English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 27/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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15 آذار/2023

Bible Quotations For today
And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 06/12-19/:”Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 26-27/2023
Alleged Hezbollah Financier Extradited to US on Sanctions Evasion Charges
Lebanese army deploys in response to calls for Syrian refugees to protest
Ambassadors’ statement: One year since staff-level agreement with IMF, too little done –– urgent action needed
Mikati chairs meeting on Syrian refugee affairs: UNHCR should provide Ministry of Interior with all refugee data within one week
Franjieh says can be elected with 65 votes but waiting for KSA support
Report: Arabs give Paris deadline before launching own Lebanon initiative
Reports: Iran FM may ask allies to consider ditching Franjieh
Mawlawi from Dar Al-Fatwa: Syrian refugees must respect the law
Jumblat refuses to brush aside Christian rejection of Franjieh
Mouawad, Gemayel say won't allow election of Hezbollah candidate
Ministerial panel on Syrian refugees calls for stricter measures, int'l help
Beyond borders: Syrian labor and the changing landscape of Lebanon's workforce
Shifting demographics: The Syrian refugees crisis in Lebanon and its impact on society's future
Living in limbo: Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the quest for legal status
Bassil says FPM to confront 'conspiracy' of 'violent expulsion' of Syrians
Third and last batch of Sudan evacuees arrive in Beirut
Conflicting views within BDL's Central Council on government's decision for cap on withdrawals and transfers
Lebanon’s MOSA introduces social protection program for people with disabilities
In numbers, Lebanon sees a 'golden ticket’ in terms of tourism
Lebanese cinema: A beacon of hope despite the crisis
Lebanon Is Becoming Increasingly Tough for Journalists/Adnan Nasser/The National Interest/April 26/2023

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 26-27/2023
Former Representative of Iran's Khamenei Killed
Iran Charges Two Actresses for Not Wearing Headscarves
Iran court issues $312.9 million judgment against US amid tensions
German FM Condemns Death Sentence for Citizen in Iran
Iranian Authorities Re-Arrest Prominent Journalist Months after His Release
As Assad returns to Arab fold, Syrians watch with hope, fear
Security, Troops Withdrawal Top Syria-Türkiye 'Normalization' Talks
Germany: Van Carrying 29 Syrians Flees, Hits Police Car
Houthis Force Supporters to Visit Graves, Prove Loyalty
Sudan's Bashir Moved to Military Hospital before Fighting
China, Ukraine Leaders Speak for First Time since War Began
EU reaffirms intent to strengthen cooperation with GCC
South Africa, due to host Putin, rows back from pledge to quit war crimes court
Get ready for China’s invasion of Taiwan – and the end of Macron’s delusions

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 26-27/2023
Ukraine's Iron Harvest and the Oligarchs/Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute./April 26, 2023
Without Firing a Shot: How Islam Overcame the West/Raymond Ibrahim/American Thinker/April 16/2023
Biden Plans an Election Bid That Will Be More Complicated the 2nd Time Around/Michael D. Shear/Asharq Al Awsat/April 26/2023
Artificial Intelligence and Its Obscure World/Tawfiq Alsaif/Asharq Al Awsat/April 26/2023
Sudan’s generals should serve the people, not endanger their lives/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/April 26, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 26-27/2023
Alleged Hezbollah Financier Extradited to US on Sanctions Evasion Charges
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
A dual Lebanese-Belgian citizen accused by the United States of financing Lebanon's Hezbollah has been extradited from Romania and faced sanctions evasion and money laundering charges on Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said. Mohammad Bazzi, who Washington says has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah, was arrested in February on charges of covertly selling real estate he owned in Michigan and transferring the funds abroad, violating US sanctions laws. Bazzi was extradited on Tuesday, and pleaded not guilty in a Wednesday court hearing before US Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo, according to a spokesman for the US Attorney's office in Brooklyn. He was ordered detained pending trial. The US Treasury Department placed Bazzi, 58, on its sanctions list in 2018 over his alleged ties to Hezbollah, which Washington considers a terrorist organization. Lawyers for Bazzi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors in Brooklyn last week charged another alleged Hezbollah financier, Nazem Ahmad, with evading US sanctions by exporting hundreds of millions of dollars of diamonds and art.

Lebanese army deploys in response to calls for Syrian refugees to protest
Arab News/April 26, 2023
BEIRUT: Caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday that there were gangs smuggling Syrians into Lebanon illegally across the border through the Bekaa or Akkar in exchange for large sums of money, “while the country can no longer bear the burden of refugees.”
Mikati expressed surprise at the criticism directed toward Lebanon for deporting Syrians who entered the country illegally. The announcement of the deportation of around 50 Syrians from Lebanon to Syria two weeks ago sparked international protests. Lisa Abou Khaled, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told Arab News: “The UNHCR has noticed an increase in the number of raids on Syrian (refugee camps) in both Mount Lebanon and the north, and as of April, the UNHCR has confirmed at least 13 raids and has received reports of Syrians being detained for future deportation, including those who are known and registered with the UNHCR.”A number of municipalities in Lebanese regions have started surveys and inspections to register refugees and restrict their movements in the towns where they reside. Calls circulated on social media on Tuesday for Syrian refugees to protest in front of the UNHCR building in Jnah, south of Beirut, on Wednesday, while counter-calls were issued by the Lebanese to prevent them from protesting. On Tuesday night, a police officer in the municipality of Al-Qlayaa in southern Lebanon was assaulted by a Syrian refugee who violated the night curfew. The officer was taken to the hospital, while the police arrested the refugee and are investigating the incident. Syrian opposition figure Kamal Labwani threatened the Lebanese army in a video posted on social media and called on refugees to carry weapons to defend themselves. On Wednesday, the Lebanese army and its intelligence, internal security forces, and riot control units deployed around the UNHCR headquarters in anticipation of the protest and to prevent any clashes. On Tuesday evening, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi sent a letter to the internal security forces asking them “to prevent protests by Syrian refugees and counter Lebanese protests.”On Wednesday, Mikati chaired a ministerial meeting attended by leaders of security agencies to discuss the Syrian refugee file. The meeting confirmed Lebanon’s right to enact “measures previously taken by the Higher Defense Council in 2019 against violators who enter Lebanon illegally and without official and legal documents.”The attendees requested the UNHCR, “within a deadline of one week from the date of the meeting, to provide the Ministry of Interior with data on Syrian refugees in all their forms” and asked “that the status of refugee be dropped for anyone who leaves Lebanese territory.”The attendees emphasized the necessity of “registering the births of Syrians on Lebanese territory in coordination with UNHCR.”They also reiterated their call for foreign countries “to share the burden of Syrian refugees, particularly given the increasing numbers of refugees and the worsening economic crisis.”The attendees requested “the Ministry of Labor, in coordination with the General Directorate of General Security, to tighten monitoring of Syrian labor within the permitted sectors.”They also called on the minister of justice to investigate the possibility of immediately handing over detainees and convicts to the Syrian state. The Lebanese government estimates the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon to be over 1.5 million, distributed in camps and communities on Lebanese territory, mostly concentrated in the Bekaa and northern regions.
Abou Khaled, UNHCR spokesperson, said: “The number of Syrian refugees registered by the UNHCR reached 805,326 as of last March, but the UNHCR knows that the number of non-registered refugees in Lebanon is higher and believes that the total amounts to 1.5 million.”
As for the illegal movement of Syrian refugees between Lebanon and Syria, Abou Khaled said: “The conversations and interactions between the UNHCR and the refugees indicate that back-and-forth trips to Syria are rare. The costs and risks of these illegal trips cross border — often with the participation of smugglers — are high, preventing the majority of Syrians from resorting to these practices.”Abou Khaled affirmed that “in the cases where the UNHCR identifies the return of a Syrian refugee to Syria, we double-check the information and we cancel their file. However, sometimes, there might be urgent reasons prompting refugees to go back to Syria, and they do that for a certain reason and for a limited period of time.”As for the ministerial committee’s request to share the UNHCR’s data, Abou Khaled said: “The UNHCR encourages the Lebanese government to cooperate more in this matter by sharing with us the data it has on the refugees’ movement, so we can review them and compare them with ours. The UNHCR reiterates its keenness to work with the relevant authorities in a systematic manner that encourages data sharing and movement monitoring.”
The UNHCR fears that those being deported are at risk, even if they are not registered as refugees. Following a meeting with the ministerial committee, Mustafa Bayram, minister of labor, said: “Around 37,000 Syrians entered Syria during the Eid Al-Fitr period and came back to Lebanon after spending the holiday vacation there, which deprives them of their refugee status.”Bassam Mawlawi, the interior minister, emphasized that “Syrians in Lebanon are subject to the Lebanese law and order. They should be registered with the competent official authorities. Their situation must be regulated because this chaos is detrimental to Lebanon, their interests, and the security situation, which we are responsible for.” Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, urged Lebanese authorities to “halt unlawful deportation of Syrian refugees for fear that they are at risk of torture or persecution at the hands of the Syrian government upon return to war-ravaged Syria.”

Ambassadors’ statement: One year since staff-level agreement with IMF, too little done –– urgent action needed
NNA /April 26/2023
The following is a joint statement by the Ambassadors of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the EU in Beirut, marking one year since the Staff-level agreement with the IMF:  “This month marks one year since Lebanon reached a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The SLA promised over $3 billion in assistance to support Lebanon’s economic recovery. The government pledged to quickly implement a comprehensive package of structural reforms (“prior actions”) in order to reach a formal agreement with the IMF. Such agreement would lay the foundations for a full set of reforms necessary to restore financial stability, fight corruption, install a sustainable path for public finances, regain the confidence of investors through enhanced transparency and accountability and rebuild the economy.
It is disappointing that Lebanon’s political actors have made only limited progress in implementing these prior actions. When the SLA was finalized on April 7th, 2022, Lebanese authorities recognised “the urgent need to initiate a multi-pronged reform program.” But an absence of political will has hindered progress. While some conditions have been met, the bank secrecy law proved insufficient, no progress has been made with respect to allocating financial sector losses, and authorities must work to audit Lebanon’s major banks and unify Lebanon’s exchange rates. The urgency could not be more obvious. The country faces one of the worst economic crises in modern history. People in Lebanon are suffering. Inflation has reached 186%. Central Bank external reserves continue shrinking. We call on all Lebanese leaders to rediscover the sense of responsibility and urgency they recognised last April. The interests of the people and the nation must take precedence over political interests. The IMF itself has said that, if reforms are not implemented rapidly, Lebanon will be trapped in a never-ending crisis. With or without an IMF programme, decisive structural reforms are necessary to enable Lebanon’s recovery. We also call for a renewed and unified sense of urgency to secure the election of a president who can unite the Lebanese people and will work with the international community in the national interest. The absence of a President and an actual government is one of the great obstacles to complete and effective reform. The answers to Lebanon’s economic crisis can only come from within Lebanon and they start with meaningful reforms. Now is the time for the Lebanese authorities to seize the opportunity presented by an agreement with the IMF. Otherwise, the economy will deteriorate further, with ever more severe consequences for the Lebanese people. The Ambassadors of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the EU in Beirut.”

