)
“Why are you praising those who fired the missiles? Do you think no one else lives in this country? Do you think they are really concerned about Jerusalem, Sheikh? [Editor’s note: the poster was referring to Sheikh Hasan Moraib, an assistant general inspector with the government religious institution Dar al-Fatwa who tweeted in support of the attacks.] For years we have been hearing that we will pray in Jerusalem, and what did they do? They went to Aleppo, Yemen, and Iraq, and now they are destroying us, they blew up our mosques, they have killed more of us than of the enemy. Who among us can live through another war? Aren’t you concerned about your family’s safety? Our country is standing on shaky ground, we can’t take it anymore.” (https://twitter.com/_AmarRashid/status/1644024174149509144)
“The problem of #Hezbollah is not #Israel’s expected response to their idiotic move, which falls under the category of ‘forcing Christians in Lebanon to elect #SleimanFrangieh’ in exchange for de-escalation. The party’s problem is that if an Israeli war is waged against #Lebanon, there will be no popular support for it. We won’t take anyone into our homes. 2006 will not be repeated.” (https://twitter.com/MajdolineLahham/status/1644007794926841856)
“Glory to the Katyushas! A ‘Twitter’ resistance fighter living in Europe or in north Lebanon and has no family in the south, feeling bored and would like to indulge in war at a time when we do not have the bare minimum to survive. Note: If Israel initiates an attack, I would support every resistance action against them (and I like to think that all Lebanese think the same).” (https://twitter.com/Salah_Halawi/status/1644017303413989379)
*Erik Yavorsky and Faris Almaari are research assistants in The Washington Institute’s Program on Arab Politics.

Israel, Lebanon's Hezbollah agree to avoid confrontation, but for how long?
Ben Caspit/Al Monitor/April 07/2023
After two days of rockets first from Gaza and then from the Lebanese border, tensions seem to have calmed, at least temporary.
TEL AVIV — Israel’s Army Radio reported Friday afternoon that the Israeli military (IDF) cleared residents of the Gaza border area to resume their normal activities after a night of rocket fire from the Strip and also from Lebanon and ensuing Israeli strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.
According to UNIFIL and Israeli authorities, Israel and Hezbollah both signaled on Friday they are not seeking war. “Nobody wants an escalation right now,” Israeli army spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told reporters early Friday.
Although Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah met in Beirut with senior Hamas officials on Thursday just hours before the missile strike on Israel, Israel retaliated with airstrikes only against Palestinian Hamas targets in southern Lebanon late Thursday, not against Hezbollah. Surprisingly, official Israeli statements on the rocket fire from Lebanon did not blame Hezbollah. According to Haaretz, Israel's security cabinet was even told it was not certain Hezbollah knew of the attack in advance. Clearly, Israel would like to distance Hezbollah from these recent developments, but why?
On March 13, a Lebanese assailant managed to enter Israel and placed explosives at central Israel's Megiddo and badly wounded an Israeli driver. That event precipitated the current crisis, with Israeli intelligence assessing an increasing boldness among its enemies.
The Megiddo incident clearly indicated that Hezbollah is getting bolder in its operations against Israel. Hezbollah has manufactured thousands of rockets and missiles in recent years. The IDF would rather not openly confront a stronger and bolder Hezbollah. For its part, the Lebanon-based group is becoming increasingly coordinated with Hamas, but apparently also not ready to start a war with Israel.
While Israel avoided blaming Hezbollah for the rockets, few doubt Nasrallah’s involvement or at least support. In recent speeches and statements, Nasrallah has seemed gleeful over the domestic turmoil across the border prompted by the government’s push to weaken Israel’s top court.
The consequences of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s erosion of Israeli democracy with the support of a government unprecedented in its extremism and top-heavy with inexperienced provocateurs have clearly undermined the hard-won deterrence that maintained relative calm along the Lebanon border for 17 years. But while the Lebanon-based group is thought to be increasingly coordinated with Hamas, Hezbollah is apparently not ready yet to open a full-out war against Israel.
While a tense calm prevailed along the border with Lebanon on Friday as well as along the southern border with the Gaza Strip, from where missiles were fired into Israel both on Wednesday and Thursday, all eyes were on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, where Muslim worshipers were gathering for prayers on the third Friday of Ramadan. The scenes of Israeli police entering the holy site and clashing with worshipers who had barricaded themselves there are believed to have sparked the attacks from Lebanon and Gaza.
Based on intelligence and expert assessments, Israel had prepared for weeks for the prospect of escalation on all three fronts during Ramadan. Yet Netanyahu, long touted for his expertise on security matters and his pragmatism on such issues, still fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on March 26 for issuing a public warning about the dire consequences of the government’s judicial overhaul on Israel’s security. Harsh criticism by pro-democracy Israeli groups and strong pressure from Washington seem to have forced Netanyahu to keep Gallant in office for now.
While in political exile for 18 months, Netanyahu and his acolytes attacked the center-right government that ousted them from power and accused it of selling out to the Islamist Ra’am party in return for its support. Arguing that the Arab party had tied the government’s hands in responding to terrorism, Netanyahu and company repeatedly called for a right-wing government.
That wish, which came true three months ago, has shown yet again that extreme right-wing governments are unable to deal effectively with terrorists and other enemies, fueled as they are by bravado and lacking international legitimacy.
History demonstrates that it is often centrist or center-left governments that wage war, while peace is maintained by right-wing governments, such as that of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who made historic peace with Egypt. Distinctly hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon only gained international legitimacy for the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield that took control of Palestinian cities in the West Bank after Israel suffered hundreds of terrorist attacks and deaths. It was also Sharon who disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Netanyahu does not have a shred of legitimacy left. The US administration is shunning him and his persistently high popularity has been plunging. Friends and foes believe he is no longer in control and is being manipulated by radical family members and ultra-nationalist allies. This is the price of extremism.
Netanyahu’s domestic woes, the civilian and military harsh reactions to his extremism and the distancing of the Biden administration have all facilitated the return of the old anti-Israeli coalition — the alliance stretching from Tehran through Damascus and Beirut and all the way to the seat of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Netanyahu’s rash decision to fire an experienced defense minister, a major general with decades of combat and command experience, in the midst of serious security concerns and spreading disobedience among reservist pilots and soldiers, was bewildering. Intelligence organizations including US intelligence agencies must be trying to understand what has happened to Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, known for years as a predictable and cautious statesman whose bluster was rarely matched by his actions.
The prime minister’s caution regarding retaliation for the rocket salvos from Lebanon notwithstanding, Netanyahu’s conduct in recent weeks clearly show that his control is deteriorating among the hard-line and ultra-religious members of his government and Knesset coalition.
Could the new escalation change anything? The combination of the mass pro-democracy protests, the expected economic and diplomatic fallout of his constitutional reforms and the threat from Hezbollah and Iran that has been brewing since the Second Lebanon War could theoretically turn things around. On the other hand, if Netanyahu has indeed lost control of his government, it simply might be too late.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 07-08/2023
Israel Reinforces Troops after Violence along Lebanon, Gaza Borders
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 07 April, 2023
Israel reinforced troops near its borders with Lebanon and Gaza on Friday following a flare-up in violence that threatened to spiral out of control after police raids this week on the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. But even as major salvoes of rockets were fired at northern and southern Israel over the past day and Israel's military replied with strikes in Lebanon and Gaza, no serious injuries were reported and neither side seemed keen to broaden the conflict. "Nobody wants an escalation right now," an Israeli army spokesman told reporters. "Quiet will be answered with quiet, at this stage I think, at least in the coming hours."
Much hinged on Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem's walled Old City, which draws large crowds and has been a flashpoint during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Apart from some minor incidents of stone-throwing, police said the compound was so far quiet. Earlier in the week Israeli police clashed with Palestinian worshippers, arresting and removing hundreds of people from the compound - in what they called a raid to remove agitators holed up in the mosque - and drawing condemnation across the Arab world. The ensuing rocket attacks on Thursday were the largest from Lebanon since a 2006 war. They interrupted the Jewish holiday of Passover and sent residents running for shelters. In the south, firefighters doused a blaze and police cleared away the debris from a rocket fired from Gaza that struck a house. Before noon on Friday, however, Israel's military said residents near the Gaza frontier no longer needed to keep close to bomb shelters. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the main military spokesman, said extra infantry and artillery forces were sent to the northern and southern commands to help defend against "possible scenarios". In Gaza the streets were largely empty except for some taxis and emergency vehicles. In the Tufah neighborhood of Gaza City, where Palestinian officials said an Israeli air strike hit an open field, some nearby houses and a children's hospital were damaged. Taxi driver Ali Mohammad, 29, said he hoped the round of fighting was over. "Who wants war? No one, but also we can’t stand these brutal assaults on worshippers in Al-Aqsa," he said.

