English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 21/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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15 آذار/2023
Bible Quotations For today
Jesus Drives Out Of the Temple Sellers and
Money Changers ..He said to them: “Stop making my Father’s house a market-place”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 02/13-25:”The
Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he
found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at
their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple,
both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the
money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the
doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a
market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your
house will consume me.’The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for
doing this?’Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for
forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’But he was speaking of
the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word
that Jesus had spoken. When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival,
many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But
Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in
everyone.”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on April 20-21/2023
Video link/Panel on The Role of the Lebanese Diaspora During Lebanon’s
Current Crisis from May Chidiac Foundation | Media Institute
Paris to 'invite Christian leaders' to convince them of 'Franjieh-Salam deal'
Report: France received 'signed written' guarantees from Franjieh
Franjieh meets Assad, bets on Russian efforts with KSA
Lebanese presidential elections: French stance prompts questions
Report: Hezbollah insisting on Franjieh, doesn't mind lengthy vacuum
Bassil slams Mikati for 'unilateral' cabinet decisions
Report: Solution to presidential impasse expected before June
Cabinet implements "mini Capital Control" to regulate bank transfers and
withdrawals
Beirut Bar Association will not make its decision today regarding lawyer Nizar
Saghieh’s case: sources to LBCI
Paris denies having a preferred candidate for Lebanon's Presidency
Cabinet amends fees for temporary occupation of public marine properties
From Lebanese origins, Dr. Elias Saadi's a true patriot and advocate for
Lebanon's sovereignty
Minister of Finance meets Beirut Governor, ISF Chief
The National Anti-Corruption Commission completes its annual action plan in
partnership with UNDP and explores avenues of cooperation with regional...
How Syria can be made safe for refugees to return from Lebanon/Dr. Dania
Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/April 20, 2023
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 20-21/2023
Cohen Meets Aliyev in Baku amid Tension with Tehran
Israel cements ties to Turkmenistan on Iran's border
New caucus in Congress condemns poisoning of Iranian girls
Syrian Kurds Ready for Dialogue with Damascus
Haftar's LNA Denies Providing Support to One Party in Sudan against the Other
Iran says its navy forces U.S. submarine to surface as it enters the Gulf
Mysterious flash of light over Kyiv sparks alarm and confusion after NASA denies
its satellite crashed
Zelenskiy says it is time for NATO to invite Ukraine into alliance
US and allies mull ban on $66bn worth of exports to Russia
Vladimir Putin is preparing to attack the UK
NATO chief visits Kyiv for 1st time since Russian invasion
Russia is arresting police officers and overhauling its security forces after
data leaks to Ukraine, say reports
Thousands of Sudanese cross borders to flee warring generals
Biden's America is ceding control of the seas to Communist China
Russian inflation risks must ease to make room for rate cut - central bank
Putin has one last chance to blackmail Europe into submission
Biden's America is ceding control of the seas to Communist China
U.N. chief calls for three-day Eid truce in Sudan
Fighting in Khartoum threatens to unravel Sudan cease-fire
Sudan's truce falters, as Egypt repatriates army personnel
UPDATE 1-Israel in advanced talks with Germany to sell Arrow-3 missile defense
India’s population is on track to exceed China’s, but a report says its
workforce is weighed down by thousands of people with worthless college degrees
At least 78 people crushed to death during stampede at charity event in Yemen
Titles For
The Latest
English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on April 20-21/2023
Terminators in Khartoum: In interview, Mat Nashed discusses the bloody
conflict in Sudan and the mistakes that led to it./Michael Young/Carnegie/April
20/2023
How Some Americans Support Terrorism Against Israel/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone
Institute/April 20, 2023
Sudan and the Infighting of the Soldiers/Dr. Jebril El-Abidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/April,
20/2023
As Yemen Leaves the War Behind, Sudan Marches Toward It/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq
Al-Awsat/April, 20/2023
Multilateral fronts key to fighting terrorism/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab
News/April 20, 2023
Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on April 20-21/2023
رابط فيديو لحلقة اراء باللغة
الإنكليزية حول وضع لبنان المأساوي من موسسة مي شيدياق ضيوفها انيس كرابيت وادوار
غابرييل وجوزيف جبيلي ونبيه شرتوني وطوني نيسي
Video link/Panel on The Role of the Lebanese Diaspora During Lebanon’s Current
Crisis from May Chidiac Foundation | Media Institute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTpPIfcTrCk
April 19/ 2023
Paris to 'invite Christian leaders' to convince them of 'Franjieh-Salam deal'
Naharnet/April 19/ 2023
Serious developments have taken place in the efforts led by France in the
presidential elections file, a media report said on Thursday. “Parliament
Speaker Nabih Berri received days ago a phone call from French presidential
adviser Patrick Durel, who asked the parliament speaker to launch a dialogue
effort that would pave the way for an agreement leading to setting a date for a
presidential election session,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported. Sources meanwhile
told the daily that Berri had previously received a phone call from French
President Emmanuel Macron regarding the presidential file.
According to the sources, Berri asked Durel about the outcome of the French
contacts with Riyadh and the other Lebanese parties and the French official
answered that “things are better than before and there are encouraging
indications.”“We have informed the Lebanese parties whom we met that Suleiman
Franjieh is the most serious candidate and that Lebanon needs a settlement that
would allow for launching comprehensive reforms,” the sources quoted Durel as
telling Berri. Ain el-Tineh visitors for their part said that “the atmosphere is
positive” and that “the camp opposed to Franjieh’s nomination is waging a broad
attack after it learned of the positive outcome of the French efforts.” “The
Marada chief’s remarks on Tuesday from Bkirki’s podium resembled a nomination
declaration and a presidential platform, and he wouldn’t have taken such a step
had he not received French guarantees,” the visitors added. Al-Akhbar also
reported that Paris intends to “invite a number of Lebanese leaders, especially
Christians, to explain the importance of endorsing a settlement leading to
Franjieh’s election as president and the appointment of Judge Nawaf Salam as
premier.”The French are “encouraging Berri and Franjieh to launch broad contacts
with all the parliamentary blocs to guarantee securing full quorum for any
electoral session that might be called for,” the daily added.
Report: France received 'signed written' guarantees
from Franjieh
Naharnet/April 19/ 2023
French presidential adviser Patrick Durel has received from Marada leader
Suleiman Franjieh signed written guarantees about his stance on different
domestic and Arab issues, Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported Thursday. Durel
conveyed the guarantees to Saudi Arabia, the daily said. Saudi royal envoy Nizar
Al-Aloula told Durel, in the presence of Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid
Bukhari to leave the guarantees in order to study them. Franjieh had met Durel
last month in Paris and reportedly discussed Saudi demands regarding the
presidential file. A local media also reported Thursday that the presidential
impasse is near and that a president might be elected before June. It said that
talks are ongoing between the five nations that took part in the latest Paris
meeting over Lebanon and that France might send an envoy to Beirut in the coming
days.
Franjieh meets Assad, bets on Russian efforts with
KSA
Naharnet/April 19/ 2023
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh held a meeting last Wednesday in
Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accompanied by his wife, a
highly informed Lebanese source said, despite recent denial of the visit by
figures close to Franjieh. Franjieh “tried to explore whether the Arab openness
toward Syria would lead to Arab and Saudi acceptance of his election as
president,” the source told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper in remarks published
Thursday. Assad answered that his recent talks with Saudi officials “did not at
all tackle Lebanon’s domestic files, but rather Hezbollah’s links to the
regional arenas,” the source added. Separately, the source said that “Franjieh
is betting on what Russia has told him regarding its endorsement of his
nomination and that this endorsement is being translated into quiet Russian
efforts with Saudi Arabia in a bid to lift the veto off him.”
Lebanese presidential elections: French stance
prompts questions
LBCI/April 19/ 2023
French foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre has denied reports
suggesting that Paris is backing a specific candidate for the Lebanese
presidential elections and instead urged the Lebanese people to choose their own
leaders. However, the French requested Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri
to call for an internal dialogue in Lebanon. Moreover, sources familiar with the
Amal-Hezbollah stance suggest that the call for dialogue is not well thought out
as long as the two main Christian parties, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and
the Lebanese Forces, remain at an impasse. According to LBCI's sources, more
than one observer of the presidential file indicated that the Saudi position
regarding the head of the Marada Movement, Sleiman Franjieh, remains unchanged.
In fact, internal parties that are in constant communication with the Kingdom
have confirmed that there has been no new development on this issue. Could the
French position confuse all parties, particularly those counting on French
efforts to support Franjieh's candidacy? What new development prompted Paris to
take a firm and clear stance on the issue?
Report: Hezbollah insisting on Franjieh, doesn't mind lengthy vacuum
Naharnet/April 19/ 2023
Hezbollah has recently told Paris that Suleiman Franjieh is its only
presidential candidate and that is not willing to engage in any other
discussion, a media report said. Hezbollah is willing to “wait until the summer
of 2024 or the summer of 2025 if (Franjieh’s election) doesn’t take place in the
summer of 2023 and there is no fear over institutions as long as the U.S. is
paying the salaries of security forces,” al-Akhbar newspaper quoted Hezbollah as
telling France. Hezbollah has also encouraged Franjieh himself to “end his
waiting and see what he can do, similarly to what president Michel Aoun did when
he visited the Center House and Maarab and knocked on Clemenceau’s doors several
times,” the daily said. Moreover, Hezbollah “communicated with domestic parties
to pacify their stance on the Marada chief,” al-Akhbar added, noting that “the
French were thirsty for such a drive from Hezbollah in order to revive their
initiative … seeing as the Macron administration will not find it easy to
acknowledge a new failure in Lebanon.”
Bassil slams Mikati for 'unilateral' cabinet
decisions
Naharnet/April 19/ 2023
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil slammed Thursday caretaker Prime
Minister Najib Mikati for taking unilateral decisions by signing dozens of
extraordinary approvals on his own. "Those who are keen on the constitution and
the presidency, wouldn't boycott extraordinary parliamentary sessions and attend
ordinary Cabinet sessions," Bassil said in a tweet. Bassil wondered why is
everybody "suspiciously" silent about these cabinet sessions under the pretext
of necessity. He also accused the ministers of discussing between them a
replacement to central bank governor Riad Salameh. "Any party or any minister
who participates in this crime is ethically and politically responsible for
remaining silent over corruption and for accepting that the country be ruled
without the Christian component," Bassil said, warning that those who accumulate
mistakes would "reap an explosion."
Report: Solution to presidential impasse expected
before June
Naharnet/April 19/ 2023
A solution to the presidential impasse is near and a president might be elected
before June, an official told al-Joumhouria. Diplomatic Arab sources also told
the daily, in remarks published Thursday, that talks are ongoing between the
five nations that took part in the latest Paris meeting and that France might
send an envoy to Beirut in the coming days in an attempt to solve the
presidential crisis. Ad-Diyar newspaper had said earlier this week that the
five-nation group on Lebanon is preparing to hold a meeting to "pick a
consensual president, from outside the establishment that took part in power
over the past three decades, who is accepted inside and outside the country and
who would be able to devise solutions for crises and rein in the collapse."It
quoted political sources as saying that June will carry good news for Lebanon
should the current agreements in the region succeed. Lebanon has been without a
head of state since Michel Aoun's mandate expired last year, with a caretaker
cabinet overseeing the responsibilities of government amid a financial collapse
that is stretching into its third year.
Cabinet implements "mini Capital Control" to
regulate bank transfers and withdrawals
LBCI/April 19/ 2023
Amid ongoing news regarding bank transfers benefiting politicians and people of
influence at the expense of other depositors, and with the absence of any law to
regulate transfers and withdrawals after three and a half years of crisis and
repeated mismanagement of Capital Control by officials, the Cabinet approached
the situation with a "smart" solution. The Cabinet has requested from the Banque
du Liban (BDL) to impose a kind of "mini Capital Control" through circulars that
the bank will issue soon. The circulars will include specific ceilings for
transfers and withdrawals that banks must adhere to, with exceptional cases in
which withdrawal and transfer are allowed, such as for hospital or education
expenses or other urgent needs. However, funds held in fresh dollars are
excluded, and depositors can do whatever they want with them. The government's
decision aims to prevent the banks from depleting the remaining dollars held by
them and to prevent them from leaving the country. On the other hand, it seeks
to create equality among all depositors. Is this step the solution? Why is it
being taken now by a caretaker government? This decision is a promise made by
Prime Minister Mikati to the banks to convince them to end their strike. The
banks demanded enacting a Capital Control law to protect them from lawsuits
filed against them by depositors inside or outside the country. According to
banking sources, they consider BDL's circulars as evidence in court in many
cases. However, they believe that the circulars are not sufficient. In many
cases, the judiciary is considered legal, and the circulars do not replace the
law, which would create additional confusion in the sector. On the other hand,
some experts consider this decision as fair to depositors and preventing
favoritism. Still, it is in the banks' interest primarily at the depositor's
expense, who continues to face restrictions without any plan for deposit
recovery while their funds evaporate over time. They add that such a solution is
no substitute for a Capital Control law, which is an essential condition of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and takes into account the IMF's criticisms.
Once again, the state is choosing to address the crisis in a patchy manner,
indicating that reforms are becoming further and further away from the
priorities it should be focusing on.
Beirut Bar Association will not make its decision
today regarding lawyer Nizar Saghieh’s case: sources to LBCI
LBCI/April 19/ 2023
Sources of the Beirut Bar Association to LBCI confirmed that the Beirut Bar
Association’s Council will not make its decision today regarding the summons
case of lawyer Nizar Saghieh, but the atmosphere is positive, and the decision
will be left until after the Eid Al-Fitr holiday and after studying the file.
In turn, Lawyer Nizar Saghieh told LBCI that after listening to him before the
Beirut Bar Association’s Council, “the atmosphere was positive, as they
understood my premises and made sure that they were principled, human rights and
non-personal.” He also confirmed that “they also made sure that my war is a
legitimate war, which is the preservation of freedom and the role of lawyers,
and we cannot anticipate the decision of the Bar Council.”
Paris denies having a preferred candidate for
Lebanon's Presidency
LBCI/April 19/ 2023
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that Paris does not have a
preferred candidate for the presidency of Lebanon. This statement comes in
response to recent reports in Lebanese media about potential French support for
former minister Sleiman Franjieh for the currently vacant position, which has
been unoccupied for six months. During a press conference, ministry spokesperson
Anne-Claire Legendre stated, "It is up to the Lebanese to choose their leaders,"
highlighting the message Paris has been sending in recent months. Lebanon has
been without a president since the end of President Michel Aoun's term on
October 31, with the deeply divided political class unable to reach an agreement
on his successor. This political crisis has further exacerbated the economic
recession in the country. The spokesperson emphasized that "Lebanese parties
must take responsibility and break the political deadlock to elect a new
president quickly," adding that the vacancy "casts its shadow primarily on the
Lebanese people." She continued, "It's about electing a new president and
forming a fully empowered government capable of implementing the reforms needed
by Lebanon and the Lebanese people urgently in the face of the serious crisis
they are going through." The ministry also noted that France is conducting
"numerous contacts with Lebanese political parties."