Mikati chairs meeting on Syrian refugee affairs: UNHCR should provide Ministry of Interior with all refugee data within one week
NNA/April 26/2023
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Wednesday chaired a ministerial meeting to discuss the most recent developments regarding the Syrian refugee presence in Lebanon.
The following are the ministerial committee’s decisions:
1- Requesting of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to provide the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities with all kinds of data on displaced Syrians within a week’s time, provided that the refugee status be removed from every Syrian national departing from Lebanese territories.
2- Asking of the Lebanese security apparatuses to strictly pursue violators and to prevent the illegal entry of Syrians to Lebanon.
3- Requesting of the Ministries of Interior and Municipalities and Social Affairs to carry out all the legal requirements in terms of registering the births of Syrians on Lebanese soil, in coordination with the UNHCR.
4- Requesting of foreign countries to participate in bearing the burdens of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, especially with their increasing number amid the exacerbating economic crisis.
5- Requesting of the Ministry of Labor, in coordination with the General Directorate of General Security, to tighten labor control within the permitted sectors.
6- Requesting of the Minister of Justice to discuss the possibility of handing over detainees, and those sentenced, to the Syrian state immediately, taking into account the relevant laws and agreements — after coordination the Syrian state.
7- Assigning the Ministers of Social Affairs and Labor, the Secretary General of the Supreme Defense Council, and the Acting Director General of General Security to follow up on the implementation of the Committee’s decisions, coordinate with the Syrian side, and submit periodic reports in this regard to the Ministerial Committee.
On the other hand, Caretaker Premier Mikati met with Caretaker Minister of National Defense, Maurice Sleem, over Ministry related affairs. Mikati also met with Army Commander General Joseph Aoun. The Prime Minister also received at the Grand Serail Minister of State and Deputy Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade of the Kingdom of Sweden, Diana Janse, accompanied by a delegation that included Head of the Middle East and North Africa Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Magnus Hellgren, Swedish Ambassador to Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, and all the Swedish ambassadors and ministry directors working in the Middle East and North Africa . On emerging, Ambassador Dismorr said: "We had an excellent meeting with Premier Mikati, and this meeting demonstrates the best expression of the excellent relations between Sweden and Lebanon." Hellgren, in turn, said: "It is natural to choose Beirut to bring together all Swedish ambassadors and ministry directors working in the region, as Beirut is the heart of the Middle East. We will have useful and constructive discussions on the situation in the region," adding "We listened to Premier Mikati's analysis of the situation in Lebanon and the region, which enriched our discussions." The PM later received a delegation from the International Freedom of Religion or Belief Alliance, currently visiting Lebanon at the invitation of the Adyan Foundation. The visit aims, as per a statement, "to demonstrate international support for the Lebanese people at this time and to reinforce the idea that freedom of religion and belief must be at the core of all reforms or changes that Lebanon may witness in the coming period."

Franjieh says can be elected with 65 votes but waiting for KSA support
Naharnet/April 26/2023
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh on Wednesday said that he prefers to wait for Saudi support for his presidential nomination.
“I will not go to a session in which I challenge Saudi Arabia, and maybe I can become president but I won’t be able to rule, that’s why I say that I’m not in a hurry and that the time will come,” Franjieh said in an interview on al-Jadeed TV.
“With calm calculations, I can be elected with 65 votes, but I won’t be able to rule, and the battle is not a battle of quorum but rather a battle of including everyone,” the Marada chief added. “The settlement is coming and it must involve everyone, but we can’t force anyone to join it,” Franjieh went on to say.
“There will be good days in Lebanon and days of openness in the region,” he said. As for the Saudi stance on his nomination, Franjieh said: “The atmosphere is relieving but the settlement has not been finalized yet. As for a negative atmosphere, I’m only hearing about it from Lebanese politicians.”
“When (French presidential advisor Patrick) Durel went to Saudi Arabia he informed me that the atmosphere was positive and I can believe the French,” the Marada leader added. Noting that he has no problem if someone else gets elected, Franjieh stressed that it is not his nomination that is delaying the election of a president. He added that he would resign as president should he find himself incapable of making achievements. As for the issue of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Franjieh said that he is “not willing to conspire against Lebanon for the sake of Syria” but would rather “conspire against Syria for the sake of Lebanon.”“I cannot accept that the refugees stay if (Syrian) President (Bashar) al-Assad does not accept their return although I know that he would accept it,” Franjieh added. “If I manage to secure guarantees for the safety of the refugees in their country, we will be able to disregard the international community, seeing as that would be a patriotic stance,” Franjieh said.

Report: Arabs give Paris deadline before launching own Lebanon initiative
Naharnet/April 26/2023
Arab and Gulf nations have given France a deadline to try to break the presidential deadlock in Lebanon and the latest Qatari initiative was a “message” to Paris, an Arab diplomat informed on the Lebanese file said. “Should Paris fail to secure the success of its initiative in the next few weeks, there will be a Gulf-Arab initiative, because there is insistence on ending the presidential vacuum in Lebanon,” the diplomat told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday. Moreover, the diplomat said he expects the Qatari and Arab efforts to be reactivated as of next week, in coordination with the U.S., France and Egypt, in order to find the needed solutions.

Reports: Iran FM may ask allies to consider ditching Franjieh
Naharnet/April 26/2023
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who will arrive in Beirut on Wednesday, might ask Tehran’s allies in Lebanon to consider ending their support for Suleiman Franjieh’s presidential nomination, media reports said.
While some believe that Abdollahian will throw his support behind the allies in their backing of Franjieh, others believe that the Iranian FM will ask allies to “start considering the possibility of ending their support for Franjieh if it is facing unworkable obstacles,” political sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper.
Tehran believes that “protecting the renewed relation with Riyadh has the priority,” the sources added.

Mawlawi from Dar Al-Fatwa: Syrian refugees must respect the law
NN/April 26/2023A
Caretaker Interior Minister, Bassam Mawlawi, on Wednesday confirmed in the wake of his meeting with Grand Mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Abdellatif Derian, in Dar al-Fatwa, "We continue to assume our responsibilities and monitor the security situation, and we are taking precautions to prevent security incidents from occurring.”Mawlawi went on to stress the paramount importance of respecting the Lebanese law. “Syrian refugees in Lebanon are subject to the Lebanese constitution and their presence here must be regulated,” added Mawalawi, censuring incitement campaigns against the Lebanese army and state. “Syrian refugees must abide by the Lebanese law,” he concluded.

Jumblat refuses to brush aside Christian rejection of Franjieh
Naharnet/April 26/2023
Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat is still refusing to brush aside Christian forces’ rejection of Suleiman Franjieh’s presidential nomination, political sources said. Jumblat is insisting on his stance for a “key consideration, which is that these blocs are essential partners in the Mount Lebanon Reconciliation” that was reached in the year 2000 between Druze and Christians, “and accordingly he does not want to endorse a settlement that would impose a president rejected by Christians, a move that might have major repercussions in Mount Lebanon,” the sources told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published Wednesday. Moreover, “the Saudi stance on the French proposal has not been settled yet, which prevents Jumblat from joining any of the rival camps,” the sources added. “Jumblat informed French officials of this stance during his latest visit to Paris in the presence of his son MP Taymour Jumblat, underscoring the dilemma of the opposing Christian stance, and he is still repeating the same stance to the officials who talk to him,” the sources went on to say.

Mouawad, Gemayel say won't allow election of Hezbollah candidate
Naharnet/April 26/2023
MP and presidential candidate Michel Mouawad said Wednesday that the opposition will not allow the election of any candidate supported by the Axis of Defiance. "They can threaten as much as they want," Mouawad said in a press conference, after he met with Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel. Gemayel, for his part, said that the Lebanese are the ones who choose their president and that "handing the country to Hezbollah" will make the Lebanese people suffer from "more subordination and humiliation." 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. Lawmakers have held 11 rounds of voting to name a successor to Aoun, but no candidate has garnered enough ballots. During the voting sessions, the Shiite Duo MPs have cast blank votes, although they openly support Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh, but the latter has still not gathered the needed 65 votes but is reportedly "close" to it. Hezbollah's ally, the Free Patriotic Movement, oppose the election of Franjieh, and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea had also said that his bloc would boycott any voting session that would elect Franjieh.

Ministerial panel on Syrian refugees calls for stricter measures, int'l help
Naharnet/April 26/2023
Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said Wednesday that the armed forces will take all the necessary measures with the Syrian refugees, as the ministers of Justice, Interior, Labor, Social and Foreign affairs, convened to discuss the refugee file. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati chaired the meeting in the presence of the army chief, the Internal Security Forces chief, the Acting General Security chief, and the Presidency Secretary-General. The ministerial panel asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to submit all available data on displaced Syrians within a week.
It also decided to strip any Syrian who leaves Lebanese territory of the displaced status. The Lebanese Army had recently raided homes in various parts of the country, arresting hundreds and deporting dozens who had entered the country irregularly or held expired residency cards. While Kataeb and Lebanese Forces leaders Sami Gemayel and Samir Geagea both urged for the repatriation of the refugees after meeting U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka, Amnesty International called on Lebanon to "immediately stop forcibly deporting refugees back to Syria." The ministerial panel asked the security agencies to strictly pursue the violators and to prevent the illegal entry of Syrians. The panel urged the international community to bear the refugees' burden with crisis-hit Lebanon. Caretaker Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar said after the meeting that he was assigned with the Minister of Labor, the Secretary-General of the higher Defense Council and the Acting General Security chief, to follow up on the implementation of the decisions of the ministerial panel and to coordinate with the Syrian side. Mawlawi had banned the refugees from protesting against the recent deportation Wednesday in front of the UNHCR after a Lebanese group called for a counter-protest. "Syrian refugees must be registered and should abide by the law," Mawlawi said in a press conference.

Beyond borders: Syrian labor and the changing landscape of Lebanon's workforce
LBCI/April 26/2023
If we talk about agriculture or construction, we can never do without Syrian labor in Lebanon. Syrian labor has expanded its scope of work, and its numbers have increased with the outbreak of the Syrian war and the influx of refugees to Lebanon. In June 2019, the Ministry of Labor, led by Kamil Abou Sleiman, intervened under the title of combating foreign labor and issued decisions that restricted specific jobs to only Lebanese nationals, including wholesale and retail trade, jobs related to the health sector, building materials manufacturing, craftsmanship, and mechanics. But in reality, the law is one thing, and the situation on the ground is another. During our tour in Arsal, we witnessed the story unfolding amidst the various shops selling food, clothes, perfumes, and shoes. We continued walking and came across the only shop managed by a Lebanese woman. From trade to healthcare, there was another story to be told. Even veterinary services were being delivered upon request, highlighting the prevalence of violations. The impact of this unfair competition is evident in one aspect: Lebanese labor is out of the job market. According to a study conducted by Statistics Lebanon for the International Labor Organization (ILO), focusing on the most vulnerable areas, it was found that the participation rate of Syrian males in the labor force is 69%, which is 10% higher than that of Lebanese males. To address these challenges, it is necessary to ensure that everyone operates within the framework of the law. This includes first regularizing the status of Syrian workers, providing them with residence and work permits, and then ensuring that their work complies with the law.