Israeli authorities say attack kills one, wounds 6 in Tel Aviv
AP/April 07, 2023
TEL AVIV: Israeli authorities said late Friday that at least one person was killed and six were wounded in a suspected attack in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial hub.The exact nature of the attack was not immediately clear, but the Foreign Ministry referred to it as a “terror attack,” a term Israeli officials use for assaults by Palestinians. A car rammed into a group of people near a popular seaside park before flipping over, police said. Israel’s rescue service said a 30-year-old man was killed, while four other people were receiving medical treatment for mild to moderate injuries.
Police said they shot the driver of the car. The driver’s condition was uncertain, but social media videos shows a body on the ground beside an overturned car while multiple gunshots ring out. The attack came against the backdrop of heightened tensions after Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian militant targets in both Lebanon and Gaza, as well as a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank that killed two Israelis. That followed days of violence and unrest in Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, the compound of the Al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City. The Hamas militant group that rules Gaza praised the attack in Tel Aviv as a response to Israel’s “crimes against Al-Aqsa Mosque and worshippers.”

Two Israelis killed, third in critical condition in West Bank attack
Rina Bassist/Al Monitor/April 07/2023
On the backdrop of growing tensions and fire exchange on both the Gaza and Lebanon borders, two Israelis were killed at a shooting attack in the Jordan Valley region.
Two Israeli sisters in their 20s were killed and their mother was seriously wounded Friday at noon in the shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Hamra, in the Jordan Valley. The young women were declared dead at scene and the injured woman was taken to a Jerusalem hospital. Their car crashed into another car following shooting from a third vehicle. The Israeli military (IDF) said troops are searching for suspects who opened fire at the car. Road blocks have been set as the IDF investigates whether the suspects continued in the direction of the West Bank city of Jericho. A preliminary investigation revealed that rounds were fired from a vehicle at the car of the Israeli women, hitting the passengers and driver. The car that was struck tried to flee and was pursued by the assailants. When the damaged car stopped on the shoulder, the assailants got out of their vehicle. Investigators recovered 22 rounds at the scene. Friday's attack comes on the backdrop of growing tensions in Jerusalem, Gaza and the Lebanon in the past two days, including dozens of rockers fired both from the Gaza Strip and from Lebanon at Israeli communities. The Israeli police in Jerusalem remains on high alert for Ramadan's third Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque. A few clashes were reported early Friday morning, but police dispersed the crowds without using force. The European Union's Ambassador to Israel Dimiter Tzantechv condemned the "horrifying shooting" in the West Bank. ''I strongly condemn the terror attack! Violence is never justified," he said. US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides also condemned the attack coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday. Speaking at a press conference Friday, French foreign ministry spokesperson condemned the rocket fire against Israel, expressing France's commitment to Israel's security, but avoided addressing the Jordan Valley attack.

Two Killed during West Bank Shooting Attack
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 7 April, 2023
Two people were killed during a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Israeli authorities said. Israel's military said a shooting attack was carried out on a vehicle near the Hamra settlement, Reuters reported. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said two women were killed and a third was seriously wounded.

CIA director visited Saudi Arabia, aired 'frustration' over Iran, Syria thaw
Al Monitor/April 07/2023
The CIA director met the country's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and reportedly expressed displeasure with Washington being "blindsided" over agreements brokered by China and Russia.
CIA Director Bill Burns made an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia this week where he reportedly aired Washington's frustrations over Riyadh's opening to Iran and Syria through mediation brokered by US rivals China and Russia. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US official confirmed the trip to Al-Monitor. “Director Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia where he met with intelligence counterparts and country leaders on issues of shared interest," the US official said. The official did not disclose the exact day of the trip but said that Burns discussed intelligence cooperation, especially in the area of counterterrorism. The CIA director met the country's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The report revealed that the US spy chief expressed displeasure over Riyadh's ongoing rapprochement with both Tehran and Damascus.  "Burns expressed frustration with the Saudis, according to people familiar with the matter. He told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the US has felt blindsided by Riyadh’s rapprochement with Iran and Syria," the WSJ said.  Saudi Arabia has agreed to restore diplomatic ties with Iran in a deal brokered by China last month. On Thursday in Beijing, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and agreed to reinstate consulates and embassies as well as flights between the two countries.  On Syria, Russia is mediating between Riyadh and Damascus in an attempt to restore consular ties that broke off in 2011 following Syrian President Bashar al-Assad brutal crackdown on protests. Saudi Arabia is mulling an invite to Assad to the Arab League summit that Riyadh will host next month.  The United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Oman, Algeria and Jordan have all resumed diplomatic ties with Assad, whose government remains under heavy US sanctions.

ISIS Kills 9 Members of Liwaa al-Quds in Less than 72 hours in Syrian Desert
London/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that two soldiers of Liwaa al-Quds were killed, and three others injured in clashes with ISIS terrorists in Palmyra’s countryside, bringing the death toll to nine in less than 72 hours. The injured were transferred to Homs Military Hospital for treatment. The Observatory documented, on April 4, the death of five Syrian brigade members in a surprise attack launched by ISIS terrorists in the al-Shaara in Jabal al-Amor, in the Palmyra desert in the eastern countryside Homs. The following day, another two Syrian members of the Liwaa al-Quds were killed during violent clashes with ISIS in the eastern countryside of Homs. The death toll in the military operations in the Syrian desert, according to the Observatory, reached 119 since the beginning of 2023, including 11 ISIS terrorists and 108 regime forces and loyal militias. The deaths included 24 pro-Iranian militias of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities, who were killed in 59 ISIS terrorist attacks in the west of the Euphrates, Deir Ezzor desert, Raqqa, Homs, As-Suwayda, Hama, and Aleppo. According to the Observatory, the operations were distributed as follows: 22 in the Homs desert, resulting in the deaths of 40 soldiers, including 13 from Iran-affiliated militias and ISIS terrorists, and 81 civilians, including a woman. There were also seven operations in the Raqqa desert, killing 12 soldiers, three ISIS fighters, and one civilian, and 21 operations in the Deir Ezzor desert, killing 44 soldiers, including 11 from pro-Iranian militias, five ISIS terrorists, and one civilian. Furthermore, eight operations were conducted in the Hama desert, killing 26 civilians and 12 soldiers, and two ISIS members, while three civilians were died in an operation in the Aleppo desert.

French Top Diplomat in Rare Meeting with Iran Counterpart in Beijing
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 7 April, 2023
France's foreign minister has held a rare face-to-face meeting with her Iranian counterpart in China, urging Tehran to release French nationals "arbitrarily detained" in Iran, the foreign ministry said Friday. Catherine Colonna, traveling with President Emmanuel Macron on his state visit to China, met Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Beijing. Amir-Abdollohian was leading the Iranian delegation in separate reconciliation talks in Beijing between Iran and Saudi Arabia. China mediated the reconciliation last month. Colonna "renewed her urgent demand for the immediate release of the six French citizens who Iran is arbitrarily detaining," the French statement said. The six are among an estimated two dozen foreigners who activists and Western governments say are being held by Iran as hostages in a bid to extract concessions. Iran's foreign ministry confirmed the meeting took place, adding that "some consular issues were also raised during the meeting". It did not specify further. Contacts between Iran and European powers -- including over the Iranian nuclear program -- have been drastically scaled down over Tehran's deadly crackdown on the protest movement that erupted in September. "The talks also focused on the situation in Iran, regional issues and the Iranian nuclear program. The minister expressed France's concern about the attitude of the Iranian authorities on all these subjects," the statement said. For its part, the Iranian foreign ministry said: "The foreign ministers of the two countries emphasized the necessity of mutual respect and continuation of dialogue." The Iran protests began in mid-September after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women. Four men have been executed in protest-related cases in what activists have described as "show trials".According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 537 people have been killed by security forces in the crackdown on the protests.

Rapper Held in Iran Protests Needs 'Urgent' Treatment
Paris - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 7 April, 2023
A rapper arrested in October on capital charges in Iran's crackdown on nationwide protests needs urgent medical treatment, a rights group said Thursday, urging an international campaign for his release. The New-York based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) also said Toomaj Salehi was being deprived of his right to a fair defense in his trial, for which a date has yet to be set. Salehi, 33, faces charges related to the protests that could see him sentenced to death. He is being held in solitary confinement in Dastgerd prison in central Iran, the rights group said.
The rapper had won prominence in Iran with his work that was heavily focused on social issues, and had strongly backed the nationwide protests that erupted in mid-September. "He is in urgent need of intense and coordinated international pressure for his freedom, as are the many other detainees and political prisoners in Iran," AFP quoted CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi as saying. The group said sources close to Toomaj inside Iran -- who it could not identify for security reasons -- said the rapper "required urgent medical treatment that cannot be provided from within the prison." There had been alarm in the immediate aftermath of his arrest when state media published a video purporting to show the rapper blindfolded, with bruising on his face, apologizing for his support of the protests. One of the sources told the CHRI Salehi was "severely tortured" during the first days of his detention, with his left eye badly damaged due to blows to the head and his right ankle broken. It said the family could not take him to hospital for an examination. "We are very concerned about the severity and extent of his injuries," the source added. The CHRI said Salehi, who is charged with the capital offence of "corruption on earth", has been denied a lawyer of his choice and denied the right to prepare a proper defense. The Iran protests began in mid-September after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women. Four men have been executed in protest-related cases in what activists have described as "show trials".According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 537 people have been killed by security forces in the crackdown on the protests.

