English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 04/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
A bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; not arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain; but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled.
Letter to Titus 01/01-09/:”Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that is in accordance with godliness, in the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the ages began in due time he revealed his word through the proclamation with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Saviour, To Titus, my loyal child in the faith we share: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour. I left you behind in Crete for this reason, that you should put in order what remained to be done, and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you: someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain; but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled. He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it.”

Question: “What are the seven things God hates?”
GotQuestions.org?/February 03/2023
Answer: The seven things God hates are a catalog of sins summed up in Proverbs 6:16–19. While these aren’t the only sins that should be avoided, they do sum up most of the wicked things condemned by God. The seven things God hates are the sins that deal with the deep heart motives of the individual. The writer of Proverbs points the finger straight at our hearts and our sinful thought processes.
This is in line with our Lord Jesus Christ’s elaboration of the Ten Commandments during His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21–48). Sin is committed the moment it is conceived in the heart, even before it is actually committed. Avoiding the seven things God hates will help us expose our hidden intentions and motives.
The following is Proverbs’ list of seven things God hates:
Arrogant (haughty) eyes: This describes a feeling of pride and looking down upon others (Philippians 2:3, 5–11). When we begin to think of ourselves more highly and with unparalleled importance, we are forgetting the fact that anything good in us is the result of Christ living in us and that the old self is now dead (Galatians 2:20). Often, believers feel superior to other believers when they receive godly wisdom and display amazing tenacity against sin. We fail to realize these gifts were given by God through Christ and fanned into flame by the Holy Spirit and are not due to our own goodness. This sin of pride is so detested by the LORD that Paul was kept from committing this sin by being provided with “a thorn in the flesh” to humble him (2 Corinthians 12:7).
Lying tongue: A lying tongue is one that speaks falsehood, knowingly and willingly, with an intention to deceive others. Lying can be used to impugn the character of a brother or to flatter a friend. It is a most detestable evil to God, who is a God of truth. Nothing we do causes us to more closely resemble the devil, who is the father of lies (John 8:44).
Hands that shed innocent blood: This refers to cold-blooded murder. We may never have orchestrated killing someone or never have touched a gun or knife, but in Matthew 5:21–24, Jesus says that anyone who is angry with someone else unreasonably without offering room for forgiveness commits a sin equivalent to murder. John reiterates this concept in 1 John 3:15.
A heart that devises wicked schemes: This encompasses thinking or conceiving evil against any individual or group for personal benefit or other misguided objectives, like modern-day terrorists indulge in. Any sin is basically a wicked scheme. David’s sin against Uriah the Hittite and Bathsheba comes to mind (2 Samuel 11). The heart of an evil man continually contrives schemes to bring others to ruin, whether physically or spiritually.
Feet that are quick to rush into evil: Those whose feet are quick to rush into evil display no resistance whatsoever to sin. Having many examples in the Bible, and having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30; Galatians 5:16), we are expected to be wise in this regard (Romans 6:11–14; Ephesians 5:5, 11). In the Garden of Eden, Eve had the first experience of temptation. She displayed no resistance to the serpent’s temptation. Instead, as soon as the devil attracted her to the fruit, she “saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye” (Genesis 3:6). Eve had sinned at that moment itself. Contrast this with the attitude of Jesus: when tired and hungry after forty days and forty nights of fasting, He refused to yield to the devil’s tempting and killed the temptation in His mind without allowing it to grow into sin (Matthew 4:1–11). “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
False witness who pours out lies: This is similar to the sin of the lying tongue mentioned earlier, but this form of lying is given special mention as it could send an innocent person to jail or even lead to him being stoned to death as happened to Naboth, thanks to false witnesses instigated by the wicked Jezebel (1 Kings 21:8–14). The prohibition against bearing false witness is the ninth of the Ten Commandments, and the New Testament is equally condemning of it. Colossians 3:9–10 explains the reason for the continued prohibition against lying. Christians are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), and, as such, we reflect His nature. We have been released from our “old self” with its evil practices such as lying and bearing false witness.
A man who stirs up dissension among brothers: Brothers are created by God to live in unity (Psalm 133:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:9). Believers are brothers and sisters since they have one Father God and one Brother, Jesus Christ. The Church is also the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:25–27). In many situations strife among brothers and even within the church seems unavoidable, but anyone who purposely causes disruption to peace in the body of Christ will displease God above all, since that person gives room for others to sin and for himself to sin further (1 John 2:9–11; 4:19–21). Moreover, Jesus pronounced a great blessing on peacemakers, the privilege to be called “sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 03-04/2023
Lokman Slim's family ask UN to see if assassination linked to Beirut blast
UN experts slam slow progress in Lebanese activist murder probe
Two Years Later, No Justice for Slain Anti-Hezbollah Activist Lokman Slim
Lebanon: Hezbollah, Amal Undecided About Nominating Army Chief for Presidency
France to host international meet on crisis-hit Lebanon
Sami Gemayel: We'll block vote if others want to elect pro-Hezbollah president
Report: Bitar to issue arrest warrants against top officials, judges
Oueidat inclined to withdraw judicial assistants from Bitar
Bou Saab meets Biden adviser in Washington
Aoun expressed 'major dismay' in meeting with Hezbollah
Brazil donates 38 solar-powered water purifiers to Lebanon
Paris reportedly eying investments in MEA, LibanPost, Beirut port
Public sector salary withdrawals in February at LBP 38,000 Sayrafa rate
Mikati meets Makary, chairs meeting of ministerial committee tasked to follow up on repercussions of financial crisis
Salam from Bkerki: Pricing foodstuffs in USD dollars starts early next week
Hamieh meets Duquesne, underlines reforms are gateway for Lebanon’s recovery
Mikati meets Makary, chairs meeting of ministerial committee tasked to follow up on repercussions of financial crisis, discusses general...
UNDP, Germany inaugurate new Qalamoun Fish Market through KFW Development Bank

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 03-04/2023
Pope Francis arrives in South Sudan for three-day trip
Video interview from the Middle East Forum with Caroline Glick/ Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Return of American Anti-Zionism with Caroline Glick
After Netanyahu talks, Macron warns of Iran nuclear 'consequences'
Israel and Sudan on track to normalise diplomatic relations
Israel FM: Fully normalized ties with Sudan later this year
Israel probes legality of US giving artifact to Palestinians
Biden underlines support for Jordan in meeting with king
U.S. sanctions board of directors of Iranian drone maker
US seeks to expel Russian mercenaries from Sudan, Libya
Iranian director Jafar Panahi released after hunger strike
Satellite Photos: Damage at Iran Military Site Hit by Drones
Nobel Laureate Ebadi Says Iran’s ‘Revolutionary Process’ Is Irreversible
In Line with Russian Understanding, Türkiye Withdraws from Checkpoint on Syria’s M4 Highway
Nearly 200,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine, US officials say
EU officials hold Kyiv talks in show of support for Ukraine
EU set to promise Ukraine support but not quick accession
China says it's looking into report of spy balloon over US'

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 03-04/2023
Erdoğan's Turkey: NATO's Trojan Horse Moment/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute./February 03/2023
Iran: Selling Family Jewels to Buy Loyalty/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 03/2023
The Juniper Oak Military Exercise: Implications for Innovation, Experimentation, and U.S. Policy Toward Iran/Michael Eisenstadt/The Washington Institute./January 03/2023
Abdullah and Biden Need to Discuss Economics, Not Just Israeli-Palestinian Tensions/David Schenker/The Washington Institute/January 03/2023
GCC’s Iran nuclear talks proposal should be taken seriously/Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/February 03/2023
Don’t take your eyes off Iran’s northern border/Luke Coffey/Arab News/February 03/2023

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 03-04/2023
Lokman Slim's family ask UN to see if assassination linked to Beirut blast
Nada Maucourant Atallah/Haret Hreik, southern /Beirut/National/February 03/2023
Two years on from the intellectual and prominent Hezbollah critic's death, his family are calling for a UN fact-finding mission
The family of murdered intellectual and prominent Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim on Friday called for the UN to investigate the motive for his killing and find out if it was linked to the 2020 Beirut blast. The call came during a memorial attended by prominent figures including several ambassadors at his family home. in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of southern Beirut to mark two years since his death. “I would like [the UN fact-finding mission] to look into the port explosion and also into the three assassinations that follow and could be linked,” said his widow, Lebanese-German filmmaker Monika Borgmann. The two other killings were of Col Munir Abu Rjeili, a retired customs officer, on December 4, 2020, and photographer Joe Bejjany who was shot by masked assailants outside his home about two weeks later on December 21. Mr Slim, 58, was shot dead in his car on February 4, 2021, in southern Lebanon, a stronghold of the powerful Lebanese Iran-backed militia and political party Hezbollah, of which he was fiercely critical. In one of his last public appearances, Mr Slim accused the Syrian regime of having ties to the ammonium nitrate shipment that detonated at the port on August 4, 2020. “The area of escaping accountability is over, never to return, the area of compromising justice is over, the area of fear is over,” his wife said on Friday. Surrounded by tight security, the Slim family residence in the Hezbollah-dominated district was crowded with friends, fellow activists and officials gathered to pay tribute to his vision. Several foreign ambassadors, including from the US, Germany and the UK, spoke at the commemoration. “With the technical means of today, it should be possible to get closer to those who committed this crime, the investigation needs to proceed without delay,” said German ambassador Andreas Kindl.
'Continued impunity'
The investigation into his assassination by Lebanese authorities has not yet discovered who killed Mr Slim or why. His family said they have been kept in the dark about any developments in the case. “I come every day to the office of the judge in charge of the investigation to ask about the case. He keeps saying that he will issue the conclusions of his preliminary investigation, but so far, we have seen nothing,” Mr Slim's sister, Rasha Al Ameer, told The National. “How can justice be served in a country plagued by corruption?” she said. A lack of accountability is common in Lebanon, where local investigations are often stalled by political interference. The investigation into the Beirut port blast has failed to hold even a single culprit accountable two and a half years after the explosion wiped out part of the city and killed hundreds. The judge leading the probe has been stalled by senior judges and petitions filed by the accused, preventing him from carrying out his job. Ms Borgmann told The National that Lebanon has a history of “unresolved political assassination”. Lebanon experienced a wave of killings of vocal critics of Hezbollah's and Syria's influence in the country after Damascus withdrew forces from the country in the face of mass rallies in 2005 after the killing of former prime minister Rafic Hariri. The former leader was killed in a car bomb that a UN investigation found was carried out by four members of Hezbollah. The last high-profile assassination was of Mohammad Chatah, a former minister and a prominent opponent of the Syrian regime, who was killed by a car bomb in 2013. Ms Borgmann said she wants the UN investigation to run parallel to the ongoing efforts in Lebanon. “We are calling for the UN investigation to complete the local one, not to replace it,” she said. Mr Slim had spoken out about death threats he had been receiving in December 2019, when calls for his assassination were plastered on the walls of his home. In a public statement, he said Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah should personally be held responsible for any attack against him or his family. UN human rights experts slammed the lack of progress in the investigation on Thursday. “Two years following the killing of Mr Slim, no one responsible for his assassination has been identified and there is little prospect that current investigations will be successfully completed within a reasonable time frame,” the UN experts said. “Shedding light on the circumstances surrounding the death of Lokman Slim and bringing those responsible to justice is also part of the state’s obligation to protect freedom of opinion and expression,” they said. Ms Borgmann told The National: “They killed Lokman, but they were not able to kill his work and his legacy still lives on.”The three-day ceremony is intended to “celebrate the life of Lokman, his vision, and his courage, and to emphasise the urgent need to end impunity”, according to Umam Documentation and Research, an NGO funded in 2004 by Mr Slim and his wife. There will be an awards ceremony and a series of talks under the slogan “Justice Even If The Heavens Fall”, in a bid to rekindle public debate on Lebanese politics, economics and justice.

UN experts slam slow progress in Lebanese activist murder probe
AFP/February 02, 2023
GENEVA: UN rights experts voiced deep concern Thursday at the slow pace of an investigation into the killing of Lebanese intellectual Lokman Slim two years ago, demanding that Beirut ensure accountability. “It is incumbent on the Lebanese authorities to fully investigate and bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” the four independent experts said. “Failing to carry out a prompt and effective investigation may in itself constitute a violation of the right to life.” A secular activist from a Shiite family, 58-year-old Slim was found dead in his car on February 4, 2021, a day after his family reported him missing. His bullet-riddled body was found in southern Lebanon — a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement of which he was heavily critical. In their statement, the UN special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions, the independence of judges and lawyers, the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the situation of human rights defenders voiced outrage that no one responsible for his assassination had been identified. “Shedding light on the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Lokman Slim and bringing those responsible to justice is also part of the State’s obligation to protect freedom of opinion and expression,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the world body. “A culture of impunity not only emboldens the killers of Mr. Slim, it will also have a chilling effect on civil society as it sends a chilling message to other activists to self-censor,” they said. The experts stressed that investigations into unlawful killings must be “independent, impartial, prompt, thorough, effective, credible and transparent.”“Thus far, national authorities have shown no indication that the ongoing investigations are in line with relevant international standards,” they warned, demanding that the authorities speed up the probe and “ensure that those responsible are held accountable without delay.” “Mr. Slim’s family must have access to justice, truth and adequate reparation expeditiously.”