Shifting demographics: The Syrian refugees crisis in Lebanon and its impact on society's future
LBCI/April 26/2023
There are two contrasting perspectives on the Syrian refugees crisis in Lebanon.
One group considers this crisis as the root cause of all the problems in Lebanon and faces them with racism and hate speech. On the other hand, another group seeks to alleviate the impact of this crisis and approach it purely as a humanitarian issue. However, the reality, numbers, and demographics reveal that the crisis is the true governing factor. In terms of numbers, Lebanon has the highest number of refugees in the world compared to its population. It is also the country with the highest number of refugees in the world compared to its land area. According to the Lebanese General Security estimates, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has surpassed 2 million people. This means that Syrian refugees now constitute approximately 30% of the total population in Lebanon, making it almost half the size of the Lebanese population, which is estimated to be 4.7 million. This number is shocking; let's move on to the registered birth rates issued by the Lebanese Ministry of Health for the past few years. The average number of births annually is 120,000 births. Lebanese births are approximately 68,000 compared to 50,000 Syrian births, meaning 40% of registered births are Syrian. However, a significant number of Syrian births, especially in camps and rural areas, occur outside hospitals and are not registered, so the number of Syrian births is undoubtedly higher than that of Lebanese births. Let's not forget that the number of Lebanese births has been steadily decreasing since the beginning of the crisis in 2019 and has become very close to the number of deaths. In addition, hundreds of thousands of young people have emigrated, resulting in a continuous decrease in Lebanese people inside Lebanon. In contrast, the number of Syrians in Lebanon continues to rise. Based on these facts, let's compare the age pyramid of Syrians and Lebanese. More than 52% of Syrians in Lebanon are under 20, while less than 29% of Lebanese are estimated to be under 20. This means that the Syrian community in Lebanon has a younger population, with the youth making up the largest portion of it, while the Lebanese society is rapidly aging, like European societies. This is our reality, where births and youth are declining. It is not far-fetched to imagine that after 10-15 years, the number of Syrians in Lebanon could surpass the number of Lebanese, especially considering that any economic or political setback could trigger more migration. At that point, Lebanon may no longer be recognizable as the Lebanon we know.

Living in limbo: Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the quest for legal status
LBCI/April 26/2023
Many Syrian refugees in Lebanon benefit from international aid, engage in activities on Lebanese territory without legal documents, and insist on staying in Lebanon. Today, municipalities are working to regulate this phenomenon by organizing foreign labor according to Lebanese laws. Those who cooperate and rectify their situation can continue their lives and work normally, while those who refuse or circumvent the law face deportation. These measures were imposed by a circular issued by the governor of Southern Lebanon, aimed at organizing foreign labor. This step was preceded by municipalities in various areas, such as Kfar Remman, which called on all Syrians residing within its jurisdiction to regularize their status since the beginning of the year. Why are these measures being implemented now? Several reasons have led to such decisions, the most important of which are: The security factor following the capture of multiple theft and forgery gangs that include Syrian refugees. In addition to the strain displacement places on municipalities and the labor market. Given the rise in excavation, municipalities today need help securing waste collection. The strain on the region's infrastructure and essential services like water and electricity also leads to issues between the local population and refugees. With the implementation of these measures, will the mechanism for their execution succeed? The success of the plan to regulate foreign labor is not limited to Syrians only but also depends on Lebanese employers, as they have an essential role in securing the necessary documents to ensure the employment of Syrians. As for those who violate residency and work permits, whether they are Syrians or their Lebanese employers, they have to go to the municipality to fill out a form approved by the municipalities in cooperation with the General Security.
The refugee crisis is no longer limited to a specific region or environment. Still, it has become a widespread crisis across regions and sects, leaving the refugees in confrontation with the locals, like placing gunpowder next to the fire.
Who will bear the responsibility for any explosion that may occur?

Bassil says FPM to confront 'conspiracy' of 'violent expulsion' of Syrians
Naharnet/April 26/2023
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Wednesday warned against any “violent expulsion” of Syrian refugees from Lebanon, amid an uproar over the army’s recent expulsion of dozens of Syrians from the country. “The chaotic influx of displaced Syrians was a conspiracy that we confronted alone and expelling them through violence is a conspiracy that we will also confront,” Bassil said in a tweet. “We are with a safe and dignified repatriation and with the implementation of the international and Lebanese laws regarding the return of every illegal refugee and the prevention of any naturalization,” the FPM chief added. “There is a regional chance for a decent repatriation and we will not allow conspirators and those who woke up now to waste it through incitement and inhumanity,” Bassil went on to say. Amnesty International on Monday called on Lebanon to "immediately stop forcibly deporting refugees back to Syria."The Syrian refugees "are at risk of torture or persecution at the hands of the Syrian government upon return," Amnesty said, describing the situation as "alarming."The London-based rights group said the Syrians were expelled following raids on their homes in various parts of the country, adding that those who had "entered the country irregularly or held expired residency cards" were deported. It cited the brother of one refugee as saying that the Lebanese Army drove them "directly to the border and handed them over to the Syrian army."Lebanese authorities have long pushed for Syrian refugees to return, and have made several repatriation efforts they describe as voluntary, but which rights groups say are forced. Several Arab countries have recently moved to reestablish ties with Syria following years of political isolation after the war began.

Third and last batch of Sudan evacuees arrive in Beirut
Agence France Presse/April 26/2023
On Wednesday, thousands of civilians fled from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, including Lebanese nationals. Whether they had spent only a short time in Sudan or built lives there over many years, they all voiced concern for what would become of friends, family and colleagues who remain in the country.Conditions are harsh, amid urban combat and acute shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine. Twenty Lebanese and 12 Palestinians arrived in Lebanon overnight, and a last batch of 18 arrived later on Wednesday. Bilal al-Ayoubi, a 37-year-old Lebanese national, had only been in Sudan for a short time before he had to flee. He said he felt "very close to it"."Its people are very kind and don't deserve what's happening to them," he said.
Sleepless journey
The fighting in Sudan pits forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against those backing his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). At least 459 people have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded, according to U.N. agencies. Evacuees began arriving in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, with boats that reached Jeddah carrying 150 people including foreign diplomats and officials. On Monday, a C-130 Hercules military plane flew dozens of South Korean civilians to Jeddah's King Abdullah Air Base, and a boat ferried nearly 200 people from 14 countries across the Red Sea from Port Sudan. Wednesday's operation was by far the largest to date, and some passengers were crammed into stairwells for the 10-hour sea voyage. After what many described as a sleepless night, the haggard-looking group was called country by country to retrieve their bags and go ashore, where they were greeted by Saudi soldiers who handed them plastic-wrapped pink and red roses. The passengers included a number of Syrian nationals who told AFP they had fled to Sudan after civil war erupted in their country in 2011, and who described a sense of shock that they were fleeing conflict yet again. "We left our country because of the war and we reached another country which is also facing war. This experience, which we have lived twice, is very difficult," said 35-year-old Batool. As she spoke, her 17-year-old son Adham broke down crying. "I left behind me so many dreams," he said, but was unable to speak further.

Conflicting views within BDL's Central Council on government's decision for cap on withdrawals and transfers
LBCI/April 26/2023
Sources in the government seem confident that the Banque Du Liban will respond to the decision issued by the Cabinet on the 18th of this month, which requests it to take necessary measures to impose a cap on withdrawals and transfers available to depositors equally among them, without prioritizing one deposit over another, and to continue granting bank customers the freedom to dispose of fresh funds. The BDL's Central Council was supposed to discuss this decision on Wednesday. Still, the participation of some members of the Council in a ceremony in honor of General Abbas Ibrahim prevented the holding of an official meeting of the Council. Therefore the discussion of this matter was postponed. According to the available information, conflicting opinions within the Central Council of the BDL regarding this issue exist. Some support the view that issuing the circulars would halt the banks' discretionary treatment of depositors, avoid local and international lawsuits, and stop the bleeding of BDL's reserves. On the other hand, there are opposing opinions to such a decision and any circulars associated with it. According to these opinions, the circulars related to withdrawals and transfers have no legal basis, as they have not been legislated in the Parliament. This could potentially lead to lawsuits filed by depositors not only against the concerned commercial bank but also against BDL, as it is seen as obstructing their rights. Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of the BDL to cover up for the government and the Parliament's failure to enact a capital control law.
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Lebanon’s MOSA introduces social protection program for people with disabilities
LBCI/April 26/2023
The Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) launched Lebanon’s National Disability Allowance (NDA). This allowance is a social grant that provides income support to people with disabilities living within the country. Launched in partnership with the European Union, UNICEF, and the International Labour Organization (ILO), the NDA aims to strengthen the existing national program and services dedicated to persons with disabilities. The NDA intends to support individuals with disabilities to ease their access to essential services. Additionally, all people with disabilities would be eligible, especially those aged 18-28 (born between 1995-2005), who are prioritized during the first roll-out to support their transition to higher education or join the labor market. At least 20,000 individuals will benefit from a monthly allowance of $40 each over an initial period of 12 months.

In numbers, Lebanon sees a 'golden ticket’ in terms of tourism
LBCI/April 26/2023
Six billion and 400 million dollars is the value of the net monetary mass that Lebanon gained from arrivals and tourists in 2022, according to a study by the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Tourism in cooperation with the private sectors and unions of tourism establishments. This rate also constituted the highest percentage of the economic growth rate in 2022 and 2023, as this number is expected to increase significantly. In addition to the large hotels that have returned to receive visitors again, the doors of many tourist facilities that were previously closed between restaurants and nightlife venues have reopened. Even some facilities have decided to invest in Lebanon despite all the conditions. The number has reached 250 in all of Lebanon, in addition to those which are already working. There are 150 guest houses registered with the Syndicate of Guest Houses, spread in all regions, even in remote areas on the outskirts, and they are ready to receive you. And all this movement is a blessing in terms of creating an economic cycle and securing job opportunities for young people. With the unanimous opinion of the members of the tourism family in Lebanon, this summer will be very promising, and the numbers are what speak. About 65 percent is the percentage of total reservations for plane tickets through Middle East Airlines until now, and it is expected to reach 100 percent by the end of June. Despite all the challenges, Lebanon's tourism opportunity this season is golden par excellence, and what is always required is security stability, and, most importantly, political.

Lebanese cinema: A beacon of hope despite the crisis
LBCI/April 26/2023
Art in Lebanon, and specifically cinema, can revive the economy by solving, for example, the problem of financing the film industry, which has been exacerbated by successive crises over the past years. Lebanon, which is rich in culture and art, is witnessing, even in its worst economic conditions, the birth of projects that are waiting for only a small support to see the light. Thirty feature films produced or directed by Lebanese, filmed in part or entirely, competed for the support of a fund launched by the Foundation Liban Cinema, funded by the European Union. Nine films were chosen for their artistic value to benefit from this initiative. Among them is a film about the memories of Gibran Khalil Gibran with his voice and image, another about Tripoli, witness to successive revolutions in history, and a third about different generations in the streets of Beirut united by the desire to change the country. It is true that the challenges facing the Lebanese cinema are many, but hope remains in providing the institutions supporting this sector with all means that help it to continue and thrive.