Protected Iran critic speaks at sentence in plot against her
NEW YORK (AP)/Fri, April 7, 2023
An Iranian opposition activist who U.S. authorities said was the target of two thwarted kidnapping or murder plots urged a federal judge in New York on Friday to hand a tough prison to a woman who unwittingly funded one of the planned attacks. Masih Alinejad, a onetime Iranian journalist, said her sense of safety has been shattered since authorities notified her in 2020 that she was being watched and that photographs were taken of her Brooklyn residence of 10 years. Since then, she has received U.S. government protection and has moved frequently between safe houses. “This crime left its mark. Every day when I go out in the street, I have to look over my shoulders. ... I miss my tree-lined street and my neighbors who treated me as one of their own,” Alinejad told Judge Ronnie Abrams as she asked her to set an example by sending 48-year-old Niloufar Bahadorifar, of Irvine, California, to prison for as long as possible. Abrams did just that, announcing a four-year prison term after agreeing with prosecutors who urged her to impose a sentence between 46 and 57 months behind bars. She said she wanted to deter others who might aid the Iranian government in the targeting of individuals in the United States.
Abrams rejected a request by Bahadorifar's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, that his client be spared a prison term on the grounds that she, too, was a victim of a “dark, repressive, evil terror regime” that had left her so programmed to do as she was told that she fled Iran only to live for a time in Canada with a “fundamentalist, lunatic, abusive husband.” Afterward, Bahadorifar addressed the court, telling Alinejad she was “humiliated to have been involved in any attempt to harm you, even if I was unaware of it.” She added: “You are a hero to all Iranians. I am so sorry.”
Alinejad long has been targeted by Iran's theocracy after fleeing the country following its disputed 2009 presidential election and crackdown.
She is a prominent figure on Farsi-language satellite channels abroad that critically view Iran and has worked as a contractor for U.S.-funded Voice of America’s Farsi-language network since 2015. She became a U.S. citizen in October 2019.
In December, Bahadorifar, a U.S. citizen originally from Iran, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate U.S. economic sanctions on Iran by enabling access to the U.S. financial system for four Iranians who wanted to kidnap and silence Alinejad by taking her back to Tehran. Authorities said the Iranians used Bahadorifar as a go-between to pay an American private investigator.
The investigator was part of a plan by the would-be kidnappers, working for the government of Iran, to use private investigators in 2020 and 2021 to surveil, photograph, and video record Alinejad and others in her home on multiple occasions, prosecutors said. Last summer, police arrested a man armed with a loaded assault-style rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition near her Brooklyn home. Alinejad said a home security video had recorded the man outside her front door. Since 2015, Bahadorifar had provided financial and other services, including access to the U.S. financial system and institutions, to various individuals from Iran, prosecutors said. Beginning in 2019, she structured cash deposits totaling at least $476,000 in more than 120 individual deposits, topping $10,000 only twice, authorities said. At her December plea, Bahadorifar said she had sent funds to the private investigator on behalf of a government official in Iran who was a longtime family friend. An Iranian intelligence officer and others were charged in New York in 2021 with trying to kidnap Alinejad. The Iranian officials have denied the charge.
The private investigator, who also was unaware his employers were Iranian agents, later cooperated with the FBI and was not charged.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig said the case demonstrated “why sanction violations are gravely serious.”After the sentence was announced, Lichtman said as he left the courthouse that he was disappointed, calling it “comical” to think Iranian terrorists were going to be deterred from other sinister plots because of his client's fate. Outside court, Alinejad said the word “safe” is a luxury for her.
"I'm not safe in America," she said. “I cannot believe that this all happened to me. Three men were trying to kill me on U.S. soil.”
She added: “It's not about me. It's about the national security of the United States of America.”

US sanction officials plan missions to clamp down on Russia
WASHINGTON (AP)/Fri, April 7, 2023
Top sanctions officials from the U.S. Treasury Department plan special international trips this month to pressure firms and countries still doing business with Russia to cut off financial ties because of the war on Ukraine. The message is that those working with Russia’s government must decide:
1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or
2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.
Those are the choices to be laid out, senior Treasury officials told reporters on a call Friday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the travel plans.
Treasury officials Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson — specialists in sanctions and terrorist financing — will travel to Europe this month to meet with leaders of financial institutions in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. They plan to share intelligence on potential sanctions evaders and to warn of the potential penalties for failure to comply with international sanctions.Rosenberg will also make a stop in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to urge the country's private businesses not to provide material or intelligence support to the Kremlin. Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan to pledge U.S. support for its independence and to stress the importance of respect for “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.”Central Asian states have been neutral on Ukraine, neither supporting Russia’s invasion nor U.S. and Western condemnations of the war.
Senior Treasury officials on Friday pointed to Russia's slowing economic growth as a sign that efforts to sanction Russian oligarchs and large swaths of the Russian economy have been successful. The value of the ruble also is falling.
Officials credit the oil price cap plan that was rolled out at the end of 2022 among Group of Seven countries in an effort to clamp down on Vladimir Putin’s access to cash as he wages war on Ukraine.
The countries have agreed to pay $60 per barrel for Russian oil. The intention is to deprive Putin of money to keep prosecuting the war while still allowing oil to flow out of Russia and help to keep global prices low. Thus far, the U.S. and allies have directly sanctioned more than 2,500 Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families. The sanctions block them from access to American bank accounts and financial markets, preventing them from doing business with Americans, traveling to the U.S. and more. On the anniversary of the invasion, the U.S. began taking aim at entities that helped Russia evade earlier rounds of sanctions. Russia’s metals and mining sectors are also among those targeted in what Treasury has called one of the most significant sanctions actions to date.

US official says coalition can communicate effectively with China on Russia sanctions
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/Fri, April 7, 2023
A senior U.S. Treasury Department official said on Friday that the coalition of partners that has imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine have found effective ways to communicate with China about not providing material support to Russia. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the communication has meant that though China and Russia have signaled an open partnership of sorts, the U.S. has not seen Beijing provide Russia with the type of material support at a scale that would matter in this regard.
As a result, Russia is still focused on support from North Korea and Iran, the official said. The United States and its allies, including the European Union and United Kingdom, imposed sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago and have continued to ratchet up pressure. Washington has since launched a push to crack down on sanctions evasion. Washington's approach to China so far has been to directly communicate with Beijing and countries around the world about the risks of providing material support to Russia, the official said. While travel by U.S. officials to China has been limited, European counterparts have been in active communication and are visiting, the official said. U.S. relations with China are at what some analysts see as the low point since Washington normalized ties with Beijing in 1979 and switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei. The United States expressed concern earlier this year that China was considering providing lethal support to Russia. The U.S. is warning countries that it is prepared to take actions against companies and individuals in any jurisdiction that are providing material support to Russia for its war effort in Ukraine, the official said. Washington would like to see the United Arab Emirates do more in terms of sanctions compliance, which the U.S. has previously said was "poor", the official added. Top U.S. economic officials will travel internationally this month to speak to a number of countries and their businesses about the continued risk of providing material support to Russia, the official said. Brian Nelson, the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, will travel to Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Germany, a second senior Treasury official said. Elizabeth Rosenberg, the assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, will travel to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. At spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank next week, the United States will provide select opportunities for counterparts and businesses to meet with top U.S. intelligence officials to obtain information on how Russia is using its GRU military intelligence agency and Federal Security Service (FSB) to try and evade sanctions and export controls.

Russia warns West: we may work around the Black Sea grain deal
MOSCOW (Reuters)/Fri, April 7, 2023
Russia warned the West on Friday that unless obstacles to its exports of grain and fertilisers were removed, then Ukraine would have to export grain over land and Moscow would work outside the UN-brokered landmark grain export deal. The Black Sea grain deal is an attempt by the United Nations to ease a food crisis that predated the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but was made worse by the most deadly war in Europe since World War Two. The deal, first signed by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN in July last year and twice extended, allows for the export of food and fertiliser, including ammonia from Ukraine's Black Sea ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk, Yuzhny/Pivdennyi. While the West has not placed sanctions on Russia's food and fertiliser exports, Moscow says they are compromised by obstacles - such as insurance and payment hindrances - that it says must be removed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if the West did not want to be honest about what UN Secretary-General António Guterres had sought to do with the deal, then Ukraine would have to use land and river routes to export. If the West continued to refuse to remove the obstacles to Russian exports, Moscow would work around the grain deal, Lavrov said beside his Turkish counterpart at a news conference in Ankara. "If they do not have the desire to honestly approach what Mr. Guterres proposed and so persistently promoted, well, let them continue to ship the relevant products from Ukraine by land, by rail and by rivers," Lavrov said. "And we will work, if necessary, outside the framework of this initiative. We have the opportunity to do this with Turkey, with Qatar - the presidents discussed relevant plans," Lavrov said. Russia and Ukraine are two of the most important producers of agricultural commodities in the world, and major players in the wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed and sunflower oil markets. Russia is also dominant on the fertiliser market. Russia's agriculture ministry on Friday set its grain harvest plan for 2023 at 120 million tonnes, Interfax reported citing a draft declaration. Since its signing, the 120-day grain deal has been extended twice, once in November and a second time in March, though Russia said the March extension was only for 60 days. Russia has repeatedly said that any further extension of the grain deal will require a host of its demands to be fulfilled by the West including the reconnection of Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT payment system. Other demands include a resumption in supplies of agricultural machinery and parts, a lifting on restrictions on insurance and reinsurance, access to ports, the resumption of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline and the unblocking of assets and accounts of Russian companies involved in food and fertiliser exports.