Two Years Later, No Justice for Slain Anti-Hezbollah Activist Lokman Slim
Beirut - Nazir Rida/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 3 February, 2023
Two years after the murder of Lebanese intellectual and Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim, no indictment was issued by the Lebanese judiciary in a country, where impunity has become part of the public scene, as stated by Slim’s sister, Publisher Rasha Al-Amir.
Lokman Slim was found dead in his car on February 4, 2021, a day after his family reported him missing. His body was found in southern Lebanon -- a stronghold of Hezbollah. He was an outspoken activist and a researcher passionate about documenting the civil war that raged from 1975-1990 in Lebanon.
While the Lebanese authorities completed their investigation into the case, the judiciary “did not issue a scrap of paper,” according to judicial sources who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity. This Friday, Slim’s family, friends, and institutions commemorate the second anniversary of his assassination, in a series of ceremonies that extend over three days, accompanied by national and cultural activities inspired by this occasion. Members of his family, diplomats and friends will speak on the first day at an event in his home in the southern suburbs of Beirut, during which four awards bearing his name will be distributed. The ceremony will be followed by a visit to Lokman’s institutions. His sister, Rasha Al-Amir, spoke sadly about the situation of Lebanon’s judicial institution, but insisted that justice would return. She told Asharq Al-Awsat that over the past months, despite the judicial strikes, “Judge Charbel Abu Samra, who was assigned the file, used to come to his office, and we would see him on a monthly basis.”The judge is “brave” and “spared no effort in the case,” she said, adding that the judiciary in Lebanon was “restricted by dozens of red lines.”Al-Amir pointed to the numerous political assassinations that shook Lebanon during the past decades and noted that indictments were issued in only three of them, referring to the assassination of Kamel Mroueh in the 1960s, President Bashir Gemayel in the 1980s, and Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. However, the perpetrators remained free due to the “red lines”, she said. The investigations carried out by the Information Division of the Internal Security Forces and the Army Intelligence Directorate have ended, without any outcome revealed. The Dar Al-Jadeed Foundation, in cooperation with French-language newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour, issued a booklet on the second anniversary of Slim’s assassination, recounting the circumstances of the crime. While the accounts will be published in Arabic, French and English, no legal indictment has been issued in the case, “because the judiciary does not want to see the killers, and I do not think that it will ask them so as not to endanger itself,” said Rasha al-Amir. “The game has become very exposed. In form, there is a judiciary and parliament, but in terms of content, there is nothing of that,” she stated.

Lebanon: Hezbollah, Amal Undecided About Nominating Army Chief for Presidency
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 3 February, 2023
Lebanon’s Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, has been recenlty topping the list of potential candidates for the presidency. While Aoun has gained the support of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the head of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, announced on Wednesday that he would not object the Army chief’s election, provided that his election would solve the ongoing presidential crisis.On the other hand, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), MP Gebran Bassil, lashed out at the Army Commander during a press conference on Sunday, in an explicit rejection of his potential nomination. But Hezbollah and Amal Movement, the two main Shiite parties in the country, have so far maintained their support to the head of the Marada Movement, former Minister Suleiman Franjieh. While the supporters of MP Michel Moawad hinted that they had reached a dead end regarding his election, the Shiite duo has not yet announced a clear position, but only emphasized the importance of dialogue and the need to reach consensus among the different blocs. Parliamentary sources in the Development and Liberation Bloc, headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, refused to give names, specifically about Berri’s position on Aoun’s nomination. Reaffirming openness to dialogue and consensus, Berri’s sources, on the other hand, pointed to the problem related to amending the constitution, as the Army Commander is supposed to resign from his position six months before his election, a move that hasn’t materialized. For his part, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, stressed that the party was open for discussions. Qassem Kassir, a political analyst close to Hezbollah, said: “The party still supports Franjieh’s candidacy, but is open to dialogue and ready for all possibilities.”Asked whether Hezbollah would accept the election of the army commander, Kassir said: “The party has no problem with this option if it is consensual, which was previously announced by the head of [Hezbollah’s] political council, Ibrahim Amin Al-Sayed.”

France to host international meet on crisis-hit Lebanon
Agence France Presse/February 03/2023
France will host an international meeting on Monday on how to end months of political deadlock in cash-strapped Lebanon, the foreign ministry said. The Paris gathering is to be attended by representatives from France, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said Thursday. Lebanon is being run by a caretaker government and is also without a president as lawmakers have repeatedly failed to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, whose mandate expired at the end of October. The political impasse has hampered efforts to lift the Mediterranean country out of its worst-ever financial crisis. The currency has lost more than 95 percent of its market value to the dollar since 2019, and more than 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, "has expressed her very serious concern on Lebanon's political deadlock", Legendre said. Colonna was visiting Saudi Arabia on Thursday. France and regional partners including Saudi Arabia have been discussing means "to encourage the Lebanese political class to assume its responsibilities and foster a way out of the crisis", Legendre added. "This approach will be the subject of a follow-up meeting with the French, US, Saudi, Qatari and Egyptian administrations on Monday to continue coordinating with our partners and find ways to move forward."It was not immediately clear if any Lebanese representatives had been invited. No meeting at ministerial level has been planned for now, Legendre said. French President Emmanuel Macron in December urged Lebanon to "change its leadership" following months of deadlock that have impeded reforms vital to unlocking billions of dollars in foreign aid.

Sami Gemayel: We'll block vote if others want to elect pro-Hezbollah president
Naharnet/February 03/2023
Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel on Friday voiced strongly-worded stances against Hezbollah and vowed to block the presidential vote if “the other camp decides to elect a president who would cover up for Hezbollah’s arms for six more years.”“We will not be dragged into weapons because we know the value of blood, martyrs and war,” Gemayel said in a speech at Kataeb’s 32nd Congress. “The Kataeb Party was not an advocate of war, but it was dragged (into civil war) because the state was absent and the army vanished. Today we want the state and the army, but if they (rivals) approach our homes we will defend ourselves,” Gemayel added. “We tell Hezbollah that we’re unwilling to continue with this situation, and if divorce between the two republics is what’s needed, let Hezbollah declare that, but we will not accept to live as second-class citizens,” Gemayel went on to say, referring to what he called the “Islamic republic” of Hezbollah and the Lebanese republic. “The Islamic republic is destroying the spirit of the Lebanese republic through changing its culture and turning it into a culture of wars, whereas the Lebanese aspire to live and not to die,” the Kataeb chief added. Criticizing the now-defunct March 14 camp, to which Kataeb once belonged, Gemayel said his party’s “problem with March 14” was its “performance.”“I mean the performance of its officials, who went from one settlement to another, all the way to surrendering the country and electing the president of the Islamic republic as the head of the state,” Gemayel added.

Report: Bitar to issue arrest warrants against top officials, judges
Naharnet/February 03/2023
Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar is readying to issue new arrest warrants in the case despite the latest judicial storm, media reports said. “Bitar called in his clerk to his office at the Justice Palace on Wednesday to prepare arrest warrants that he intends to issue in two batches, on February 6 and 8,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday. The arrest warrants will be issued against ex-PM Hassan Diab, General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, State Security head Maj. Gen. Tony Saliba, State Prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat and another judge should they fail to appear before him on the dates he has set, the daily added. “Bitar is mulling the best way to guarantee reaching his office on February 6 and 8 and he is refusing to hold discussions with anyone regarding the file,” al-Akhbar said. Bitar took Lebanon by surprise on January 23 when he resumed his investigation after a 13-month hiatus, charging eight new suspects including high-level security officials and Lebanon's top prosecutor Oueidat. Bitar also scheduled interrogation sessions for ex-PM Diab and former ministers who had been previously charged. Bitar said he based his decision on a legal review that he himself conducted. A top security official meanwhile said that the Lebanese judiciary had come under U.S. pressure to free detainees in the case, including dual Lebanese-U.S. citizen Ziad al-Ouf. The week before reopening the case, Bitar had met with two French judges for hours about his investigation. According to a judicial official, the delegation suggested Bitar should resume work, arguing that holding suspects in detention without trial was a human rights violation. Bitar's surprise move sparked a judicial battle with Oueidat, who retaliated by charging the judge with "usurping power" and insubordination and slapping him with a travel ban. A defiant Bitar meanwhile stressed that he would not step down, adding that Oueidat "has no authority" to intervene in the case.

Oueidat inclined to withdraw judicial assistants from Bitar
Naharnet/February 03/2023
State Prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat is inclined to withdraw the judicial assistants who are at the disposal of Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar and who assist him in writing investigation records, a media report said on Friday.
Oueidat is also “threatening to press for enforcing an arrest warrant against him should he insist on continuing his measures,” ad-Diyar newspaper said. “To avoid a major confrontation, the coming hours will witness intensive contacts and meetings that will be led by (Higher Judicial Council chief Judge Suheil) Abboud, who so far is still refusing a meeting for the Higher Judicial Council out of fear that Bitar might be removed” from the case, the daily added. The solution that Abboud is working on to pacify the situation entails “Bitar suspending his measures, canceling the interrogation sessions scheduled for this month and backing down from his charges, in return for Oueidat withdrawing his lawsuit and travel ban against Bitar and looking into ways to stop the consequences of the release of the detainees,” the newspaper said. It, however, noted that “this solution is still elusive” and that “things seem to be complicated and headed for an escalation.”

Bou Saab meets Biden adviser in Washington
Naharnet/February 03/2023
Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab has met with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington at the White House, media reports said Friday. National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk also attended the meeting. So did Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein, Retired Lieutenant General Terry Wolff, and Senior Advisor to the U.S. lead negotiator for the Israel-Lebanon border negotiations Nadine Zaatar. The meeting discussed the maritime border demarcation and what Lebanon can achieve in terms of financial and economic recovery, according to a road map previously discussed between the two parties, which includes an effective fight against corruption and the adoption of relevant laws. The talks on Thursday also discussed the presidential file, the government formation and the international meeting in Paris over Lebanon. Bou Saab explained the need to amend some IMF-required laws related to the depositors rights and the reforms in the banking sector, the media report said. The report went on to say that Bou Saab has urged the American authorities to revive a deal that would provide gas and electricity to Lebanon from Egypt and Jordan via Syria .

Aoun expressed 'major dismay' in meeting with Hezbollah
Naharnet/February 03/2023
The latest meeting between ex-president Michel Aoun and a Hezbollah delegation was “cordial” but the former president voiced major dismay at Hezbollah during it, sources that took part in the meeting said. Aoun demonstrated the six years that he spent as president and lamented that his tenure “was met with nothing but obstruction,” the sources told ad-Diyar newspaper in remarks published Friday. “Hezbollah responded to Aoun’s admonishment by speaking about the nature of the Lebanese system and the imposed political equations, which obligate Hezbollah” to take certain stances in certain issues, the sources added. The sources also said that the meeting did not tackle the presidential file and that Hezbollah did not ask Aoun to mediate with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil.

Brazil donates 38 solar-powered water purifiers to Lebanon
Naharnet/February 03/2023
The Brazilian Ambassador to Lebanon Tarcísio Costa has participated in a ceremony alongside General Mohammad Kheir, head of the High Relief Committee (HRC) and representatives of Lebanese NGOs, marking the delivery of a Brazilian humanitarian donation of 38 water purifiers to Lebanon. "The Embassy of Brazil in Lebanon is proud to announce that the Brazilian government has donated, on a humanitarian basis, solar-powered water purifiers to Lebanon," the embassy said in a statement. In total, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) has donated 38 water purifiers, along with solar panels, batteries and replacement parts for the equipment. The humanitarian donation was received by the High Relief Committee of Lebanon (HRC) and is part of the Brazilian effort to assist Lebanon in countering the ongoing cholera outbreak in the country. In its combined capacity, the donated equipment can purify 200,000 liters of water per day using solar power and removes up to 100% of viruses and bacteria from water, using technology developed in Brazil, the embassy said, adding that the units will be distributed by the HRC to public schools and hospitals, located in the areas mostly hit by the cholera outbreak. "In addition to this donation, Brazil has been very active in cooperating with Lebanon in these past two years with various initiatives, mostly in the fields of health and agriculture, as exemplified by the Brazilian humanitarian donation of 4 million kilograms of processed rice to Lebanon in February 2022," the statement went on to say. It reaffirmed Brazil's commitment to continued cooperation with the Lebanese government "to strengthen the welfare and prosperity of our peoples," describing Brazil as "the country with the largest Lebanese community abroad, sharing deep historical and human ties with Lebanon."