Lebanon Is Becoming Increasingly Tough for Journalists
Adnan Nasser/The National Interest/April 26/2023
Once hailed as a model for free thinking and expression, Lebanon is becoming increasingly authoritarian toward dissenting voices and the rights of journalists. Once hailed as a model for free thinking and expression, Lebanon is becoming increasingly authoritarian toward dissenting voices and the rights of journalists to be critical of government action and political parties. Media outlets and independent writers are gradually finding themselves in a tougher environment to do their job of informing the public of the truth. An unfortunate example of the risks journalists faces while working in Lebanon is the loss of our fellow writer and activist, Lokman Slim. Lokman was a long-time critic of Hezbollah and other parties that belonged to the sectarian ruling class. But he directed his most fiery and brisk denunciation at the heart of where he believed Lebanon’s problems lie: Hezbollah. He was found dead in the south of Lebanon, a region Hezbollah has the strongest influence in the country. His death was gruesome. Four bullets to the head and one in the back. Why did he die? Because someone thought his beliefs “crossed the line.” Lokman himself came from a Shia Muslim background but refused to allow Hezbollah to have the monopoly on the Shia community from which it claims to draw its legitimacy. Such a grim reality cannot be ignored. Organizations and individuals have taken notice of the shift in how the media is being treated on the ground in Lebanon. Freedom House, a non-partisan human rights organization that monitors the levels of democratic freedoms across the globe, reported signs of substantial self-censorship in Lebanon by journalists and bloggers. It found in 2019 that self-censorship has increased in the blogosphere and in top media circles out of fear of offending certain sectarian voices in the government.
The study also revealed how highly partisan the official media is in Lebanon because of its connections to the political class. Thankfully, because of internet access and the rise of digital media, it is challenging the system’s power in controlling the flow of information. However, government officials are using other means to block independent voices from delivering the news. Journalists who are friends and acquittances have spoken up about how difficult things have become when exercising their right of freedom of expression. Tarek Hmaidan, founder and CEO of Thawra TV, a channel dedicated to supporting the principles of Lebanon’s 2019 revolution, spoke to The National Interest about the frustrations independent media faces while trying to cover events in Lebanon.
“At the Parliament, they don’t let us work freely and now won’t let us go in. Ever since independent MPs Najat Saliba and Melhem Khalaf started their sit-in in Parliament in objection to the lack of a president, some independent media have lost access.” Tarek also talked about Lokman Slim and why he believed he was marked for death. “He was Shia criticizing Shia. This put him in a dangerous situation. If he was Christian, Druze, or any other religion, maybe they would not have killed him.” The point Hmaidan was making is: some members of the sectarian class do not tolerate criticism from those of their same confession. Instead, they are deemed traitors and must pay a penalty. Regardless of the motivation behind Lokman’s killing, the current environment makes people hesitate to speak and write with confidence that no harm will come to them.
Diana Moukallah, a journalist who works with Daraj Media, commented to TNI on today’s climate regarding free speech issues. “I believe it’s the mother of all battles here in Lebanon as the intimidation is increasing. If Lebanon loses the battle, then, the whole meaning of the country is lost for good. From the case of journalists being summoned to the case of imposing prior permission on lawyers to give interviews to the rising grip on mainstream media, I believe we are battling a vicious ruling class trying to impose restrictions on free speech.”
If journalists in Lebanon start believing their voices could be silenced through blackmail or violence, the situation will worsen. Hmaidan expressed support for the idea that independent journalists should “unify and form a type of union to protect one another.” Without solidarity, true journalism will perish. It is time to put the criteria for free media protection back on the table if Lebanon is to have any serious chance of rebuilding what it once had as a democratic way of life.
*Adnan Nasser is an independent foreign policy analyst and journalist with a focus on Middle East affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Adnansoutlook29.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 26-27/2023
Former Representative of Iran's Khamenei Killed
Asharq A-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
A former representative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the northern city of Babolsar, semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday. Abbasali Soleimani's killer has been detained, Fars said.Khamenei's representatives are clerics who officiate on behalf of the supreme leader at a provincial level.

Iran Charges Two Actresses for Not Wearing Headscarves
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
Iran has charged two prominent actresses for publishing pictures of themselves flouting the country's dress code for women, just weeks after announcing a crackdown on breaches, local media reported. Police in Tehran have referred the case against Katayoun Riahi and Pantea Bahram to Iran's judiciary, accusing them of "the crime of removing the hijab in public and posting photos on the internet", the Tasnim news agency said late Monday. According to AFP, if prosecuted, the pair could face fines or prison terms. Earlier this month police said they would begin using "smart" technology in public places to crack down on women defying Iran's compulsory dress code. Last week, photos of Bahram, 53, went viral after she posed without a headscarf at a film screening, while Riahi, 61, posted several photos taken in public places around Tehran in which she did not wear a headscarf. The requirement for women to wear the headscarf in public was imposed shortly after the Islamic revolution of 1979. The number of women in Iran defying the dress code has increased since a wave of protests following the September 16 death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, 22, for allegedly breaching it. On April 16, authorities said they had closed 150 commercial establishments whose employees were not complying with the dress code. Bahram and Riahi have won several awards at Iran's leading cinema event, the Fajr International Film Festival. In November, Riahi was released on bail after more than a week's detention for posting photos to Instagram in solidarity with the Amini protests, showing herself without a headscarf. She was the first Iranian actress to post such images on social media in support of the protest movement.

Iran court issues $312.9 million judgment against US amid tensions
AP/April 26, 2023
DUBAI: An Iranian court issued a $312.9 million judgment against the United States over a 2017 Daesh-claimed attack on Tehran, authorities said Wednesday, the latest judicial action between the nations amid their decades-long enmity. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, in reporting the decision, offered no direct evidence to support the court’s allegation that American officials had any part in the June 2017 attack that killed at least 18 people and wounded 50 others. The assault saw gunmen attack Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum and the country’s parliament, starting an hours-long siege. However, the court ruling comes after the United Nations’ highest court in March rejected Tehran’s legal bid to free up some $2 billion in Iranian Central Bank assets frozen by US authorities. Meanwhile, US judges have issued rulings that call for billions of dollars to be paid by Iran over attacks linked to Tehran, as well as those detained by Iran and used as pawns in negotiations between the countries. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. The IRNA report described those named in the lawsuit as including the US government, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the CIA, the American military’s Central Command, the Treasury and others. It said the case before Branch 55 of the Tehran Court of Justice came from the families of three people killed in the June 2017 attack.
“The reasons for attributing these crimes to the United States ... is based on the central and main role of the government and officials of this country in organizing and directing terrorist groups,” the IRNA report said. It cited “reliable news” and unidentified speeches by American officials as its evidence.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump described Obama as the “founder” of the Daesh group. While later calling his comments “sarcasm” based on Obama’s decision to earlier withdraw troops from Iraq, conspiracy theorists across the Middle East, including Iran’s supreme leader, seized on the remarks. The Daesh group, an extremist group born out of Al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Iraq, declared itself a caliphate across the vast territory it held in Iraq and Syria in 2014. A US-led coalition and separately Iran-allied Shiite forces ultimately dislodged the extremists, who became notorious for their gruesome killings of prisoners and attacks abroad. The June 2017 attack in Tehran marked the first time the Daesh extremists could penetrate tightly controlled Iran and carry out of a massive assault. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the years-long tumult surrounding the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran a year later executed eight men sentenced to death over the attack. Since the revolution, a series of US court cases have been filed against Iran, particularly over attacks like the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people. A 1996 US law allows Americans to sue nations identified by the US government as sponsoring terrorism, like Iran, for damages suffered in militant acts linked back to them. Others have sued for being wrongfully imprisoned by Tehran, like Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian.
The court decision announced Wednesday comes as tensions between Iran and the US remain high over Tehran’s nuclear program enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels under reduced oversight from international inspectors.

German FM Condemns Death Sentence for Citizen in Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
Germany's foreign minister called Wednesday on Iran to reverse a death sentence handed down to Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian-German dual citizen and opposition figure accused of masterminding deadly attacks. German officials said they were not allowed to attend the hearing at which the sentence against Sharmahd was upheld. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the verdict “completely unacceptable.” “At no point did Jamshid Sharmahd have even the beginnings of a fair trial,” she wrote on Twitter. “We call on Iran to immediately reverse this arbitrary verdict.”Germany's ambassador to Iran has broken off a duty trip and is on his way back to Tehran to intervene on Sharmahd's behalf, Baerbock added. Earlier this year Germany and Iran expelled each others' diplomats over the case. Sharmahd had been residing in Glendora, California, prior to his detention. Iran accuses the 67-year-old of leading the armed wing of a group committed to restoring the Western-backed monarchy that ruled Iran before the 1979 revolution. Sharmahd's family says he was only a spokesman for the opposition group and deny he was involved in any attacks. They say he was abducted from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, in 2020 and spirited into Iran.

Iranian Authorities Re-Arrest Prominent Journalist Months after His Release
London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
Iranian authorities have re-arrested prominent journalist Keyvan Samimi who called for the formation of a National Salvation Front months after his release from prison following two years of incarceration, announced his family. The family said the authorities did not provide any information about his place of detention or the party that arrested him. In an unprecedented step, the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network announced Samimi's arrest on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. The news read that Samimi was arrested on charges of association with the opposition Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MEK). A few days after his arrest, AFP quoted a family member saying that he was arrested Thursday, adding: "We still have no further information on the (security) service responsible for his arrest or his whereabouts." Samimi's arrest came on the eve of the "How to Save Iran" conference on Friday and Saturday through the "Clubhouse" application. It was organized by a group of activists calling for a peaceful and gradual transition to a secular regime. Over two days, dozens of political and civil society activists at home and abroad discussed transitioning from religious rule to a secular democratic political system.
Samimi, 74, said in the video recording, which was broadcast on the first day of the conference, that saving Iran from the situation and the ruling authoritarian power is possible through force, calling for dialogue and collective action to activate the power of the street and establish a coalition. Referring to the various trends in Iran, Samimi urged Iranian activists to show a spirit of acceptance of others and pluralism. He said a national salvation front could be formed, uniting the largest number of protesters moving towards national harmony to confront the ruling body and remove tyranny. And the Washington-based Center for Human Rights in Iran tweeted last Thursday that Iran's prisons are filling up with political prisoners again. "Dissident journalist Keyvan Samimi, who was recently released from jail, has been re-arrested. In January, Samimi, 74, was summoned to the Revolutionary Court in Tehran but refused. He has serious health problems," the organization added. Samimi's family reported in late January that the authorities released him after serving a prison sentence since December 2020 on conspiracy charges against national security. The authorities allowed Samimi to return home in February 2022 due to health issues. According to the government-run Mehr Agency, he was re-arrested on suspicion of carrying out activities against national security in May of the same year. After his release again in January, Samimi met several activists and politicians, most notably former reformist President Mohammad Khatami. The family explained that the Public Prosecutor in Tehran issued a new indictment against Samimi, accusing him of "association against the security of the country." In December, the journalist sent a message from inside his cell in support of the protest movement that took place in Iran in the wake of the death of the young woman, Mahsa Amini. Samimi was imprisoned several times before and after Iran's 1979 revolution.

As Assad returns to Arab fold, Syrians watch with hope, fear
AP/April 26, 2023
BEIRUT: Syrians living on opposite sides of the largely frozen battle lines dividing their country are watching the accelerating normalization of ties between the government of Bashar Assad and Syria’s neighbors through starkly different lenses. In government-held Syria, residents struggling with ballooning inflation, fuel and electricity shortages hope the rapprochement will bring more trade and investment and ease a crippling economic crisis. Meanwhile, in the remaining opposition-held areas of the north, Syrians who once saw Arab countries as allies in their fight against Assad’s rule feel increasingly isolated and abandoned.
Turkiye, which has been a main backer of the armed opposition to Assad, has been holding talks with Damascus for months — most recently on Tuesday, when the defense ministers of Turkiye, Russia, Iran and Syria met in Moscow. A 49-year-old tailor in Damascus who gave only his nickname, Abu Shadi said he hoped the mending of ties between Syria and the Gulf countries would improve the economy and kick-start reconstruction in the country. “We’ve had enough of wars — we have suffered for 12 years,” he said. “God willing, relations will improve with all the Gulf countries and the people will benefit on both sides. There will be more movement, more security and everything will be better, God willing.” In the opposition-held northwest, the rapprochement is a cause for fear. Opposition activists took to social media with an Arabic hashtag translating to “normalization with Assad is betrayal,” and hundreds turned out at protests over the past two weeks against the move by Arab states to restore ties with Assad. Khaled Khatib, 27, a worker at a nongovernmental organization in northwest Syria, said he is increasingly afraid that the government will recapture control of the remaining opposition territory. “From the first day I participated in a peaceful demonstration until today, I am at risk of being killed or injured or kidnapped or hit by aerial bombardment,” he said. Seeing the regional warming of relations with Damascus is “very painful, shameful and frustrating to the aspirations of Syrians,” he said. Rashid Hamzawi Mahmoud, who joined a protest in Idlib earlier this month, said: “The (UN) Security Council has failed us — so have the Arab countries, and human rights and Islamic groups,” he said. Syria was ostracized by Arab governments over Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters in a 2011 uprising that descended into civil war. However, in recent years, as Assad consolidated control over most of the country, Syria’s neighbors have begun to take steps toward rapprochement. The overtures picked up pace since a deadly Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkiye and Syria. Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian researcher and professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, said Assad could potentially be invited to the next Arab League summit, but even if such an invitation isn’t issued for May, “it’s only a question of time now.”Government officials and pro-government figures in Syria say the restoration of bilateral ties is more significant in reality than a return to the Arab League. “The League of Arab States has a symbolic role in this matter,” Tarek Al-Ahmad, a member of the political bureau of the minority Syrian National Party, said. “It is not really the decisive role.”