While America burns, Xi Jinping’s plot to dominate the world is quietly succeeding
Douglas Murray/The Telegraph/Fri, April 7, 2023
It is sometimes not possible to notice great tectonic shifts. At other times it is eminently possible, and anybody with their feet on the ground can feel that ground move. So it is at the moment with the rise of China and the fall of America. Consider the events of recent weeks.
The United States has been single-mindedly focused on one story: the arraignment of a former president on charges cooked up by an ambitious Left-wing district attorney who wants to make his name by getting Donald Trump to jail. In Manhattan and Palm Beach, the media has paid for helicopters to fly overhead and capture every move of the former president. The streets have been packed with press photographers taking photos of other press photographers, all waiting for something to happen.
All the time, America’s cities – from New York to San Francisco – are rotting from the centre out, with Leftist DAs allowing theft and even violent crime on a scale that has not existed in living memory. This is presided over by a president who everybody can see is half asleep on the job and a vice-president who is not as up to speed as all that. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party has its own designs. In recent weeks, Chairman Xi popped up in the Middle East to broker a deal between the Saudis and the Iranians. The great divide in the Middle East between the Sunni bloc, dominated by Saudi Arabia, and the Shia bloc, led by Iran, suddenly appeared to reach a rapprochement. I wouldn’t give it very much time, myself, though Saudi Arabia and Iran’s top envoys met again this week in Beijing to pose for another photo op. Still, the durability of the deal is not the real point here. The point is that it was Beijing assuming the role that Washington would once have played in power-brokering such a deal. It was the same at the end of last month when Xi turned up in Moscow to present the Chinese plan for ending the war in Ukraine. It would allow Russia to keep the territorial gains it has made during its war of aggression. So it is not a good plan, and the Americans, among others, rejected it immediately. But the point is that it was once again the Chinese who were taking the initiative, parading around the world stage, talking and posing as the protectors of the international system.
So it was inevitable that other world leaders would eventually come to the court of the new emperor and treat him in the way that he now expects to be treated. This week, Emmanuel Macron travelled to Beijing to pay homage. There would have been a time when a French president who wanted credit for stopping a war like that in Ukraine would have gone to Washington DC for meaningful talks. Today, the French president turns up in China for meaningless ones.
Trailing a set of gifts that would have embarrassed a medieval potentate, Macron announced at their joint press conference that he knew he could rely on Xi to bring Moscow to the negotiating table. For his part, a profoundly bored-looking Xi simply said that “China is willing to jointly appeal with France to the international community to remain rational and calm”. They yesterday issued an ambiguously worded joint statement to that effect.
And that was essentially that. And this being China, naturally the “press conference” had no questions from any press. After all, you must respect the customs of the country you are in, and the custom under the communists in China is that the press writes what the government tells them to. In the CCP system, what need has the press of questions?
This is just to focus on the international diplomacy side of things. But the same applies in area after area. While we in Britain argue about things like whether or not a woman can have a penis or how “racist” we are this week, China’s top politicians and envoys are busily travelling the world making trade deals. Ever since Beijing was allowed into the World Trade Organisation in 2001 – a decision which already looks both world-historic and unwise – it has used its financial clout to simultaneously exploit the rules and break them.
Today, they are not even hiding their desire to ensure Chinese economic dominance in the 21st century. Nor are they any longer hiding their desire to leave the US dollar-dominated financial system behind them.
Just this week, China was once again in America’s own backyard. After a set of negotiations, a new agreement between China and Brazil was announced. And here is the salient factor: the deal completely bypasses the American dollar, which would once have been the standard for such negotiations. Brazil and China said that the arrangement would see yuan directly exchanged for reais, with no need to convert to US dollars.
Brazil’s Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil) announced that this would both “reduce costs” and promote better bilateral trade and investment between the two countries. That was the spoken bit. The unspoken part was: and we don’t need America or its currency.
In many ways, that is not surprising. Because successive American governments – of all political stripes – have done a great deal in recent decades to diminish the standing of the US dollar. It doesn’t matter whether the president, House or Senate are Democrat or Republican, US government spending and debt just keep rocketing up and up. When Democrats are in charge, they ratchet up borrowing and lavish it on their pet projects. When Republicans are in charge, they seem to be forever surprised by events, and forever have the same response – increased government borrowing.
During the last presidency, that came about primarily as a result of the Covid pandemic when the government started splurging out cheques to get American households and businesses on their feet. There is a great debate over whether that was the right thing to do. There is no debate at all over the fact that much of this money simply disappeared.
But for China, it couldn’t have worked out better. China of course gave the world the virus – whether from a lab leak or a wet market – and caused the shutdown of the American, and global, economies.
In the wake of that, in countries like our own, the economy is only really now sputtering back to life. But the effects on the education of the next generation, the debt accumulated and much more mean we will live with the effects of the China virus for the rest of our lives. Meanwhile, Beijing won’t even co-operate in finding out how it emerged in the first place. Not a bit of it. Nothing that might slow down or distract from their agenda. And while we distract ourselves with ridiculous and ill-informed rows about the alleged iniquities of everything in our past, China is simply getting on with its future. While our institutions bend over backwards to be as “diverse” as possible, China’s institutions simply try to become as dominant as possible. From the rise of Chinese companies to China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour towards Taiwan, Beijing is intent on its agenda while the West wobbles.
For instance, in the tech world it has been clear for years that the platform TikTok, a Chinese firm, is highly suspect. Indeed, it has long been accused of data harvesting. The platform has captivated children and teenagers in Britain and America, but it has not been allowed to trouble the youth of China.
While our children – and some adults – do the latest stupid dance for the platform, they don’t seem to have realised that they are not using a product. They are the product. Their information is the point. And what do we do about it? We have interminable discussions from Westminster to Washington about how to handle Chinese technology that may already have done its job in compromising us. And the Left worry that even raising the question might be “racist”. The old line about Nero fiddling while Rome burns comes to mind. But what our leaders have been doing is worse than that. Our societies – and governments – have been doing silly little dances – sometimes on TikTok, sometimes, like Macron in Beijing – while the Chinese Communist Party moves the ground from under our dancing feet. If you take the long view, the things that our leaders have allowed, encouraged and been distracted by in the past 20 years make the Emperor Nero look like a model of responsibility.
*Douglas Murray’s latest book, ‘The War on the West’, is out now in paperback

Georgia's former president says he's dying in prison because of Putin, and calls on the US to save his life
John Haltiwanger/Business Insider/Fri, April 7, 2023
Georgia's ex-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said he is dying in prison.
Saakashvili is asking the US and its allies to help save his life by applying international pressure. He also warned that Georgia's government is "sliding toward the Kremlin." Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, says that he is dying in a Georgian prison and blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for his situation — while accusing Georgia's ruling party of exhibiting "increasing solidarity with Russia." In a new Politico op-ed that was received via the former world leader's US legal counsel, Saakashvili said he's imprisoned on politically motivated charges of abuse of power and that his health has "declined precipitously" during his detention. "I am now dying," Saakashvili wrote. "I have been systematically tortured, physically and psychologically, and there is currently evidence of heavy metal poisoning in my body. I now suffer from a bewildering array of over 20 serious illnesses, all of which developed in confinement."Saakashvili, who was Georgia's president when it fought a war against Russia in 2008, said that Putin "who once threatened to 'hang me by the balls' is, undoubtedly, ultimately responsible for my current predicament." He's claimed that Russian agents infiltrated Georgian security services and poisoned him. A plea for the US and the international community to intervene
The ex-Georgian leader said he will die soon without "proper medical care outside of the country," while calling on the US and the international community to "do what they can to save my life by applying diplomatic pressure on the Georgian government."
Saakashvili also said sanctions should be imposed against Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire and former prime minister of Georgia who founded the country's governing party, Georgian Dream. Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, has been accused by congressional lawmakers in Washington of being an ally of Putin's. Saakashvili rose to power after leading the bloodless Rose Revolution in 2003, which pushed out the country's Soviet-era leadership. He was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, forging closer ties with the West during his tenure. But he left the country after his term ended and his party lost a 2012 parliamentary election to Georgian Dream. Saakashvili ultimately went to Ukraine, where he became involved in the country's politics. Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship, giving up Georgian citizenship in the process, and was made governor of Odessa in 2015.
While he was in Ukraine, criminal charges were filed against Saakashvili in Georgia, and he was convicted in absentia in 2018. The former Georgian leader was arrested upon returning to his native country in October 2021.
Georgia 'sliding toward the Kremlin'
In his Politico op-ed, Saakashvili described himself as a "political prisoner" who continues to "defend democracy against Putin and his allies." Saakashvili warned that Georgia and other countries in the region "have continued sliding toward the Kremlin" amid Russia's ongoing and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The Georgian and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, some have also expressed concerns that Georgia could be Putin's next target.
Vladimir Ashurkov, a top aide to imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, told Insider last April that it was "not off the table" for Putin to attack Georgia or other countries in the region such as Moldova.
Russian troops have occupied roughly 20% of Georgia's territory — the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia — since the two countries fought a war 15 years ago. But while Georgia has faced the consequences of Russian aggression in the recent past, the country's ruling party has refused to support sanctions against Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine. Experts have warned that the Georgian Dream party is increasingly pushing Georgia into Russia's orbit, and that the country's government and people are sharply divided when it comes to forging closer ties with the West and issues like the war in Ukraine. The Georgian government recently sparked a crisis and mass protests in the capital city of Tbilisi as it pushed for a controversial "foreign agent" law that drew comparisons to a Russian law that has been used by Moscow to crack down on dissent and stifle freedom of expression. Georgian lawmakers ended up scrapping the bill amid the backlash. "The Georgian government is building an authoritarian state in Russia's image," Francis Fukuyama, one of the most influential political scientists in the US, and Nino Evgenidze, director of the Economic Policy Research Center in Tbilisi, warned in an op-ed published by Foreign Affairs on Thursday. Fukuyama and Evgenidze went on to say that the treatment of Saakashvili is "another attempt by Georgian Dream to undermine the rule of law and thus hurt Georgia's chance of integrating with the West," urging the US and its allies to take action to "prevent Georgia from sliding further into Russia's camp." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