Paris reportedly eying investments in MEA, LibanPost, Beirut port
Naharnet/February 03/2023
France is interested in some sectors that are nominated for partial or complete privatization in Lebanon, especially the country’s national carrier Middle East Airlines, a media report said on Friday. Citing preliminary reports, al-Akhbar newspaper said MEA’s value will be estimated at more than $1 billion and a law to sell around 49% of its shares will be devised. “French transportation giant CGM, which is managed by Lebanese-French businessman Rudolph Saade, desires to acquire a large share of MEA,” the daily quoted sources as saying. Sources close to the French company meanwhile said that it has been offered only 10% of the Lebanese company’s shares, as MEA chairman Mohammed al-Hout was quoted as saying that should the privatization proposal be implemented, a cap of 3% will be imposed on the shares of any stakeholder. According to al-Akhbar, the French are also interested in Lebanon’s mail sector, whether through purchasing the LibanPost company or obtaining a BOT contract to operate it, in addition to the Casino du Liban and banks owned by the central bank. “Other French companies are proposing a project for a comprehensive administration of the (Beirut) port,” the daily said.

Public sector salary withdrawals in February at LBP 38,000 Sayrafa rate
NNANNA/February 3, 2023 
Caretaker Minister of Finance, Dr. Youssef Al-Khalil, and Lebanese Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, on Friday agreed to adopt Sayrafa rate at LBP 38,000 per US dollar for public sector salary withdrawals for the month of February, 2023 as per Circular 161.

Mikati meets Makary, chairs meeting of ministerial committee tasked to follow up on repercussions of financial crisis
NNANNA/February 3, 2023 
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, will be chairing a meeting by the ministerial committee tasked to follow up on the repercussions of the financial crisis on the activity of state institutions. The meeting will take place at 12:30 pm on Friday at the Grand Serail. Earlier on Friday, the Prime Minister had an audience with Minister of Information, Ziad Makary, with whom he broached an array of ministerial affairs, as well as the situation of "Tele Liban".Mikati also met with a delegation from the Tobacco Administration "Regie" headed by its Director General, Nassif Seqlawi. The Prime Minister later welcomed the Lebanese Ambassador to Egypt and the League of Arab States, Ali Al-Halabi.

Salam from Bkerki: Pricing foodstuffs in USD dollars starts early next week
NNANNA/February 3, 2023
Caretaker Minister of Economy and Trade, Amin Salam, on Friday confirmed after his meeting with Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi in Bkerki that "the decision to price foodstuffs in US dollars will start early next week," pointing out that a cabinet session will be held next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hamieh meets Duquesne, underlines reforms are gateway for Lebanon’s recovery
NNA/February 3, 2023
Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport, Dr. Ali Hamieh, on Friday received in his office at the Ministry, French Ambassador in charge of coordinating the international aid to Lebanon, Pierre Duquesne, accompanied by a delegation from the French Embassy. Discussions touched on the Ministry’s projects related to ports and the reconstruction of the Beirut Port, in addition to the issue of electricity. On emerging, Minister Hamieh reiterated that Lebanon’s recovery stems from activating its public facilities and carrying out reforms, out of convictions and vision, based on the fact that recovery is realized through reforms in order to restore Lebanon’s wellbeing at all levels, especially at the level of public finances. In reply to a question about the five-way meeting to be held next Monday in France, Hamieh indicated, "We look positively towards every foreign aid for Lebanon, but our bet remains on the internal dialogue between all parties to elect a president for the republic."

Mikati meets Makary, chairs meeting of ministerial committee tasked to follow up on repercussions of financial crisis, discusses general...
NNA/February 3, 2023
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Friday chaired at the Grand Serail a meeting by the ministerial committee tasked to follow up on the repercussions of the financial crisis on the activity of state institutions. The meeting was attended by Caretaker Ministers of Education and Higher Education Judge Abbas Al-Halabi, Justice Judge Henry Khoury, Defense Maurice Sleem, Dr. Finance Youssef Khalil, Administrative Development Najla Riachi, Industry George Boujikian, Public Health Dr. Firas Abiad, Telecommunications Minister Johnny Corm, Interior and Municipalities Judge Bassam Mawlawi, Labor Mustafa Bayram, and Public Works and Public Works and Transportation, Ali Hamieh. Also attending the meeting had been Director General of the Presidency of the Republic, Dr. Antoine Choucair, Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers Judge Mahmoud Makiya, Head of the Civil Service Council, Nisreen Machmouchi, and Director-General of the Ministry of Finance, Georges Maarawi. Earlier on Friday, the Prime Minister had an audience with Minister of Information, Ziad Makary, with whom he broached an array of ministerial affairs, as well as the situation of "Tele Liban".Caretaker PM also received at the Grand Serail President Mikati received a delegation from the city of Tripoli, which included Mufti of Tripoli and the North, Sheikh Mohammad Imam, Archbishop of the Maronite Archdiocese of Tripoli, Bishop Youssef Soueif, MPs Jamil Abboud and Elie Khoury, as well as a number of Tripoli dignitaries and figures. On emerging, Mufti Imam said that the delegation held a tour d’horizon with the Premier bearing on the current general conditions in the country, especially in Tripoli and northern Lebanon. Mikati also met with a delegation from the Tobacco Administration "Regie" headed by its Director General, Nassif Seqlawi. As per a statement, “the delegation briefed the Prime Minister on the administration's achievements in the year 2022, and on the obstacles facing the institution in relation to the implementation of the public procurement law."Seqlawi extended an invitation to Premier Mikati to visit the “Regie” to have a closer look see at the institution’s achievements. The Prime Minister later welcomed the Lebanese Ambassador to Egypt and the League of Arab States, Ali Al-Halabi.

UNDP, Germany inaugurate new Qalamoun Fish Market through KFW Development Bank
NNA/February 3, 2023
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with Germany through KfW Development Bank, established and inaugurated the new fish market in Al-Qalamoun, North Lebanon, in cooperation with the Fishermen’s Cooperative Association of Al-Qalamoun. The project aims to support fishermen in the North and enhance their living conditions in light of the current economic crisis. According to the World Bank, total fisheries production in Lebanon was reported at 3728 metric tons in 2020. Currently the revenue in the Fish & Seafood segment amounts to US$377.40m in 2023 with an expected market growth annual rate of 8.51% (CAGR 2023-2027). The Lebanese fish and seafood market is predominantly import dependent (90%). Local production for export is negligible, but there is good potential for boosting production for the local market. The fish industry already supports more than 4,000 families across the Lebanese coast, among which are over 150 families in Al-Qalamoun itself. Known for its geographic location along the seashore and its small economic activities, Al-Qalamoun is also famous for its production of varieties of home processed food and traditional Mouneh (preserves), as well as the hospitality sector which is significantly based on local seafood. The new fish market will allow fishers to properly and safely display their products and serve more clients, especially in the hospitality sector. The new fish market will support 150 households dependent on the fishery sector by increasing their revenue and income, creating additional jobs, enhancing food security, and eventually improving their overall livelihoods.The inauguration of the fish market was attended by Mr. Marc Engelhardt, Head of the Middle East Department at KfW in Frankfurt, Ms. Verena Jenth, Country Manager of KfW in Frankfurt,Dr. Solveig Buhl, Director of the KfW Office in Beirut, Ms. Melanie Hauenstein, UNDP Resident Representative, Secretary of North Lebanon Governorate and Acting Head of Al-Qalamoun Municipality Professor Eman Al-Rafei, in the presence of Mr. Amer Bayda, representing Dr. Ahmad Tamer, Director of Tripoli Port and Acting Director General of Land and Maritime Transport at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, in addition to the president and members of the fishermen’s cooperative in Al-Qalamoun and stakeholders in the region.
During the ceremony, Mrs. Al-Rafei welcomed the attendees and praised the town of Al-Qalamoun and the spirit of coexistence among its residents. She added that "the importance of the project lies in the fact that it helps more than 150 fishermen and their families to improve their livelihoods in light of the crisis we are witnessing." As for Mr. Englehart, he thanked the attendees, especially the members of the Fishermen's Cooperative, and stressed that "this project comes within the framework of the Host Communities Support Programme, noting that it is an example of projects implemented in various sectors that affect the livelihoods of local communities." In her turn, Mrs. Hauenstein mentioned that " UNDP through its longstanding partnership with Germany through the German Development Bank KfW, was able to meet the pressing needs of host communities not only In Al-Qalamoun but across the country. Lebanon has huge potential for economic recovery, especially at the local level, so it Is crucial that communities such as Al-Qalamoun receive consistent livelihood support." This project is one out of 140 projects implemented through the partnership between the United Nations Development Program in Lebanon and the German government through KfW Development Bank to support the Lebanese communities most affected by the consequences of the overlapping crises. The partnership focuses on enhancing social stability by supporting the agricultural sector, primary services, solid waste management, renewable energy, in addition to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, and livelihoods. This partnership is fostering structural improvements for the sustainable development of the country. UNDP is working in Lebanon since 1986 as a development partner supporting economic recovery, including working with municipalities to deliver basic services to host communities, promoting clean energy and solid waste management, strengthening governance and rule of law, providing support to elections, and working on empowering women and youth.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 03-04/2023
Pope Francis arrives in South Sudan for three-day trip
NNA/February 3, 2023
Pope Francis arrived on a three-day visit to South Sudan on Friday to promote peace and reconciliation in the world's youngest country, riven by the scars of civil war and extreme poverty.
He was greeted after his plane touched down at Juba airport by a number of dignitaries including South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir. -- AFP

Video interview from the Middle East Forum with Caroline Glick/ Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Return of American Anti-Zionism with Caroline Glick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZf_clvW_wk
Israel's new government appears at odds with Washington over policies. How serious or novel is this tension? How has the history shaped the present situation? Ultimately, what should the two states’ dynamic be?

After Netanyahu talks, Macron warns of Iran nuclear 'consequences'
RFI/Fri, February 3, 2023
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced on Thursday the "headlong rush" of Iran's nuclear programme after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Paris to seek a stronger European stance against Tehran. In a statement released after a dinner meeting in the Elysee Palace, Macron warned that Tehran continuing with the atomic project "would inevitably have consequences".Israel has long accused Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while Tehran insists its nuclear programme is aimed solely at generating energy. Netanyahu hopes Iran's role in supplying drones to Russian invaders in Ukraine, as well as its crackdown on protests at home, will prompt Western allies to drop any pursuit of a revival of the 2015 atomic programme deal.
'Ukraine card'
The Prime Minister has also said Israel is considering sending military aid to Ukraine, apparently dropping its more neutral stance over the conflict in the hope of securing a more confrontational Western position towards Tehran. By "playing the Ukraine card", Netanyahu hopes to "consolidate an anti-Iranian front" with the West, said David Khalfa at the Fondation Jean Jaures, a Paris-based think tank. He hopes for "increased sanctions against Iran and the full addition of the Revolutionary Guards to the list" of sanctioned entities, Khalfa added - a step both France and Germany have so far resisted.
Iran also holds several foreign citizens who are considered political hostages by Western governments. (with AFP)

Israel and Sudan on track to normalise diplomatic relations
via REUTERS - SUDAN SOVEREIGNTY COUNCIL PRESS
RFI/Fri, February 3, 2023
Israel expects to fully normalise ties with Sudan later this year after Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen returned from a lightning diplomatic mission to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Cohen spoke to reporters on Thursday following a one-day trip to Khartoum that included high-level meetings with military leaders – including Sudan's ruling general, Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who led a coup that overturned the country's transitional government in 2021. “The agreement is expected to be signed this year and it will be the fourth [such deal]," the Israeli Foreign Minister said, referring to the US-brokered normalisation accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020. The announcement could help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deflect attention from a recent spike in violence with Palestinians and widespread public anger over his plans to overhaul the country’s judicial system – which critics say will badly damage Israel’s democratic system of checks and balances. For Sudan’s ruling generals, a breakthrough with Israel could help convince foreign countries – including the United States and the UAE – to inject financial aid into the struggling economy. Sudan remains mired in a political stalemate between a popular pro-democracy movement and the country's powerful armed forces. Moving forward from 2020 'Abraham Accords' Earlier on Thursday, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said it would move forward to normalise full diplomatic ties with Israel.