Cabinet amends fees for temporary occupation of public marine properties
LBCI/April 19/ 2023
In its latest session, the Cabinet modified the annual fees for temporary
occupation licenses for public marine properties in line with the increase in
the black market exchange rate of the dollar. The proposal for the amendment
came from Public Works Minister Ali Hamie, whose aim is to collect what is
rightfully owed to the state treasury, amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
According to statistics from the Public Works Ministry, the number of violations
on marine properties reached 1,053, from Akkar in the north to Ras al Naqoura in
the south. The estimated fees for violations per square meter in 2018 ranged
from LBP 40,000 in Akkar as the minimum rate to LBP 9 million in Solidere as the
maximum rate. In Jounieh, the fee reached LBP 2.15 million, while in Sidon and
Tyre, it reached LBP 2.25 million. However, Tourism Minister Walid Nassar
objected to the fee amendment during the Cabinet meeting. In a conversation with
LBCI, Nassar explained that his objection stems from the decree being unfair,
not reformist, and not well-thought-out. He also argued that the treasury would
only benefit from its effects after 2024, as most violators had already paid
their fees before the amendment was passed. Furthermore, Nassar believes that
the pricing estimate table needs to be updated before the amendment is made
rather than afterward. Nassar has requested that the 280 tourism establishments
that have violated the regulations do not comply with the new decree and do not
pay their fees until the Council of State has reviewed the appeal filed by some
of these establishments. The Public Works Ministry sent the amendment to the
fees for violators of marine properties to the Legislation and Consultation
committee at the Justice Ministry to inquire about the possibility of collecting
the new fees from those who paid for 2023, with retroactive effect. The question
remains whether the committee will prevent violators from paying the new fees
before the decree is published in the official gazette.
From Lebanese origins, Dr. Elias Saadi's a true
patriot and advocate for Lebanon's sovereignty
LBCI/April 19/ 2023
Dr. Elias Saadi is the story of an American of Lebanese origin who was born and
lived all his life in the United States and remained, like the Cedar, steadfast
in defending Lebanon, its freedom, and sovereignty with the American
administration. He was a doctor who recorded achievements in the world of
cardiology, and in his heart, an open wound remained, which is Lebanon.
Throughout his 90 years in Youngstown, USA, he remained as if he had lived in
the vicinity of Bejje from which Victoria and Tufic, his mother and father,
hailed. Elias Saadi not only opened the doors of Washington to Bachir
Gemayel. In it, he founded a lobby supporting Lebanon, the American Lebanese
League (A.L.L.), which was able to change the American policy towards Lebanon by
adopting it to protect its sovereignty, freedom, and the unity of its people. In
the garden of the White House, there is a cedar from Lebanon planted in 1978. It
was planted by the late President Jimmy Carter, with Elias Saadi beside him.
Saadi kept visiting Lebanon, even in the most dangerous stages of the war, to
perform political and humanitarian missions. In the 80s, President Amine Gemayel
decorated him as a Knight of the Order of the Cedar given by the ambassador at
the time and the Minister of Foreign Affairs today, Abdallah Bou Habib. Elias
Saadi, with his influential testimony in the US Congress, established the Syria
Accountability Act and contributed to its expulsion from Lebanon.
Elias Saadi passed away, and his body is buried in the United States, but his
heart remains in Lebanon, and he chose his son, Edward, to carry this trust.
Minister of Finance meets Beirut Governor, ISF Chief
NNA/April 19/ 2023
Caretaker Minister of Finance, Youssef Al-Khalil, on Thursday welcomed Beirut
Governor, Judge Marwan Abboud, and President of the Municipal Council, Jamal
Itani. The meeting reportedly discussed a number of issues that involve the
Lebanese capital. After the meeting, Abboud said: "We followed up with the
Minister of Finance on the capital's solid wastes dossier, which has been
transferred to the Independent Municipal Fund. We also tackled mechanisms for
coordinating and following up on the retail vegetable market in Jalloul land,
especially in terms of accelerating its registration in the real estate registry
to place it in the service of the public at a later stage.”The meeting also
touched on pricing mechanisms to collect municipal fees and public
funds.Al-Khalil had earlier met with the Internal Security Forces’
Director-General, Imad Othman. Discussions reportedly focused on nutrition in
prisons.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission completes
its annual action plan in partnership with UNDP and explores avenues of
cooperation with regional...
NNA /April 19/ 2023
The National Anti-Corruption Commission in partnership with the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and with the support of the European Union, the
Government of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Korean International Cooperation
Agency "KOICA" successfully completed its annual action plan for 2023-2024. A
strategic workshop titled "Activating the National Anti-Corruption Commission:
Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities" was organized to launch the action plan.
The workshop focused on finding ways to enhance the Commission's work,
particularly in light of the current socio-economic and political situation in
Lebanon. This situation has resulted in an increased strain on public
institutions to effectively carry out their roles, including the National
Anti-Corruption Commission. The workshop, attended by representatives of partner
countries and regional and international organizations, aimed to establish a
joint platform of coordination between the Commission and global partners to
strengthen its capacity to carry out its roles and responsibilities in
accordance with the laws in force, public expectations, and Lebanon's
international obligations including that to the United Nations Convention
Against Corruption.
The first session of the workshop reviewed Lebanon's commitments to combat
corruption and the role of the Commission in supporting these commitments. The
second session focused on the requirements for activating the role of the
Commission in the next phase and potential prospects for cooperation with all
partners to achieve this goal. The discussion was based on the annual work plan
for the year 2023-2024, which aims to support the development of the
Commission's capabilities. The President of the Commission, Judge Claude Karam,
confirmed the Commission members' commitment to performing their duties with
independence and transparency that enhance citizens' confidence in the
Commission's role in eradicating corruption. He emphasized the necessity of
joining efforts to provide the support to activate the role of the Commission in
combating, preventing, and monitoring corruption. Judge Karam thanked
international organizations for supporting the rehabilitation and equipping of
the Commission's headquarters, building its website, and communication and media
plan. Karam also reviewed the Commission's new cooperative commitments and the
desire of its members to continue opening up regionally and internationally to
enhance expertise. His Excellency the Ambassador of the European Union, Mr.
Ralph Tarraf, reiterated the need to empower the National Anti-Corruption
Commission and properly implement and enforce relevant laws. He cited how these
actions reflect positively through economic fallout, social justice, and
political stability. Tarraf added that the culture of impunity needs to be
overcome and that accountability should become the new normal. This can only be
achieved by supporting and giving the right tools to the National
Anti-Corruption Commission and ensuring the independence of the judiciary.
From his end, His Excellency the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark, Mr.
Kristoffer Vivike, showcased the Danish breakthrough experience in fighting
corruption, citing cultural factors and structural incentives as key in
achieving low corruption levels in Denmark. He highlighted the critical role of
the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which Denmark will continue supporting,
in bringing about cultural change in Lebanon. Vivike also stressed that
anti-corruption is a shared responsibility, not one that solely falls on the
Commission's shoulders.
His Excellency the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, Mr. Park Il described
the National Anti-Corruption Committee as one of the top priorities of his
country at the national, regional and international levels. He went on to detail
the support the Republic of Korea has continued providing since 2019, through
the partnership between the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and
UNDP, to 7 Arab countries, including Lebanon, to enable stakeholders to develop
and implement required laws in line with international standards,
institutionalize corruption prevention and mobilize knowledge and capacity.
Ambassador Park also expressed how pleased he feels that the country-level
anti-corruption project in Lebanon is now being implemented, building on the
outcomes and achievements of the KOICA-UNDP regional project.
UNDP's Resident Representative, Ms. Melanie Hauenstein, emphasized the
importance of renewing the focus on reform in Lebanon, particularly in relation
to transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption, through this strategically
important workshop. She stated that the success of recovery efforts is dependent
on significant steps forward towards reform, including the full
operationalization of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). Ms.
Hauenstein highlighted that using the joint roadmap of the action plan as a
nationally owned evidence-based platform for coordination and partnership
building between the NACC and international partners is crucial for ensuring
that scarce resources are invested in an integrated and deliberate manner.
This workshop is part of the ongoing cooperation between the National
Anti-Corruption Commission and the United Nations Development Programme under
the Anti-Corruption for Trust in Lebanon framework, which is funded by the
European Union and the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark. The aim of this
initiative is to combat corruption and enhance prevention by institutionalizing
and supporting the supervision of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy,
supporting the adoption and effective implementation of anti-corruption laws,
activating and strengthening the capabilities of the National Anti-Corruption
Commission, and integrating mechanisms for managing corruption risks in key
sectors. UNDP is working in Lebanon since 1986 as a development partner
supporting economic recovery, working with municipalities to deliver basic
services to host communities, promoting clean energy and solid waste management,
strengthening governance and rule of law, providing support to elections, and
working on empowering women and youth.
How Syria can be made safe for refugees to
return from Lebanon
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/April 20, 2023
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Tuesday visited Damascus and
met with President Bashar Assad as a follow-up to last week’s visit by the
Syrian foreign minister to Riyadh. The post-meeting communique stressed national
reconciliation, allowing aid to reach all parts of the country, the withdrawal
of militias, fighting the drug trade and, most importantly, setting the
conditions for the safe return of refugees.
The safe return of refugees has been the biggest hurdle to finding a solution to
the 12-year-old conflict. Lebanon, a country with a broken system, has been
greatly suffering as it bears the brunt of hosting Syrian refugees. There is no
accurate number, but Lebanese sources claim the country is hosting more than 2
million of them. Lebanon’s decaying government institutions are unable to
provide services for Lebanese citizens, let alone refugees. Government
infrastructure is collapsing under the strain. Even the most supportive
activists are now realizing that the refugee issue is taking its toll on the
country. Hence, their return is necessary.However, the return of refugees should
be — as indicated in UN resolutions — safe, voluntary and dignified. The most
important element is safety. This means that refugees should be able to go back
to the homes they left and that they will not be subjected to arbitrary arrest.
In 2018, pressured by the Russians, Assad agreed to an amnesty for the deserters
of compulsory conscription. He had previously ordered a fine and prison sentence
for those who reached 18 and did not report for conscription. These penalties
pushed refugee families with boys who had turned 18 to stay outside the country.
However, even after the amnesty, people were arrested on random charges. This
deterred refugees from returning. Even for the families that registered to go
back with the UN Refugee Agency, the regime has only given clearance to a small
fraction of them.
It is important to note that most of the refugees in Lebanon come from areas
that are occupied by Hezbollah, such as Qusayr, Harasta and Zabadani. In 2013,
the Mikati government allowed Syrian refugees to come to Lebanon. The decision
was taken with the blessing of Hezbollah, which was incurring losses in Syria.
The group was fighting people in their own land who knew the terrain much better
than they did. The opening of the border was a relief for Hezbollah. It was
better for the group to have the fighters become refugees living in tents in a
camp under their jurisdiction, as the fighters fled unarmed and entered Lebanon
with their families. However, the refugees started to become a problem even for
Hezbollah. Sunni refugees driven out of Syria who ended up in Lebanon are
changing the demographics to the disadvantage of the Shiite population, which
make up Hezbollah’s base. For example, Arsal is a town of 35,000 inhabitants
that now hosts 120,000 refugees. Also, in a situation that is highly volatile
and polarized, Hezbollah sees the Sunni refugees as a threat. According to one
official, Hezbollah estimates that 80,000 of the refugees are now armed. This is
an alarming signal for the group, especially as it is facing growing opposition
at home. Hezbollah looks at the refugees as a ticking bomb that will blow up in
its face in the case of an internal confrontation. Hence, their return is a
pressing issue for Hezbollah.
Assad’s army is definitely not a force that can inspire trust for the refugees
to go back. However, for the refugees to go back, the safety condition needs to
be fulfilled. In order to achieve that, Hezbollah needs to vacate the areas it
is occupying in Syria and go back to Lebanon. In order to accept that, it needs
to cover its back by ensuring that the borders are safe and that no hostile
armed group will cross the border and challenge them in Lebanon. This means that
any withdrawal from Syria should be coupled with the deployment of forces that
Hezbollah can deem benign. These forces should also provide a safe environment
for the refugees’ return. Assad’s army is definitely not a force that can
inspire trust for the refugees to go back. It also does not have the
capabilities to secure the refugees’ return. Assad’s army is a loose collection
of militias, gangs and warlords with no cohesive command and control structure.
The only two solid legions are the 4th Armored Division under Assad’s brother
Maher, which is under Iranian tutelage, and the Tiger Forces commanded by Suheil
Al-Hassan that takes orders directly from the Russian base at Hmeimim. This
highlights the need for peacekeeping forces. In the course of the Saudi-Iranian
rapprochement, Arab countries should agree with Tehran on the formation of an
Islamic joint peacekeeping force. This would cement the current rapprochement
between Iran and Saudi Arabia and would be a good base to start
confidence-building. Also, with it being part of a joint force, Iran’s
activities would be kept under control. This would comfort Hezbollah and it
might be willing to make this compromise and retreat from Syria. Once the
refugees return and are safe, the international community can start working with
local councils on early recovery without fearing that any of the aid or funds
will be confiscated by the regime. This plan would alleviate the burden of
refugees from Lebanon and help toward finding a solution in Syria.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on
lobbying. She is president of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace
Building, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization focused on Track II.
Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports
And News published on April 20-21/2023
Cohen Meets Aliyev in Baku amid
Tension with Tehran
London, Baku - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 20 April,
2023
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen held consultations in Baku with senior
Azerbaijani officials, before heading to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan,
to inaugurate his country’s embassy there, in a move that would anger Tehran.