Security, Troops Withdrawal Top Syria-Türkiye 'Normalization' Talks
Moscow, Ankara - Raed Jaber, Saeed Abdulrazek/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
The Defense Ministers of Russia, Syria, Türkiye and Iran held a new round of consultations in Moscow on Tuesday, which focused on security and military presence near the border areas in northern Syria. The results of the closed-door meeting constituted preparations for holding upcoming talks at the level of foreign ministers, which is expected to take place on May 2, a Russian diplomatic source told Asharq Al-Awsat. The Turkish Ministry of Defense announced that the meeting discussed ways to intensify efforts to return the Syrian refugees to their homeland. Syrian Al-Watan newspaper quoted an unnamed source as saying that the statement published by the Turkish Ministry of Defense, which highlighted concrete steps related to normalization of ties between Türkiye and Syria, was false, stressing that the meeting discussed the mechanism for the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syrian territory, and did not address any normalization steps. Moscow deliberately kept secret the details of the “military and security” meeting, abstaining from announcing details in advance. The Russian Ministry of Defense issued a brief press statement, stressing “the positive spirit that prevailed during the discussions.”“Practical steps were discussed in the field of strengthening security in the Syrian Arab Republic and normalizing Syrian-Turkish relations,” the statement read. This is the second meeting at the same level after the defense ministers and heads of the security services in Syria, Türkiye and Russia held previous talks at the end of 2022, which laid the basis for moving towards the normalization of Syrian-Turkish relations under Russian auspices. Iran, which reportedly objected to its absence from the first round of consultations, joined the talks later. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, a well-informed Russian diplomat described the meeting as “very serious and positive”. He noted that the talks “are focusing on issues that require more coordination, especially in areas related to security and anti-terrorism, which have been given priority because they are linked to the protection of national security of both Syria and Türkiye.”In Ankara, the Turkish Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the meeting discussed “concrete steps” that could be taken to normalize relations between Ankara and Damascus, and means to intensify efforts to return Syrian refugees to their lands. The statement added that the meeting also touched on ways to combat terrorist organizations and extremist groups on Syrian soil, and to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity. Ankara preempted the meeting by affirming that it would not withdraw its forces from northern Syria, without ruling out, at the same time, a meeting between Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad, “according to a special road map, and without preconditions.”However, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reiterated, in a televised interview on Monday night, that his country’s forces would not withdraw from northern Syria and northern Iraq at the present time, saying: “Our withdrawal from northern Syria and northern Iraq means ending our military operations against terrorism…This poses a threat to our national security.”

Germany: Van Carrying 29 Syrians Flees, Hits Police Car
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
A van carrying 29 people from Syria collided with a police car after its driver tried to evade a check by officers near Germany's border with Poland, police said Wednesday. No one was hurt. The van was stopped near Goerlitz on Tuesday evening. Before officers could check the vehicle, the driver suddenly accelerated and drove off, German news agency dpa reported. After a chase, the van collided with a patrol car in Markersdorf, a few kilometers (miles) away. Federal police said no medical treatment was needed for the men, women and children from Syria, The Associated Press reported. The 50-year-old driver is under investigation on suspicion of smuggling foreigners into Germany and dangerous interference with traffic. Police did not immediately give information on his identity.

Houthis Force Supporters to Visit Graves, Prove Loyalty
Sanaa - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
Houthi militias have forced loyalists and government officials to visit the graves of dead militants during Eid celebrations, including the tomb of the head of the Supreme Political Council, Saleh al-Sammad. who was killed in 2018 during a strike carried out by the coalition to support the legitimacy in Yemen.
Millions of Yemenis in areas under Houthi control continue to suffer from miserable living conditions. The militias continue to pressure officials and residents in Sanaa to organize group visits to the graves of the dead, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. The sources pointed out that the group's pressures resulted in organizing group visits by officials and residents in Sanaa over the past few days to some of the graves of the dead militants. The militias seek to mislead and deceive the local and international public opinion that their dead are popular in Yemeni society. The group also exploits religious and other sectarian occasions to attract more young recruits, school students, and relatives of the dead. Meanwhile, sources close to Houthis in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that the militia allocated sums of money to finance the daily visits to the graves through the so-called "General Authority for Martyrs Families Welfare."
Yemeni politicians in Sanaa said that the Houthi leaders spend lavish money and food aid on their supporters and provide care for the families of their dead through many entities that the group has established. Residents of several neighborhoods in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that the militia's supervisors recently forced them to leave their homes en masse to visit cemeteries. Some residents said that the coup supervisors threatened "absentees" with blacklists, saying those who didn't attend the visits will be denied access to some aid and liquefied domestic gas (LNG). The residents pointed out that the group's supervisors transported residents of some neighborhoods of different ages in Sanaa to the cemeteries on buses. Bashir, a resident of the al-Nahda neighborhood, confirmed that the group targets new communities each day, forcing their residents to visit the graves of Sammad and another officials across the governorate.
Residents of various Sanaa neighborhoods complained to Asharq Al-Awsat earlier about the continued pressure and Houthi violations on forced mass visits to graves. Several months ago, the militias forced senior officials and government employees under their control and the residents to visit the graves designated for their dead. They also ordered school principals to organize field trips to visit the cemeteries. Yemeni local sources stated earlier that the coup built over 100 new cemeteries for its dead in seven governorates under its control: Sanaa, Saada, al-Mahweet, al-Hodeidah, Raymah, Ibb, and Dhamar to be added to the already established 400 cemeteries.

Sudan's Bashir Moved to Military Hospital before Fighting
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
Sudan's toppled leader Omar al-Bashir was moved from Kober prison to a military hospital in the Sudanese capital before heavy fighting broke out there on April 15, two sources at the hospital said. The whereabouts of Bashir came into question after a former minister in his government, Ali Haroun, announced on Tuesday he had left the prison with other ex officials, Reuters said. Both Bashir and Haroun are wanted by the International Criminal Court over alleged atrocities in Darfur. Fighting flared anew in Sudan late on Tuesday despite a ceasefire declaration by the warring factions as more people fled Khartoum in the chaos. The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire beginning on Tuesday after negotiations mediated by the US and Saudi Arabia. But gunfire and explosions could be heard after nightfall in Omdurman, one of Khartoum's sister cities on the Nile River where the army used drones to target RSF positions, a Reuters reporter said. UN special envoy on Sudan Volker Perthes told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the ceasefire "seems to be holding in some parts so far."But he said that neither party showed readiness to "seriously negotiate, suggesting that both think that securing a military victory over the other is possible." "This is a miscalculation," Perthes said, adding that Khartoum's airport was operational but the tarmac damaged. The first Turkish civilians evacuated from Sudan returned to Türkiye on Wednesday and Saudi Arabia said it evacuated 13 of its nationals and 1,674 other individuals with no sign the warring parties are ready to seriously negotiate. The Turks came from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, having reached there overland from Khartoum. Several more flights were expected later on Wednesday to evacuate the remaining Turkish citizens who had crossed over to Ethiopia from Sudan.

China, Ukraine Leaders Speak for First Time since War Began
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 April, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a "long and meaningful" phone call Wednesday, their first known contact since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, and Beijing said it wanted to send an envoy to Kyiv to serve as a mediator to pursue a "political settlement." The nearly hour-long call came two months after Beijing, which has long been aligned with Russia, said it wanted to act as a mediator and a month after Xi visited Moscow. The timing was also relevant because it comes as Ukraine is readying its forces for an expected spring counteroffensive.
Zelenskyy was upbeat about the call, which offered him the chance to press his views in what until then had been a bilateral dialogue between Moscow and Beijing. Russian President Vladimir Putin is eager to keep Xi close as a counterweight to the United States, which has sided with Ukraine.
"I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations," Zelenskyy said in a Facebook post without elaborating. An official readout on his website called the conversation "productive" and said it leads the way toward "possible interaction with the aim of establishing a just and sustainable peace for Ukraine." Zelenskyy emphasized the need to regain all Ukrainian territory and stated, "There can be no peace at the expense of territorial compromises." In an indirect reference to US reports that China had considered supplying weapons to Russia for its invasion, Zelenskyy’s office said he asked countries to refrain from doing so because "any support -- even partial -- is converted by Russia into the continuation of its aggression, into its further rejection of peace." A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said Beijing's "core stance is to facilitate talks for peace," announcing that an envoy — a former ambassador to Russia — would visit Ukraine to seek a "political settlement." The statement struck a positive tone, giving a nod to Kyiv's insistence that its territory cannot be broken up by Russia's annexations and making clear that Beijing values its longstanding ties with Ukraine. "Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity is the political foundation of China-Ukraine relations," the statement said. "China’s readiness to develop relations with Ukraine is consistent and clear-cut. No matter how the international situation evolves, China will work with Ukraine to advance mutually beneficial cooperation."
Analysts expressed skepticism about the prospects for peace.
The call balances China’s dialogue with Russia by showing it is "recognizing Ukraine’s leadership and indicating Ukraine is an important entity," said Kimberly Marten, professor of political science at Barnard-Columbia University in New York, in an interview with The Associated Press.
But, she added, unless undisclosed details reveal otherwise, "it's a non-starter. It's pro-Russian. I would not guess that this holds a lot of significance for ending the war."She noted the Chinese proposal didn’t call for Russia to leave occupied areas or brand Russia as an aggressor, and refers to the situation as "a crisis, rather than a war." Elizabeth Wishnick, of the US-based think tank CNA and Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute, noted in an email to AP that the Chinese statement about the call contains "no mention of a Russian troop withdrawal, which, to my mind, makes this a less than serious initiative and unlikely to contribute in any major way to ending the war, which will likely be decided on the battlefield." In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova commended China’s approach, praising Beijing’s "readiness to strive to establish a (peace) negotiations process," while slamming what she called Kyiv’s "rejection of any sound initiatives aimed at a settlement." The White House described it as a positive development, allowing Xi to hear Ukraine’s view of the "illegal, unprovoked invasion."
"We think that’s a good thing," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. Talks between the two leaders had been anticipated for weeks, after China produced a 12-point proposal to end the fighting, although it did not contain specific proposals. While the West has said China planned to provide weapons to Russia to help fight the war, Beijing has denied it.
Russia and Ukraine are far apart in their terms for peace. The Kremlin wants Kyiv to acknowledge Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, which most nations have denounced as illegal. Ukraine has rejected the demands and ruled out any talks with Russia until its troops pull back from all occupied territories. Zelenskyy said in an interview with the AP last month that he hadn't spoken with Xi since the war began and extended an invitation for him to visit Ukraine.
China has announced it was keen to act as mediator in the war that has reenergized NATO. With the step, Xi’s government reinforced China’s claim to being neutral in the war, despite blocking efforts at the United Nations to condemn the Kremlin's invasion. While Zelenskyy has moved his country closer to NATO and has successfully pleaded with alliance members to send Ukraine sophisticated weapons to help defeat Russia, Beijing has accused the West of provoking the conflict and "fanning the flames" by providing Kyiv with defensive arms. When China called in February for a cease-fire and peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, Zelenskyy cautiously welcomed Beijing’s involvement. But he said success would depend on actions, not words. Putin warmly welcomed Xi to the Kremlin, in what was seen as a powerful message to Western leaders that their efforts to isolate Moscow over the fighting in Ukraine have fallen short. Also on Wednesday, Zelenskyy used the 37th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl to repeat his warnings about the potential threat of a new atomic catastrophe in Ukraine during his country's war with Russia. Zelenskyy drew a parallel between the Chernobyl accident on April 26, 1986, to Moscow’s brief seizure of that plant and its radiation-contaminated exclusion zone following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"Last year, the occupier not only seized the (Chernobyl) nuclear power plant, but also endangered the entire world again," Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post in English. Russian forces were stationed at the closed plant between February and March last year before it was recaptured by Ukrainian troops.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv has since then reestablished prewar security measures and scientific activities within the zone. But he cautioned that future moves from Moscow could endanger global nuclear safety. "Ukraine and the world have paid a high price for the liquidation of the consequences of the (Chernobyl) disaster," he said. Zelenskyy's office published photos of him laying flowers at two Kyiv memorials to Chernobyl victims and observing a minute's silence. More than 150 members of the Ukrainian National Guard captured during Russia’s occupation of the Chernobyl exclusion zone remain in Russian custody, Ukraine’s environment minister said. Russian forces have also been stationed at southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe's largest and one of the 10 biggest in the world, since capturing the site early in the war. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Russia of using the plant as a base for firing on nearby Ukrainian-held territory. On Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported that heavy Russian artillery fire hit cities on the western bank of the Dnieper River just across from the plant. The plant has six reactors, all of which have been shut down over the past year. "We must do everything to give no chance to the terrorist state to use nuclear power facilities to blackmail Ukraine and the entire world," Zelenskyy said in his Telegram post.