Israel FM: Fully normalized ties with Sudan later this year
AP/February 02, 2023
JERUSALEM: Israel expects to fully normalize ties with Sudan sometime later this year, Israel’s foreign minister said Thursday, after returning from a lightning diplomatic mission to the Sudanese capital. Eli Cohen spoke to reporters after a one-day trip to Khartoum that included high-level meetings with military leaders, including Sudan’s ruling general, Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who led a coup that overturned the country’s transitional government in 2021. “The agreement is expected to be signed this year and it will be the fourth” such accord, Cohen said, referring to the US-brokered normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020. The announcement could help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deflect attention from a recent burst of violence with Palestinians and widespread public anger over his plans to overhaul the country’s judicial system — which critics say will badly damage Israel’s democratic system of checks and balances. For Sudan’s ruling generals, a breakthrough with Israel could help convince foreign countries, including the United States and the UAE, to inject financial aid into the struggling economy. Sudan remains mired in a political stalemate between a popular pro-democracy movement and the country’s powerful armed forces.Earlier in the day, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said it would move forward to normalize full diplomatic ties with Israel. Sudan first signed a normalization agreement with Israel, joining Morocco, Bahrain, and the UAE in 2020 as part of the US-brokered “Abraham Accords” to establish full diplomatic ties.
However, the process stalled amid widespread popular opposition in Sudan. The military coup in October 2021 then deposed Sudan’s government, upending the African country’s fragile democratic transition. Cohen said that he presented a draft peace treaty to the Sudanese “that is expected to be signed after the transfer of authority to the civilian government that will be formed as part of the transition underway in the country.”In its statement, the Sudanese ministry added that the talks aimed to strengthen cooperation in various sectors, including security and military. It also spoke of a need to achieve ″stability between Israel and the Palestinian people″ in light of a recent surge in violence. A Sudanese military official close to the discussions said Thursday’s talks also aimed to ease Israel’s concerns that a future civilian government in Khartoum could reverse the course of normalization. He said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, that Israel and the US “want to ensure that the deal would proceed” even after the military steps aside from politics.
In December, Sudan’s top generals and some political forces signed a broad pledge to remove the military from power and install a civilian government. But talks to reach a final and more inclusive peace agreement on the transition are still underway and the generals have yet to accede their power
Three Sudanese military officials told The Associated Press earlier in the day that full normalization of ties would not be achieved anytime soon. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks with reporters.
The country’s second-in-command, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads a powerful paramilitary known as the Rapid Support Forces, claimed that he had no knowledge of the visit and did not meet with the Israeli delegation in a bulletin carried by the state news agency.
Also earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu indicated a breakthrough was in the works. “We are continuing to expand the circle of peace,” he said before flying to France, noting that Chad, which borders Sudan, opened a new embassy in Israel earlier in the day.
“We will continue to expand and deepen the circle of peace with additional countries, both near and far,” added Netanyahu, who returned to office in December. During his previous 12-year term as premier, his government made it a priority to forge ties with formerly hostile countries in Africa and the Arab world.
Although Sudan does not have the influence or wealth of Gulf Arab countries, a deal with the African country — even as it is mired in a deep political and economic crisis — would be deeply significant for Israel. Sudan was once one of Israel’s fiercest critics in the Arab world and in 1993, the US designated it a state sponsor of terrorism. The Trump administration removed Sudan from that list in 2020, a move meant to help the country revive its battered economy and end its pariah status, and an incentive to normalize relations with Israel. Cohen spoke about the upcoming agreement as a “peace treaty” because of the two nations’ long-standing animosity. Sudan hosted a landmark Arab League conference after the 1967 Mideast war where eight Arab countries approved the “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations. Under its autocratic ruler Omar Al-Bashir, Sudan was also a pipeline for Israel’s archenemy Iran to supply weapons to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Israel was believed to have been behind airstrikes in Sudan that destroyed a weapons convoy in 2009 and a weapons factory in 2012.

Israel probes legality of US giving artifact to Palestinians
ILAN BEN ZION/BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP)/February 3, 2023 An ivory spoon dating back 2,700 years that was recently repatriated to the Palestinian Authority from the United States has sparked a dispute with Israel's new far-right government over the cultural heritage in the occupied West Bank.
The clash brings into focus the political sensitivities surrounding archaeology in the Middle East, where Israelis and Palestinians each use ancient artifacts to support their claims over the land. Israel's ultranationalist heritage minister has ordered officials to examine the legality of the U.S. government's historic repatriation of the artifact to the Palestinians earlier this month, and is calling for annexing archaeology in the occupied West Bank. The artifact — a cosmetic spoon made of ivory and believed to have been plundered from a site in the West Bank — was seized in late 2021 by the Manhattan District Attorney's office as part of a deal with the New York billionaire hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt. It was one of 180 artifacts illegally looted and purchased by Steinhardt that he surrendered as part of an agreement to avoid prosecution.
American officials handed an artifact over to the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on Jan. 5 in what the U.S. State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs said was “the first event of such repatriation” by the U.S. to the Palestinians. Dozens of Steinhardt’s surrendered artifacts have already been repatriated to Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Libya and Israel. This spoon was the first and only item ever to be repatriated to the Palestinians. The repatriation coincided with the first weeks of Israel's new government, which is composed of ultranationalists who see the West Bank as the biblical heartland of the Jewish people and inextricably linked to the state of Israel. Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu’s office said last week that the legality of the repatriation “is being examined by the archaeology staff officer with the legal counsel, which will examine all aspects of the matter, including the Oslo Accords that the U.S. has signed.”The case underscores how archaeology and cultural heritage are intertwined with the competing claims of the Israelis and Palestinians in the decades-long conflict.
“Any artifact that we know that it comes out illegally from Palestine, we have the right to have it back,” said Jihad Yassin, director general of excavations and museums in the Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry. “Each artifact says a story from the history of this land.”The ministry is part of the Palestinian Authority, the government established as part of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s that exercises limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Those agreements between Israel and the Palestinians were supposed to include coordination on a raft of issues, including archaeology and cultural heritage. But the agreements have largely unraveled. Yassin said that the archaeology committee has not met in around two decades, and that there is virtually zero coordination between Israel and the Palestinians concerning antiquities theft prevention in the West Bank. “We try to do our best to protect these archaeological sites, but we face difficulties,” he said.
Yassin said that around 60% of the West Bank's archaeological sites are in territory under complete Israeli military control, and that his ministry's theft prevention workers “manage to control in a high percentage the looting” in areas under Palestinian Authority control. Nonetheless, many of the illicit artifacts that have made their way to Israel's legal antiquities market were looted from the West Bank, he said. According to court documents, Steinhardt bought the ivory cosmetic spoon in 2003 from Israeli antiquities dealer Gil Chaya for $6,000. The artifact had no provenance — paperwork detailing where it came from and how it had entered the dealer's inventory — but Chaya said the object was from the West Bank town of El-Koum, which is under Palestinian Authority control.
Another artifact believed to have been looted from the same town, a “Red Carnelian Sun Fish amulet (that) dates to circa 600 B.C.E.,” remains missing, according to the DA's office. Steinhardt has yet to locate the item, but if it is found, it will be repatriated to the Palestinians, the office said.
American authorities returned 28 objects to Israel last year, not including three that were seized in place at the Israel Museum of Jerusalem. Seven others meant to be returned to Israel have yet to be found. Several of the items returned to Israel are believed to have been looted from the West Bank.
The Israel Antiquities Authority declined comment on the artifact’s repatriation to the Palestinians. Heritage Minister Eliyahu, a religious ultranationalist in Netanyahu's government now in charge of the country’s Antiquities Authority, denies the existence of a Palestinian people.
Since taking office, he has accused the Palestinian Authority of committing “national terrorism” and “erasing heritage” at an archaeological site in a Palestinian-controlled area near the West Bank city of Nablus. It remains unclear what impact, if any, a review by the ministry's legal counsel could have. It appears unlikely Israel could confiscate the artifact from the Palestinians, but a legal opinion against the move could potentially complicate future repatriations. Earlier this week, Eliyahu said he would be giving the Israel Antiquities Authority full control over archaeological sites, cultural heritage and theft prevention throughout the West Bank — a move that critics say would in effect apply Israeli law over occupied territory in breach of international law. Currently, archaeological excavations and antiquities in the West Bank are managed by the Civil Administration's archaeology staff officer, which is part of the Defense Ministry. Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank, and the territory is treated as occupied and is governed under military law. “All heritage on both sides of the green line will earn full protection, at an international and scientific standard,” Eliyahu wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. He said the state of Israel would “act in a uniform and professional manner from the (Mediterranean) sea to the Jordan.”Alon Arad, director of Israeli cultural heritage non-governmental organization Emek Shaveh, said that putting the Israel Antiquities Authority in charge of archaeology in the occupied territory was “activating Israeli law in the West Bank, which means annexation.”Eliyahu’s office declined repeated interview requests. Yassin said that for the time being, the artifact will remain at the ministry, where it will be studied by one of its archaeologists. Then, he said, it will be displayed at one of the West Bank's museums.
“It's not the only one," Yassin said. "It is the beginning."

Biden underlines support for Jordan in meeting with king
AFP/February 02, 2023
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday underlined his support for the legal “status quo” of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound in a meeting at the White House with Jordanian King Abdullah II. Biden, the king and Crown Prince Hussein had a private lunch in which the US president “reaffirmed the close, enduring nature of the friendship between the United States and Jordan,” the White House said. Referring to growing tensions around the Al-Aqsa mosque — located on a site venerated both by Muslims and Jews inside Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem — Biden reaffirmed “the critical need to preserve the historic status quo.”Biden also recognized Jordan’s “crucial role as the custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem,” the White House said in a statement. On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Biden reiterated the US position of “strong support for a two-state solution,” also thanking King Abdullah “for his close partnership and the role he and Jordan play as a force for stability in the Middle East.”Al-Aqsa mosque is the third-holiest place in Islam and the most sacred site to Jews, who refer to the compound as the Temple Mount. Under a longstanding status quo, non-Muslims can visit the site at specific times but are not allowed to pray there. In recent years, a growing number of Jews, most of them Israeli nationalists, have covertly prayed at the compound, angering Palestinians. In January, the national security minister in Israel’s new far-right government made his own visit to the site, sparking a torrent of international condemnation.

U.S. sanctions board of directors of Iranian drone maker
Kanishka Singh/WASHINGTON (Reuters)/February 03/2023
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on the board of directors of Iranian drone maker Paravar Pars, the U.S. Treasury Department said, adding Iranian drones were being used by Russia to attack Ukraine's critical infrastructure. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated eight senior executives of Paravar Pars, the department said in a statement. The drone maker was previously sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for making drones for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force. "Iranian entities continue to produce UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for Iran's IRGC and military. More broadly, Iran is supplying UAVs for Russia's combat operations to target critical infrastructure in Ukraine," said Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury's top sanctions official. As a result of Friday's action, all property and interests in property of those individuals that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC, the Treasury Department said. People that engage in transactions with the individuals designated on Friday may themselves be exposed to sanctions, the department added. The United States on Tuesday had put new trade restrictions on seven Iranian entities for producing drones that Russia has used to attack Ukraine. The firms and other organizations were added to a U.S. export control list for those engaged in activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. Since Russia launched its war against Ukraine in February 2022, the United States and over 30 other countries have sought to degrade its military and defense industrial base by restricting its access to defense needs. Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York said on Tuesday: "Sanctions have no effect on Iran's drone production capacity because its drones are all produced domestically. This is a strong indication that the drones shot down in Ukraine and using parts made by Western countries don't belong to Iran."