Cohen met on Wednesday with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the
presidential palace, a month after the opening of the country’s embassy in Tel
Aviv. Aliyev expressed his satisfaction with the course of relations between the
two countries, and said: “The opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Israel is an
indication of the high level of our relations.”“The ties between our two
countries are based on friendship, mutual trust, respect and support,” the Azeri
Trend News Agency reported. Israeli iNews 24 stated that Aliyev and Cohen
discussed common strategic challenges and the means to combat hostile operations
and expand bilateral cooperation. “Israel and Azerbaijan are strengthening their
political and security alliance,” Cohen said, adding: “We talked about our
common strategic regional challenges, on top of which are regional security and
the fight against terrorism.” The Israeli foreign minister is accompanied by a
delegation of 30 officials in the fields of economy, homeland security, cyber
security and water. On Wednesday, he headed to the Turkmen capital to open his
country’s embassy - the closest Israeli diplomatic headquarters to the borders
of Iran. Ashgabat is 25 km from the Turkmen-Iranian borders, which stretch along
one thousand kilometers. Cohen is the first Israeli minister to visit Ashgabat
over the past 30 years. Relations between Baku and Tehran deteriorated last
month, after the opening of the Azeri embassy in Israel. Baku expelled four
Iranian diplomats in March for “provocative actions”. For its part, Tehran
severely criticized Baku for its rapprochement with Israel, and said that it
sees this relationship as “anti-Iranian”. Last week, the Iranian foreign
minister made two contacts with his Azeri counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, in an
attempt to defuse the crisis between the two countries. “In these frank and
transparent talks… current problems, misunderstandings and their solutions were
discussed,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It added that the
two parties “stressed the importance of good neighborliness and mutual respect
for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Israel cements ties to Turkmenistan on Iran's
border
ASHGABAT (Reuters)/Thu, April 20, 2023
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen inaugurated a permanent embassy in the
Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan on Thursday, establishing his country's
closest diplomatic presence to Iran, as Israel seeks to strengthen ties to its
arch-foe's neighbours. Although the countries established diplomatic relations
30 years ago, there had only been a temporary Israeli mission in Ashgabat and
predominantly Muslim Turkmenistan still has no embassy in Israel. "I came to
open an Israeli embassy 17 kilometres from the border with Iran, and to hold a
series of meetings with the president and other officials," Cohen tweeted on
Thursday. In English remarks to Israeli reporters accompanying Cohen, his
Turkmen counterpart, Rashid Meredov, described the embassy inauguration as "a
very shining example of our friendship". Cohen, who also met Turkmen President
Serdar Berdymukhamedov, called his visit "historic" and said Israel's ties with
Central Asia's "energy superpower" were of strategic importance. "We intend to
widen economic relations to include agriculture, water, technology and border
defence," Cohen said in a video issued by Israel's Foreign Ministry. "No doubt
both countries will benefit from the closer cooperation." The gas-rich desert
nation of six million has an official neutrality policy, avoiding membership in
any political or military blocs. Its main economic partner is China, which buys
the bulk of Turkmen gas exports. Turkmenistan's trade with Iran is relatively
small and the two countries had disputes about potentially large hydrocarbon
deposits in the Caspian Sea. Although all five Caspian littoral states signed a
convention in 2018 settling such disputes, Tehran is yet to ratify the document
- which also holds up Ashgabat's plans to build a pipeline across the sea to
ship gas to Europe. (Reporting by Marat Gurt; Additional reporting by Dan
New caucus in Congress condemns poisoning of
Iranian girls
WASHINGTON (AP)Thu, April 20, 2023 at 12:11 p.m. EDT
A new bipartisan caucus in Congress is condemning the Iranian government over
the recent poisoning of school girls in the country, amplifying the growing
criticism in Washington against the Islamic Republic and its disregard for human
rights.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, announced the formation of the Iranian Women
Congressional Caucus with the support of nearly 20 Republican and Democratic
members of the House. It's just the latest example of U.S. officials denouncing
the treatment of women by the Iranian government since nationwide protests first
erupted over the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody
of Iran’s morality police. Amini was accused of violating Iran’s strict dress
code for women by wearing her headscarf improperly. Those protests, which mark
one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 revolution,
have continued for months. More than 500 people have been killed in
demonstrations, according to human rights activists in Iran. Over 19,700 others
have been detained by authorities amid a violent crackdown trying to suppress
the dissent. Earlier this year, the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution
expressing solidarity with the protesters. Since then, a series of suspected
poisonings at girls’ schools across the country, which began late last year and
have sickened hundreds of children, fueled claims about the violation of women’s
and girls’ rights and prompted demonstrations. Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, spoke publicly about
the suspected poisonings last month. He said that if it is proven to be
deliberate the culprits should be sentenced to death for committing an
“unforgivable crime.”Iranian officials only acknowledged the attacks in recent
weeks and have provided no details on who may be behind the attacks or what
chemicals, if any, have been used. Unlike neighboring Afghanistan, Iran has no
history of religious extremists targeting women’s education. Advocates and human
rights groups have called on the U.S. and other Western democracies to cut ties
with the Islamic Republic, including any ongoing nuclear negotiations between
Washington and Tehran. Last month, the U.S. took its criticism of Iran's
handling of the issue one step further by imposing more sanctions on the
country, targeting people and firms accused of violating women’s rights during a
crackdown on anti-government protests over the treatment of young women and
girls. Included in the sanctions are two prison officials, several firms that
manufacture equipment for Iranian law enforcement, the commander-in-chief of the
Iranian army and many others. The congressional caucus announced Thursday
includes more than a dozen lawmakers from both sides of the aisle who plan to
write resolutions and draft potential legislation that focuses on women’s rights
in Iran. “So many Iranian women are showing their bravery and resiliency in the
face of challenges in their fight for equality and human rights," Rep. Nancy
Mace, R-S.C., one of the caucus members, said in a statement Thursday. "We will
be on the side of freedom and oppose the oppression of women, in the United
States, Iran, and around the globe.”
Syrian Kurds Ready for Dialogue with Damascus
Damascus - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 20 April, 2023
The Kurdish Autonomous Administration, which controls large areas in northern
and northeastern Syria, has expressed its willingness to meet with the Syrian
government, in a move that comes in parallel with an accelerating Arab openness
towards Damascus. In a statement distributed on Tuesday night and reported by
AFP, the Administration said: “We affirm our readiness to meet and talk with the
Syrian government and with all Syrian parties to hold discussions and present
initiatives for a solution.”It also urged “Arab countries, the United Nations
and international forces... to play an active and positive role in searching for
a common solution.”Since 2018, the Autonomous Administration has engaged in
several rounds of talks with Damascus, without achieving any results. Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly accused the Kurds - who spearheaded the
confrontation against ISIS and managed to defeat it in large areas in north and
northeastern Syria, with American support - of “collaborating” with Washington,
which is leading an international coalition against the extremist organization.
In an interview during his recent visit to Moscow, last month, Assad responded
to a question about the Kurdish units, saying that any party or individual
“working for a foreign power is simply a traitor and a collaborator.”
Underlining Syria’s “territorial integrity”, the Kurdish Autonomous
Administration called for the country’s resources to be shared “fairly”,
including oil and gas fields, which are mostly located in the areas under its
control.
The Kurdish authorities noted that they were ready to share resources including
oil and gas “through an agreement with the Syrian government” following
“dialogue and negotiation”. The Kurds are afraid of losing the gains they made
during the first years of the conflict, after they suffered for decades from a
policy of marginalization imposed on them by the successive Syrian governments.
They were also excluded from several rounds of negotiation, including the UN-led
talks in Geneva between representatives of the government and the opposition.
Haftar's LNA Denies Providing Support to One
Party in Sudan against the Other
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 20 April, 2023
Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) denied on Thursday providing support
to one party in Sudan against the other. "The General Command categorically
denies reports of providing support to one party against the other," LNA
spokesman Ahmad Mesmari said in a statement. Mesmari added that the LNA is
conducting urgent calls and is ready to play a mediating role between the
parties in Sudan. “From the perspective of the Arab and African national role of
the General Command of the Armed Forces, we call for the formation of a joint
mediation committee including the League of Arab States and the African Union to
exert all endeavors for an immediate cease fire to reach calm and steer out of
this crisis while preserving security and stability of Sudan,” Mesmari said.
Local and international media outlets claimed that Haftar had dispatched
military support to one of the conflicting parties in Sudan. A military source
who spoke on condition of anonymity denied the claims.
Iran says its navy forces
U.S. submarine to surface as it enters the Gulf
DUBAI (Reuters)/Thu, April 20, 2023
Iran's navy forced a U.S. submarine to surface as it entered the Gulf, Iranian
navy commander Shahram Irani told state television on Thursday, in the latest
report of an apparent confrontation between Iranian and U.S. forces in the Gulf.
"The U.S. submarine was approaching while submerged, but the Iranian submarine
Fateh detected it and carried out... manoeuvres to force it to surface as it
went through the Strait (of Hormuz). It had also entered into our territorial
waters but ... it corrected its course after being warned," Irani said. "This
submarine was doing its best, using all its capacities, to pass in total silence
and without being detected," Irani said. "We will certainly reflect to
international bodies the fact that it had violated our border."The U.S. Navy
said earlier this month the nuclear-powered, guided-missile submarine Florida
was operating in the Middle East in support of its Fifth Fleet, based in
Bahrain. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military to Irani's
remarks. Reuters sent a message seeking comment from the Fifth Fleet. Iranian
and U.S. forces have had a number of confrontations in the past. In early April,
the Iranian navy said it identified and warned off a U.S. reconnaissance plane
outside the mouth of the Gulf. In 2019, Iran shot down a U.S. drone which it
said was flying over southern Iran.
Mysterious flash of light over Kyiv sparks alarm and confusion after NASA
denies its satellite crashed
Sky News/Thu, April 20, 2023
A mysterious flash of light that lit up the skies over Kyiv sparked alarm,
confusion and speculation as to what may have caused it. Four short video clips
posted to a Telegram channel by journalist and blogger Anatolii Sharii showed
the sky over the Ukrainian capital suddenly illuminated. Sergiy Popko, head of
the city's military administration described it as a "bright glow" on the
messaging app. He said an air raid alert was activated but "air defence was not
in operation". In one clip, a flaming object appeared to be crashing to the
ground. The Ukrainian air force, which aims to bring down missiles and drones
fired by Russia, said a satellite plunging from orbit or a meteorite could be
responsible. "At the current time there is no risk of the enemy using air attack
weapons," it said. Minutes earlier, presidential adviser Andriy Yermak had
posted an emoji of a UFO. Social media users reacted with memes as they
speculated about the cause of the glow. "Please do not use official air force
symbols to create memes for the enemy to enjoy!" the Ukrainian air force said in
a message. The Austrian ambassador to Kyiv posted a video of the incident, and
joked about others on Twitter suggesting it was an alien spacecraft. The city's
military administration, citing what it called preliminary information, said it
was a crashing NASA satellite. The US space agency denied this - and said there
appeared to be some confusion over its announcement earlier this week that it
was bringing a retired satellite out of orbit. It said the satellite - sent into
orbit in 2002 to study the sun - was still in orbit at the time of the flash. On
Monday, NASA said the 300kg defunct spacecraft, known as Rhessi, would plummet
through the atmosphere on Wednesday night. Most of it would burn up, but some
parts were expected to fall to Earth.
Zelenskiy says it is time for NATO to invite Ukraine
into alliance
KYIV (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday it was time for
NATO to take the political decision to invite Ukraine to join the military
alliance, and that Kyiv wanted to know when it would become a member. The
Ukrainian leader told a joint news conference in Kyiv with NATO chief Jens
Stoltenberg that a NATO summit in Vilnius in July could become "historic", and
that he had been invited to attend. "I am grateful for the invitation to visit
the summit, but it is also important for Ukraine to receive the corresponding
invitation," he told reporters. "There is not a single objective barrier to the
political decision to invite Ukraine into the alliance and now, when most people
in NATO countries and the majority of Ukrainians support NATO accession, is the
time for the corresponding decisions."
US and allies mull ban on $66bn worth of
exports to Russia
The Telegraph/Nick Allen/April 20, 2023
The United States and some of its allies are considering a total ban on $66
billion worth of exports to Russia still fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
It would represent a change in principle from all exports to Russia being
allowed, unless specially sanctioned, to all exports being prohibited unless
specifically exempted. Diplomats from G7 countries were discussing the option
ahead of a summit in Hiroshima, Japan in May, Bloomberg reported. Under the
proposed tightening of sanctions, allies would have to agree on what should be
exempted, and that would probably include medicine and food, Bloomberg reported.
Products that would probably be banned included cars, beer, chocolate, shoes,
flowers and make-up. If the European Union was to join the ban, all member
countries would have to support it. Opposition from businesses that currently
still export to Russia would be expected. Sanctions already implemented have hit
Moscow severely. However, goods worth $66 billion are still being exported to
Russia from the US, Canada, Japan and Europe, according to analysts.
Moscow could block energy exports
There were concerns that a total ban on exports could trigger renewed Russian
retaliation in the form of Moscow blocking its energy exports to European
countries. Moscow could also be encouraged by such a move to seek closer
economic ties with China. Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary, said: “It is
essential that China and other countries do not provide Russia with material
support or assistance with sanctions evasion.”She said the consequences of any
violations would be “severe”. Washington has sanctioned hundreds of Russian
officials and institutions since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Dozens
of other countries have imposed sanctions. Earlier this year, Kenneth Rogoff,
the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said sanctions
meant Russia was headed towards being a new Cuba, Venezuela or “giant Iran”.
Last month, it emerged that the EU could restrict goods, including washing
machines, from being shipped to countries traditionally allied to Russia. A
significant increase was noticed in trade between the EU and countries involving
goods that could have “dual-use” technologies, with both military and civilian
applications.
Vladimir Putin is preparing to attack the UK
Bob Seely/The Telegraph/April 20, 2023
For a long time it was only speculation. Now we know for certain: Russian spy
ships are mapping wind farms and key cables off the British coast. There can be
only one reason for this – to learn how to sabotage UK and European critical
infrastructure in the event of a full-scale war with the West.
The sobering truth is that our potential adversaries, Russia in the West and
China in the East, are gearing up for wider conflict. That does not mean that
conflict will happen –preparation makes it less likely – but we must urgently
recognise the extent of the threat to the current order. Our world is becoming
markedly more dangerous. And Britain is not ready. Our collective response over
too much of the past 15 years was one of denial, oiled and encouraged by Russian
money and influence in the US, UK and EU. War in Ukraine opened our eyes – just
this week Cabinet Office Secretary Oliver Dowden gave an “unprecedented” warning
of cyber threats to our national infrastructure; and Defence Secretary Ben
Wallace has been consistently robust – but there is much more we can do. Some of
our closest allies, such as Poland, are re-arming on land at an unprecedented
rate. Were the worst to happen, they will be ready to defend European soil. But
the Nato alliance remains dangerously exposed at sea. Russia is probing for
European vulnerabilities. Apart from food, the daily critical requirements of
modern society are energy and communications. The underwater arteries of modern
civilisation are surprisingly few. For example, just three pipelines deliver 43
per cent of our baseline gas supply. Five interconnectors deliver electricity to
and from the UK and Europe (and one more between Britain and Ireland). There are
more communications cables, about 70 in all, but a relatively small number of
deep-sea sabotage operations could bring our world to a halt without a shot
being fired. We were assured that wind farms would bolster our energy security,
but few considered their military exposure. For two decades, Putin has laid the
groundwork for unconventional warfare. Current Russian military thinking sees
conflict as combining military and non-military tools of state power – the
“unification of everything” – into a seamless whole to serve the Kremlin’s aims.