President Biden should pardon Trump. It's the right thing to do.
EJ Montini, Arizona Republic/Fri, April 7, 2023T
Back in the day, our nation’s Founders had this crazy idea “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility.” I say crazy because nearly 2 1/2 centuries later the union is nowhere near perfect, justice for all has yet to be established and virtually no aspect of our domestic situation is tranquil. These days, one of the major reasons for this turmoil is former President Donald Trump, a man who has never been particularly keen on tranquility.
Just the opposite.
Chaos is his game.
That might be one of the reasons he’s in trouble, most recently having been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felonies: Give him the same benefit of the doubt he gave Clinton
How strong is DA's case against Trump?: Why Alvin Bragg better get it right
Opinions on Trump indictment won't change
He also faces possible indictment out of Atlanta for allegedly attempting to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia.
As well as more potential indictments stemming from a Department of Justice investigation into the classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago, as well as any connection he may have had to the insurrection on Jan. 6., 2021.
The general public’s reaction to Trump’s indictment falls into two categories. People either believe it is proof that no one is above the law, or proof of a politically motivated witch hunt.
The entire presidency was 'unprecedented': Trump's arraignment is just plain embarrassing
Trump indictment circus shows a country in decline: Trump indictment is a 3-ring circus. At least Watergate united us in mourning.
Should any of the cases against Trump proceed to trial, where a verdict is reached, not a single person’s opinion about this will change.
Not one.
A pardon was right for Nixon. And for Trump.
Should Trump be found guilty, there would be an appeal, or perhaps many appeals.
And no matter how those cases are resolved, I’d guess he will never spend any time in jail because, basically, we have yet “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility.”
Given all that, President Joe Biden should pull a Gerald Ford and pardon Donald Trump. And, yes, I know, a president can't pardon someone for a state crime, only for federal offenses. But Biden can eliminate federal complaints. He can set a tone. He can be, in a way Trump never was, presidential.
In 1974, after former President Richard Nixon resigned over his involvement in the Watergate scandal, for which he would have faced criminal prosecution, Ford announced that he had decided to “grant a full, free, and absolute pardon” to Nixon.
The pardon was not well received. A majority of Americans wanted Nixon prosecuted, and Ford’s decision may have cost him the subsequent presidential election.
Years later, even critics changed their minds
Ford never wavered, however.
He appeared before a congressional committee and testified, “I was absolutely convinced then as I am now that if we had had an indictment, a trial, a conviction, and anything else that transpired after this that the attention of the president, the Congress and the American people would have been diverted from the problems that we have to solve.”
One of those who disagreed with Ford at the time was Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.
In 2001, however, while presenting Ford with a Profile in Courage award, Kennedy said, “Unlike many of us at the time, President Ford recognized that the nation had to move forward, and could not do so if there was a continuing effort to prosecute former President Nixon. ... His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us.”
Voters rebuke Trump, choose progressives: As GOP sticks with Donald Trump and his felony charges, Democrats keep winning elections
'We would needlessly be diverted,' Ford said
Every president grants pardons: Barack Obama issued 212. George W. Bush did 189. Trump, during his time, granted 143.
They are often controversial. More proof of our messy system of justice.
I am not naive enough to believe that granting a pardon to Trump would – in any way – begin the process of healing or put the tragedy behind us.
But it’s still the right thing to do. Ford told the House committee, “Our nation is under the severest of challenges now to employ its full energies and efforts in the pursuit of a sound and growing economy at home and a stable and peaceful world around us. We would needlessly be diverted from meeting those challenges if we as a people were to remain sharply divided over whether to indict, bring to trial, and punish a former president.”
Yeah, what he said.
**EJ Montini is a news columnist at The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com, where this column first published. Follow him on Twitter: @ejmontini