US seeks to expel Russian mercenaries from Sudan, Libya
Associated Press/February 03, 2023
The United States has stepped up pressure on Middle East allies to expel the Wagner Group, a military contractor with close ties to Russia's president, from chaos-stricken Libya and Sudan where it expanded in recent years, regional officials told The Associated Press.
The U.S. effort described by officials comes as the Biden administration is making a broad push against the mercenaries. The U.S. has slapped new sanctions on the Wagner Group in recent months over its expanding role in Russia's war in Ukraine.
The group is owned by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Pentagon has described it as a surrogate for the Russian Defense Ministry. The Kremlin denies any connection. The Biden administration has been working for months with regional powers Egypt and the United Arab Emirates to pressure military leaders in Sudan and Libya to end their ties with the group, according to more than a dozen Libyan, Sudanese and Egyptian officials. They asked for anonymity to speak freely and because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.
"Wagner obsesses them (American officials)," said an Egyptian senior government official with direct knowledge of the talks. "It is at the top of every meeting."The group doesn't announce its operations, but its presence is known from reports on the ground and other evidence. In Sudan, it was originally associated with former strongman Omar al-Bashir and now works with the military leaders who replaced him. In Libya, it's associated with east Libya-based military commander Khalifa Hifter. Wagner has deployed thousands of operatives in African and Middle Eastern countries including Mali, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Syria. Its aim in Africa, analysts say, is to support Russia's interests amid rising global interest in the resource-rich continent. Rights experts working with the U.S. on Jan. 31 accused the group of committing possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Mali, where it is fighting alongside government forces. "Wagner tends to target countries with natural resources that can be used for Moscow's objectives – gold mines in Sudan, for example, where the resulting gold can be sold in ways that circumvent Western sanctions," said Catrina Doxsee, an expert on Wagner at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Prigozhin did not respond to a request for comment sent to the press department of the Concord Group, of which he is an owner. The group's role in Libya and Sudan was central to recent talks between CIA director William Burns and officials in Egypt and Libya in January. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also discussed the group with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in a late-January trip to Cairo, Egyptian officials said. Weeks after the visits, Burns acknowledged in a Thursday speech at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., that after recent travel to Africa he was concerned about the Wagner's growing influence in the continent. "That is a deeply unhealthy development and we're working very hard to counter it," Burns said. Burns and Blinken called on el-Sissi's government to help convince Sudan's ruling generals and Libya's Hifter to end their dealings with the Wagner, an Egyptian official briefed on the talks said. The group and its founder have been under U.S. sanctions since 2017, and the Biden administration in December announced new export restrictions to restrict its access to technology and supplies, designating it as a "significant transnational criminal organization."
SUDAN
Leaders in Sudan have received repeated U.S. messages about Wagner's growing influence in recent months, via Egypt and Gulf states, said a senior Sudanese official. Abbas Kamel, the director of Egypt's Intelligence Directorate Agency, conveyed Western concerns in talks in Khartoum last month with the head of Sudan's ruling sovereign council, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the official said. Kamel urged Burhan to find a way to address Wagner's "use of Sudan as a base" for operations in neighboring countries such as the Central African Republic, the official said. Wagner started operating in Sudan in 2017, providing military training to intelligence and special forces, and to the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, according to Sudanese officials and documents shared with The Associated Press. The RSF, which grew out of the feared Janjaweed militias, is led by powerful general Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who has close ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Dagalo has been sending troops to fight alongside the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen's long-running civil war. Wagner mercenaries are not operating in a combat role in Sudan, officials said. The group, which has dozens of operatives in the country, provides military and intelligence training, as well as surveillance and protection of sites and top officials. Sudanese military leaders appear to have given Wagner control of gold mines in return. The documents show that the group has received mining rights through front companies with ties to Sudan's powerful military and the RSF. Its activities are centered in gold-rich areas controlled by the RSF in Darfur, Blue Nile and other provinces, according to officials. Two companies have been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury for acting as fronts for Wagner's mining activities — Meroe Gold, a Sudanese gold mining firm, and its owner, the Russian-based M Invest firm. Prigozhin owns or controls both, according to the Treasury. Despite sanctions, Meroe Gold is still operating across Sudan. The Russian mercenaries helped the paramilitary force consolidate its influence not only in the country's far-flung regions, but also in the capital of Khartoum, where it helps run pro-RSF social media pages. The main camp of Wagner mercenaries is in the contested village of Am Dafok on the borders between the Central African Republic and Sudan, according to the Darfur Bar Association, a legal group that focuses on human rights. "Nobody can approach their areas," said Gibreel Hassabu, a lawyer and member of the association.
LIBYA
In Libya, Burns held talks in Tripoli with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, head of one of Libya's two rival governments. The CIA director also met with Hifter in eastern Libya, according to officials with Hifter's forces. One official briefed on the meeting in al-Rajma military complex, the seat of Hifter's command just outside Benghazi, said Wagner was the main issue discussed. U.N. experts said Wagner mercenaries were deployed Libya since 2018, helping Hifter's forces in their fight against Islamist militants in eastern Libya. The group was also involved in his failed offensive on Tripoli in April 2019. The U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, estimated that some 2,000 Wagner mercenaries were in Libya between July-September 2020, before a cease-fire. The mercenaries were equipped with armored vehicles, air defense systems, fighter aircraft, and other equipment, which were supplied by Russia, according to the AFRICOM assessment. The report also said the Wagner group appeared to be receiving money from the UAE, a main foreign backer of Hifter. Since the 2020 cease-fire, Wagner's activities have centered around oil facilities in central Libya, and they have continued providing military training to Hifter forces, Libyan officials said. It is not clear how many Wagner mercenaries are still in Libya. American officials have demanded that mercenaries be pulled out of oil facilities, another Libyan official said. Hifter did not offer any commitments, but asked for assurances that Turkey and the Libyan militias it backed in western Libya will not initiate an attack on his forces in the coastal city of Sirte and other areas in central Libya. Egypt, which has close ties with Hifter, has demanded that Wagner not be stationed close to its borders. There is no evidence yet that the Biden administration's pressure has yielded results in either Sudan or Libya, observers said. Doxsee, the expert, said the U.S. and allies should resist promoting narratives that "Russia is bad and what we have to offer is good" and instead focus on offering better alternatives to Wagner. "Ultimately, at the end of the day, Wagner is a business. If you can cut out the profit and you can reduce the business case for using Wagner, that's what is going to make it a less appealing case," she said.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi released after hunger strike
AFP/February 03, 2023
PARIS: Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi has been released on bail after starting a hunger strike to protest against his almost seven-month detention, supporters said on Friday. The director had been arrested months before the current anti-regime protests erupted, but his imprisonment became a symbol of the plight of artists speaking out against the authorities. Panahi has been released from Tehran’s Evin prison “two days after starting his hunger strike for freedom,” the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said on Twitter, while Iran’s reformist Shargh newspaper posted an image of Panahi jubilantly embracing a supporter. His wife Tahereh Saeedi posted a picture on Instagram of Panahi being driven from prison in a vehicle. The prize-winning director was arrested in July and went on a dry hunger strike on Wednesday to protest his continued detention. “Mr Panahi was temporarily released from Evin prison with the efforts of his family, respected lawyers, and representatives of the cinema,” Iran’s House of Cinema, which groups together industry professionals, said in a statement. The announcement that Panahi was going on a dry hunger strike sparked a wave of concern across the world about the director, who has won prizes at all of Europe’s top three film festivals. “Today, like many people trapped in Iran, I have no choice but to protest against this inhumane behavior with my dearest possession — my life,” Panahi had said in the statement published by his wife. “I will remain in this state until perhaps my lifeless body is freed from prison,” he said. Panahi, 62, was arrested on July 11 and had been due to serve a six-year sentence handed down in 2010 after his conviction for “propaganda against the system.”On October 15, the Supreme Court quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial, raising hopes among his legal team that he could be released, but he remained in prison. Panahi won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 for his film “The Circle.” In 2015, he won the Golden Bear in Berlin for “Taxi Tehran,” and in 2018, he won the best screenplay prize at Cannes for “Three Faces.”Panahi’s latest film, “No Bears,” which like much of his recent work stars the director himself, was screened at the 2022 Venice Film Festival when the director was already behind bars. It won the Special Jury Prize. “It is extraordinary, a relief, a total joy. We express our gratitude to all those who mobilized yesterday,” his French distributor, producer Michele Halberstadt, told AFP. “His next fight is to have the cancelation of his sentence officially recognized. He’s outside, he’s free, and this is already great.”Panahi’s July arrest came after he attended a court hearing for fellow film director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had been detained a few days earlier. Rasoulof was released from prison on January 7 after being granted a two-week furlough for health reasons and is still believed to be outside of jail. Cinema figures have been among the thousands of people arrested by Iran in its crackdown on the protests sparked by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested for allegedly violating its strict dress code for women. Star actor Taraneh Alidoosti, who had published images of herself without wearing the Islamic headscarf, was among those detained, although she was released in early January after being held for almost three weeks.

Satellite Photos: Damage at Iran Military Site Hit by Drones
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 3 February, 2023
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Friday showed damage done to what Iran describes as a military workshop attacked by Israeli drones, the latest such assault amid a shadow war between the two countries. While Iran has offered no explanation yet of what the workshop manufactured, the drone attack threatened to again raise tensions in the region. Already, worries have grown over Tehran enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels, with a top United Nations nuclear official warning Iran had enough fuel to build “several” atomic bombs if it chooses.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose earlier tenure as premier saw escalating attacks targeting Iran, has returned to office and reiterated that he views Tehran as his country's top security threat. With State Department spokesperson Ned Price now declaring Iran has “killed” the opportunity to return to its nuclear deal with world powers, it remains unclear what diplomacy immediately could ease tensions between Tehran and the West, The Associated Press said. Cloudy weather had prevented satellite pictures of the site of the workshop since it came under attack by what Iran described as bomb-carrying quadcopters on the night of Jan. 28. Quadcopters, which get their name from having four rotors, typically operate from short ranges by remote control. Images taken Thursday by Planet Labs PBC showed the workshop in Isfahan, a central Iranian city some 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Tehran. An AP analysis of the image, compared to earlier images of the workshop, showed damage to the structure's roof. That damage corresponded to footage aired by Iranian state television immediately after the attack that showed at least two holes in the building's roof.
The Iranian state TV footage, as well as satellite photos, suggest the building's roof also may have been built with so-called “slat armor.” The structure resembles a cage built around roofs or armored vehicles to stop direct detonation from rockets, missiles or bomb-carrying drones against a target.
Installation of such protection at the workshop suggests Iran believed it could be a drone target. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in July claimed to have broken up a plot to target sensitive sites around Isfahan. A segment aired on Iranian state TV in October included purported confessions by alleged members of Komala, a Kurdish opposition party that is exiled from Iran and now lives in Iraq, that they planned to target a military aerospace facility in Isfahan after being trained by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service. It remains unclear whether the military workshop targeted in the drone attack was that aerospace facility. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the satellite images and other questions about the workshop. The attack comes Iran’s theocratic government faces challenges both at home and abroad. Nationwide protests have shaken the country since the September death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman detained by the country’s morality police. Its rial currency has plummeted to new lows against the US dollar. Meanwhile, Iran continues to arm Russia with the bomb-carrying drone that Moscow uses in attacks in Ukraine on power plants and civilian targets. Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iran, including an April 2021 assault on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges. In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top military nuclear scientist.
Israel has not commented on this drone attack. However, Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country’s secret military units or the Mossad. A letter published Thursday by Iran's ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, said that “early investigations suggest that the Israeli regime was responsible for this attempted act of aggression."The letter, however, did not elaborate on what evidence supported Iran’s suspicion.

Nobel Laureate Ebadi Says Iran’s ‘Revolutionary Process’ Is Irreversible
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 3 February, 2023
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman last year has sparked an irreversible "revolutionary process" that would eventually lead to the collapse of the "Islamic Republic". Iran's clerical rulers have faced widespread unrest since Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police on Sept. 16 after she was arrested for wearing "inappropriate attire". Iran has blamed Amini's death on preexisting medical problems and has accused the United States and other foes fomenting the unrest to destabilize the clerical establishment. As they have done in the past in the face of protests in the past four decades, Iran's hardline rulers have cracked down hard. Authorities have handed down dozens of death sentences to people involved in protests and have carried out at least four hangings, in what rights activists say is aimed at intimidating people and keep them off the streets. A staunch critic of the clerical establishment that has ruled in Iran since the revolution in 1979, Ebadi has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the anti-government demonstrations. Like many critics of Iran's clerical rulers, Ebadi believes the current wave of protests has been the boldest challenge to the establishment's legitimacy yet. "This revolutionary process is like a train that will not stop until it reaches its final destination," said Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work defending human rights and who has been in exile in London since 2009. The 1979 revolution toppled Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a secular monarch allied with the West, and led to the formation of an Islamic Republic. With the latest protests ushering Iran into an era of deepening crisis between the rulers and society at large, Amini's death has unbottled years of anger among many Iranians over issues ranging from economic misery and discrimination against ethnic minorities to tightening social and political restrictions. For months, Iranians from all walks of life have called for the fall of the clerical establishment, chanting slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, protests have slowed considerably since the hangings began. Videos shared on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed people chanting "Death to Khamenei" from rooftops in some cities, but nothing on the scale of past months. The rights group HRANA said that as of Wednesday, 527 protesters had been killed during unrest, including 71 minors. It said 70 members of the security forces had also been killed. As many as 19,262 protesters are believed to have been arrested, it said.
Growing anger
Ebadi, speaking in a phone interview from London, said the state's use of deadly violence will deepen anger felt by ordinary Iranians about the clerical establishment because their grievances remain unaddressed. "The protests have taken a different shape, but they have not ended," Ebadi told Reuters. With deepening economic misery, chiefly because of US sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear work, many Iranians are feeling the pain of galloping inflation and rising joblessness. Inflation has soared to over 50%, the highest level in decades. Youth unemployment remains high with over 50% of Iranians being pushed below the poverty line, according to reports by Iran's Statistics Centre. The crackdown has stoked diplomatic tensions at a time when talks to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers are at a standstill. The United States and its Western allies have slapped sanctions on Iranian authorities and entities for their involvement in the crackdown and other human rights abuses. To force Iran's clerical establishment from power, Ebadi said the West should take "practical steps" such as downgrading its political ties with Iran by recalling its ambassadors from Tehran, and should avoid reaching any agreement with the Islamic Republic, including the nuclear deal.

In Line with Russian Understanding, Türkiye Withdraws from Checkpoint on Syria’s M4 Highway
Ankara - Saeed Abdulrazek/Agencies/Friday, 3 February, 2023
Turkish forces have started withdrawing from a military checkpoint south of the M4 highway connecting Syria’s Aleppo and Latakia governorates in preparation of the implementation of Russian-Turkish agreements. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Turkish forces moved cement blocks from the Turkish checkpoint in Qaston town in the Sahl Al-Ghab area in the northwestern Hama countryside towards the northern checkpoint. The military Qaston checkpoint is located a few kilometers away from regime checkpoints in Jurin district. The withdrawal of Turkish forces from the Sahl Al-Ghab area facilitates the access to the M4 highway and control over Jisr Al-Shughor city, noted the Observatory. Turkish moves in Idlib to open the highway started recently and come as part of the implementation of an MoU signed with Russia in March 2020. This could signal the first actual step for progress in the path of normalization of ties between Ankara and the Syrian regime under Russian sponsorship. After a defense ministers’ meeting in Moscow on December 28, Ankara began to focus on reopening the M4 highway. Reopening the highway was also discussed during normalization talks between Ankara and Damascus. According to Syrian opposition sources and media reports, Türkiye wants to share supervision of the M4 with Russia and the Syrian regime. At the present time, Syrian regime forces control most of the M4, but Türkiye and its loyalist factions are still running a small portion of the highway. In an MoU signed on March 5, 2020, Russia and Türkiye agreed to establish a secure corridor near the highway, which runs east to west through Idlib, and hold joint patrols along the route.
They said the corridor would stretch 6 km to the north and 6 km to the south of the M4.