It is a form of total war, using everything from culture to cyber to
conventional conflict. It reflects the belief that, according to the head of
Russia’s Armed Forces, the “very rules of war” have changed.
It has been clear for years that both Russian official and illicit groups
operate under the Kremlin’s control. Russia has long used organised crime to do
its dirty work, and with the global growth of the Wagner mercenary group, the
“unofficial arms” of the Russian state will only increase. Behind them will be
Russia’s overseas spy agency, the SVR, its internal agency, the FSB, or the
bloodthirsty but sloppy GRU, responsible for the Skripal poisoning.
My fear is that Putin is gauging options to attack the West, should he wish to
escalate, without triggering a Nato military response. How would the UK or Nato
respond to shadowy groups conducting cyber attacks across the UK or Europe that
result in physical damage or destruction of fuel storage depots? Or a series of
unexplained glitches or failures on underwater cables? Would a military response
be feasible, as Admiral Tony Radakin argued last year? We still don’t know who
sabotaged the Nord Steam 2 pipeline. Could we really risk war on a suspicion?
Putin knows this. As a result of the Telegraph story that broke the news of the
underwater mapping, I have put down Written Parliamentary Questions to ask about
capabilities for underwater cable protection, when our undersea cable protection
platform will be fully operational, and if and when a second will enter service.
The truth is that maritime defence is an area where Britain can naturally lead,
working especially with our Scandinavian, North Sea and Baltic allies in the
ten-nation Joint Expeditionary Force. All these sea-faring countries have a
vested interest in preventing Russian ocean sabotage. But Britain’s history is
unique and our naval experience unrivalled, especially among our northern
European allies. The need is critical. This century will witness a struggle
between two versions of humanity: open societies like our own versus closed,
authoritarian societies using all forms of state power to oppress their own
people and threaten others. It is a struggle that we have not wanted, but one
that we cannot, and must not, lose. We have failed to see the trend, in Russia
but also in China, because for too long our leaders naively assumed the rulers
of those countries shared our own outlook and assumptions. They do not. As we
have seen with Putin, war is not only thinkable but necessary. Using his spy
ships in the North and Baltic seas, he is threatening to expand that conflict
still further. We cannot afford to let him do so. Bob Seely is MP for the Isle
of Wight and sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He has a PhD in Russian
military strategy
NATO chief visits Kyiv for 1st time since Russian
invasion
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/Thu, April 20, 2023
— NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is visiting Ukraine for the first time
since last year’s invasion by Russia, an alliance official said Thursday. “The
NATO Secretary General is in Ukraine. We will release more information as soon
as possible,” said an alliance official, who asked not to be identified in line
with NATO procedures. Pictures of Stoltenberg apparently paying tribute to
fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv’s St Michael’s Square were published by local
media. Stoltenberg has been the strong voice of the alliance throughout the
yearlong war and has been instrumental in garnering and coordinating support by
the 31 members for the embattled nation as it sought to hold on to its
territory. Stoltenberg had been to Kyiv before the war, but this is his first
visit during the hostilities and underscores the longstanding commitments of the
alliance in defense of Ukraine’s independence.
Russia is arresting police officers and
overhauling its security forces after data leaks to Ukraine, say reports
Sinéad Baker/Business Insider/April 20, 2023
Russian media is reporting investigations and arrests of police officers over
leaks to Ukrainians.The country appears to be overhauling its domestic security
bodies over the leaks, experts said. But experts said it may also be happening
as the Kremlin looks to "consolidate further control." Russia's federal security
service appears to be conducting a major overhaul of the country's domestic
security forces, including arresting police officers, over leaks to Ukrainians,
experts monitoring Russia's invasion of Ukraine said. Washington DC-based think
tank the Institute for the Study of War said in an update on Wednesday that the
Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, appears to be conducting this
large-scale overhaul, while also being involved in "raids" on Moscow police
departments. A Russian source told the think tank that police officers had been
detained as part of the investigation. The ISW said that the investigations,
which Russian media reports said are related to leaks to Ukrainians, may also be
part of an effort to get rid of officials that the Kremlin wants to dismiss,
allowing Russia's government to further consolidate its power. It cited a
Wednesday report from Russian state news outlet TASS, which said the FSB and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs' Main Directorate of the Security Service have been
investigating the Moscow Central District Internal Affairs Directorate and
several police offices in Moscow. TASS reported that the checks were taking
place over "the leakage of data from Russian security forces at the request of
Ukrainian citizens," according to ISW's translation. Online Russian outlet Baza
also reported on Wednesday that FSB officers had been investigating the Internal
Affairs' Main Directorate and Moscow police departments for weeks over leaks,
and that some Ukrainians had received information about Russia's security forces
from the police. Baza reported that Ukrainians were paying for information on
Russian security forces and judges, and that police officers had been arrested.
The ISW noted that the investigations are happening as leaders of Russia's
national guard, Rosgvardia, have been arrested and dismissed. This includes two
commanders who were reportedly arrested in March, accused of corruption. "The
Kremlin may be pushing for such arrests and investigations in order to conduct
an overhaul of the domestic security apparatus to oust officials who have fallen
out of Kremlin favor and consolidate further control internal security organs,"
the ISW said.
Thousands of Sudanese cross borders to flee warring
generals
LBCI/Thu, April 20, 2023
Thousands of Sudanese have crossed into Chad to flee fighting in the western
region of Darfur and thousands more streamed out of the capital Khartoum, where
renewed heavy gunfire erupted on Thursday as the latest of several ceasefires
broke down. Forces commanded by two previously allied leaders of Sudan's ruling
council began a violent power struggle last weekend that has so far killed more
than 330 people, tipping a nation reliant on food aid into what the United
Nations calls a humanitarian catastrophe. The fiercest battles between the army
and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been around Khartoum, one
of Africa's largest urban areas, and in Darfur, still scarred by a brutal
conflict that ended three years ago. Around 10,000 to 20,000 people fleeing the
fighting have taken refuge in villages along the border inside Chad, U.N.
refugee agency UNHCR and the World Food Program (WFP) said on Thursday.
Eyewitnesses in the city of El-Obeid east of Darfur described clashes between
the army and paramilitary forces and widespread looting. In the capital and
sister cities Omdurman and Bahri, residents gathered at bus terminals with
suitcases after more explosions and gunfire in the morning.
"There's no food, supermarkets are empty, the situation isn't safe, honestly, so
people are leaving," said Khartoum resident who gave only his first name,
Abdelmalek. Many other locals remain trapped, along with thousands of
foreigners, in a city rapidly degenerating into a war zone.
Burnt out vehicles litter the streets and shells have torn gaping holes in
buildings including now closed hospitals, where bodies lie unburied. Even before
the conflict, around a quarter of Sudan's population was facing acute hunger,
but the WFP halted one of its largest global operations in the country on
Saturday after three workers were killed. Sudan borders seven countries and sits
strategically between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Africa's volatile Sahel
region, so the hostilities risk fanning regional tensions. Chad said it had
stopped and disarmed a Sudanese contingent of 320 soldiers on Monday, while the
RSF has returned Egyptian troops it had captured at the northern Merowe base at
the weekend. In an all-out push for a ceasefire, U.N. secretary General Antonio
Guterres was holding a virtual summit with the African Union, Arab League and EU,
among others, a diplomatic source said.
RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo told broadcaster Al Jazeera he was
ready to implement a three-day truce over Eid, which marks the end of the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan and will start on Friday or Saturday. Dagalo, widely known
as Hemedti, has said several times he supports short ceasefires, but each has
quickly collapsed. However, military ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told
Al Jazeera: "There is no other option but the military solution.""We are talking
about a humanitarian truce, we are talking about safe passages... we are not
talking about sitting down with a criminal," Hemedti said, referring to Burhan.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization urged the combatants to open a safe
corridor for medics and to allow those trapped to flee. International powers,
struggling to evacuate citizens after the airport and embassy districts were
caught up in the violence, have also been pushing for truces, The RSF has up to
100,000 troops, according to analysts. The army has artillery and fighter
planes, and controls access to Khartoum. It appeared to be trying to cut supply
routes to RSF fighters, residents and witnesses said. The United States said it
was "not currently safe" to evacuate private citizens while Japan's defense
ministry placed military transport aircraft in Djibouti to prepare for pulling
63 of its nationals out. Since hostilities erupted, much of the fighting has
focused on the compound housing the army HQ and Burhan's residence. Burhan
accused RSF's Dagalo, until last week his deputy on the council that has ruled
since a coup two years ago, of "a power grab".An alliance between the two men
had mostly held since the ouster four years ago of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir,
whose rule saw Sudan become an international pariah that was on the US terrorism
list. In an interview with the Financial Times, Burhan said much of the RSF was
now "out of control", accusing fighters of looting and attacking foreign
diplomats and aid workers. Washington has said it had preliminary indications
the RSF was behind an attack on its diplomats, and witnesses say RSF gunmen have
been involved in looting and attacks on aid workers. Separately, Dagalo told the
FT the armed forces were to blame for hitting hospitals and non-military
targets, as well as the attacks on "diplomats and guests."The latest violence
was triggered by disagreement over an internationally backed plan to form a new
civilian government. Both sides accuse the other of thwarting the transition.
Biden's America is ceding
control of the seas to Communist China
David Axe/The Independent/Thu, April 20, 2023
The US Navy is shrinking at precisely the wrong time. Its biggest rival, the
Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Navy), PLA(N), is growing bigger and more
powerful by the day – a naval expansion that has profound implications for the
freedom of Taiwan, the security of the wider Asia-Pacific region and the whole
global economy. America’s naval crisis has deep roots – a tangle of misplaced
strategic priorities, botched privatisation efforts and bad ship designs
reaching back to the 1990s or even earlier. It predates, by decades, the
politicians and military officials who are now presiding over it.
But today’s leaders – President Joe Biden, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday – could, if they had the gumption,
slow or even reverse the maritime decline. We know this because lawmakers from
both major political parties routinely intervene in the US Navy’s annual
shipbuilding plans and add back ships the Navy wanted to cut. This year is
looking no different. The Navy in March asked Congress for $29 billion for nine
new ships. That’s too few to keep pace with the decommissioning of old ships,
and lawmakers know it.
“The Navy’s shipbuilding plan is a blueprint to end America’s command of the
sea,” Roger Wicker, a Republican senator from Mississippi, said then. The
fleet’s disastrous shrinkage isn’t inevitable. But if lawmakers don’t intervene
to alter the USN’s latest long-term shipbuilding plan, which service leaders
released on Tuesday, the fleet will shed another eight of its 293 front-line
warships before it finally starts growing again – slowly – around 2028. The
problem for America, Taiwan and the whole free world is that those five years
could prove critical. The PLA(N) surpassed the US Navy in one important metric –
the number of ships – back in 2021. That shift in the naval balance of power has
coincided with Beijing’s escalating belligerence toward Taipei. Authoritarian
China can bully democratic Taiwan because it has the muscle to back up its
threats.
It’s true that Beijing’s 340 or so ships on average are smaller and somewhat
less sophisticated than American warships. And the Chinese navy has just two
small aircraft carriers – plus a third, bigger carrier under construction –
while the USN has 11 huge supercarriers. American ships have better weapons and
better sensors. But the PLA(N) has a huge geographic advantage. It only deploys
its ships in the Western Pacific around Taiwan, whereas America patrols all the
world’s oceans. Even reinforcements from the Australian and Japanese fleets
might not save the USN from being outnumbered in a pitched battle over Taiwan.
It didn’t have to be this way. The US Navy, like every other major Cold War
navy, cut way back on its spending after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The
US fleet had more than 500 front-line warships in the early 1990s. Ten years
later, it was down to around 300.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan prolonged the decline. The Pentagon spent more
on ground forces, less on ships. And many of the ships the U.S. Navy did buy in
the early 2000s turned out to be deeply flawed. The Zumwalt-class stealth
destroyers had so many experimental technologies that their price spiraled to
more than $7 billion apiece. The fleet ended up with just three of the high-tech
vessels instead of the 32 it needed to replace older ships.
The contemporaneous Littoral Combat Ship program was meant to produce a class of
50 or more inexpensive, flexible, fast ships for near-shore warfare. But their
engines were unreliable, their anti-submarine gear didn’t work and their air
defences were dangerously light. The Navy paid for 35 of the $600-million ships
then immediately decided they weren’t suitable for war. The fleet has already
decommissioned three of the virtually brand-new Littoral Combat Ships, and has
asked lawmakers for permission to mothball another 11. Some LCSs could leave the
fleet without ever having deployed on a front-line patrol. The twin failures of
the Zumwalt and Littoral Combat Ship programs robbed the US fleet of an entire
generation of new ships, and forced it to hold onto older ships long past their
time. Now there are dozens of 1980s-vintage submarines, cruisers and amphibious
ships that are so worn out that they haven’t deployed in years. The Navy doesn’t
want to pay potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the old ships –
not when its four government-owned shipyards are already struggling to chip away
at a years-long maintenance backlog. It’s worth noting that just 30 years ago,
the Navy owned a dozen shipyards. But successive presidential administrations
rushed to give them away for private development. A constellation of seven
private shipyards builds America’s new warships. They too are struggling to keep
up. Navy leaders acknowledge their own culpability in the industrial backlog.
Naval shipbuilding is a highly skilled vocation. If the government doesn’t keep
those workers employed with enough good work, year after year across
generations, the workers move on to other careers. The post-Cold War naval
doldrums idled too many skilled shipwrights and hollowed out the workforce. Now
that the yards desperately need workers, the Navy is relearning an old and
obvious lesson: shipwrights don’t grow on trees. “The build-up in the 1950s and
1980s, followed by ‘bust’ periods of little production, each led to the loss of
portions of our shipbuilding industrial capacity,” the USN admits in this week’s
new shipbuilding plan. This is a problem the PLA(N) doesn’t have. It’s been
methodically expanding its industrial base and associated workforce for 30
years: long-term investment that explains why, today, Beijing effortlessly
builds two or three dozen new ships every year. That’s twice what Washington
manages. Not coincidentally, that’s the same 30-year period the U.S. Navy has
spent squandering its maritime inheritance. The only reason the American fleet
isn’t even smaller is that, year after year for at least a decade, Congress has
added money and ships to the Navy’s budget requests. Last year Biden and fleet
leaders asked for eight new front-line ships for $28 billion. Congress made it
11 for $32 billion. Expect lawmakers to continue their long tradition of trying
to save the US Navy from itself. It’s harder to forecast whether it’ll be enough
to save Taiwan and the whole Western Pacific from Chinese domination.