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 07-08/2023
The Trump Trials: Changing the Subject
Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/April 07/2023
Red lights have to be flashing for the current administration and its supporters: "danger ahead."
Inflation continues threatening to turn into a crushing recession. Iran is reportedly days away from a nuclear-weapons breakout. A Chinese spy balloon just spent a week doing figure-eights over America's most sensitive nuclear sights while transmitting information back to Beijing in real time. Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping is telling his people to prepare for war. And the House Oversight Committee keeps finding more bank evidence that the Biden family appears compromised by foreign payments.
What do the current administration and its supporters do, then? Revert to the tried-and-true playbook of the Trump era and launch the latest "Trump trial" to distract from the administration's challenges. The pattern has been consistent – create a false narrative that is more favorable to themselves and more problematic for whoever is challenging them.
After seeing multiple high-level Democrat operatives from candidate Hillary Clinton herself approving a disinformation operation against then-candidate Trump, her campaign and the DNC reportedly financing the Steele dossier, DNI James Clapper reportedly leaking info on the Steel dossier to the media, Adam Schiff misleading his colleagues about information leading to the first Trump impeachment, and 51 former intelligence officials signing a bogus letter about the Hunter Biden laptop, there should be little surprise that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg -- whose campaign was indirectly supported by a million dollars from George Soros while Bragg "promised to put Trump behind bars" -- decided to move forward with what ended up a totally fabricated, politically-motivated indictment of Trump. It did not even fulfill the constitutional requirement for Trump "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" – meaning: Bragg did not even name the supposed federal crime.
Those now in charge will seemingly do almost anything to make the narrative leading up to the election once again about allegations against Trump instead of the geopolitical and economic shortcomings of Biden's policies. If a presidential candidate, a Director of National Intelligence, and a Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee will engage in hyper-partisan political activities under the guise of legitimate government activities, why should we be surprised that a local prosecutor might do the same thing?
The bottom line is that every Republican potential candidate will have to address the "Trump issue," probably multiple times during the upcoming weeks and months, rather than discussing their solutions and proposals to address the economic and national security concerns gripping Americans today. For the current administration, that is "mission accomplished."
The Biden administration and its supporters have reverted to the tried-and-true playbook of the Trump era by launching the latest "Trump trial" to distract from the administration's challenges.
What's a politician to do? Going into a presidential election year, the incumbent president looks to be facing a difficult reelection campaign. Persistently high inflation numbers remain a problem. Energy prices are still up. America's southern border is being overrun with illegal border-crossers and fentanyl. Major bank failures have raised the specter of a banking crisis. There are multiple House of Representatives investigations covering Biden family finances, the weaponization of government agencies, China, and the origins of COVID. For the current administration and its supporters, the answer is as easy as it is familiar: change the subject to Donald Trump. It has been an oppositional go-to foil since Trump dared step onto the political stage in 2016.
The expectations that President Joe Biden would be facing significant headwinds going into the November 2024 election are proving to be accurate. While there is plenty of time for the political narrative to change — and it will — for many in the government hoping to run again, the current situation has to be worrisome.
Fox News reported that a March 23 poll found that Biden's approval numbers had slipped from 45% down to 38%. That is just above his July 2022 all-time low of just 36% approval, which followed inflation peaking at 9.1% in June 2022. "It's the economy stupid," as the expression became famously known during Bill Clinton's presidential election campaign in 1992. On this critical issue, Biden gets a rating of only 31% approval.
While the 2022 midterms failed to develop into the "red wave" Republicans hoped for, and pundits anticipated, there was enough of a ripple to give Republicans control of the House of Representatives. As these same pundits prepare their 2024 predictions, they can look to the election of 1980 when inflation was as high as we experienced in the summer of 2022.
Leading up to the 1980 presidential election, Americans experienced gas lines at the pump, President Jimmy Carter encouraged Americans to wear sweaters so we could save on heating costs by turning down the thermostat, and we had high interest rates to go along with high inflation and unemployment, leading to what eventually was dubbed "stagflation." Carter ending up losing his reelection bid to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide.
Economic uncertainty and consumer anxiety in 1980, and again in 1992, led to the demise of two presidential reelection bids. Biden and the Democrats recognize that on their current trajectory, they might be heading to the same outcome in 2024.
Red lights have to be flashing for the current administration and its supporters: "danger ahead."
Inflation continues threatening to turn into a crushing recession. Iran is reportedly days away from a nuclear-weapons breakout. A Chinese spy balloon just spent a week doing figure-eights over America's most sensitive nuclear sights while transmitting information back to Beijing in real time. Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping is telling his people to prepare for war. And the House Oversight Committee keeps finding more bank evidence that the Biden family appears compromised by foreign payments.
What do the current administration and its supporters do, then? Revert to the tried-and-true playbook of the Trump era and launch the latest "Trump trial" to distract from the administration's challenges. The pattern has been consistent – create a false narrative that is more favorable to themselves and more problematic for whoever is challenging them.
Even as Hillary Clinton and pollsters were anticipating another Clinton presidency in 2016, they began the sinister "Russia hoax" campaign against Trump, to create a narrative that Trump was beholden to Russia. Clinton's former campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified in court that Clinton herself approved sharing information with the media about uncollaborated information linking Trump to Russia. The Clinton campaign and the DNC reportedly financed the "Steele dossier," a now-discredited report, "that included salacious allegations about Trump's conduct in Russia and allegations about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia."
Consider other actions as part of the Trump trials, including two impeachments of Trump; blocking discussion on the Chinese origins of COVID-19 in order to blame him, and discrediting the now-authenticated salacious Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation just days before the 2020 elections.
Where does this lead one? After seeing multiple high-level Democrat operatives from candidate Hillary Clinton herself approving a disinformation operation against then-candidate Trump, her campaign and the DNC reportedly financing the Steele dossier, DNI James Clapper reportedly leaking info on the Steel dossier to the media, Adam Schiff misleading his colleagues about information leading to the first Trump impeachment, and 51 former intelligence officials signing a bogus letter about the Hunter Biden laptop, there should be little surprise that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg -- whose campaign was indirectly supported by a million dollars from George Soros while Bragg "promised to put Trump behind bars" -- decided to move forward with what ended up a totally fabricated, politically-motivated indictment of Trump. It did not even fulfill the constitutional requirement for Trump "to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation" – meaning: Bragg did not even name the supposed federal crime.
Those now in charge will seemingly do almost anything to make the narrative leading up to the election once again about allegations against Trump instead of the geopolitical and economic shortcomings of Biden's policies. If a presidential candidate, a Director of National Intelligence, and a Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee will engage in hyper-partisan political activities under the guise of legitimate government activities, why should we be surprised that a local prosecutor might do the same thing?
Clearly the narrative is already changing. Trump's indictment, the first indictment of a former president in the history of the country, will dominate the news during early April. The media is already acting on cue, going with wall-to-wall coverage of Trump's motorcade and flight to New York, and his arraignment. Ongoing discussions about the risks, perils, and opportunities of a future court trial will become top story.
Trump's fundraising skyrocketed in the immediate aftermath of the indictment news and his poll numbers jumped up too in the Republican primary. Meanwhile, as predicted, 94% of Democrats support Trump's indictment, but the Republican Party is showing some signs of fracturing on the issue.
Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson has called for Trump to withdraw from the 2024 race while the candidate who came in third in CPAC's presidential straw poll, Perry Johnson, indicated he would pardon Trump. Vivek Ramaswamy said Trump's indictment could take the deeply-divided country to the breaking point, and Nikki Haley expressed dismay that the press was again focused on Trump instead of issues at the southern border.
The bottom line is that every Republican potential candidate will have to address the "Trump issue," probably multiple times during the upcoming weeks and months, rather than discussing their solutions and proposals to address the economic and national security concerns gripping Americans today. For the current administration, that is "mission accomplished."
*Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan, served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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World Health Day: Health Is Not For All
Dr. Amal Moussa/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
Seventy-five years ago today, on World Health Day, the World Health Organization was established. The slogan raised this year is Health for All, a human right the World Health Organization was established to guarantee.
Of course, there is a wide gap between its ambitions and its achievements, and between the situation today and the WHO’s basic premises.
Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the increase in life expectancy unequivocally attests to the fact that humanity has made significant progress. We now have great hopes for life. This is the result of the progress in developing vaccines and the improvements in our quality of life.
It is also true that what are now called chronic diseases led to quick, sudden deaths before medical science turned them into chronic diseases that humans can live with through medical follow-up and medication.
Infant mortality rates have also dropped sharply, allowing us to claim that global achievements in health have had a real positive impact on people’s lives and their relationships with life.
Thus, we must not underestimate or downplay these achievements.
On the other hand, while the right to health is enshrined in international agreements and constitutions, the reality is that we are far off from having ensured access to healthcare for all. The coronavirus pandemic, because of the numbers of people it took from our communities, may have been a wake-up call that we still have a lot to do. Moreover, we have yet to find cures for a broad set of other diseases. At most, we have developed drugs that allow patients to live with the disease. For example, heart disease patients are never cured by treatment, diabetics remain diabetic etc… Indeed, science has yet to solve several health problems, and we have failed in the face of several diseases, especially those tied to immunity, such as vitiligo and lupus, among others.
So far, we have discussed the progress made in medical science, and the shortcomings mentioned above take nothing from the immense achievements made in organ transplant surgery and the treatment of infertility.
In terms of the legal progress that has been made, states have committed to ensuring that healthcare is a right, and this right to healthcare has become a pillar of the welfare state.
However, access to the right to healthcare is currently on the decline. States now play a lesser role in providing social services, as the prevalence of the liberal model prevails, and widespread privatizations of the health sector have made it subject to the demands and dynamics of the market and its unforgiving values. Healthcare is now the privilege of those who can pay for a doctor’s consultation, the cost of medication, and the cost of medical procedures.
This state of affairs has hindered progress in guaranteeing the right to healthcare. In fact, poverty, crises, and unemployment have undermined our ability to ensure everyone has the right to healthcare. Therefore, it is crucial that everyone defends the principle of the welfare states, at least in the fields of education and health, and that this exception should continue if we are to make access to healthcare as broad as possible. Another issue that is frequently overlooked by healthcare coverage funds worldwide is the variance in the range of drugs and medical interventions covered by these funds from one country to another, despite the similarity of diseases. This is an essential matter that the World Health Organization has yet to address. It is crucial that all diseases, or at the very least a majority of them, are covered by social healthcare programs.
An additional issue that demands attention is how to guarantee access to healthcare for individuals living in poverty or those employed in the informal economy. Addressing this question entails providing healthcare to millions of individuals who lack access to health services. This is a very pressing issue, particularly when considering the alarming number of refugees and impoverished people currently without access to healthcare.
Today, the World Health Organization must emphasize the importance of investing in disease prevention as a cost-effective and develop alternatives to costly medical treatments. Although this may require financial resources, investing in prevention is the most suitable option for both individuals and public health in societies. By prioritizing preventative healthcare, we can preserve the overall immunity and productivity of society. The health of citizens is one of the most vital resources available to nations, and its preservation must remain a top priority.
We strongly believe that countries in the Arab world and other developing nations must prioritize investment in prevention and rely on robust and effective communication strategies. It is crucial to recognize that investing in prevention entails funding health experts, health education, and widespread media coverage of public health concerns. Although healthcare is a fundamental right, it is not guaranteed to everyone. The solution to this issue is acknowledging each challenge and taking the necessary steps to address them.