EU reaffirms intent to strengthen cooperation with GCC
Arab News/April 26, 2023
BRUSSELS: The EU reaffirmed on Tuesday its intent to strengthen cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council and announced that it will appoint the first EU special representative for the Gulf region soon, Kuwait News Agency reported.
“We need to step up our engagement with the countries of the Gulf, and this was outlined last year in the joint communique by the EU high representative and the European Commission on strategic partnership with the Gulf,” Peter Stano, EU spokesman for foreign affairs and security policy, told a press conference in Brussels. “So, it is very important that the EU has a special representative for engagement with the countries of the Gulf,” he added. “This special epresentative will play an important role in implementing the strategy...to increase our multifaceted cooperation with the countries of the Gulf.” Sources have told KUNA that EU permanent representatives are expected to discuss and approve the nomination of former Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio as the special representative during their meeting in Brussels on Thursday. If so, he is expected to start his new role within a month.

South Africa, due to host Putin, rows back from pledge to quit war crimes court
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters)/Wed, April 26, 2023
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa rowed back on Wednesday from a pledge to quit the International Criminal Court, months before he is due to host Russia's Vladimir Putin who is wanted by the ICC for suspected war crimes. Ramaphosa had said on Tuesday that the ruling African National Congress would aim to repeal South Africa's membership of the Hague-based court, which hears cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But on Wednesday, Ramaphosa's office said he had made a mistake. "South Africa remains a signatory to the ICC in line with a resolution of the 55th National Conference of the ANC – held in December 2022 – to rescind an earlier decision to withdraw from the ICC," the presidency said in a statement. "The December resolution was reaffirmed at a meeting of the National Executive Committee of the ANC during the weekend of 21 to 24 April 2023."
The ICC issued an arrest warrant in March for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of forcibly deporting children from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. Moscow denies committing war crimes including forced deportations of children, and says the ICC has no authority as Russia is not a member.
Putin is due to visit South Africa in August for a summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. As an ICC member, South Africa would be required to detain him.
Putin has not travelled abroad since the ICC warrant was issued. He has made only one trip outside the former Soviet Union - to Iran - since launching the invasion of Ukraine last year. The ANC decided at its national conference in December that South Africa should abandon a legislative process to pull out of the ICC and try to effect changes to the organisation from within. The presidency said on Wednesday that South Africa would work towards establishing an African continental criminal court that would complement the ICC as a court of last resort.