Russian inflation risks must ease to make room for rate cut - central bank
MOSCOW (Reuters)/Thu, April 20, 2023
Inflationary risks in Russia must decrease in order to create room for interest
rate cuts, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said on Thursday, in hawkish
comments a week before the bank next sets interest rates. The central bank has
become more wary of inflation this year, warning of the risks of a widening
budget deficit, weaker rouble and labour shortages. Its key rate currently
stands at 7.5%. Annual inflation decelerated sharply to 3.51% last month due to
the high base effect. Prices in March 2022 rose by 7.61% in month-on-month terms
after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine last February.
Nabiullina, in a copy of her speech to lawmakers posted on the central bank
website, said annual inflation would slow again in April, but warned that price
expectations among households and businesses remain high, above 2018-19 levels,
when inflation was near the 4% target. "External conditions also remain
difficult," Nabiullina said. "In order to create space for further rate cuts, it
is necessary that pro-inflationary risks decrease. "If we sacrifice price
stability, we will not be able to protect our citizens and enterprises in the
future."
Nabiullina said the bank was committed to maintaining a floating exchange rate
and would only enter the currency market when there was a risk to financial
stability - as there was last spring when Western nations started imposing
punitive sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine.
Putin has one last chance to blackmail Europe into submission
The Telegraph/Matthew Lynn/April 20, 2023
As a way of using social media channels, it was at least on-brand.
While most companies post colourful pictures of new products, contented
customers and smiling staff, Russia’s state owned energy giant Gazprom appears
to mix in veiled threats and bullying hints. Over the last few days, it has
taken to Twitter and Telegram to issue a dark warning that Europe is still
threatened by energy shortages. It would, of course, be easy to dismiss this as
self-serving corporate gangsterism. And yet it also contains an uncomfortable
grain of truth. We were very lucky to get through last winter without blackouts
across Europe, and we are running out of time to defuse the "gas bomb" that
could still blow up the economy. With the blossoms on the trees, thermostats
turned down and hot water bottles back in the cupboard, we could simply put the
energy crisis behind us. We survived the winter without the blackouts,
rationing, or the school and factory closures which throughout November and
December were just a cold snap away. And yet, if anyone thought the crisis was
over, Gazprom is there to remind us that Vladimir Putin’s energy supplier is
still a force to be reckoned with. Europe’s gas storage facilities were already
down to 60pc of its capacity, it pointed out, and will have to be refilled over
the months ahead. "This will be very difficult to do, given the politically
motivated decisions aimed at refusing to import Russian pipeline gas. The volume
of gas available on the European market will be greatly affected by competition
for LNG," Gazprom said. True, Gazprom is not exactly a neutral source of
information. Europe managed to wean itself off Russian gas more quickly than
anyone expected when the Russian army moved across the Ukrainian frontier 14
months ago, and with less disruption. This has, thus far, enabled certain
countries to maintain robust support for Kyiv. The lights were not switched off.
The offices and schools stayed open. And the economy kept functioning. And yet,
for all the bullying, there is still an element of truth in the point Gazprom is
making. As Putin will well know, we got lucky last winter. We cannot guarantee
that good fortune will hold.
There were three reasons why we managed to muddle through the closure of the
Russian pipelines. First, temperatures were relatively mild. Since the end of
last September, average temperatures in Germany, Europe's largest gas consumer,
have been 25pc or 1.58 degrees Celsius above normal, according to data from
Refinitiv. In the Swiss Alps, it was so warm there was too little snow for the
ski resorts, and across the continent it was warmer than usual. But we were just
one ‘Beast from the East’ away from serious shortages, and we certainly can’t
count on mild weather two years running (indeed, simple averages would suggest
we are due a cold one). Next, extra supplies from Qatar and, most of all, the US
helped by a booming fracking industry, meant there may have been more LNG on the
market. And yet, with a recovering global economy, and more demand from Asia, we
shouldn’t count on that either. Finally, with the war raging, companies and
consumers were willing to make savings, with many cities switching off Christmas
lights, and some factories, especially in the heartlands of German heavy
industry, switching to alternative fuels even if they cost more. This may not
continue.
We cannot rely on luck alone to keep the lights switched on. And despite
measures taken to limit dependence on Russian gas, it remains the case that in
Slovakia, Estonia, Poland and Germany it accounts for over half of all natural
gas imports. When Russia curbed pipeline supplies to Europe last year, the
scramble to source alternative supplies led to a surge in prices and massively
exacerbated the cost of living crisis. Last winter, many European nations threw
colossal sums of money at the issue, running up vast deficits to secure LNG
supplies on a tight global market. Over the last two decades, the British
government has shamefully neglected our energy security. The state has meddled
in the market to the point that it scarcely resembles a market anymore with
subsidies, schemes and taxes. And this has left us exposed. If there is a cold
winter, if demand surges back, if the LNG market tightens, if still weather
takes out wind power, or if France’s crucial nuclear power plants need more
repairs, or face strikes, we could soon find ourselves once again discussing
blackouts and rationing.
Successive UK governments have indulged the most extreme wing of the climate
change movement to allow our North Sea oil and gas industry to be run down when
there are still supplies sitting under the seabed. We have imported gas which
may have been sourced via less environmentally friendly processes. And we have
imposed punitive windfall taxes to deter the few people still willing to invest
in the sector. North Sea oil and gas is now taxed at an effective rate of 75pc.
President Biden, hardly a hard-right reactionary, has approved new oil wells in
Alaska. Yet we can’t approve them here. We have re-imposed a blanket ban on
fracking even though we have rich seams of shale gas in the North of England,
pandering to a mix of net zero ideologues, Nimbys and renewable energy
promoters.
Alberta in Canada has not been convulsed by earthquakes despite having a huge
fracking industry. And we are progressing so painfully slowly with building new
nuclear power stations that it may be the end of the century before any start
pumping any electricity into the grid. Our reliance on foreign energy is hardly
some accident. It is the result of a series of deliberate political decisions -
and all of them, as it happens, have been the wrong ones. We just about managed
to keep the lights switched over winter – but it came at a cost. It could have
been much worse, and as Gazprom has darkly reminded us, the crisis is not over
yet. Fixing the roof while the sun is shining is the oldest cliche in the
political playbook. But over the course of the next six months we should be
learning the lesson of last year – and making sure we have far more secure
energy supplies by the time it gets cold again.
Biden's America is ceding control of the seas to
Communist China
David Axe/The Independent/Thu, April 20, 2023
The US Navy is shrinking at precisely the wrong time. Its biggest rival, the
Chinese People’s Liberation Army (Navy), PLA(N), is growing bigger and more
powerful by the day – a naval expansion that has profound implications for the
freedom of Taiwan, the security of the wider Asia-Pacific region and the whole
global economy. America’s naval crisis has deep roots – a tangle of misplaced
strategic priorities, botched privatisation efforts and bad ship designs
reaching back to the 1990s or even earlier. It predates, by decades, the
politicians and military officials who are now presiding over it.
But today’s leaders – President Joe Biden, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday – could, if they had the gumption,
slow or even reverse the maritime decline. We know this because lawmakers from
both major political parties routinely intervene in the US Navy’s annual
shipbuilding plans and add back ships the Navy wanted to cut. This year is
looking no different. The Navy in March asked Congress for $29 billion for nine
new ships. That’s too few to keep pace with the decommissioning of old ships,
and lawmakers know it.
“The Navy’s shipbuilding plan is a blueprint to end America’s command of the
sea,” Roger Wicker, a Republican senator from Mississippi, said then.
The fleet’s disastrous shrinkage isn’t inevitable. But if lawmakers don’t
intervene to alter the USN’s latest long-term shipbuilding plan, which service
leaders released on Tuesday, the fleet will shed another eight of its 293
front-line warships before it finally starts growing again – slowly – around
2028.
The problem for America, Taiwan and the whole free world is that those five
years could prove critical. The PLA(N) surpassed the US Navy in one important
metric – the number of ships – back in 2021. That shift in the naval balance of
power has coincided with Beijing’s escalating belligerence toward Taipei.
Authoritarian China can bully democratic Taiwan because it has the muscle to
back up its threats.
It’s true that Beijing’s 340 or so ships on average are smaller and somewhat
less sophisticated than American warships. And the Chinese navy has just two
small aircraft carriers – plus a third, bigger carrier under construction –
while the USN has 11 huge supercarriers. American ships have better weapons and
better sensors. But the PLA(N) has a huge geographic advantage. It only deploys
its ships in the Western Pacific around Taiwan, whereas America patrols all the
world’s oceans. Even reinforcements from the Australian and Japanese fleets
might not save the USN from being outnumbered in a pitched battle over Taiwan.
It didn’t have to be this way. The US Navy, like every other major Cold War
navy, cut way back on its spending after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The
US fleet had more than 500 front-line warships in the early 1990s. Ten years
later, it was down to around 300.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan prolonged the decline. The Pentagon spent more
on ground forces, less on ships. And many of the ships the U.S. Navy did buy in
the early 2000s turned out to be deeply flawed. The Zumwalt-class stealth
destroyers had so many experimental technologies that their price spiraled to
more than $7 billion apiece. The fleet ended up with just three of the high-tech
vessels instead of the 32 it needed to replace older ships. The contemporaneous
Littoral Combat Ship program was meant to produce a class of 50 or more
inexpensive, flexible, fast ships for near-shore warfare. But their engines were
unreliable, their anti-submarine gear didn’t work and their air defences were
dangerously light. The Navy paid for 35 of the $600-million ships then
immediately decided they weren’t suitable for war.
The fleet has already decommissioned three of the virtually brand-new Littoral
Combat Ships, and has asked lawmakers for permission to mothball another 11.
Some LCSs could leave the fleet without ever having deployed on a front-line
patrol. The twin failures of the Zumwalt and Littoral Combat Ship programs
robbed the US fleet of an entire generation of new ships, and forced it to hold
onto older ships long past their time. Now there are dozens of 1980s-vintage
submarines, cruisers and amphibious ships that are so worn out that they haven’t
deployed in years. The Navy doesn’t want to pay potentially hundreds of millions
of dollars to fix the old ships – not when its four government-owned shipyards
are already struggling to chip away at a years-long maintenance backlog. It’s
worth noting that just 30 years ago, the Navy owned a dozen shipyards. But
successive presidential administrations rushed to give them away for private
development. A constellation of seven private shipyards builds America’s new
warships. They too are struggling to keep up. Navy leaders acknowledge their own
culpability in the industrial backlog. Naval shipbuilding is a highly skilled
vocation. If the government doesn’t keep those workers employed with enough good
work, year after year across generations, the workers move on to other careers.
The post-Cold War naval doldrums idled too many skilled shipwrights and hollowed
out the workforce. Now that the yards desperately need workers, the Navy is
relearning an old and obvious lesson: shipwrights don’t grow on trees. “The
build-up in the 1950s and 1980s, followed by ‘bust’ periods of little
production, each led to the loss of portions of our shipbuilding industrial
capacity,” the USN admits in this week’s new shipbuilding plan.
This is a problem the PLA(N) doesn’t have. It’s been methodically expanding its
industrial base and associated workforce for 30 years: long-term investment that
explains why, today, Beijing effortlessly builds two or three dozen new ships
every year. That’s twice what Washington manages.
Not coincidentally, that’s the same 30-year period the U.S. Navy has spent
squandering its maritime inheritance. The only reason the American fleet isn’t
even smaller is that, year after year for at least a decade, Congress has added
money and ships to the Navy’s budget requests. Last year Biden and fleet leaders
asked for eight new front-line ships for $28 billion. Congress made it 11 for
$32 billion. Expect lawmakers to continue their long tradition of trying to save
the US Navy from itself. It’s harder to forecast whether it’ll be enough to save
Taiwan and the whole Western Pacific from Chinese domination.
U.N. chief calls for three-day Eid truce in
Sudan
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Thursday for a
three-day ceasefire in Sudan over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr to allow
trapped civilians to escape to seek medical treatment, food and other essential
supplies. Guterres did not specify when the ceasefire should start. The
three-day holiday begins in Sudan on Friday. Since fighting broke out between
Sudanese troops and paramilitary forces on Saturday, he said humanitarian
operations have become "virtually impossible" and warehouses, vehicles and other
humanitarian assets have been attacked, looted and seized. Three U.N. World Food
Programme (WFP) workers were killed and two injured in clashes on Saturday in
Kabkabiya in North Darfur. "Targeting humanitarian workers and assets must end,"
Guterres told reporters. "I am also extremely worried about the situation of
United Nations personnel, many of whom are trapped in their homes in areas of
active conflict." The United Nations has about 4,000 staff in Sudan, of which
800 are international staff, and said before the violence erupted nearly 16
million people throughout the country - one-third of the population - were in
need of humanitarian aid. Guterres spoke to reporters after meeting virtually
with the heads of the African Union, Arab League, regional African bloc
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and other relevant
organizations. "There was a strong consensus on condemning the ongoing fighting
in Sudan and calling for a cessation of hostilities," Guterres said.
He said a three-day Eid truce must pave the way for a permanent ceasefire. "The
cessation of hostilities must be followed by serious dialogue allowing for the
successful transition, starting with the appointment of a civilian government,"
Guterres said. "The fighting must stop immediately."
Fighting in Khartoum threatens to unravel
Sudan cease-fire
Associated Press/Thu, April 20, 2023
Fighters from Sudan's rival factions battled around the main military
installation in central Khartoum and other parts of the country's capital on
Thursday, threatening to unravel the latest attempt at a cease-fire as foreign
governments looked for ways to extract their citizens trapped in the conflict.
With some parts of the Sudanese capital relatively calmer than previous days,
the exodus of residents in Khartoum from their homes appeared to accelerate.
"Massive numbers" of people, mostly women and children, were leaving in search
of safer areas, said Atiya Abdulla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors' Syndicate.
The 24-hour cease-fire, which came into effect Wednesday evening, is the most
significant attempt yet to halt violence between the military and the
paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The rivals' fight for control of Sudan has
turned the densely populated Khartoum, its neighboring city of Omdurman and
other parts of the country into war zones, with millions of Sudanese caught in
between. Khartoum residents have been desperate for a respite after days of
being trapped in their homes, their food and water running out. But whatever
tenuous quiet has been brought to some areas by the truce risks quickly falling
apart. "Sounds of gunfire and air bombing are still heard," Atiya told The
Associated Press said. "It is escalating, and the situation is deteriorating
rapidly."