Türkiye: Waiting for Spring
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
It was only three weeks ago that people across Türkiye marked the spring equinox with traditional rites of passage. Yet, many Turks talk of the “real spring “that they hope will start on May 14 when 65 million Turkish voters go to the polls in presidential and parliamentary elections.
The hoped-for spring is supposed to mark the political end of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has captained Türkiye’s wayward ship for longer than any leader since the end of the Caliphate almost a century ago.
Spring is the key word in the electoral slogan chosen by Kemal Kilicdaroglu the leader of the once Social-Democratic outfit known as People’s Republican Party (CHP) and Erdogan’s chief rival next month: I promise you that Spring will return!
Although both Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan, not to mention two other medium weight candidates, Muharrem Ince and Sinan Ogan have put out lofty electoral manifestos, it is clear that May 14 is a referendum on Erdogan’s 25-year long political figure. The extreme personalization of the contest makes guessing the outcome extremely difficult.
For Erdogan’s long career could be divided in three phase. In the first phase he appears as a courageous leader determined to pursue the reforms started by Turgut Ozal and lead Türkiye into modernity. After a stint as Mayor of Istanbul, a forlorn former imperial city that he helped turn into a bustling megapolis, Erdogan as prime minister led a sequence of reforms that put the Turkish economy en route to sustained growth for over a decade. He even scored high in defusing the Kurdish time-bomb that had ticked for over half a century. Erdogan’s foreign policy aimed at “having zero enemies” was also a remarkable success in a region where leaders build their personality cult by making enemies.
In the third phase of his career, however, Erdogan appears as an increasingly isolated leader gripped by irrational suspicions, insatiable greed and indecent megalomania.
If Turkish voters judge Erdogan in his third version, there is little doubt that they would dump him in the proverbial dustbin of history. Right now, Türkiye presents a grim image. Sustained economic growth has been replaced by what looks like a slow dance macabre. Inflation is over 55 percent per annum by official measures and may be over 100 by other modes of analysis. Once a roaring river, foreign direct investment is down to a trickle.
Erdogan as the 3rd man is also remembered for his brutal repression of real or imagined political enemies, notably the followers of his former Islamic guru Fethullah Gulen, the remnants of leftist groups and, finally, part of his former Kurdish electoral base. His quixotic attempt at inventing a new national identity for Turks, as descendants of ancient Hittites, Trojans, Seljuk nomads and Ottomans ended in confusion and doubt in large segments of the nation.
The man who faces the electorate on May 14 could be seen as one who has made more enemies for Türkiye than anyone since the siege of Vienna. He has upset NATO allies by flirting with Putin and blocking Sweden’s membership of the alliance. Once regarded as a national goal, joining the European Union is now as likely as a snowflake’s chance in hell. Erdogan has also antagonized Israel, one a valued friend in the hope of pleasing the mullahs of Tehran. Yet he has also angered the same mullahs by helping the former Soviet Azerbaijan Republic in its war with Armenia which is backed by Iran. Erdogan’s saber-rattling against Greece has put a stop to investment needed to tap energy resource in the Aegean Sea, a potential pot of gold for half a dozen states in the region.
By getting Türkiye involved in the Syrian quagmire, Erdogan has helped to block moves towards rescuing the war-torn nation from its current status as ungoverned territory. That, in turn, means maintaining Türkiye’s current position as the world’s largest refugee camp.
Erdogan has also led Türkiye into shady deals involving sanctions-busting operations to help the Islamic Republic in Iran and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Erdogan that faces the electorate on May 14 would also have to answer questions about the recent earthquake disaster that has affected almost three million people and cost Türkiye over $120 billion. Did shady deals, illegal construction permits, failure to maintain essential infrastructure and lazy decision-making enlarged the scope of the natural tragedy?
The fact that Erdogan has been abandoned by some of his oldest associates, including former Economy Minister Ali Babacan and former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu shows that he has lost a good chunk of his constituency that covered technocrats and businessmen with Islamic sentiments, a group that has helped turn almost all major cities against Erdogan’s 3rd epiphany. Allied to ultra-nationalist and pan-Turkist groups, including the Grey Wolves, Erdogan now presides over a government that tops the list of nations with the largest number of political prisoners, including journalists.
Well, then, could we expect Erdogan to head for the exit next month?
I am not sure. In any election between 30 and 40 percent of the electorate vote for the status quo on the basis of the devil we know.
Then there is the fact that Kilicdaroglu, though a decent man, is far from a charismatic figure in an election geared to personality rather than policy. More importantly, I wouldn’t put it past Erdogan to try to fix the election in his own favor. A man who believes he has a divine mission to rule wouldn’t shy away from a little bit of election-rigging. Worse still, Erdogan may win the presidency but lose his majority in the Grand National Assembly, Türkiye’s unicameral parliament. That could plunge Türkiye in uncharted waters and make the already complicated Middle East even more complicated than General De Gaulle imagined. Spring may or may not come to Türkiye as Erdogan’s opponents wish and pray for. But if it does it wold be great news for all those who see Türkiye as a major regional power and one that could assume a leadership position in helping to end the multiple crises that affect the Middle East, North Africa, Transcaucasia, and large chunks of Europe.

The World Needs a Renewal of Commitment to Put People’s Health First
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
Turning history's page on its deadliest conflict, countries came together in 1948 to heal a bloodied world. Following years of war, distrust and pain, nations elevated the physical and mental wellbeing of people to a new level, forging a global pact and purpose to safeguard and advance health for all.
Lofty sentiment transformed into practical reality 75 years ago with the entry into force of the Constitution of the World Health Organization, and WHO's founding as the specialized United Nations agency dedicated to promoting human health. The WHO was given a unique mandate to advance the wellbeing of all people, and unique ability to convene all governments and partners at the same table. Fast forward to today, as the WHO celebrates its 75th anniversary year from World Health Day on April 7, this mandate and convening ability remain as vital as ever. At the same time, the world needs a renewal of this commitment to put the health of all people first, from our grandparents to our children born today and in the future. COVID-19, conflict, climate change and commercial causes of ill-health, like unhealthy foods and tobacco, offer real reminders of how precarious our lives are, and how, without constant commitment to advancing our collective wellbeing, the fortunes of vulnerable communities worldwide will remain at risk. A seminal line in the WHO's Constitution states "the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition."
This has guided the WHO's work to promote, provide and protect health for all. There have been many achievements along the way.
Among the best-known is the eradication of the ancient scourge of smallpox. Today, the world is on the verge of also eradicating polio, with annual cases reducing by 99.9 percent since the 1980s. Other successes include eliminating, or near-elimination of, five tropical diseases, making childhood immunization close-to-universal, and setting global standards for safe drinking water. Furthermore, the WHO has supported countries to adopt a landmark treaty on tobacco control, regulate aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and report on health emergencies with the potential of global spread. The WHO played a catalytic role in advancing the development and rollout of first-ever vaccines against Ebola and malaria that are now saving lives across Africa. The WHO's work in humanitarian settings has provided life-saving care to millions.
The list continues. As WHO marks its 75th year, there is much that the Organization, and the countries that created it, can be proud of.
But great challenges remain.
COVID has shown how we, as a global community, are only as safe from pandemic threats as the least prepared nation. Too many people lack access to quality, affordable health services, instead suffering from preventable or treatable ill-health.
Modern concerns compound this, like the impacts of the climate crisis that endanger millions from flood and drought, rampant air pollution, and the wanton misinformation and disinformation bedevilling people's health choices.
There are also threats to people's wellbeing driven by factors beyond health, including conflict, economic and commercial.
To meet these challenges, the WHO has been changing and adapting to deliver better today, and for the next 75 years.
Our work focuses on five areas: improving the level of health of all people; ensuring everyone has equitable access to quality, affordable health services; protecting the world against novel and known pathogens; empowering science and scientific information to support good health; and strengthening the WHO to meet today's and tomorrow's demands.
In COVID's wake, we are supporting countries negotiating a historic pandemic accord, rooted in the WHO Constitution, to prevent and respond to future pandemic threats collectively. Nations are also amending the International Health Regulations to make them relevant to a post-COVID world, and strengthening WHO's financial, governance and operational base for a safer and healthier world.
The reasons for such measures are clear. COVID set back progress on achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, and caused incalculable human, social and economic losses. So we must reclaim lost gains by redoubling efforts to make universal health coverage a reality for all, driven by primary health care, and strengthening national and global systems, from state-of-the-art surveillance to investing in country preparedness, to make a more secure world.
The lifeblood of the WHO's work is science and evidence. Data-driven guidance remains core work, helping the WHO and countries invest resources where health needs are greatest.
Access to evidence-based advice also helps people make sound health choices. This is critical today because, as COVID has shown, misinformation and disinformation has made decision-making even harder and, in extreme cases, deadly.
The WHO has been transforming its operations to effectively implement work on all these fronts, and more, with a clear-eyed focus on delivering impact at the community level.
Today, 75 years later, and after a new virus showed how vulnerable the world remains, the need for the WHO is as vital now as ever. If the Organization had not been created all those years ago, we would have to create it today. So on the WHO's birthday, I thank all countries and partners for their commitment to laying the WHO's foundations in 1948, and continuing to strengthen them for a healthier, safer and fairer future for all.

Crisis in the Arab World… And a New Arab Initiative
Saleh ِAl-Qallab/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 07/2023
As is apparent to everyone, the Middle East is undergoing broad dynamic change. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the foremost state in the region and a leader that is closely attuned to the concerns, interests, and challenges facing the Arabs in this changing world, stands at the heart of these changes.
This region has been suffering from instability and war, with several countries becoming conflict zones and enumerable outside parties interfering in its affairs. Unfortunately, these interventions have come at the expense of Arab interests and the sovereignty of Arab countries, and they have resulted in the displacement of millions of people and the resurgence of terrorism and extremism. It is now time for this region to find stability and search for a role for itself in this turbulent world, thereby safeguarding the interests of the Arab people and restoring unity after years of division.
Syria, which continues to be a key link in the long chain of Arab history, has yet to recover from its setbacks. It has been in turmoil, ravaged by conflict and bleeding internally, since 2011. We must end this crisis, reunite the Syrian people, and put an end to this war that continues to destroy a country that used to be a substantial power in the Arab world!
This region will never be stable so long as Syria is plagued by instability. In fact, things will only get worse if the Syria problem is not resolved. A solution must be found if we are to prevent this infection from spreading to all the countries of the region.
Here, we must address a question that has been lingering for a long time: Can we not deal with this important issue after all these years? Do we not have an opportunity to engage with Damascus and contribute to resolving this crisis after all these years?
The broad political overtures led by Saudi Arabia undoubtedly seek to answer this question, restore unity to the Arab nation, and solve the crises that have drained its resources and undermined its stability. This step must be met with positive steps from all the other parties concerned, especially the Syrian government, which must reunite its people and agree on a political framework for ending this civil crisis and addressing its underlying causes.
All eyes are on the upcoming Arab Summit that will be held in Riyadh in May. Indeed, it is expected to, indeed it must, succeed in reuniting the Arab world. The challenges and crises facing Arab countries today are significant, and they require intra-Arab rapprochement and coordination.
It is crucial to note the recent statement made in this regard by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan. “There have been discussions about Syria’s return to the Arab embrace… there is a consensus building in the Arab world, that the status quo is not tenable.”
Meanwhile, we have seen many media reports discussing the reestablishment of consular ties between the two brotherly countries, which is expected to lead to the restoration of diplomatic relations, which have been severed since 2011. Syria’s membership in the Arab League has also been suspended since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution.
The recent moves by Saudi Arabia are part of a broader foreign policy perspective that the Kingdom has adopted. Shortly after Saudi Arabia and Iran concluded the recent agreement mediated by China, Saudi efforts to bring Syria back to the Arab League and normalize the Arab world and the Kingdom’s relations with it were accompanied by a substantial step by Russia. Moscow has been arranging for dialogue and deals between Syria and Türkiye to resolve the disputes between the two countries. This would also strongly contribute to efforts to restore stability in the region and put out many of its fires.
The push by Russia to ensure a rapprochement between Türkiye and Syria has made real progress. Indeed, the foreign ministers of Syria, Türkiye, Iran, and Russia are scheduled to meet on Tuesday in Moscow, where they will discuss the disputes between Syria and Türkiye and make arrangements to resolve them. The situation in the Arab world today is dangerous. We face a broad array of diverse challenges. New approaches must be taken, and a new consensus must be built if we are to reunite and allow all the Arabs to take back their place in this world that recognizes only the powerful.
The status quo has become untenable. If no solutions to the crises wreaking havoc in several Arab countries are not resolved, we could be looking at a dark future, God forbid.