Nearly 200,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine, US officials say
Sravasti Dasgupta/The Independent/ February 3, 2023
The number of Russian troops who have either died or were left wounded in the continuing war in Ukraine is nearing 200,000, according to a report that cited US and Western officials. On Thursday, The New York Times reported that senior US officials and Western diplomats said the number has climbed above the 100,000 figure given in November last year. In that month, General Mark A Milley, chairman of the US joint chief of staffs, gave the last public estimate provided by the Biden administration. He said more than 100,000 troops on each side had been killed and wounded since the war began.
“I would say it’s significantly well over 100,000 now,” Mr Milley was quoted as saying at a news conference last month in Germany. He added that the Russian toll included “regular military, and also their mercenaries in the Wagner Group”. This week, senior US officials said they believed the number for Russia was closer to 200,000, according to the report. On 22 January, General Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s defence chief, said on Norewegian TV that estimates suggested 180,000 were either dead or wounded on Russia’s side, while the tally was 100,000, including 30,000 civilian deaths, for Ukraine.
Mr Kristofferson said to The New York Times over email that there is “much uncertainty regarding these numbers, as no one at the moment are able to give a good overview. They could be both lower or even higher.”According to Colin H Kahl, the under secretary of defence for policy, the Russian military is running out of critical supplies and replenishment. “They’re running low on artillery. They’re running low on standoff munitions, and they are substituting by sending convicts in human waves into places like Bakhmut and Soledar,” he was quoted as saying. Russia’s war in Ukraine will complete a year on 24 February.According to Kusti Salm, Estonia’s deputy defence minister, Russia was better able to stand its losses than Ukraine. At a press briefing in Washington this week, he said: “In this particular area, the Russians have employed around 40,000 to 50,000 inmates or prisoners.”“They are going up against regular soldiers, people with families, people with regular training, valuable people for the Ukrainian military.”“So the exchange rate is unfair,” he added.“It’s not one to one because for Russia, inmates are expendable. From an operational perspective, this is a very unfair deal for the Ukrainians and a clever tactical move from the Russian side.”

EU officials hold Kyiv talks in show of support for Ukraine
SUSIE BLANN/KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/Fri, February 3, 2023
Top European Union officials were due to meet Friday in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a show of support for the country as it battles to counter Russia’s invasion and strives to join the EU as well as NATO. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, as well as 15 European commissioners, traveled to the Ukrainian capital for what they described as a summit meeting. The last such summit was held in Kyiv in October 2021 — a few months before the war started. The highly symbolic visit is also the first EU political mission of its kind to a country at war. “There will be no let-up in our resolve,” Michel said in a tweet on his apparent arrival in Kyiv. “We will also support (Ukraine) every step of the way on your journey to the EU.”EU assistance for Ukraine has reached almost 50 billion euros ($55 billion) since the fighting started, according to EU officials. The EU is providing Ukraine with financial and humanitarian aid, among other things. It also plans to adopt a 10th package of sanctions again Russia in the coming weeks. The EU has also announced it’s ramping up its military training mission for Ukraine, from an initial target of pushing 15,000 troops through the schooling to up to 30,000 troops. One focus is to train the crews of tanks that Western countries have offered Ukraine. Ukraine wants to join the 27-nation bloc, and formally submitted its application last June, though that could take years and require the adoption of far-reaching reforms. In the meantime, von der Leyen said Thursday that the European Commission is willing to let Kyiv join what she called some “key European programs” that will bring benefits similar to membership.Those programs were due to be discussed in Friday’s meeting, which will also address one of the main obstacles to Ukraine’s EU membership: endemic corruption. Von der Leyen, on her fourth visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion, said Thursday she was “comforted” by Ukraine’s anti-corruption drive. The previous day, Zelenskyy had taken aim at corrupt officials for the second time in the space of a week. Several high-ranking officials were dismissed. Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform in a country long gripped by graft. The latest corruption allegations came as Western allies channel billions of dollars to help Kyiv fight Moscow’s forces. Ukraine’s government is keen to get more Western military aid, on top of the tanks pledged last week, as the warring sides are expected to launch new offensives once winter ends. Kyiv is now asking for fighter jets. The U.S is expected to announce Friday it will send longer-range bombs to Ukraine as part of a new $2.17 billion aid package.

EU set to promise Ukraine support but not quick accession
Max Hunder/KYIV (Reuters)/February 3, 2023
Air raid sirens wailed on Friday morning as European Union and Ukrainian leaders gathered for a summit, with Kyiv set to win pledges of further support but not a promise of quick accession to the wealthy bloc. Air raid alerts sounded in the capital and across the country but there were no immediate reports of Russian missile strikes as the summit was due to start in Kyiv, shortly before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, chairman of the 27 EU national leaders, were in Kyiv for the talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "The EU will support Ukraine and the Ukrainian people against Russia's ongoing war of aggression for as long as it takes," the three leaders will say in a joint statement, a draft of which was seen by Reuters. EU leaders will promise Ukraine more financial, military and political aid. Talks were expected to focus on improving access for Ukrainian products to the EU market, helping Ukraine cover its energy needs after weeks of Russian air strikes, new sanctions on Moscow and prosecuting Russian leaders for the war. But the next round of EU sanctions against Russia is widely expected not to meet Ukraine's expectations and the EU is not expected to grant Kyiv fast-track to membership while at war. Kyiv applied to become an EU member shortly after Russian invasion and wants to start formal accession talks as soon as possible.
CALL FOR UNWAVERING SUPPORT
After separate talks on Thursday with von der Leyen and members of the European Commission, the EU executive, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address that Ukraine needed unwavering support in the war. "I believe that Ukraine deserves to reach the beginning of negotiations on EU membership this year already," he said. The EU, however, has not committed to any dates, instead underlining the need for Ukraine to step up its fight against endemic corruption, reform the judiciary to free it from political meddling, and strengthen its economy. Multiple political, economic and legal entry criteria mean the process takes years. The EU's eastward expansion also faces resistance from some EU states including France and is opposed by Moscow, which portrays the former Soviet republic's accession to Western institutions as a threat to Russia's security. EU officials speak of "managing expectations" on quick accession as Moscow wages war on Ukraine.

China says it's looking into report of spy balloon over US
Associated Press/February 3, 2023
China said Friday it is looking into reports that a Chinese spy balloon has been flying in U.S. airspace and urged calm, adding that it has "no intention of violating the territory and airspace of any sovereign country."Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also said she had no information about whether a trip to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken planned for this month would proceed as scheduled. At a daily briefing, Mao said that politicians and the public should withhold judgment "before we have a clear understanding of the facts" about the spy balloon reports. Blinken would be the highest-ranking member of President Joe Biden's administration to visit China, arriving amid efforts to mitigate a sharp downturn in relations between Beijing and Washington over trade, Taiwan, human rights and China's claims in the South China Sea. "China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international laws, and China has no intention of violating the territory and airspace of any sovereign country. As for the balloon, as I've mentioned just now, we are looking into and verifying the situation and hope that both sides can handle this together calmly and carefully," Mao said. "As for Blinken's visit to China, I have no information," she said. A senior defense official told Pentagon reporters that the U.S. has "very high confidence" it is a Chinese high-altitude balloon and it was flying over sensitive sites to collect information. One of the places the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to one of the nation's three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 03-04/2023
Erdoğan's Turkey: NATO's Trojan Horse Moment
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute./February 03/2023
In its Freedom in the World 2022 report, Freedom House, a U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., put Turkey in its "not free" category of countries, along with Afghanistan, Angola, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nicaragua, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and several other third world rogue regimes. Could one, by the criteria of democracy, imagine any of those countries as a NATO member state? But Turkey is.
Erdoğan needs NATO... He is tying NATO's planned Nordic expansion, to include Sweden and Finland, to his election campaign.
"If you can come up with a security problem, then people rally behind the strong leader." — Özer Sencar, chairman of the Turkish polling company, Metropoll. Any unwisely public Turkish-Western confrontation in the few months before Turkey's elections will add to votes for Erdoğan. Most Turks still believe what they were taught at primary school: A Turk's only friend is another Turk. They are still living in a xenophobic unreal world where every other nation is an enemy of their land and is plotting against Turkey. That childish feeling, in a matter of collective psychology, coerces them to unite behind the leader. Trouble with the West, and Erdoğan wins again.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needs ammunition for his anti-Western, anti-NATO, "we-against-the-infidels" rhetoric ahead of Turkey's elections on May 14. Any unwisely public Turkish-Western confrontation will add to votes for Erdoğan. Trouble with the West, and Erdoğan wins again. Pictured: Erdoğan speaks at his party's group meeting in Ankara on February 1, 2023.
NATO is essentially a security alliance. Its preamble, however, states that the organization is founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. The grossly autocratic one-man show in Turkey, a NATO member, features none of that. According to the 2021 Democracy Index prepared by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Turkey ranks 103rd among 167 countries. The index evaluation was based on five criteria: electoral processes and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.
In its Freedom in the World 2022 report, Freedom House, a U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., put Turkey in its "not free" category of countries, along with Afghanistan, Angola, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nicaragua, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and several other third world rogue regimes. Could one, by the criteria of democracy, imagine any of those countries as a NATO member state? But Turkey is.From the security perspective, as well, Turkey is the odd one out in the NATO alliance. In 2012, Turkey joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as a "dialogue partner." (Other dialogue partners are Belarus and Sri Lanka; observer nations are Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia). In 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he was hoping to acquire membership in the SCO.
Earlier, in September 2013, Turkey announced that it had selected a Chinese company (on a U.S. sanctions list) to construct its first long-range air- and anti-missile defense architecture. In 2019, Turkey determined to buy the Russian-made S-400 air defense systems. Turkey is the only NATO member sanctioned by the U.S. under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
In May 2022, Erdoğan's ultranationalist coalition partner, Devlet Bahçeli, said that Turkey should consider leaving NATO. Maybe he is right. Sadly, that turns out to have been a bluff. Erdoğan needs NATO -- especially these days, when he needs ammunition for his anti-Western, anti-NATO, "we-against-the-infidels" rhetoric ahead of Turkey's critical presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14. He is tying NATO's planned Nordic expansion, to include Sweden and Finland, to his election campaign. Two provocative incidents in Stockholm in January -- an effigy of Erdoğan was strung from a lamppost and a Danish politician burned the Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy -- gave Erdoğan a perfect opportunity to rally support and distract his voters from an ailing economy. Both incidents, incidentally, were criticized by Swedish government authorities.
With massive applause from his conservative and nationalist voters, Erdoğan said that Sweden could no longer expect Turkey's support for its NATO membership (every NATO member has veto power). On January 21, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar cancelled a planned visit by his Swedish counterpart, Pal Jonson. Ankara also cancelled a trilateral meeting with Sweden and Finland on NATO's Nordic expansion.
Özer Sencar, chairman of pollster Metropoll, said that amplifying foreign policy security issues ahead of elections allows Erdogan to consolidate his voter base. He "creates a perception of a 'strong leader' inside Turkey," he said. "If you can come up with a security problem, then people rally behind the strong leader."What to do? John R. Deni, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, writing in The Hill, advises "strategic patience."
"There are some steps that Washington could at least signal are under consideration, if Ankara has not budged on Finland and Sweden by late spring. These might include undercutting the value of the Turkish lira by making public Washington's displeasure and will to act; implementing another round of sanctions on key Turkish exports, ministries and leaders; reimposing restrictions on the sale of U.S. military hardware to Turkey; and signaling a willingness to reconsider NATO's military posture in Turkey, as well as the American presence there. There is a risk that such moves might play into Erdoğan's domestic political narrative, but they also might achieve the more important goal of solidifying Finnish and Swedish membership in NATO. In any case, for the time being, strategic patience appears a more prudent policy choice."
Deni is right. Any unwisely public Turkish-Western confrontation in the few months before Turkey's elections will add to votes for Erdoğan. Most Turks still believe what they were taught at primary school: A Turk's only friend is another Turk. They are still living in a xenophobic unreal world where every other nation is an enemy of their land and is plotting against Turkey. That childish feeling, in a matter of collective psychology, coerces them to unite behind the leader. Trouble with the West, and Erdoğan wins again.
Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 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.