At least 330 people have been killed and 3,300 wounded in the fighting since it
began Saturday, the U.N.'s World Health Organization said, but the toll is
likely higher because many bodies lie uncollected in the streets. A previous
truce attempt on Tuesday collapsed as soon as it began, and the two antagonists
in the fight — army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and RSF commander Gen.
Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — have seemed determined to crush each other in their
struggle for power. Diplomatic efforts were underway to try to shore up and
extend the cease-fire. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and the
president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan,
spoke by phone Thursday and discussed efforts to stop the fighting and return to
negotiations, Egypt's presidency said. Egypt is allied to Sudan's military,
while the UAE is close to the Rapid Support Forces. The truce has not been firm
enough to deliver supplies and relief to Sudan's overwhelmed hospitals, Atiya
said. Hospitals in Khartoum are running dangerously low on medical supplies,
often operating without power and clean water. Around 70% of hospitals near the
clash sites throughout the country are out of service, the Sudanese Doctors
Syndicate said Thursday. At least nine hospitals were bombed, it said.
"We are worried that Sudan's healthcare system could completely collapse.
Hospitals need additional staff, they need additional supplies, and they need
additional blood supplies," Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N.
secretary-general, said in a briefing Wednesday.
The fighting has been disastrous for a country where the United Nations says
around a third of the population — some 16 million people — are in need of
humanitarian aid. The U.N. children's agency UNICEF warned that critical care
has been disrupted for 50,000 severely acutely malnourished children, who need
round-the-clock treatment. Save the Children said power outages across the
country have destroyed cold chain storage facilities for lifesaving vaccines, as
well as the national stock of insulin and several antibiotics. Millions of
children, the aid group said, are now at risk of disease and further health
complications. It said 12% of the country's 22 million children are suffering
from malnutrition and are vulnerable to other diseases. Through the night and
into Thursday morning, gunfire could be heard almost constantly across Khartoum.
Residents reported the heaviest fighting around the main military headquarters
in central Khartoum and at the nearby airport. Military warplanes struck RSF
positions at the airport and in Omdurman, residents said. The Egyptian and
Sudanese militaries said that Egypt succeeded in repatriating dozens of its
military personnel who had been detained by the RSF when it attacked Merowe
airport, north of the capital, early in the fighting. Egypt said its personnel
were there for training and joint exercises. Foreign governments as well geared
up to evacuate their citizens from Sudan. But with airports in Khartoum and
other cities turned into battlegrounds, it remained uncertain how they would do
so.
Japan's Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on Thursday ordered military aircraft
sent to the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti to stand by for an evacuation of
around 60 Japanese nationals, though it was not clear when one would take place.
The Netherlands sent military transport craft to the Jordanian port city of
Aqaba late Wednesday to be ready as well, though the Dutch Defense Ministry
acknowledged that "evacuations are not possible at the moment."
The conflict has once again derailed Sudan's attempt to establish democratic
rule since a popular uprising helped oust helped depose long-time autocrat Omar
al-Bashir four years ago. Burhan and Dagalo jointly carried out a coup purging
civilians from a transitional government in 2021.
The explosion of violence came after weeks of growing tensions between the two
generals over new international attempts to press a return to civilian
government. Both sides have a long history of human rights abuses. The RSF was
born out of the Janjaweed militias, which were accused of widespread atrocities
when the government deployed them to put down a rebellion in Sudan's western
Darfur region in the early 2000s. The conflict has raised fears of a spillover
from the strategically located nation to its African neighbors. Sudan's fighting
has also caused up to 20,000 Sudanese to seek refuge in eastern Chad, the U.N.
said Thursday. At least 320 Sudanese soldiers fled to Chad, where they were
disarmed, said Daoud Yaya Brahim, Chad's defense minister. The troops were
apparently fleeing from Darfur, where the RSF is the most powerful armed force.
"Chad is for the moment trying to remain neutral … (but) Chad will be forced to
pick sides if Sudan continues its descent into civil war," said Benjamin Hunger,
Africa analyst for Verisk Maplecroft, a risk assessment firm.
Sudan's truce falters, as Egypt repatriates army personnel
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP)/Thu, April 20, 2023
Egypt on Thursday repatriated dozens of its military personnel who had been held
by Sudan's paramilitary force, which is locked in a deadly struggle with the
Sudanese army to control the strategic African country. The latest attempt at a
cease-fire between the rival Sudanese forces faltered as gunfire rattled the
capital of Khartoum. As global pressure to stop the violence failed, Japan and
the Netherlands flew transport planes closer to the conflict-battered nation
ahead of a possible evacuation of their citizens. Egyptian air force technicians
had been detained by fighters from Sudan's Rapid Support Forces after the group
attacked Merowe airport, north of the capital. A close ally of Sudan's army,
Egypt said the personnel were there for training and joint exercises. Fighting
soon after erupted around the country between the RSF and Sudan's army.Egypt's
army said in a statement Thursday that all its technical crews had been flown
home from Sudan in military transport planes. The Sudanese military also
confirmed the evacuation, putting the number of Egyptian personnel at 177. The
evacuation came as the military and RSF launched a 24-hour cease-fire Wednesday
evening after five days of battles between them in the streets of the capital
and other parts of the country. The day before, a similar truce failed to stop
the deadly clashes that threaten to engulf the country in civil war.
At least 330 people have been killed and over 3,000 injured so far, the U.N.
health agency said, but the toll is likely higher because many bodies lie
uncollected in the streets. Through the night and into Thursday morning, gunfire
could be heard almost constantly across Khartoum. Artillery shelling and
airstrikes seemed to have eased from previous days, but residents still reported
a few explosions. Aid groups said they needed better guarantees of safety and a
longer truce to help civilians trapped by the intense urban combat and to
salvage hospitals that have been battered, shut down or overwhelmed by the
violence.
Hospitals in Khartoum are running dangerously low on medical supplies, often
operating without power and clean water. Around 70% of hospitals near the clash
sites throughout the country are out of service, the Sudanese Doctors Syndicate
said Thursday. At least nine hospitals were bombed, it said. “We are worried
that Sudan’s healthcare system could completely collapse. Hospitals need
additional staff, they need additional supplies, and they need additional blood
supplies,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, said
in a briefing Wednesday. International diplomats have hoped a 24-hour truce can
be expanded to a longer cease-fire and a return to negotiations over Sudan's
future. But even a solid one-day pause has been a challenge, as army chief Gen.
Abdel Fattah Burhan, and RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — former
allies against Sudan’s pro-democracy movement — have seemed determined to crush
each other in their struggle for power. The sudden outburst of violence between
the two camps that began Saturday has trapped millions of Sudanese in the
crossfire. On Wednesday, many fled their homes hoping to find safety outside the
city. Foreign governments as well geared up to evacuate their citizens from the
country. But with the airports in Khartoum and other cities turned into
battlegrounds, it remained uncertain how they would do so. Japan’s Defense
Minister Yasukazu Hamada on Thursday ordered military aircraft sent to the Horn
of Africa nation of Djibouti to stand by for an evacuation of around 60 Japanese
nationals. Japan has troops in Djibouti on an anti-piracy mission who are also
ready to help in the evacuation, the ministry said. The Dutch government sent
military transport craft to the Jordanian port city of Aqaba late Wednesday. The
Defense Ministry acknowledged that “evacuations are not possible at the moment”
from Sudan but said that by stationing more resources nearby it can “react
quickly and flexibly if necessary.“
UPDATE 1-Israel in advanced talks with Germany to
sell Arrow-3 missile defense
JERUSALEM, (Reuters)/Thu, April 20, 2023
Israel is in advanced negotiations with Germany to sell its Arrow-3 missile
defense system, Israel's Defense Ministry said on Thursday. Germany has ramped
up its military spending - a decision prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Arrow-3 is designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside of the earth’s
atmosphere. It is the top layer of Israel's missile defense array, which extends
from Iron Dome that intercepts short-range rockets to Arrow-3's long-range
missiles that destroy any non-conventional warheads at a safe altitude. Talks
with the German defense ministry have been accelerated and the aim is to export
the system in the near future, said Israel's Defense Ministry. The project has
U.S. backing so the sale would require approval from Washington, the ministry
said. State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries is the project's main contractor
and Boeing is involved in producing the interceptors.
India’s population is on track to exceed China’s, but a report says its
workforce is weighed down by thousands of people with worthless college degrees
Aditi Bharade/Business Insider/Thu, April 20, 2023
As India's population inches past China's, it remains burdened by a workforce
with worthless degrees. Small private colleges have been churning out
incompetent graduates, Bloomberg reported. This is because of colleges with
incompetent teachers, irregular classes and outdated curricula. Some of the tech
world's top executives, like Alphabet's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya
Nadella, come from India's top colleges. But scores of people with worthless
degrees — who've graduated from lesser-known private institutes — lack the basic
skills required to secure a job, per Bloomberg. Small private colleges with
incompetent teachers, irregular classes, outdated curricula, and no
opportunities for on-the-job training, are making the country's workforce more
unemployable, per Bloomberg. This glut of incompetent workers comes as India's
population is set to overtake China's by mid-2023, per the United Nations.
"Calling such so-called degrees as being worthless would be by far an
understatement," Anil Sadgopal, a former dean of education at Delhi University,
told Bloomberg. "When millions of young people are rendered unemployable every
year, the entire society becomes unstable." A study by an employee assessment
firm Wheebox revealed that half of all future graduates in India would be
unemployable because of flaws in the country's education system. The country's
unemployment rate stands at 7.45% as of February, per the Indian news outlet,
The Economic Times. Bloomberg's interviews with youths in India revealed several
reasons for spending money on higher education, like boosting their economic
status to attract better suitors for marriage, and getting government jobs.
While some colleges provide inadequate training, a private university in North
India went one step further, and sold fake degrees. An Indian government agency
investigation found that Manav Bharti University in the northern state of
Himachal Pradesh had sold up to 36,000 degrees since it was founded in 2009, per
a South China Morning Post report in March 2021. It had sold these
qualifications for as low as $1,362, the SCMP reported. Bloomberg's report on
India's failing education system comes as India is set to overtake China as the
world's most populous country. By mid-2023, India's population is estimated to
reach 1.4286 billion, 2.9 million more than China's 1.4257 billion people, per
the United Nations Population Fund's "State of World Population Report."
Representatives of Manav Bharti University did not immediately respond to
Insider's request for comment.
At least 78 people crushed to death during
stampede at charity event in Yemen
The Telegraph/Wed, April 19, 2023
At least 78 people have been killed and a further 73 injured after a crowd
stampede in Yemen. The crowd, who had gathered at an event to distribute
financial aid, was apparently spooked by gunfire and an electrical explosion
before the incident on Wednesday. The tragedy, which took place amid the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan and came ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, was
the deadliest in years that was not related to Yemen’s long-running war. Armed
Houthis fired into the air in an attempt at crowd control, apparently striking
an electrical wire and causing it to explode, according to two witnesses,
Abdel-Rahman Ahmed and Yahia Mohsen. The gunfire sparked a panic, and people,
including many women and children, began running from the scene. Video posted on
social media showed dozens of bodies, some motionless, and others screaming as
people tried to help. Separate footage of the aftermath released by Houthi
officials showed bloodstains, shoes and victims' clothing scattered on the
ground. Investigators were seen examining the area. The crush took place in the
Old City in the centre of Sanaa, where hundreds of poor people had gathered for
a charity event organised by merchants, according to the Houthi-run Interior
Ministry. Distributing financial aid is a ritual during Ramadan, when many fast
from dawn to dusk. People had gathered to receive about $10 each from a charity
funded by local businessmen, witnesses said. Wealthy people and businessmen
often hand out cash and food, especially to the poor during Ramadan.
Officials blame 'random distribution' of funds
Interior Ministry spokesperson Abdel-Khaleq al-Aghri blamed the crush on the
“random distribution” of funds without coordination with local authorities.
Motaher al-Marouni, a senior health official, said 78 people were killed,
according the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite TV channel. At least 73 others were
injured and taken to the al-Thowra Hospital in Sanaa, according to hospital
deputy director Hamdan Bagheri. The rebels quickly sealed off a school where the
event was being held and barred people, including journalists, from approaching.
The Interior Ministry said it had detained two organisers and an investigation
was under way.
Relatives paid £1,600 in compensation
The Houthis said they would pay around £1,600 in compensation to each family who
lost a relative, while the injured would get around £320. Yemen’s capital has
been under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis since they descended from
their northern stronghold in 2014 and removed the internationally recognised
government. That prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 to try to
restore the government. The conflict had turned in recent years into a proxy war
between Saudi Arabia and Iran, killing more than 150,000 people, including
fighters and civilians and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian
disasters. More than 21 million people in Yemen, or two-thirds of the country’s
population, need help and protection, according to the United Nations Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Among those in need, more than 17
million are considered particularly vulnerable. In February the United Nations
said it had raised only £965 million out of a target of £3.5 billion at a
conference aimed at generating funds to ease the humanitarian crisis.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on April 20-21/2023
Terminators in Khartoum: In
interview, Mat Nashed discusses the bloody conflict in Sudan and the mistakes
that led to it.
Michael Young/Carnegie/April 20/2023
In an interview, Mat Nashed discusses the bloody conflict in Sudan and the
mistakes that led to it.
Mat Nashed is a journalist and political analyst specializing in the Middle East
and North Africa, with a focus on Sudan. He has been closely following events in
Sudan since a popular uprising erupted against long-time autocratic president
Omar al-Bashir in December 2018. His work has appeared at Al-Jazeera English,
Newlines Magazine, the New Humanitarian, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East
Policy, and other outlets. Diwan interviewed him in mid-April to discuss the
outbreak of violence in Sudan between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid
Support Forces.
Michael Young: What was behind the outbreak of the fighting in Sudan?
Mat Nashed: In my view, it was the result of failed international mediation from
the United Nations mission, the United States, the United Kingdom, the United
Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. The West was pushing for any deal to end the
impasse that followed the military coup of October 25, 2021. After cutting
development aid and pausing billions of dollars in debt relief in response to
the power grab, the West needed a pretext to resume both, indicating that they
were most concerned with stability through the lens of economy when it came to
Sudan.
This eventually led to the signing of an ad-hoc agreement known as the Framework
Agreement on December 5, 2022. The agreement ostensibly aimed to address, in
just a few days or weeks, very contentious topics such as security sector
reform. The rushed process proved the West was not ready to make a concerted
international effort to address major issues in Sudan before a deal was signed.
There was not enough investment in terms of time and political capital. That was
clear when the parties held only one session, on March 29, about security sector
reform, before the expected signing of the deal on April 1. The deal would have
stitched together a new civilian administration in name—with the junta in de
facto control of the state—before holding new elections. But the session on
March 29 didn’t go well and ended quickly, so the signing of a new agreement was
postponed to a later date in April.