Get ready for China’s invasion of Taiwan – and the end of Macron’s delusions
Jeremy Warner/The Telegraph/April 26, 2023
Blame it all on Richard Nixon if you like. Nixon was the US president who began the process of post-war economic integration with China, and in so doing severely compromised Taiwan's right to an independent sovereign future. By recognising Beijing as China's legitimate authority, and therefore its claims over Taiwan, Nixon opened Pandora's box, and if the more alarmist predictions are to be believed, very possibly sowed the seeds of World War Three. Part of history's enduring fascination is the way it keeps rewriting itself; up until relatively recently, Nixon's “opening to China” in 1972 was regarded as a masterpiece of diplomacy that thwarted the Soviet Union and gave birth to an unparalleled period of globalisation, economic integration, and advancement. If there was ever redemption to be had for the shame of Watergate, this was it, Nixon's lasting contribution to a better and more harmonious world.
Yet in so doing, Nixon incubated a monstrous rival which now challenges US economic and geopolitical hegemony on multiple fronts. Poor little Taiwan, sandwiched between vying Chinese and US interests, is the most visible proxy for this ever more dangerous standoff.
As a result of Nixon's manoeuvrings, Taiwan has no standing as a recognised sovereign state, let alone one that presumptuously still claims jurisdiction over all China. Taiwan was cynically sacrificed in Nixon's attempt to build bridges with Beijing. Notwithstanding repeated pledges by President Joe Biden, if Beijing invaded Taiwan tomorrow it is not clear that the US could legally come to its aid. In international law, Taipei's position would be more akin to that of Chechnya – almost indisputably part of Russia – than that of Ukraine.
So there we have it, a flashpoint as potentially deadly today as the Balkans were in the runup to the First World War, a period that was likewise characterised by unprecedented levels of economic integration which many people believed had made conflict between the great powers impossible because of the damage it would do to prosperity. We've seen a repeat of naive thinking like this in Emmanuel Macron's recent positioning on China. “The great risk” Europe faces, the French President said on a flight back from a state visit to Beijing, is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy”. Macron seemed to be giving the green light to whatever China wants to do in the East. His remarks have been widely interpreted as an attempt to sweet talk China into brokering a peace deal in Ukraine. Possibly he's right in believing that Chinese involvement is ultimately the only way of delivering the desired peace settlement. Morally and geopolitically, surrendering Taiwan as a quid pro quo nevertheless seems a very high price to pay.
But there may also be an ulterior motive.
This week, Bernard Arnault's sprawling luxury goods empire, LVMH, became the first European company to achieve a half a trillion dollar valuation and thereby enter the hallowed ranks of the top ten companies worldwide by market capitalisation. The latest surge in the share price has been driven largely by success in Chinese markets, where demand for luxury goods has surged since China abandoned its zero-Covid policies. If you want to know why Macron is schmoozing Xi Jinping, there could be your answer: the economic interest has trumped the security concern. Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, may pretend otherwise, but privately he will not have been displeased by Macron's intervention.
Europe's economic interest in China ensures an ambivalence to Chinese ambition and causes it to shrink from outright confrontation.
Unfortunately, Beijing doesn't appear minded to return the favour.
Its ambassador to Paris, Lu Shaye, this week outrageously took it on himself to question the sovereign status of the former Soviet Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, prompting even the Élysée to recoil in horror. It is as if Macron's green light on Taiwan has also legitimised renewed Russian interest in taking back Eastern Europe. Give autocracy an inch, it would seem, and it will take a mile. To see the dangers, just answer this question; what would Europe do if China actually went ahead with its threat to take Taiwan by force?Is it really credible that everyone would then just stand back and say none of our concern – fine by us as long as Louis Vuitton handbags continue to fly off the shelves in Shanghai? Whatever Macron says, this seems deeply unlikely. Instead, even Europe would be on the slippery slope to outright conflict with China. Any such outcome would be an extraordinarily dangerous and pivotal moment in world affairs, making Putin's invasion of Ukraine look like a mere skirmish by comparison. At almost any cost, it must be avoided. Encouraging China to think it might get away with subverting Taiwan undermines any such endeavour. But it is not just Macron who struggles with the dilemma of balancing economic objectives with security concerns. In a speech this week, James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, seemed to side much more overtly with the European view than that of Washington. “It would be clear and easy, perhaps even satisfying, for me to declare a new cold war and say that our goal is to isolate China”, he said in an address at the City of London's Mansion House. “Clear, easy, satisfying and wrong. Because it would be a betrayal of our national interest and a willful misunderstanding of the modern world”. For the US, Taiwan has become totemic; to surrender Taiwan would be not just to imperil crucial supplies of advanced chips; it would also mean giving up on key shipping lanes and on large parts of the Pacific in general. America's sphere of influence would be permanently impaired, with both Japan and Australia left isolated. Total disengagement from China in preparation for such a moment is not really an option. After decades of economic integration, we are bound at the hip. Separation would be extraordinarily destructive. Comparisons with the Cold War of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies are therefore not particularly instructive. There was little or no economic interaction between West and East in those days. This is not a remotely similar situation. Instead, we have increasingly hostile powers which in economic terms are also highly integrated and dependent on each other.
This is a potentially calamitous mix.
That very dependence has thus far helped to prevent an outright conflict, and somewhat tempered Chinese ambitions. But the chances of mishaps are growing by the day. Countries – and companies – that don't prepare for them will be hit doubly hard if and when a permanent parting of the ways occurs.
Congratulations to Bernard Arnault for overtaking Tesla's Elon Musk to become the world's richest man, but fortunes built on the shifting sands of Xi Jinping's say-so are bound to be insecure, and cannot in any case be allowed to dictate the West's approach to Chinese expansionism.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 26-27/2023
Ukraine's Iron Harvest and the Oligarchs
Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute./April 26, 2023
The media prefer to talk of mansions and opulent yachts rather than the corporate assets which continue to generate profits for the oligarch class that includes men like Alexei Miller, Igor Sechin, Roman Abramovich, Boris Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin, Viatcheslav 'Moshe' Kantor, and Igor Shuvalov as well as their sons and daughters who occupy key banking and business roles too. All of these have been sanctioned and some of their assets frozen.
Serious consideration should be given to finding a way to hold the beneficiaries of Putin's largesse even more accountable, if possible, and direct their assets to rectifying the damage that their patron-in-chief has caused. It is likely that tens of billions of US dollars of Putin's oligarchs' assets have already been frozen under international sanctions. This means Russia cannot use them, but as things stand, they cannot be confiscated and put to work to help Ukraine re-build, much as there is the desire in the US, UK and EU to do so.
A series of bills has already been introduced in the US Congress towards this aim, but they would all appear to fall foul of domestic laws as well as international investment laws. What is now needed therefore is a coordinated legislative effort in Washington, London and like-minded capitals to permanently deprive Russia of these funds and use them to help offset the massive reconstruction bills that will otherwise fall entirely to US, British and European taxpayers.
The carnage wreaked on Ukraine has been visible on our screens every day, as we have watched the conflict unfold over the past year: human beings torn apart, apartment blocks levelled, cars mangled, roads cratered, train stations smashed and sometimes whole towns reduced to piles of smoking rubble.
The World Bank estimates an overall reconstruction bill for Ukraine at $349 billion, an eye-watering sum that is rising by the week. Ukrainian government sources put it at more like $700 billion. Somehow this has all got to be paid for, and it's not going to come from Ukraine, whose economy is in tatters after months of fighting for its very survival. The chances of getting Russia to cough up are close to zero, whatever the talk of war crimes trials and reparations.
Meanwhile, sanctioned Russian oligarchs, who themselves bear considerable responsibility for Putin's aggression, simply alter the ownership of their corporations to avoid penalties, often with their vast fortunes residing in Western banks and property empires. It is time for their wealth to come under greater scrutiny as the world figures out how to put Ukraine back together when the war eventually comes to an end.
The carnage wreaked on Ukraine has been visible on our screens every day, as we have watched the conflict unfold over the past year: human beings torn apart, apartment blocks levelled, cars mangled, roads cratered, train stations smashed and sometimes whole towns reduced to piles of smoking rubble. Less visible, and therefore rarely talked about, is the colossal environmental damage caused by Putin's war — so far costed at a massive $51 billion, which is likely to be far from the final bill.
Warfare leaves what has been called an 'iron harvest'. In northern France and Belgium, over a century after WW1 ended, thousands of tons of munitions are cleared each year, and regularly a couple of farmers die after ploughing fields littered with shells, grenades and mustard gas just below the soil surface. It is estimated it will take 500 years to finally clear these rusting Great War munitions since 1.5 billion shells were fired at the Somme alone.[1]
Ukraine is a country almost the size of Texas. It is not as unvariegated as outsiders imagine. Sixteen per cent of the country is forested, and another 29 per cent consists of natural and semi-natural vegetation such as grasslands and hedgerows. It has 23,000 rivers, while the northern end of the Carpathian mountain range comprises a third of all plant species in Europe. Ukraine is home to 70,000 species of wildlife, as well. [2]
Even dolphins in the Black Sea are not safe because of increased naval and sonar activity. The first four months of fighting saw 37,000 major fires, many of them triggered by shelling. This affected about a quarter of a million acres of protected forests and other valued ecosystems. Fields filled with wheat and barley were set alight, too. Loss of machinery, farm infrastructure and crops has been put at over $4 billion alone.
Worse, where Russian separatists took power, legal logging collapsed in favour of a free for all, resulting in the theft of vast quantities of valuable timber. About twenty-five per cent of potable water comes from ground water sources and aquifers. Many of these have been contaminated. There has been huge deliberate damage to sewage and water treatment plants, as well as water towers and dams, so much so that about five million people lack access to safe drinking water. Stomach disorders ensue as people wash and clean in contaminated water, which is often intermittently supplied at best.
Nearly 700,000 tons of petrochemicals have been burned as a result of shelling, and 1,600 tons of pollutants have directly leaked into bodies of water. After coal mines were left unattended from 2014 onwards, some 650,000 feet of polluted mine water has been released into the environment. Ukraine has about 465 tailings (mineral waste) storage facilities, of which two hundred are in the war zone. These store 6 billion tons of hazardous liquid industrial waste.
Many industrial facilities have been pulverised by war, a health hazard as so many of them contain deadly asbestos, as do residential apartment blocks since Ukraine was late to ban the substance. Chemical plants like the one at Syvererodonestsk are a special worry – in this case because shelling of storage tanks resulted in a pink nitric acid cloud which is fatal if ingested.
Ukrainian farmers risk their lives whenever they plough and sow their fields because of the sheer number of landmines left by the Russians, not to mention unexploded ordinance. Even many of the missiles that fail to explode release highly toxic chemicals. Both the radioactive zone around the Chernobyl reactor and the huge reactor complex at Zaporizhzhia are of special concern not least to the IAEA. The first requires constant monitoring of ambient radioactivity levels, while even though the six reactors are shut down and could survive a plane crash on them, spent fuel rods are stored in pools of water which have to be maintained at certain temperatures. Constant artillery duels around these sites risk a terrible accident.[3]
Western governments have seized $300 billion of Russian state assets and about $33 billion of the fortunes that remain in private hands. There is much political and legal debate about how these sums could be re-routed to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine. Since outright distraint seems problematic, this includes talk of using the yields on specially devised bonds.
The media prefer to talk of mansions and opulent yachts rather than the corporate assets which continue to generate profits for the oligarch class that includes men like Alexei Miller, Igor Sechin, Roman Abramovich, Boris Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin, Viatcheslav 'Moshe' Kantor, and Igor Shuvalov as well as their sons and daughters who occupy key banking and business roles too. All of these have been sanctioned and some of their assets frozen.
Governments tread gingerly around the sensitivities of sanctioned oligarchs (who like Kantor simply change the ownership structure of their fertiliser businesses) while daily Ukraine suffers the environmental as well as structural effects of war. As other examples such as World War 1 show, these could still be felt in a century or more.
Serious consideration should be given to finding a way to hold beneficiaries of Putin's largesse even more accountable, if possible, and direct their assets to rectifying the damage that their patron-in-chief has caused.[4] It is likely that tens of billions of US dollars of Putin's oligarchs' assets have already been frozen under international sanctions. This means Russia cannot use them, but as things stand, they cannot be confiscated and put to work to help Ukraine re-build, much as there might be the desire in the US, UK and EU to do so.
A series of bills has already been introduced in the US Congress towards this aim, but they would all appear to fall foul of domestic laws as well as international investment laws. What is now needed therefore is a coordinated legislative effort in Washington, London and like-minded capitals to permanently deprive Russia of these funds and use them to help offset the massive reconstruction bills that will otherwise fall entirely to US, British and European taxpayers.
Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs. He is a Shillman Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
[1] https://www.military-history.org/behind-the-image/behind-the-image-the-iron-harvest-on-the-western-front.htm. Since 1918 360 people have been killed and 500 wounded by legacy munitions on the Western Front
[2] Giovana Faria, 'Scorched Earth: The Catastrophic Environmental Costs of Russis's Invasion of Ukraine' Radio Free Europe 28thJune 2022
[3] Yale School of Environment report 'One Year In, Riussia's War on Ukraine Has Inflicted $51 Billion in Environmental Damage E30 Digest 22 February 2023 and Ross Peel https://www.kcl.ac.uk/shelling-of-europes-biggest-nuclear-power-plant-exposes-multiple-risks. See also Bulletin of Atomic Scientists report by Jessica McKenzie. dated 19 August 2022 https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/a-ukrainian-climate-expert-on-the-zaporizhzhia-situation-and-the-winter-energy-outlook/
[4] Isabella Kaminksi 'Could Russia be prosecuted for environmental harm in Ukraine' Open Democracy 24 March 2022 is a good discussion of the legal issues surrounding environmental harms stemming from war.
© 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.

Without Firing a Shot: How Islam Overcame the West
Raymond Ibrahim/American Thinker/April 16/2023
The flag of England, based on Saint George’s Cross, alongside the UK flag.
In his well-known history of Western civilization, Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) offered an interesting “what if” scenario concerning the pivotal Battle of Tours (732 A.D.), when a massive Muslim army—which had terrorized, slaughtered, and enslaved every Christian on its path—was finally halted and defeated by the Franks in the middle of France.
Had the Muslims actually won, Gibbon predicted that,
Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people [meaning Brits would now be Muslim] the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Muhammad.
Today, of course, not only is the “revelation of Muhammad” being taught and honored at Oxford, but Christianity is increasingly being canceled for its sake. Most recently,
A decision by an Oxford university college not to celebrate St George’s Day with a formal dinner has been branded ‘barking mad.’ Magdalen College has decided against continuing an annual pre-pandemic banquet celebrating the English saint that drew together Oxford students, dons and fellows. Instead, the only occasion the college will observe on the day is Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic festival marking the end of Ramadan. The college will hold a formal dinner marking Eid on April 23, honouring a request made by its Muslim students. An email from college vice president Professor Nick Stargardt … outlines plans for a ‘festive dinner’ celebrating the occasion. The invitation, sent to hundreds of students and their lecturers, adds the meal will ‘follow Muslim customs.’ Cooks will prepare a halal meat dish with no alcohol served to diners.
Oxford had for years been celebrating Saint George’s Day. Once the pandemic arrived in 2020, however, the day was (“temporarily”) suspended; and now, following that “reset,” Islam has taken its place.
This move, incidentally, is meant to appease Islam in more ways than one. Although the patron saint of England for some seven centuries, Saint George has increasingly been a cause of concern because he “offends” Muslims. For example, according to a 2013 report,
A town [in England] has voted not to fly the flag of St George in case it offends Muslims. Radstock in Somerset has a population of 5,620, 16 of them Muslim [meaning 0. 3% of the population is Muslim]…. But a Labour councillor said the red and white cross could upset people because of its links to the Crusades. Even the Church of England distances itself from Saint George, whom it characterizes as “too warlike and offensive to Muslims.”
How did things come to such a pass? Once loved and venerated by England, the dragon-slaying saint is now canceled. And once feared and abhorred, the things of Islam—including now a “sacrificial” dinner—are being honored in his place.
To be sure, this was always Islam’s intention; century after century, Muslims waged jihad after jihad to conquer all of Europe.
Although England was—unlike Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans—never conquered, it too experienced its share of Muslim raids, including for slaves. Indeed, from 1627 to 1633, Lundy, an island just off the west coast of Britain, was actually occupied by Muslim pirates from North Africa, who pillaged England at will. Back then, when Islam was a formidable force, Englishmen—not a few inspired by George and other saints—fought tooth and nail to repulse the terrorists and safeguard their homeland’s faith and heritage. Today, however, when Islam is weak and easily confined, the United Kingdom finds itself bending over backwards to take in and cater to more and more Muslim migrants—many of whom, rather than show gratitude, display Islam’s traditional contempt for and prey on “infidels.”
Islam, as the saying goes, won without firing a single shot. And that is because there are no more Defenders of the West—at least not in positions that matter.
Returning to the Battle of Tours, another historian (Godefroid Kurth, d. 1916), described it as “one of the great events in the history of the world, as upon its issue depended whether Christian Civilization should continue or Islam prevail throughout Europe.”
At one point during the heat of battle, the Frankish leader, Charles “the Hammer,” was surrounded by jihadists; but “he fought as fiercely as the hungry wolf falls upon the stag. By the grace of Our Lord, he wrought a great slaughter upon the enemies of Christian faith,” wrote a chronicler. “Then was he first called ‘Martel,’ for as a hammer of iron, of steel, and of every other metal, even so he dashed and smote in the battle all his enemies.” Not only are such men who gave their all to preserve their heritage largely gone from the Western landscape, but now, even the symbolic Defenders of Christendom’s storied past, such as Saint George, have been targeted for termination. In short, Muslims finally prevailed in the West, not by force of arms, but because Christians lost—including themselves.