Iran: Selling Family Jewels to Buy Loyalty
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 03/2023
What does an autocrat do when his support base is shaken by popular protests? The standard answer is: he tries to reassure supporters by increasing their privileges, thus giving them a bigger stake in the preservation of the status quo.
This is what Islamic Republic’s “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is trying to do with an edict for the largest privatization scheme in Iran’s history.
Unveiled last week, the scheme is the seventh of its kind since the first was launched 23 years ago. The new scheme offers four novelties:
First, unlike previous schemes it sets no limit to what tangible assets could be sold. Second, it waivers oversight on a case-by-case basis by the Cabinet and the Islamic Majlis (ersatz parliament).
Thirdly, it sets no time limit for the scheme, in effect giving a seven-man coterie the right to sell state assets for as long as they deem fit.
Finally, it appoints a seven-man committee to supervise implementation while granting them irrevocable immunity from any prosecution related to the scheme.
This last point is especially important because it gives a few individuals, all connected with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the power to transfer unspecified public assets to whomever they wish. Distributing favors as a means of buying or maintaining political support has been a feature of the Islamic Republic since its inception in 1979. In 1980, months after seizing power, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini approved a massive expropriation scheme implemented out of any formal stat structure.
Under the scheme thousands of mullahs, or individuals dressing as mullahs and growing beards for the occasion, seized private property in the name of instantly created “Islamic charities”.
In 1985, the Islamic Interior Ministry reported that more than 75,000 businesses and private homes had been seized, in most cases from owners who had fled the country.
The properties seized were described as “ghanimah” or war booty in accordance with shariah rules. Khomeini issued a decree claiming that saying prayers in the confiscated properties would be acceptable.
Then the governments of President Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr and Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mussavi conducted a massive nationalization scheme which increased the share of public sector in the economy from 55 percent under the Shah to 70 percent.
The new regime used the scheme to reward supporters by creating jobs for the boys and transferring wealth from pre-revolution business elites to new emerging revolutionary ones.
To cite one example, Ayatollah Hadi Ghaffrai, the initial founder of Hezbollah, suddenly became CEO of Iran’s largest producer if stockings. By the early 1990s, however, the mullahs feared that a post-revolution bourgeoisie was taking shape and might challenge the regime. To forestall that danger, then President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani developed the idea of a private-public sector of the economy (khosulati in Persian) controlled by the political mullahs and their military-security allies outside the rules of public and private sectors.
The new scheme became the backbone of the rentier economy in which access not only to wealth-making opportunities but also to normal public services is ensured through a single channel: loyalty to the system and the “Supreme Guide”.
This hybrid sector consisted of over 400 foundations and charities of different sizes, ad-hoc outfits such as “The Imam’s Aid Committee “, the “Committee for Implementing the Imam’s Orders”, funds and holdings related to holy shrines, Islamic, supposedly interest-free, banks, insurance companies, numerous real or imaginary cooperatives, and more than 30 newly created service and consultancy companies mostly related to the oil industry.
The hybrid sector also expanded into the transport industry by owning four airlines, six shipping lines, and several car manufacturing companies, the nation’s largest public building contractor, and several holdings and investment groups.
Four supermarket chains related to the IRGC and the regular army, a chain of hotels and tourist resorts and, last but not least, the takeover of the communication industry, including mobiles phones and mail, dramatically increased the share of the sector.
Within the sector the IRGC controlled 25 ports from which it could import and export goods without going through normal customs channels.
By the year 2000 when the first formal privatization scheme was launched the hybrid sector represented 20 percent of the national economy.
According to Professor Hassan Mansour, a distinguished Iranian economist, in 2022, the public sector accounted for 61 percent of the economy with 39 percent going to hybrid and a shrinking classical private sector.
The emergence of the rentier economy could be narrated through successive corruption scandals, mostly implicating IRGC generals.
Stephane A. Dudoignon, a French specialist in IRGC, suggests that it was in Rafsanjani’s second term as president, that corruption became systemic which means it was no longer an exception to the rule but the rule itself; in fact, a way of life.
On occasions the scandals forced the regime to arrest some senior IRGC officers, such as Masood Mehrdadi, once known as “the URGC’s economic brain”, and organize show trials. Several other prominent IRGC figures, such as Brigadier Gens. Ahmad Vahidi the first chief of the Quds Corps, Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, Hussein Tala, Muhammad Esmail Kowthari, Rostam Qassemi and Hushang Allah-Dad, chief treasurer of the Quds Corps, and Jamaleddin Aberumand have been implicated in alleged corruption cases since 1989. The late Lt. Gen Qassem Soleimani was also mentioned as a major shareholder in more than 20 businesses in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon while controlling the secret budget of the Quds Corps which exempted him from legal scrutiny by the Cabinet or the Majlis.
Transfer of public assets to chosen supporters has a routine pattern.
The supporter, usually an IRGC senior officer or a senior mullah, secures a low-interest loan from a state-owned bank to buy a state-owned asset at rock-bottom price. Almost always this is just a formality. Once the asset is acquired, the new owner forms a company and sells parts of its chars to others, making a huge profit. Those who acquire prime real estate make especially big killings.
Usually, a part of the profits is immediately stashed away in bank accounts abroad.
The scheme also enables the regime to recycle as businessmen the huge number of brigadier-generals that the IRGC and the regular army produce each year.The current purge of the officers’ corps adds some urgency to the latest privatization scheme.
One problem remains: will retired or cashiered brigadiers feel confident enough about the regime’s future to embark on the recycling scheme offered?

The Juniper Oak Military Exercise: Implications for Innovation, Experimentation, and U.S. Policy Toward Iran
Michael Eisenstadt/The Washington Institute./January 03/2023
Last week’s large, combined exercise was intended to assure friends and deter adversaries, but both goals will ultimately depend on fixing a flawed policy toward Iran.
On January 23-26, the United States and Israel held their largest-ever bilateral military exercise, involving 7,900 personnel (6,400 Americans and 1,500 Israelis), 142 combat aircraft (100 American, 42 Israeli), twelve warships (the George H. W. Bush Carrier Strike Group and six Israeli vessels, including a submarine), and activities across all domains (sea, air, land, space, and cyber). The main goals of the exercise—named Juniper Oak—were to improve interoperability, demonstrate America’s ability to surge forces into the region while meeting commitments elsewhere, assure allies, deter adversaries (particularly Iran), and pave the way for additional large, complex exercises with Israel and other regional partners.
What It Was, and Wasn’t
Despite reports that the exercise simulated strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, U.S. officials have denied this, and there is no reason to doubt these disclaimers. The B-52 bombers that participated in the exercise are not the aircraft for this mission, as they lack the ability to penetrate capable air defenses and deliver the only U.S. conventional bunker-buster munition (the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP) capable of damaging hardened, deeply buried nuclear facilities at Fordow or elsewhere.
That said, many of the missions exercised during Juniper Oak would be central to a major conflict involving Israel, Iran, and its proxies. This could lead Iranian decisionmakers to conclude that they might also be facing American forces in the event of such a conflict—their nightmare scenario.
U.S. officials have indicated that Juniper Oak will be institutionalized and expanded. Washington intends to encourage other regional states to participate in similar large, complex exercises and will use the “fear of missing out” to draw them in. This will hopefully enable U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to flesh out the emerging regional security architecture that it has been building—which includes nascent air/missile defense and maritime surveillance components.
Future exercises should also incorporate the B-2 bomber, which would send a clear deterrent message given its ability to penetrate modern air defenses and drop the MOP. Moreover, the B-2 would convey this message without the need for fanfare (Tehran is generally more impressed by subtlety than swagger). If Washington is truly serious about not allowing Iran to get nuclear weapons (see below), then the B-2 should be part of future exercises in the Middle East, just as it routinely participates in exercises in the European and Indo-Pacific regions.
Successful Exercise, Flawed Policy
No series of military exercises—no matter how impressive—will assure friends and deter adversaries without changes to Washington’s flawed policy toward Iran. Meeting those goals will require the following:
Consistent messaging. The Biden administration has sent mixed messages regarding Iran’s nuclear program. In June 2021, the president vowed that “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” In July 2022, the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration committed Washington “never to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.” Biden repeated this commitment at a GCC+3 summit in Jeddah two days later, and again in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September.
On November 22, however, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby noted that the United States was “not going to allow Iran to achieve a nuclear weapons capability”—a formulation he repeated on at least two other occasions (January 20 and January 27). And in a January 19 readout of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s recent trip to Israel, NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson underscored “the U.S. commitment to ensure Iran can never acquire a nuclear weapon”—in yet a third syntactically tortured version of this commitment.
Presidential statements are generally the last word when it comes to policy, but these more recent formulations by subordinates raise questions about whether U.S. policy has changed, since not allowing Iran to have a “nuclear weapon” is very different from not allowing Iran to have a “nuclear weapons capability.” This inconsistency may confirm the belief held by many allies and partners that the United States lacks a well-thought-out policy, hinting at disarray that might encourage Tehran to further test Washington by intensifying its nuclear activities.
Capability and credibility. Juniper Oak aimed in part to demonstrate America’s power projection capabilities and its capacity to focus on the Middle East while managing a war in Europe and tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. In this regard, the exercise succeeded. Yet Washington’s friends and adversaries do not doubt its demonstrated ability to project power—they doubt its commitment and resolve. In particular, U.S. credibility has been undermined by a failure to respond more assertively to attacks on U.S. targets and partners in the region.
Although this problem long preceded President Biden, his administration has responded overtly only three times to scores of drone, rocket, and improvised explosive device attacks on U.S. personnel and interests in Iraq and Syria (though attacks in Iraq have declined precipitously in the past six months). Officials claim that the administration’s responses may not always be visible, yet its acknowledged actions have telegraphed ambivalence and apprehension. Indeed, the U.S. garrison at al-Tanf, Syria, was attacked two days before the start of Juniper Oak, and there is no sign of any U.S. response since then. Even a successful gray zone strategy that relies largely on covert or unacknowledged activities should occasionally employ overt action to demonstrate resolve.
Setting limits. One way to address policy challenges related to messaging and credibility is for Washington to define and enforce red lines regarding Iran’s regional and nuclear activities. Policymakers generally seek to avoid commitments in order to preserve options, and U.S. officials have often been loath to set red lines on Iran. Yet drawing them can be useful if Washington is committed to them, and if they enjoy bipartisan and public support.
Influencing Tehran to tamp down attacks against U.S. personnel and interests may not necessarily require formally defined red lines, however; U.S. limits can be conveyed by actions. Nonlethal attacks should be met with nonlethal responses that impose significant material costs on Iran, while lethal attacks should elicit asymmetric lethal responses to inflict costs that Tehran is unwilling to sustain. In both cases, responses should be conducted mainly through gray zone activities.
In the nuclear domain, Washington does need to draw a red line to halt Tehran’s ongoing fissile material buildup. Specifically, it should ramp up sanctions enforcement and signal that uranium enrichment beyond 60 percent will cause the United States to disrupt these activities and impose heavy costs on Iran (for more on the technical aspects of enrichment, see The Washington Institute’s Iran Nuclear Explainer). In tandem with exercises like Juniper Oak, this approach would telegraph Washington’s greater willingness to incur risk in countering the Islamic Republic’s problematic activities.
If policymakers are unwilling to draw a clear nuclear red line, then they need to explain to allies and partners how they plan to halt or manage the consequences of Iran’s ongoing fissile material buildup and possible future attempts to produce weapons-grade uranium (i.e., 90 percent enrichment). They also need to explain whether U.S. policy is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability or a weapon—and how they will accomplish either objective. At any rate, military exercises like Juniper Oak need to be part of a larger, whole-of-government shaping strategy that employs all the instruments of national power to assure friends and deter Iran.
Conclusion
For decades, U.S. policy has been hobbled by an aversion to risk-taking and experimentation when using the military instrument to deter and disrupt Iran’s regional and nuclear activities. Yet necessity is the mother of invention, and the shortcomings of the current policy may spur a change of approach.
The United States has repeatedly shown an ability to innovate when dealing with Iran. For example, nearly two decades ago it partnered with Israel to pioneer the use of offensive cyber operations (e.g., Stuxnet) that delayed the nuclear program and bought time for diplomacy; over a decade ago it broke with previous sanctions policy to impose severe restrictions on Iran’s financial activities and oil exports that generated unprecedented pressure; and recently it has been experimenting with new military technologies and operational approaches (e.g., networked unmanned platforms, more flexible force deployment options, new regional partnerships) to compensate for reduced force levels in the region.
Yet when it comes to the limited use of force, Washington has often been self-deterred by understandable but overstated fears of a miscalculation leading to “all-out war” with Iran. It has thus denied itself the opportunity to become more proficient in gray zone activities, and to shape Tehran’s choices and constrain its activities by military means. The result is a superpower with a stunted conception of how to use the military instrument in support of statecraft.
As an example of innovation in the conduct of large, complex, combined exercises, Juniper Oak represents a break from this past. Hopefully, it will also stimulate other forms of experimentation by the Defense Department and CENTCOM that will enable policymakers to test and shed outdated or erroneous conceptions, and permit the kind of managed risk-taking and operational learning that may produce a more successful Iran policy.
Michael Eisenstadt is the Kahn Fellow and director of the Military and Security Studies Program at The Washington Institute.

Abdullah and Biden Need to Discuss Economics, Not Just Israeli-Palestinian Tensions
David Schenker/The Washington Institute/January 03/2023
Finding ways to contain the mounting violence next door is crucial, but the two leaders should keep in mind that deteriorating economic conditions can pose threats of their own.
On February 2, King Abdullah II of Jordan will meet with President Biden in the Oval Office, a conversation that promises to focus on the latest spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence and its potential fallout across the Jordan River. The visit coincides with a high point in the kingdom’s ties with the United States, but a rough patch in its relations with longtime peace partner Israel.
On the former note, 2022 was a banner year for the U.S.-Jordan relationship, culminating in a landmark memorandum of understanding signed in September. The agreement includes a seven-year U.S. commitment to provide the kingdom with a minimum of $1.45 billion per year in foreign assistance, which Congress could increase through additional appropriations as it did in 2021 and 2022. Even the baseline figure represents a more than $200 million annual increase over the five-year agreement signed in 2018. Included in the deal are budgetary support, military assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development projects, and additional funding to incentivize economic reform.
Last year also saw Washington approve the sale of twelve F-16 Block 70 advanced fighter jets to Jordan. Because this transaction costs more than $4 billion—nearly a quarter of the kingdom’s total annual budget—the two governments are creatively underwriting it via “cash flow financing.” This mechanism, reserved for Washington’s closest allies, will enable the kingdom to buy F-16s now by leveraging future U.S. Foreign Military Financing commitments.
In contrast, the past few weeks have been challenging for Jordanian affairs with Israel. The king’s relationship with Binyamin Netanyahu was difficult long before the prime minister’s latest return to office, and was sorely exacerbated during the Trump administration by perceptions that Israel did not adequately value Jordanian interests in pursuing peace with the Palestinians or normalization agreements with other Arab states. After a year interlude in which ties improved under Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, Amman has once again become concerned due to the controversial figures included in Netanyahu’s new cabinet.
In early January, for example, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the far-right party Otzma Yehudit, paid a provocative visit to the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif. The incident spurred harsh condemnation from Jordan, which was afforded a “special role” regarding Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem via the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. Amman regarded Ben-Gvir’s visit as a violation of the site’s status quo and summoned Israeli ambassador Eitan Sorkis to the Foreign Ministry for a formal reprimand. Two weeks later, Sorkis was summoned again after Jordanian ambassador Ghassan Majali was temporarily denied entry to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque.
Although Netanyahu made a surprise visit to Amman shortly thereafter, media reports and official statements regarding his meeting with the king could not be characterized as warm. Meanwhile, escalating violence across the river and the vanishing horizon for political progress have made Jordan reticent to participate in the Negev process, a forum that includes the United States, Israel, and four other Arab peace partners.
President Biden and King Abdullah will no doubt review both the state of play between Jordan and Israel and the latest U.S. diplomatic efforts to preserve calm in the West Bank and Jerusalem—a campaign that has included visits by the CIA director, national security advisor, and secretary of state in the past week alone. These officials apparently succeeded in restoring security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which had been briefly suspended after an Israeli counterterrorism operation in Jenin killed several militants and an elderly civilian woman.
The king’s focus on Palestinian issues next door is hardly surprising given the fact that a majority of Jordan’s population is of Palestinian origin. And his concern is only mounting given the potential for further security deterioration when the Ramadan and Passover season begins late next month. Accordingly, the Biden administration should recommend a bilateral working-level process between Israel and Jordan if they have not already established one, with the aim of incorporating lessons learned from previous years to prevent avoidable holiday incidents on the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif.
An equally important topic for Washington to address with the king is economics. The meeting will be the first since Jordan underwent several months of protests over its deteriorating economic situation. The kingdom’s economy is perennially challenged, but the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine war have exacerbated the difficulties.
The numbers tell a sobering story. Unemployment stands at 25%, and 50% among youths, while female workforce participation is among the lowest in the world. The proposed annual budget of around $16 billion includes a deficit of $2.6 billion, and nearly $2.25 billion is reportedly allocated to service debt. All told, Jordan is carrying almost $41 billion in debt, roughly equivalent to 90% of its GDP. Public sector expenditures—primarily government salaries and pensions—account for nearly 70% of the budget. Meanwhile, the general rise in commodity prices and the kingdom’s commitments to the IMF have led it to rationalize the cost of fuel, energy, and water—price increases that helped drive the recent protests.
Jordan has done well in recent years to increase tax revenues and was praised by the IMF in its latest executive board review. Nevertheless, the economic situation remains precarious, and some of the kingdom’s future plans do not inspire confidence. In January, for example, the government announced it was moving forward with a deferred plan to build a new administrative capital some twenty-five miles outside Amman. Much like Egypt’s ambitious “New Cairo” megaproject, Jordan’s roughly $11.5 billion initiative is raising some eyebrows.
The well-being of Jordan’s economy—and, by extension, its domestic stability—are no less important to regional security than developments between Israel and the Palestinians. President Biden’s meeting with King Abdullah is a good opportunity to discuss the trajectory of this key issue and encourage Amman to stay the course on economic reform.
*David Schenker is the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute, director of its Program on Arab Politics, and former assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs at the State Department.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/abdullah-and-biden-need-discuss-economics-not-just-israeli-palestinian-tensions

GCC’s Iran nuclear talks proposal should be taken seriously
Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/February 03/2023
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi last week warned that “every limit that existed in the JCPOA (nuclear deal) has been violated several times” by Iran. The deal has become an “empty shell” and diplomatic activity to revive it is almost nonexistent, he said, adding that: “Nobody has declared it dead, but no obligation is being pursued.”
One of those violations relates to uranium enrichment. Iran has amassed enough material for “several nuclear weapons,” Grossi told a European Parliament subcommittee in Brussels. He pointed out that Iran has 70 kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity and 1,000 kg to 20 percent purity, meaning that Iran is only a short distance away from reaching the critical level of 90 percent, when it can be weaponized.
Hard-liners in Tehran appear to be in no hurry to reach a deal. The talks offer breathing space for Iran as it advances its nuclear program and brings it closer to making nuclear weapons. The talks as such buy time for Iran, giving it space and cover.
Tehran is also getting a free ride from continuing the talks without having to provide concessions. After Iran accepted the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement in 2015, nuclear-related sanctions were lifted and they remain that way even as Iran breaches “every limit” imposed by the deal, according to the IAEA chief. The exception has been the US, which reinstated sanctions in 2018. Following Iran’s harsh crackdown on popular protests since last September, the EU and a number of countries have imposed new sanctions, to be added to earlier human rights and terrorism-related sanctions, which were not affected by the JCPOA.
The failure of the JCPOA to so far prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon calls for a reassessment of the international community’s approach to the crisis. Previously, P5+1 negotiators expressed hope that concluding the deal in 2015 would lead to moderation in Iran’s conduct in the region, but what happened was the opposite, as we witnessed in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere.
There is no doubt Iran’s nuclear program poses a serious threat to the region and beyond and diplomatic efforts need to continue to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Although a nuclear program in a rogue state is a serious threat, it is not the only one. The rapidly expanding production of drones and ballistic and cruise missiles is a major cause of rising concerns. Tehran-supported terrorist and sectarian groups have wreaked havoc in the region and destabilized neighbors.
The protests sweeping Iran have demonstrated widespread dissatisfaction with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-dominated government’s policies. They have brought to light the grim realities on the ground, economically and politically, and restrictions on women are outdone only by the Taliban next door. The future appears even grimmer. The IRGC’s priorities are bankrupting Iran. Its economy has been in a shambles for decades because of its singular focus on military spending.
Iran’s gross domestic product today is not commensurate with that of a country of more than 80 million people, a youthful population and plentiful natural resources, including massive oil and gas reserves. The prospect of Iran destabilizing further under the weight of its economic and political challenges worries its neighbors. While the status quo could hold for a while, several other scenarios are possible, requiring prudent planning for the future in the region and beyond.
The first scenario is that of a regional nuclear arms race. Nuclear talks could plod along without achieving results but moving enough for Iran to continue weaponizing its nuclear program under the smokescreen of engaging in diplomatic efforts. A nuclear arms race could ensue if Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon is not checked. It is important to prevent such an eventuality in the region, which could happen if Iran reaches that critical stage. A nuclear arms race would divert badly needed development funds to fueling the arms race and would immiserate Iran the most.
The second scenario is for Iran to become another North Korea, i.e., a nuclear military dictatorship, heavily sanctioned and isolated. Its population would be cut off from the rest of the world, impoverished.
A third scenario is of Iran, or big chunks of it, descending into chaos and becoming ungoverned, similar to the fate of so-called Arab Spring states, such as Syria, Libya and Yemen.
The failure of the nuclear talks to so far produce the desired results has shown the wisdom of the GCC’s position regarding the narrow remit of these negotiations and the exclusion of the region from participating in them. GCC states are not just geographically proximate to Iran, but they have also been on the receiving end of its ballistic missiles, drones and malign activities. They also have the most to lose from its nuclear program.
Some have questioned the value of GCC participation in the talks, asking what it could bring to the table. In fact, GCC negotiators could bring plenty of what any other participant could — sticks and carrots. They could help advance the talks by providing the prospect of normalizing Iran’s relations with the region and integrating its economy with those of its neighbors. They could also add pressure when needed to induce Iran to be more flexible.
A GCC ownership stake in the talks would contribute to their success by addressing all the important threats and providing the Iranian people with what they most need: A prosperous economy and normal relations with the country’s neighbors.
This offer from the GCC has been on the table for some time and it is about time it was taken seriously, as the JCPOA talks appear to be heading toward oblivion.
*Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the GCC assistant secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation, and a columnist for Arab News. The views expressed in this piece are personal and do not necessarily represent GCC views. Twitter: @abuhamad1

Don’t take your eyes off Iran’s northern border
Luke Coffey/Arab News/February 03/2023
Last August an extremist Shiite group stormed the embassy of Azerbaijan in London and briefly took it over. Last week, another radical attacked an Azerbaijani embassy, but this time in Tehran.
A gunman walked unchallenged past an Iranian security guard and strolled into the embassy, where he killed one Azerbaijani official and wounded two others. A few hours after the attack, the gunman appeared on television giving interviews before he was finally arrested. Baku described the incident as an act of terrorism and recalled all its embassy staff back to Azerbaijan for their safety. Iran said the attack was not politically motivated, and involved a personal matter.
At a minimum, the gunman’s attack was a gross dereliction of Iran’s legal responsibilities under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The convention, to which Iran is a party, requires host nations to protect embassies by taking “all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage.” Clearly, Tehran did not fulfil its obligations. Considering the tense relationship between Tehran and Baku, and the Islamic Republic’s penchant for attacking embassies, the possibility that this gunman was acting on orders from Iran’s security services cannot be ruled out.
This attack on Azerbaijan’s embassy should serve as a wakeup call. While much of the international community's attention on Iran is focused primarily in the Middle East, for centuries Tehran has also played a role, for better or for worse, in the South Caucasus. The tensions today between Iran and Azerbaijan cannot be overstated.
The root cause of these tensions is found in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay between imperial Russia and Persia, which created the border between these two empires along the Aras River. This move divided ethnic Azerbaijanis between the two empires, and the consequences of this move are still being felt today. Millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis are living in Iran and there has been a constant, but low-level, drumbeat of calls for independence and self determination. While Azerbaijan refrains from commenting publicly about the Azerbaijani minority in Iran, policymakers in Baku are acutely aware of the situation.
Azerbaijan is one of the few predominantly Shiite regions of the world that has never fallen under the control or influence of Iran. Azerbaijan and Israel also enjoy close relations. The world’s largest all-Jewish settlement outside Israel is in Azerbaijan, and Baku supplies Israel with about 40 percent of its oil. This is a constant concern of Tehran.
In recent years relations between Iran and Azerbaijan remained cordial on the surface, but below the surface they are tense
Meanwhile, Iran has a cozy relationship with Armenia, which is Azerbaijan’s regional rival. During the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020, Iran allowed its territory to be used by Russia to resupply Armenia. Iran has used Armenia to evade international economic sanctions in the past. There’s also a growing military relationship between the two countries. Iran has provided Armenia with drones and antitank weapons. According to the US State Department, in 2008 Armenia even provided Iran with missiles and automatic weapons that were used against American troops in Iraq.
In recent years relations between Iran and Azerbaijan remained cordial on the surface, but below the surface they are tense. The two countries have maritime disputes in the Caspian Sea that have even led to confrontations in the past. There have been cases of Iranian naval vessels and fighter jets entering Azerbaijani waters in the Caspian and harassing ships.
In response to the attack on its embassy last week, Azerbaijani security services quickly rounded up a 40-person strong network of Iranian spies and collaborators operating in Azerbaijan. This is the second such counterintelligence operation to take place inside Azerbaijan in the past year. Since 2020, Iran has been conducting large scale military maneuvers along its border with Azerbaijan in a way that has not been seen before. Last October, the Iranian military even rehearsed a military crossing of the Aras River. Unsurprisingly, Azerbaijan considered this to be a provocative move.
A recent report for the Arab News Research & Studies Unit, entitled “The South Caucasus and the Gulf: Overlapping interests and the benefits of enhanced cooperation,” best summed up the overlapping concerns about Iran between Azerbaijan and the countries of the Gulf. The report said: “Iran has repeatedly shown itself to be a meddling and troublesome neighbor for both the Gulf and South Caucasus regions,” and “enhanced consultation, and possibly even coordination, between certain Gulf states and countries in the South Caucasus would help to improve regional stability and push back the malign Iranian influence.” It would also be wise to add Israel to this discussion.
As the world remains focused on Tehran’s activities in Syria, its missile attacks in northern Iraq, its destabilizing acts of terror in the Gulf, and the use of its drones by Russia against Ukraine, it would be wisenot to take our eyes off Iran’s northern border.
• Luke Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Twitter: @LukeDCoffey