What is Easter Sunday?
Got Questions/April, 07/2023
There is a lot of confusion regarding what Easter Sunday is all about. For some, Easter Sunday is about the Easter Bunny, colorfully decorated Easter eggs, and Easter egg hunts. Most people understand that Easter Sunday has something to do with the resurrection of Jesus, but are confused as to how the resurrection is related to the Easter eggs and the Easter bunny.
Biblically speaking, there is absolutely no connection between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the common modern traditions related to Easter Sunday. As a background, please read our article on the origins of Easter. Essentially, what occurred is that in order to make Christianity more attractive to non-Christians, the ancient Roman Catholic Church mixed the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection with celebrations that involved spring fertility rituals. These spring fertility rituals are the source of the egg and bunny traditions.
The Bible makes it clear that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week, Sunday (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2,9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1,19). Jesus’ resurrection is most worthy of being celebrated (see 1 Corinthians 15). While it is appropriate for Jesus’ resurrection to be celebrated on a Sunday, the day on which Jesus’ resurrection is celebrated should not be referred to as Easter. Easter has nothing to do with Jesus’ resurrection on a Sunday.
As a result, many Christians feel strongly that the day on which we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection should not be referred to as "Easter Sunday." Rather, something like "Resurrection Sunday" would be far more appropriate and biblical. For the Christian, it is unthinkable that we would allow the silliness of Easter eggs and the Easter bunny to be the focus of the day instead of Jesus’ resurrection.
By all means, celebrate Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Christ’s resurrection is something that should be celebrated every day, not just once a year. At the same time, if we choose to celebrate Easter Sunday, we should not allow the fun and games to distract our attention from what the day should truly be all about—the fact that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and that His resurrection demonstrates that we can indeed be promised an eternal home in Heaven by receiving Jesus as our Savior.

Don’t Throw Good Arab Money After Bad in Syria
Andrew J. Tabler/The Washington Institute/Apr 07/2023
The Gulf states have their own reasons for reaching out to Assad, but they need to understand that Washington will not exempt them from most of its multilayered Syria sanctions without substantial change in the regime’s posture.
Two months following the devastating earthquake that rocked southern Turkey and northern Syria on 6 February, Syria is apparently being welcomed back to the “Arab fold.” Bashar al-Assad has visited Oman and the United Arab Emirates (including with his wife, Asma), Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad has visited Cairo, and Damascus has hosted nine different delegations of Arab officials, including the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE. There are reports Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia may extend an invitation to Bashar to attend the Arab summit in May. Beyond the fold, al-Assad also has visited his allies in Moscow and welcomed Iran’s Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, not one, but two times.
Shortly after US President Biden took office in 2021, Amman and Abu Dhabi launched separate outreach efforts to al-Assad, albeit with slightly different goals in mind. Hobbled by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, on top of refugees from Iraq and elsewhere, and with a closed northern border that restricted lucrative transit traffic from the Levant to the Arab Gulf, Jordan reopened Jaber—their main northern border crossing with Syria.
Amman, together with Egypt, also developed a scheme to move Egyptian and Israeli natural gas and electricity generated in Jordan across Syria to Lebanon, whose energy sector has essentially collapsed. In exchange, al-Assad would receive an 8% in kind payment of gas and electricity, which is in very short supply due to wartime damage and sanctions restricting spare parts.
Both approaches went nowhere. Jordan’s northern border was quickly inundated with illicit Captagon and weapons smuggling, leading to several high-profile interdictions in Jordan. The gas and electricity scheme is hung up because Lebanon’s politicians failed to agree to reforms necessary to receive World Bank funding.
UAE Outreach
Abu Dhabi’s outreach to al-Assad seemed more quixotic, but rooted in what al-Assad really wants—money with few strings attached. Throughout the war, the UAE sought to undermine its rival, Qatar, and Qatar’s ally in Syria, Turkey, which holds considerable territory in Syria’s northwest. In 2018, Abu Dhabi attempted to reopen its embassy in Damascus with the idea that outreach to al-Assad would make Turkey’s position in Syria more untenable.
As tensions with Qatar and Turkey have eased, Abu Dhabi now focuses on reducing Iranian influence—militias and weapons—in Syria. Abu Dhabi understands that Bashar is desperate for the kind of money only an Arab Gulf country can deliver to rebuild Syria. As the logic goes, a little recognition and some petrodollars for reconstruction could be used as carrots to alter Bashar’s logic at the negotiating table with the opposition, and perhaps more importantly, reduce its dependence on Iran in favour of Arab interests—many of whom are now aligned with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords.
US Sanctions
Holding back both efforts, of course, are US, European and Arab sanctions on Syria. Arab engagement with al-Assad could lead to Syria being readmitted to the Arab League after being suspended from the body in 2011 for al-Assad’s response to the uprising—which could lead to the lifting of Arab sanctions on Syria impeding trade and other issues.
But US and European sanctions are virtually impossible to lift without a fundamental change in al-Assad’s behaviour. US sanctions on Syria go back to 1979. The lion’s share of US sanctions on Syria are due to the al-Assad regime’s response to the uprising.
The most powerful “Caesar” sanctions, named after the brave regime photographer who smuggled hundreds of Syrian state photos of victims tortured in al-Assad’s gulags, directly forbid funding for reconstruction activities in Syria. Most importantly, these sanctions have secondary effects, meaning they apply to anyone who touches these activities.
It is clear from the cascade of visits by Arab and other regional officials to Damascus that they see the opportunity of dangling out carrots to al-Assad because of the issuance of a 180-day General License, or temporary sanctions waiver, by the US Treasury Department on 9 February titled “Authorizing Transactions Related to Earthquake Relief Efforts in Syria.”
And why shouldn’t they—US officials openly said the license was issued in response to requests by “regional governments” who did not want to get hit with sanctions. Washington also allowed earthquake relief transactions, which were not defined, to be carried out directly with the “Government of Syria”—also known as the al-Assad regime.
But this does not mean US Syria policy has changed, or that sanctions are about to be lifted for reconstruction. Not a chance.
The General License expires next August, and while the Caesar Act “sunsets” in 2024, it is almost certainly going to be extended, as shown by a 414-2 vote on a Congressional Resolution on 27 February condemning “efforts by the al-Assad regime to cynically exploit the disaster to evade international pressure and accountability.”
Even if Caesar went away, multiple layers of sanctions on Syrian oil exports and designations will remain—no matter which party controls the White House. And new ones are on the way, as the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Biden Administration to develop an interagency strategy to disrupt and dismantle al-Assad’s narcotics production and trafficking.
Seeking Behavioural Change
The only way US sanctions on Syria will be waived—let alone lifted—is if al-Assad fundamentally changes his behaviour. Washington understands that Gulf countries want Bashar to turn off the Captagon stream pouring out of Syria southward into Jordan and the Gulf, which officials say is “addicting a generation.”
But Washington has been clear that al-Assad needs to create conditions for Syrians to return home without fear of being conscripted, detained, or disappeared. Al-Assad needs to move forward on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 process, including, but not limited to, movement on the Constitutional Committee.
If there is not progress, the Arab countries normalising with al-Assad and engaging in reconstruction will almost certainly be hit with Treasury designations and other sanctions violations. Unless there are major changes in the way al-Assad rules and does business, including his tolerance of Iranian militias and assets on Syrian soil and Captagon production facilities, this will be yet another exercise of throwing good Arab money after bad to recoup their steady losses against Iran in the Levant.
*Andrew Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and former director for Syria on the National Security Council. This article was originally published on Al Majalla’s website.