In short, the success of the political process effectively depended on the two
forces that organized the coup—the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support
Forces (RSF). But outside parties wanted to hash out the most sensitive issue in
Sudan, between the most militarized actors, in one of the most militarized
regions in the Horn of Africa in a tight timeframe. It was unrealistic and
heightened tensions because neither the military nor the RSF saw eye to eye on
security sector reform.
Security sector reform often takes months and years to achieve and is a delicate
process. It requires meeting clear benchmarks and building trust among the
different security actors, with sticks if the actors fail to reform. This
process needs to be underway before a deal is signed. In fact, the opposite
happened, and rushing things only exacerbated the harsh disagreements between
army commander General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader General Mohammed
Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. The military walked out immediately because it wanted
to absorb the RSF within two years, while the RSF wanted the timeframe to be ten
years. Foreign diplomats in Khartoum mistakenly thought that after the deal was
signed tensions would ease.
Moreover, during the lead-up to the deal, the military was trying to recruit
from Hemedti’s tribal base to undercut him. The RSF, in turn, redeployed its
forces from Darfur to Khartoum. We saw the catalyst when the RSF deployed near
the Merowe airport, where Egyptian and Sudanese military aircraft are located.
This was perceived as a preemptive strike by the RSF against the military and
the aerial supremacy it has with regard to the RSF. The lack of international
mediation and urgency, due to ambassadors being on vacation outside Sudan for
Easter, meant that senior diplomatic officials didn’t rush back to find a
solution. This would have required pausing the deal, not doubling down on
signing it
MY: Some have suggested there is a foreign component to the confrontation, with
some Arab countries supporting rival sides. Can you break down who supports whom
and tell us what role this has played in the fighting, if any?
MN: Indeed there is. The UAE is certainly backing Hemedti. It has a longstanding
patron-client relationship with him for several reasons. Sudan is a place where
the Emiratis can acquire a significant amount of gold from the mines that
Hemedti controls. The UAE also likes to deal with transactional partners, which
Hemedti certainly is, rather than with those who are ideologically driven.
On the side of the military, there are longstanding relations between the
Egyptian and Sudanese militaries. Over the last three years, they have conducted
joint military exercises as a way for Egypt to flex its muscles with Ethiopia in
regard to broader geopolitical disputes, especially the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam. Egypt’s relations with the Sudanese military go back a long
time. Sudanese commanders have trained in Egypt and I believe that former
president Omar al-Bashir fought in the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War. We need to
look at how Egypt views security in general. It has always backed military
institutions or military men who have had the desire to support the creation of
military institutions. And for those reasons, we can see why Egypt is put off by
Hemedti. The Saudis are realizing that neither partner, Burhan or Hemedti, is
reliable for them right now, and they might be perceived as generally more
neutral due to their relationships with both.
MY: Can you tell us about the two main protagonists, Burhan and Hemedti, and
what they hope to achieve in this conflict?
MN: Burhan is a military man and has gone to military college. He is believed to
be affiliated with the Islamist current in Sudan, but to what extent is
debatable. What is clear is that he is an institutional man, who served in
military intelligence in central Darfur during a period that saw some of the
worst violence in that region back in the mid-2000s. That means Burhan has a
past of overseeing or being implicated in atrocities. The story of Burhan and
Hemedti is also the story of the army and RSF. The RSF was repackaged from
several militias that were armed and trained by Bashir during the Darfur
conflict. It grew to have ambitions of its own and became a force that could
rival the military for supremacy. This not only threatened the military’s
relevance, but also its patronage networks and economic stranglehold over the
country. There was pressure on Burhan from within the military to prevent this
and ensure that the military remained the supreme institution in the country.
With Hemedti, the relationship with the RSF is more top-down. He and his family
mostly control the force’s top guard and have lofty ambitions. They are using
their well-paid recruits to achieve their personal ambitions
MY: What do you believe is the way out of the current impasse? And who is best
equipped to mediate a successful resolution to the conflict?
MN: It’s very difficult to answer that question. We need to reframe our
priorities and focus on civilian protection. A priority must be to open
humanitarian corridors through which aid can enter conflict zones, considering
there is a stoppage of aid services to neglected areas where there is less
monitoring of the conflict, such as in Darfur or eastern Sudan. These places are
extremely vulnerable, and there were huge protection concerns even before the
conflict broke out.
A major success would be implementing a 24-hour cessation of hostilities that
can hold. I think we’re in another phase right now, as conflict is easier to
prevent than to stop once it gets underway. At this point, we need to consider
two main issues: How do we resume aid to vulnerable populations? And how do we
find ways for people to leave Sudan, given the damage to the airport? Western
nations need to have a backbone and stop appeasing their regional partners, but
they also must cooperate with them, as the Egyptians, Emiratis, and Saudis have
real leverage. At the same time, the West cannot just outsource mediation
efforts to them.
The stakes in Sudan are incredibly high for the region and, quite frankly, for
several important issues that the West cares about. Western states would be wise
to form a unified front, which can start in the UN Security Council, and have
joint interests with Russia and China to a degree, as China does not like
countries to be completely destabilized as this could threaten its Belt and Road
initiative. When conflicts erupt like this one, Beijing tends to want to contain
them. Unlike previous conflicts in which the Security Council was polarized,
Sudan may offer an opportunity for containment of the crisis, the protection of
civilians, and the opening of humanitarian corridors. When you have this, it
creates a much stronger base to make sure that regional states implicated in the
violence in Sudan become more cooperative. However, this is not an easy task.
*Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the
views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
How Some Americans Support Terrorism Against Israel
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/April 20, 2023
[F]ourteen Democratic members of the US Congress have joined the Jihad (holy
war) against Israelis by urging the Biden administration to reconsider US
military aid to Israel.
The Congressmen's letter ignores the dramatic increase in terror attacks against
Israelis and makes no reference to the scores of innocent civilians murdered
over the past year by Palestinian terrorists. The letter further ignores that
Israel's counterterrorism measures, which aim to save the lives of Israelis and
Palestinians alike, are a legitimate act of self-defense.
The Israeli measures, including raids on the homes of terrorists and
confiscation of weapons and ammunition, are the direct result of a 300% increase
in terror attacks over the past year... When there is no terrorism, there is no
need for Israel to launch counterterrorism operations.
By stating that the US should halt military aid to Israel, the signatories of
the letter signatories of the letter are in fact saying that Israel has no right
to defend itself against those who are openly calling for the elimination of
Israel and engaged in daily attempts to murder Jews.
When Israel uses weapons, it is with the purpose of combating terrorism and
protecting the lives of its people. When Palestinians use weapons, it is always
with the aim of murdering Jews.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, all Israeli Jews are "settlers" living
in one big illegitimate settlement, Israel, which needs to be replaced by a 57th
Muslim state...
They outspokenly consider construction everywhere in Israel a "settlement
project" and all Israeli Jews "settlers."
Hamas and its patrons in Iran are openly opposed to Jews building homes not only
in the West Bank and Jerusalem, but anywhere in Israel. The reason? The mullahs
in Tehran -- and their proxies in Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah -- believe that the
entire country of Israel has no right to exist and state that Israel should be
eradicated, primarily through Jihad (holy war).
The Iranian regime and its friends want to see no country supporting Israel --
not politically, not financially, not militarily. They want to see a weak Israel
that they can then rip to shreds, as they have done, and are still doing, to
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
"The U.S. State Department reports that Iran provides some $100 million a year
to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad," multiple news
outlets reported last week.
Iran and its proxy terror groups are already encircling Israel. They are sitting
on its southern border, in the Gaza Strip, from where Hamas and PIJ continue to
fire rockets regularly at Israel. They are sitting on Israel's northern border,
in Lebanon and Syria, from where Hezbollah also has a strong political and
military presence.
The Congressmen's letter, however, does not make any reference to these
existential threats that Israel continues to face from Iran and Palestinian and
Lebanese terror groups.
The Congressmen who signed the letter claim that US aid to Israel is being used
to fund abuses of Palestinians' rights is, bluntly, nothing but libels and lies.
Israel's counterterrorism operations are directed solely against the terrorists
and their enablers, not against the Palestinian people, most of whom are not
involved in the latest spate of terror attacks.
That is why most of the Palestinians killed in these operations were not
civilians but armed terrorists.
These antics [using "human shields" -- innocent people deliberately placed in
harm's way during incoming fire] are part of shopworn plan to try to make
Israel, when it engages in a counterterrorism operation, look bad. As the
schoolyard bully put it, "It all started when he hit me back."
If the members of Congress want to find out about human rights violations, they
are invited to take a look at the repressive measures taken by the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip against their own people.
Where were these members of Congress when the Palestinian Authority security
forces beat to death human rights activist Nizar Banat? Where were these members
of Congress when Hamas recently arrested Salem al-Sabah, head of the University
of Palestine?
Do the members of Congress who signed the letter have anything to say about the
abuses committed by Palestinians against Palestinians? Will these Congressmen
call on the US administration to halt funding to the Palestinian leaders who are
abusing their own citizens?
On the same day the letter was published, the chief of staff of the Iranian
armed forces said... "With divine grace, soon there will be nothing called the
Zionist regime. The countdown for the disintegration of Zionism has begun."
Israel's ruthless enemies must be rejoicing each time they see Americans calling
for punishing and imposing sanctions on the small state.
Israel and the Jews living in the land, for more than 100 years, have been under
attack – since long before there ever were such political pretensions as "1948
borders" or "1967 borders."
Now, as Israelis are once again burying their dead, a group of US Congressmen,
instead of standing with Israel and condemning the terrorists, have chosen to
call for weakening Israel and preventing it from carrying out even its basic
duty of defending itself against terrorists who murder people for the "crime" of
being Jews. The Congressional letter awards a gold medal to the terrorists: it
sends the message that if you are a terrorist, the US has your back.
Pictured: Palestinian terrorists in Jenin on March 8, 2023, at the funeral of
fellow terrorists who were killed the previous day when they attacked Israeli
soldiers. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
As Israel continues to face daily threats and terror attacks from Iran and its
militia proxies, fourteen Democratic members of the US Congress have joined the
Jihad (holy war) against Israelis by urging the Biden administration to
reconsider US military aid to Israel.
The appeal, included in a letter signed by Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Bernie
Sanders, was made public shortly after Palestinian terrorists shot dead a Jewish
mother, Lucy Dee, 48, and her two daughters, Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, as they
were driving to the north of Israel to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover.
In the letter, the lawmakers urged the Biden administration to ensure US
taxpayer funds are not supporting "Israeli settlement projects," and to
determine whether US military aid is in violation of the Arms Export Control
Act, which stipulates that US weapons are sold only for legitimate self-defense.
"Furthermore, we call on your administration to ensure that all future foreign
assistance to Israel, including weapons and equipment, is not used in support of
gross violations of human rights," the lawmakers said.
Lucy Dee and her two daughters, Rina and Maia, were among 19 Israelis murdered
by Palestinian terrorists in the past two-and-a-half months. Last year, 33
Israelis were murdered and 192 injured in an unprecedented wave of terror
attacks carried out by the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
groups, in addition to other militias affiliated with the Palestinian ruling
Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Congressmen's letter ignores the dramatic increase in terror attacks against
Israelis and makes no reference to the scores of innocent civilians murdered
over the past year by Palestinian terrorists. The letter further ignores that
Israel's counterterrorism measures, which aim to save the lives of Israelis and
Palestinians alike, are a legitimate act of self-defense.
The Israeli measures, including raids on the homes of terrorists and
confiscation of weapons and ammunition, are the direct result of a 300% increase
in terror attacks over the past year. In 2022, there were more than 8,000 terror
attacks, including 230 shootings, eight stabbings and seven car-rammings. When
there is no terrorism, there is no need for Israel to launch counterterrorism
operations.
By stating that the US should halt military aid to Israel, the signatories of
the letter signatories of the letter are in fact saying that Israel has no right
to defend itself against those who are openly calling for the elimination of
Israel and engaged in daily attempts to murder Jews.
When Israel uses weapons, it is with the purpose of combating terrorism and
protecting the lives of its people. When Palestinians use weapons, it is always
with the aim of murdering Jews.
The Palestinians do not distinguish between a Jew living in Tel Aviv and a Jew
living in the West Bank. As far as the Palestinians are concerned, all Israeli
Jews are "settlers" living in one big illegitimate settlement, Israel, which
needs to be replaced by a 57th Muslim state, as optimistically noted by the
presence of "Palestine" among the 57 members of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC), reportedly the world's "second-largest inter-governmental
organization."
The members of Congress, in their letter, talk about the need for the US to stop
funding "Israeli settlement projects." If this happens, it would be a big boost
for Iran and its proxies -- Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah in
Lebanon -- and even the Palestinian Authority. They outspokenly consider
construction everywhere in Israel a "settlement project" and all Israeli Jews
"settlers." As official Palestinian television remarked, "All Israel is 'our
land Palestine' – including Safed, Haifa, Acre, and Jaffa," and "Israelis living
in Haifa, Jaffa, and Be'er Sheva are 'settlers.'"
Hamas and its patrons in Iran are openly opposed to Jews building homes not only
in the West Bank and Jerusalem, but anywhere in Israel. The reason? The mullahs
in Tehran -- and their proxies in Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah -- believe that the
entire country of Israel has no right to exist (here, here, here and here) and
state (here, here and here) that Israel should be eradicated, primarily through
Jihad (holy war).
Iran and its agents are undoubtedly delighted to see the Congressmen's attacks
on Israel and calls for halting US financial and military aid. The Iranian
regime and its friends want to see no country supporting Israel -- not
politically, not financially, not militarily. They want to see a weak Israel
that they can then rip to shreds, as they have done, and are still doing, to
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
"The U.S. State Department reports that Iran provides some $100 million a year
to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad," multiple news
outlets reported last week.
It is safe to assume that the letter signed by the Congressmen offers Iran's
mullahs and their proxy militias a ray of hope that US politicians and lawmakers
are also seeking ways to undermine Israel by depriving it of financial and
military aid, hence facilitating their mission of eliminating it.
Iran and its proxy terror groups are already encircling Israel. They are sitting
on its southern border, in the Gaza Strip, from where Hamas and PIJ continue to
fire rockets regularly at Israel. They are sitting on Israel's northern border,
in Lebanon and Syria, where Hezbollah also has a strong political and military
presence. According to the Alma research center in northern Israel, "Hezbollah
currently possesses several hundred advanced conventional weapons, 70,000
'regular' Long – medium – short missiles and rockets, 145,000 mortars of all
kinds, and about 2,000 UAVs." -- all pointed at a country, Israel, about the
size of New Jersey, and posing a genocidal threat.