Biden Plans an Election Bid That Will Be More Complicated the 2nd Time Around
Michael D. Shear/Asharq Al Awsat/April 26/2023
President Biden is set to ask for another four years in office as soon as Tuesday, four years after declaring his 2020 candidacy in the hopes of preventing President Donald J. Trump from “forever and fundamentally” altering the character of the United States.
People close to Mr. Biden expect him to announce his re-election bid in a video, much the way he entered the last campaign, when he used the same format to urge Americans to embrace a different vision for the country and to “remember who we are.”
“I told you I’m planning on running,” Mr. Biden said at the White House on Monday, in response to questions from reporters. “I’ll let you know real soon.”Mr. Biden’s mission will be more complicated the second time around, as he is forced to defend his record while warning about the dangers of Mr. Trump’s return. While the former president remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is also preparing for a likely bid. Within days of Mr. Biden’s expected announcement, some of his top donors have been invited to gather in Washington for a financial summit of sorts that will kick off a race against time to fill the president’s war chest. The meeting, expected to be on Friday, will be a necessary early step in a campaign process that will remain low-key for as long as a year.
That will be quickly followed by Mr. Biden hiring a staff that can work outside the White House: a campaign manager, communication aides, state campaign directors, pollsters, finance managers, volunteers and more.
Among those being considered to run the re-election campaign is Julie Chávez Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser and the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, the American labor leader. But one person familiar with the president’s thinking said that as of Sunday afternoon, Mr. Biden had not made a final decision on who would run the campaign day to day. Regardless of that choice, Mr. Biden’s kitchen cabinet of advisers is clear: The handful of people whom he has kept close throughout his first bid for the presidency and his time in office. That includes Mike Donilon, his top political adviser; Anita Dunn, his communications guru; Steve Ricchetti, his legislative adviser; Ron Klain, his former chief of staff; Jen O’Malley Dillon, who managed his first campaign and is now a deputy chief of staff in the White House; and Kate Bedingfield, his former communications director.
That team is betting that Mr. Biden’s accomplishments will win him the votes to remain in the Oval Office. He will argue that he has restored prosperity despite lingering economic uncertainty and concerns about inflation. He will focus on the passage of legislation to pump billions of dollars into infrastructure, climate and health care. And he will take credit for restoring alliances abroad at a time of global tensions. The president will also seek to sharpen the differences with what he describes as an elitist, intolerant Republican Party that will threaten the progress his administration has made. As he begins to ramp up his campaign, he is hoping to demonstrate that the choice for voters is between a competent president and a return to the chaos Mr. Trump embraced.
“When you’re a president running for re-election, you’re the obvious and fair target for anyone who’s disappointed not just by the amount of progress, but even the speed of that progress during your time in office,” Jen Psaki, Mr. Biden’s former press secretary, said on her MSNBC show on Sunday as she discussed the impending campaign announcement. “Running for the president the first time is aspirational. You can make all sorts of big, bold promises,” she said, predicting an “incredibly difficult” re-election campaign for Mr. Biden. “Running for re-election is when you actually get your report card from the American people.”That report card will include some low marks from voters that the president and his team will have to confront as they build a campaign operation that is likely to be run out of Wilmington, Del. — close to the president’s regular weekend getaway over the past two years.
At 80 years old, Mr. Biden is the oldest president in American history, and polls suggest that even most Democrats are concerned about re-electing a commander in chief who would be 86 by the end of his second term.
The president must also answer for his administration’s chaotic handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war and the rapid inflation that has driven up costs of everything from groceries to gas, eating away at the economic fortunes of most middle-income Americans.
But the people charged with delivering another win for Mr. Biden inside the White House and in the nascent campaign are determined to try to keep the focus on the alternative.
The president has begun ramping up his anti-Trump rhetoric, accusing the Republican Party of embracing a “radical, MAGA agenda,” repeatedly using the acronym for the “Make America Great Again” slogan that Mr. Trump used throughout his 2016 campaign and during his presidency.
In a speech last week at a union hall in Accokeek, Md., for Local 77 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Mr. Biden used the MAGA label 21 times as he assailed a Republican proposal in Congress to cut spending on domestic programs by 22 percent.
“The MAGA 22 percent cut undermines rail safety, food safety, border security, clean air, clean water,” the president told the small but friendly union audience. “It’s not hyperbole; it’s a fact."People close to Mr. Biden said over the weekend that his decision to formally announce his candidacy would not immediately result in a significant shift in his actions or schedule. He is unlikely to begin campaign-style rallies for many months, said people with knowledge of his plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president has not yet made his announcement. Instead, Mr. Biden will continue making the same kinds of policy-focused trips that he has for several months. Those trips — including speeches about declining unemployment, the environment, infrastructure improvements and child care — are intended to underscore his administration’s achievements since taking office in the middle of a pandemic-induced economic crisis. Aides have said the president intends to continue delivering those messages as often as possible. Mr. Biden will also continue to focus on the challenges of being president. Next month, he is scheduled to fly to Hiroshima, Japan, for a three-day summit with world leaders that will focus on the war in Ukraine and emerging competition from China and other hot spots around the world. He will then travel to Australia to mark a new agreement on nuclear submarines.When Mr. Biden returns to Washington, he faces a showdown with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the need for Congress to raise the debt ceiling and avert an economic disaster.

Artificial Intelligence and Its Obscure World
Tawfiq Alsaif/Asharq Al Awsat/April 26/2023
In an interview he gave to “60 Minutes” on CBS, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the rise of artificial intelligence presents new challenges that demand ethical and social solutions. He thus called on philosophers to get involved in developing them instead of leaving it to businessmen and engineers to work on these solutions alone. Interestingly, an increasing number of scientists and researchers are turning their attention to the implications that artificial intelligence could have on culture. The first person whom I read on this matter is former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is really more a thinker than a politician. Currently 99 years of age (he was born in 1923), Kissinger co-authored the book “The Age of AI and Our Human Future,” with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Professor Daniel Huttenlocher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in late 2021. As the title makes obvious, the book addresses the subject of this article. Last month, the renowned American intellectual Noam Chomsky wrote an article following the launch of the ChatGPT, an AI language model. Its launch caused quite a stir in both the East and the West, as it could be considered a prototype that gives us an idea of what to expect from artificial intelligence and the breadth of its implications. Prior to all of this, the American-Spanish thinker Manuel Castells had written about the shifts in our values, social relations, and culture he expected to see in what he called the ‘network society.’ That is, systems of relationships and communication are entirely dependent on the Internet. At the time, he warned that a new world was emerging.
We now realize the immense changes engendered by the broadened use of the Internet. It has transformed culture, business, education, how we see and build our identity, and every other aspect of our lives, including warfare. The post-Internet age only bears a slight resemblance to the world of the twentieth century. Unlike the alarmists, Chomsky does not believe that artificial intelligence will replace or enslave humans. Even if their capacity for processing data becomes greater than ours, the capacity of machines to generate ideas will never surpass that of humans. Thinking is not an exercise in presenting preconceived answers or answers that could be developed through the data available to us, and that is what machines do. Thinking begins with rearranging the question and redefining the issue it raises. It could involve creating options that had not been available previously. Machines do not have the capacity to do so. Thus, fearing the obsolescence of the human mind is unjustified. However, Kissinger and his colleagues draw our attention to a somewhat different problem. This is the same problem that the current Google CEO and Castells worry about: Artificial intelligence will change the world, including its markets, schools, and curricula. It will also change how we, the individuals living in this world, build relationships. To compare the changes that are expected with a parallel from the past, we could go back fifty years to 1973 and contemplate how the world and our lives have changed since then. The world will change in equal measure between now and the artificial intelligence age. The shift engendered by the rise of AI will take millions of people out of the economy. It will also radically change social relations and value systems. Thus, we are talking about a conceptual overhaul in culture and lifestyle, not mere applications. The gravity of the changes expected is what pushed Google CEO Sundar Pichai to call on philosophers and those who work in the humanities to become involved; developing the frameworks of this new era should not be left to the engineers and businessmen alone, and certainly not be left to the politicians alone.

Sudan’s generals should serve the people, not endanger their lives
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/April 26, 2023
The scramble by foreign diplomats and citizens to flee Sudan’s violence is a bad omen for the country. It points to worse days to come for a nation that managed to end its 30 years of dictatorship in a popular uprising in 2019, only to fall victim once again to military generals vying for power and putting the country’s fate and the future of its people on the line.
The rapid flight of foreign missions and their staff has heightened fears among Sudanese that their country will be abandoned to its fate, with the two generals and their proxies fighting it out and therefore sidelining any chance of emergency mediation by Western, Arab or even African powers.
There must have been enough information — and maybe some security intelligence — at the hands of international decision-makers that made clear the need to rush to evacuate their embassies and nationals. They must have concluded that the situation had become untenable, curtailing any efforts to preserve lines of contact with both warring parties and persuade them to agree to a lasting humanitarian ceasefire and maybe a framework to end the hostilities permanently. All indicators point to the fact that, after 10 days of violence, Sudan has been abandoned to its fate, meaning its people will have to depend only on themselves to seek safety either inside the country or abroad, while the militants and the military continue to try to eliminate each other.
If the coup of October 2021 showed how fragile the civilian rule was in Sudan, the fighting that broke out between the forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of his deputy-turned-rival Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo demonstrate the end of dual military control. It also signals the end of the new Framework Agreement to transition the country to civilian rule, which was due to be signed in early April. Two sticking points have plagued that process since the start and led to its doom. The first was about how to integrate the RSF into the armed forces and the second was no less thorny, as it sought to find the mechanism necessary to make the army answerable to the civilian leadership.
The Sudanese have watched anxiously as the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan and China, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, among others, rushed to extract their diplomats and some of their citizens. Meanwhile, the fighting has claimed hundreds of lives and injured thousands — and, most importantly, it seems to have dashed the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people.
Once again, Sudan is in the grip of the military, which has controlled the country for 52 of its 67 years of independence. The military is deeply entrenched in key aspects of the Sudanese economy, such as agriculture, industry and mining. Since the uprising against Bashir’s rule, the army has played the role of mediator between the country’s various forces, which have been looking for a transition formula that would return civilian rule.
Over the past four years, the people have remained suspicious of both of the military leaders who claim to speak in their name.
Over the past four years, the people have remained suspicious of both of the military leaders who claim to speak in their name. Al-Burhan has been reproached for his former closeness to Bashir, for his Islamist ties, for the fact he did not do enough to dispel the lack of faith in the military, and for his poor approach to empowering civilian rulers. Many have been concerned about the release of some of his Islamist allies and the reappointment of officials from the Bashir era.
Dagalo, on the other hand, is no less dangerous to the country’s future. The head of the RSF has progressed from his humble origins as a camel herder to a commander of the notorious Janjaweed militia in the Darfur region and ultimately to a general who claims to be trying to preserve the will of the Sudanese people after the toppling of Bashir. His access to the country’s gold and other natural resources, in addition to his links to mercenary actors like the Russian Wagner Group and eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, are no secret and have all served to embolden him.
Like Al-Burhan, Dagalo’s fate will be sealed by the outcome of the fight for control of the capital Khartoum. Compromise and realism seem to have been in short supply in Sudan, just as in other conflicts around the world. Reforming the country’s institutions after decades of Bashir rule was never going to be easy, as the deep state, the bureaucracy and the armed forces would challenge any reforms aimed at strengthening the rule of law and weeding out corruption, while implementing oversight and accountability.
The joint civilian-military formula is unlikely to return as an option to get Sudan back on the path toward a more stable future. It seems that both parties to the conflict, their regional allies and the international community need to go back to the drawing board once the hostilities have subsided to try to produce a new roadmap that might curb the power of the armed forces and the RSF and allow a stronger constitutionally backed civilian body to emerge. Then, the people might finally be able to drag the country back to stability using a formula whereby the military is no longer fragmented among rival groups or strongmen. Instead, the military’s key task must be to preserve the unity and sovereignty of the country and to serve the people, not endanger their lives and livelihoods.
• Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist, media consultant and trainer with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.