The Congressmen's letter, however, does not make any reference to these
existential threats that Israel continues to face from Iran and Palestinian and
Lebanese terror groups.
The Congressmen who signed the letter claim that US aid to Israel is being used
to fund abuses of Palestinians' rights is, bluntly, nothing but libels and lies.
Israel's counterterrorism operations are directed solely against the terrorists
and their enablers, not against the Palestinian people, most of whom are not
involved in the latest spate of terror attacks.
That is why most of the Palestinians killed in these operations were not
civilians but armed terrorists. Regrettably, a few civilians were
unintentionally killed during the Israeli counterterrorism operations -- but
that is what happens when terrorists operate in dense residential areas and
shoot at Israeli troops from the rooftops and windows of private homes. The
terrorists are using "human shields" -- innocent people deliberately placed in
harm's way during incoming fire. These antics are part of shopworn plan to try
to make Israel, when it engages in a counterterrorism operation, look bad. As
the schoolyard bully put it, "It all started when he hit me back."
If the members of Congress want to find out about human rights violations, they
are invited to take a look at the repressive measures taken by the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip against their own people.
Where were these members of Congress when the Palestinian Authority security
forces beat to death human rights activist Nizar Banat? Where were these members
of Congress when Hamas recently arrested Salem al-Sabah, head of the University
of Palestine? Hamas did not offer any explanation as to why al-Sabah was
arrested, but according to unconfirmed reports he had been accused of
"corruption" -- a charge that may have been spurious. Hamas often just arrests
political activists, journalists and academics who dare to criticize the terror
group or its leaders.
Al-Sabah's family and several academics denounced the arrest as "illegal and
arbitrary."
Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, Palestinian Authority governor of Gaza, also expressed
solidarity with al-Sabah: "It is important that we preserve our reputation and
cultural and scientific heritage," he said. The University of Palestine issued a
statement condemning the arrest, as well.
Under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, there is no such thing as "free
media." Palestinian journalists are targeted on a dismayingly regular basis.
Do the members of Congress who signed the letter have anything to say about the
abuses committed by Palestinians against Palestinians? Will these Congressmen
call on the US administration to halt funding to the Palestinian leaders who are
abusing their own citizens?
On the same day the letter was published, the chief of staff of the Iranian
armed forces said he was optimistic about the chances that Israel would soon be
destroyed. "With divine grace, soon there will be nothing called the Zionist
regime," he said. "The countdown for the disintegration of Zionism has begun."
In official jargon used by the Iranian regime, Israel is called "the Zionist
entity" or "the Zionist regime."
It is not clear whether the mullahs in Tehran were aware of the letter sent by
their friends in the US Congress when they voiced hope that Israel was on its
way to vanishing. What is clear, is that Israel's ruthless enemies must be
rejoicing each time they see Americans calling for punishing and imposing
sanctions on the small state. Israel and the Jews living in the land, for more
than 100 years, have been under attack – since long before there ever were such
political pretensions as "1948 borders" or "1967 borders."
Now, as Israelis are once again burying their dead, a group of US Congressmen,
instead of standing with Israel and condemning the terrorists, have chosen to
call for weakening Israel and preventing it from carrying out even its basic
duty of defending itself against terrorists who murder people for the "crime" of
being Jews. The Congressional letter awards a gold medal to the terrorists: it
sends the message that if you are a terrorist, the US has your back.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Sudan and the Infighting of the Soldiers
Dr. Jebril El-Abidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 20/2023
The confrontations, violence, and killing among soldiers in Sudan are a disaster
for civic peace in the country that has had enough soldiers and weapons. The
problem is that innocents are paying the price. Tens of innocent people have
died, both civilians and soldiers. We say “soldiers,” but they are also part of
the nation. They are innocent as well, because they were pushed into this bloody
and destructive conflict.
One reason for the struggle that led to the infighting within the ranks of the
military is that the Rapid Support Forces are not just military forces, but a
political and military institution that has become - if we are being realistic -
a “state” within the state. It thus presents a challenge to stability,
especially since it grew out of the “Janjaweed” militia. Although a law was
passed in 2017 granting it the status of an “independent security force,” it
joined the effort to overthrow the al-Bashir's regime.
As a result, it sees itself as a political partner in governance, not just a
military force affiliated with the army. This is the logic fuelling the armed
conflict and infighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, which was
not integrated into the army despite the decision to reassign officers and
military personnel from their ranks into the regular forces.
The crisis in Sudan - particularly the conflict within the military
establishment - cannot be reduced to a personal dispute between the two
generals, Burhan and Hemedti. In fact, the two had been friends for a long time,
since the 2003 conflict in Darfur fought under the leadership of the now-ousted
President Omar al-Bashir, an ally of The Brotherhood. The leadership dispute
between the two generals ended years of friendship and the comradery they built
as they fought side by side.
Indeed, the disagreement has gone so far that they are now quarreling. General
Hamidti described General Burhan as a “lying criminal,” while Burhan responded
by calling Hamidti the leader of a “rebel militia.”
General Burhan has demanded the integration of the Rapid Support Forces into the
army. “We, as military personnel, want to integrate the Rapid Support Forces. If
this does not happen, no one in the agreement will go forward.” Meanwhile,
Hamedti demands that power be handed over to civilians and that Burhan
“surrender.” Both are making impossible demands despite being former comrades in
arms and even the camel trade.
Resolving the crisis and ending infighting must begin with a security solution.
It must begin with integrating the Rapid Support Forces into the army in an
appropriate manner, instead of allowing them to maintain their status of
legitimate armed "militias.” The mistake was integrating an armed force as a
single unit, with all of its personnel remaining together, into the armed forces
in the first place. This meant the soldiers were only loyal to this force’s
leadership, not the command of the national army. The personnel should have been
distributed among army units after having their backgrounds checked. In this
form, it can mutiny at any moment, and this is what happened.
Sudan is plagued by poverty. Forty-six percent of its population lives below the
poverty line, according to United Nations reports. The last it needs is conflict
and infighting. Instead, this rich country should be made the breadbasket of the
Arab world, the country we know it to be from school.
It needs development to overcome poverty. Most of all, it needs agricultural
development, as its land is extremely fertile and has an abundance of water.
Sudan is poor nonetheless because of the ongoing conflict over this agricultural
land, as is the case in the Blue Nile region and other fertile areas, whose land
was made barren and undeveloped by local conflicts. The military establishment
and the Rapid Support Forces have yet to establish an inclusive political system
acceptable to all Sudanese. Indeed, they have failed to hand over power to
civilians, hiding behind various pretexts to remain above the civilian
authorities.
Thus, immature political settlements might be the reason for the persistence of
violence and the military’s infighting. Only the Transition Military Council and
the Forces for Freedom and Change were involved in most of these deals, and they
are not the only national forces in Sudan. That is why these settlements did not
hold under pressure.
As Yemen Leaves the War Behind, Sudan Marches Toward It
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/April, 20/2023
It may seem like our region is under an eternal spell or evil magic trick. But
in truth, there is no spell or magic at play here: there’s simply mismanagement.
In the last few weeks, the Houthis and pro-legitimacy forces came together in
Yemen in hope of putting an end to eight years of war. As Saudi ambassadors and
their Iranian “brothers” exchanged Ramadan invitations and the Arab League
started discussing the end of the Syrian crisis, the situation in Sudan
exploded. The fighting continues for the fourth consecutive day between the
Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group.
Should finding a solution to the conflict or the army’s resolution of the battle
prove impossible, another summer of clashes on yet another bleeding Arab front
seems to await.
Sudan has already gone through its fair share of conflicts since the early
eighties. After the wars in the south, Kordofan, and Darfur as well the social
crises and destruction brought on by the Omar al-Bashir regime coup, Sudan can
hardly stand another war on its ground.
The present infighting has been a battle in the making since the ouster of al-Bashir–
a delayed effect of sorts. It’s what happens when the center of power collapses,
leaving a vacuum that’s hard to fill – as seen in Iraq following Saddam’s ouster
and in post-Gaddafi Libya.
Signs of disagreement between military leaders have been clear from the start.
Two rival “chiefs” emerged as alternatives to al-Bashir, and the divide further
weakened crisis management capacities in both the military and the streets. So
how did the situation in Sudan unravel? And what are the prospects for the
country? Statements issued by the RSF suggest that the latter, led by Mohamed
Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, ignited the first flame. They targeted the
headquarters of the Armed Forces Command and the house of its chief, Abdel
Fattah al-Burhan, who said the attack by Hemedti’s forces on his home on
Saturday morning took him by surprise.
They could not kill Burhan, but they did silence its mouthpiece, the state TV,
which they bombed during a live news bulletin. The puzzling two-day absence of
Burhan and his leaders served Hemedti’s narrative about his forces murdering
Burhan.
The RSF then raided the strongholds of military leaders and the Khartoum airport
and set fire to several buildings and airplanes, including Saudi ones.
After their quick loss of the airport, the RSF overtook the airport in Merowe,
which is located in the north of the country, near Egypt, and known for its
pharaonic pyramids and Chinese-built dam. The RSF also captured members of the
Egyptian military who had been participating in joint maneuvers.
Sudan is a vast and diverse country, and most information cannot be verified
given the lack of independent journalists on the ground. A few mainstream media
outlets are documenting and reviewing statements and videos and dispatching
teams to cover the developments on the ground, but the events seem to be too
rapid and enormous to be covered wholly.
Hemedti’s offensive to seize power was far from surprising. The explosion of his
feud with the army was likely, given the mutual disagreements and public threats
that preceded his attack’s zero hour.
Hemedti’s forces had stepped up their mobilization efforts in the capital and
other cities days before the attack. The army warned the RSF to return to their
positions on the border, but Hemedti’s troops refused to yield under the pretext
that they were carrying out their duties to “combat human smuggling and
organized crime.”
It is now clear they were instead preparing for attacking Burhan whose forces
were not ready for the battle despite the dispute with Hemedti.
Why does zero hour work? Was this really a coup? Judging by the course of events
across the country, it is clear this is not just a show of force and compromise.
Is it an attempt at change? Did the rebels expect defections within the army, or
perhaps popular support? It is not clear yet, but understanding their intentions
is vital to understand the ensuing eventualities.
Reconciliation is possible if this is merely a misunderstanding that spiraled
out of control. But if the attack was intentionally meant as a coup and
rebellion, then this is most likely the start of a long battle.
Does the attack have any internal or external extensions? Will local forces
unite in neutrality, or will they take sides?
Sudan stands today at a dangerous fork in the road: either reconciliation
between the two warring sides, or a mushrooming crisis that will eat up whatever
remains of the country, thus increasing the suffering of the Sudanese people and
raising tensions in a region that attracts tensions like a magnet.
Multilateral fronts key to fighting terrorism
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/April 20, 2023
A multilateral, unified and modern approach is required in order to combat the
terrorist activities of today’s international nonstate actors, terrorist groups,
domestic militia groups and individual terrorists.
The focus should be on the establishment and advancement of a comprehensive,
locally and internationally coordinated counterterrorism strategy. The first
front ought to focus on the effective use of social media platforms. With the
prevalence of so many social media platforms, it has unfortunately become
relatively easy for extremists and terrorist groups to spread their ideologies,
radicalize people and sponsor, recruit for and even plan the execution of their
terrorist activities.
This requires every government to set up organizations to track and monitor
extremists’ activities online, via social media outlets, blogs, websites, etc.
The UN has acknowledged that, in Western Europe, the number of incidents linked
to terrorist activities has increased. In a report titled “A New Era of Conflict
and Violence,” it stated: “There has been a sizable increase in the number of
attacks carried out by actors with far-right, white nationalist, or anti-Muslim
beliefs in both Western Europe and North America in the past two decades … with
social media playing a crucial role in the dissemination of xenophobic speech
and incitement to violence. Extremist groups today have unprecedented access to
the general public through the internet, which allows for more efficient and
effective recruitment, incitement, and propaganda, as well as the purchase of
weapons and unregulated money transfers.”
At the same time, it is critical to establish institutions that will promote an
alternative and moderate ideology, while educating and raising awareness online
about extremist ideologies. Examples include Saudi Arabia’s establishment of the
Ideological Warfare Center, the Digital Extremism Observatory, the King
Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue and the Global Center for Combating
Extremist Ideology. The Kingdom aims to challenge the messages of extremist
groups through these initiatives.
Being proactive rather than reactionary is instrumental in addressing global
terrorism
According to a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom,
these centers focus on “confronting extremist ideology and sectarian divisions
through promotion of a national culture of dialogue and a moderate, welcoming
interpretation of Islam. In particular, the Digital Extremism Observatory
focuses on countering extremist messaging and recruitment in new media, while
other centers similarly engage with social media as a venue for messages of
moderation and tolerance.”
The second step requires creating a mechanism that not only strengthens
cooperation between institutions within a country (among cities, counties, towns
and villages), but also makes it easier to share and access information and
intelligence between governments around the world, which will be key in
preventing potential terrorist attacks and extremist activities.
Being proactive rather than reactionary is instrumental in addressing global
terrorism. Some actions already taken by governments and organizations are
positive moves in the right direction. These include the establishment of the UN
Counter-Terrorism Center, with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, which pledged
$110 million to help enhance the center’s capabilities and effectiveness.
Political and economic stability is also critical. Global terrorist groups and
militias tend to exploit weak or failed states, as well as undeveloped nations,
in order to gain and consolidate power and subsequently carry out their
terrorist plots around the world. As a result, providing resources, security,
stability and humanitarian assistance to such nations is vital.
It is important to point out that one of the most unproductive approaches to
combating terrorism is to play the blame game, which only leads to wasting time,
inciting rivalries and feeding the very violence that we are trying to overcome.
The method of pointing fingers at others is a simplistic, short-sighted approach
that most often ends in failure. In addition, such behavior strengthens
animosity between countries at a time when the entire global community needs to
work together.
Finally, alongside this multifront strategy, interfaith and intercultural
dialogue must be promoted to help eliminate mistrust, misunderstandings and
prejudices. Promoting interfaith dialogue is critical when it comes to reducing
tensions and conflicts, whether in the Middle East or other parts of the world.
The more countries that pursue this objective around the globe, the more peace
the world will experience.
In a nutshell, if there is going to be a fundamental change in the battle
against global terrorism, it will most likely come from a multilateral and
unified effort. The international community ought to pursue a locally and
internationally coordinated counterterrorism strategy. Such a strategy should
have several fronts, including examining and tackling the ideologies of
terrorist and extremist groups, using powerful social media campaigns to raise
awareness and counter their propaganda, helping weak and failed states gain
political and economic stability, and addressing poverty and underdevelopment in
some parts of the world.
Every country can meaningfully contribute to this strategy to counter global
terrorism by achieving the unification of all forces.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh