Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 18-19/2023
5-nation group threatens 'measures' against presidential vote obstructors
Naharnet/July 18, 2023
The five-nation group on Lebanon has threatened “measures” against the Lebanese parties who are “blocking progress” in the stalled presidential election file, in a statement issued after a meeting in Doha. "Today, representatives from Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United States met to discuss the urgent need for Lebanon's leadership to expedite presidential elections and implement imperative economic reforms in order to fulfill their responsibilities to their citizens. Rescuing the economy and securing a more prosperous future for the Lebanese people rests on their actions," the five nations said in a joint statement. "While our five countries underscored our commitment to Lebanon's sovereignty and independence, we noted with concern that nearly nine months after the end of President Michel Aoun's term, Lebanon's political leaders have yet to elect a successor. It is crucial for Lebanese Members of Parliament to abide by their constitutional responsibility and proceed with the election of a president. We discussed concrete options with respect to implementing measures against those who are blocking progress on this front," they added. Calling for a new president who “embodies integrity, unites the nation, puts the interests of the country first, prioritizes the well-being of its citizens, and forms a broad and inclusive coalition to implement essential economic reforms,” the five countries said they are “willing to work jointly with Lebanon to support the implementation of these reform measures, which are invaluable to the country's future prosperity, stability, and security."They also underscored the “desperate need” for judicial reform and implementation of the rule of law, especially in regard to “the 2020 Port of Beirut explosion investigation." "We emphasize the importance of the Lebanese government's implementation of the related U.N. Security Council Resolutions, as well as other relevant international agreements and resolutions, including those issued by the Arab League, and its commitment to the National Accord Agreement, which enables the preservation of national unity and civil justice in Lebanon," said the five nations. "Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States remain steadfast in their support for Lebanon and look forward to continued coordination in the interest of its people," they concluded.

5-nation group holds 2nd meeting on Lebanon crises
Arab News/July 18, 2023
RIYADH: Officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, the US, and France, on Monday held a second meeting to discuss the ongoing political and economic crises in Lebanon. A joint statement released on Tuesday by the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the talks in Doha concentrated on the urgent need for Lebanon’s leadership to hold presidential elections and implement vital economic reforms. “In order to meet the aspirations of the Lebanese people and address their pressing needs, it is imperative that Lebanon elects a president who embodies integrity, unites the nation, puts the interests of the country first, prioritizes the well-being of its citizens, and forms a broad and inclusive coalition to implement essential economic reforms, particularly those recommended by the International Monetary Fund,” the statement added. It pointed out that the five nations were willing to work jointly with Lebanon to support the implementation of reform measures, which it described as “invaluable to the country’s future prosperity, stability, and security.”Representatives of the quintet looked at options about acting against anyone trying to obstruct or impede the election process, and they also noted the need for judicial reform and implementation of the rule of law, highlighting the 2020 Beirut port explosion investigation. The statement urged Lebanese leaders and parties to hold presidential elections as soon as possible and take immediate action to overcome the current political impasse in the country. The group reaffirmed its commitment to the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon and noted the importance of the Lebanese government’s implementation of UN Security Council resolutions and other relevant international conventions and agreements. The resolutions referred to included those issued by the Arab League, in addition to the requirement to adhere to the terms and conditions of the Taif Agreement aimed at ensuring the preservation of national unity and civil justice in Lebanon. The Saudi delegation to the meeting in the Qatari capital included Nizar Al-Aloula, an adviser to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and the Saudi ambassadors to Qatar and Lebanon, Prince Mansour bin Khalid bin Farhan and Walid Al-Bukhari, respectively.

Lebanon’s Riad Salameh interrogated, assets frozen as citizens raid banks
Al-Monitor/July 18/2023
BEIRUT — A Lebanese judge on Tuesday questioned Lebanon’s embattled central bank Gov. Riad Salameh in a domestic probe into alleged financial crimes.
At the end of the questioning at the Justice Palace in the capital, Beirut's first investigating Judge Charbel Abou Samra decided to keep Salameh under probe, the official National News Agency said. Salameh, whose 30-year tenure at the head of the central bank expires at the end of this month, is widely blamed for the country’s 2019 financial collapse. He is the subject of several probes at home and abroad for his alleged role in the embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, forgery, illicit enrichment and tax evasion among other financial crimes. On Monday, Judge Gabi Shaheen ordered the seizure of Salameh’s assets in Lebanon. “The seizure included luxury real estate and apartments owned by the governor in Beirut, Mount Lebanon and Batroun, in addition to a number of cars,” a judicial official told Agence France-Presse. The order follows a similar move last year by European countries to seize the assets of Salameh in Europe. In March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg seized assets worth 120 million euros ($135 million), following an investigation targeting five people, including Salameh, who are suspected of embezzling $330 million and 5 million euros ($5.44 million) between 2002 and 2021. The French judiciary approved earlier this month requests from the Lebanese government to transfer the frozen assets to the Lebanese state. In May, Interpol issued a Red Notice against Salameh pursuant to arrest warrants issued by France and Germany. The warrants were delivered to the Lebanese judiciary after the central bank governor failed to appear at a hearing in Paris. Salameh was once praised as the guarantor of Lebanon’s financial stability and received awards by global financial institutions. Just two months before the economic crisis hit Lebanon, Salameh was awarded in August 2019 a top “A” grade among 94 central bank governors in the world in the 2019 report of Global Finance. Since the end of the civil war in the 1990s, Salameh has guaranteed the stability of the Lebanese pound. However, after the 2019 crisis erupted, the currency collapsed and lost more than 90% of its value. Meanwhile, commercial banks imposed informal capital controls and locked depositors out of their savings.
As a result, angry depositors have repeatedly held up banks across the country to recover their savings. On Tuesday, a man managed to obtain $7,000 of his $10,000 savings after storming a bank in south Lebanon. Another man stormed a bank in the Chouf area, armed with a hand grenade, in an attempt to recover his $35,000 savings. But after police intervened, he settled for $9,000, the depositor’s brother told the local news outlet L'Orient Today. On Monday, a man broke into a bank in Mount Lebanon and threatened to set the bank on fire if he did not receive his savings. In a video circulating on social media, the man is seen waving a Molotov cocktail and a box of matches before jumping on the counter and putting bills in a bag. He then left with his entire savings totaling $15,000. The worsening economic crisis is compounded by a presidential vacuum as politicians failed more than 10 times to elect a head of state since the end of former President Michel Aoun’s term in October 2022. Meanwhile, regional and international actors that hold sway in the small Mediterranean country are continuing their efforts to break the presidential deadlock and resolve the economic crisis. Representatives from Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States held a meeting on Lebanon in Doha on Monday. “We discussed several options including taking measures against those who obstruct progress in this area,” said the final communique. The French Foreign Ministry announced earlier this month that President Emmanuel Macron's new special envoy for Lebanon — Jean-Yves Le Drian — will be heading to Beirut “in the coming weeks,” in the second such visit since last month, as part of France’s ongoing efforts to break the political impasse in the country.

Report: Doha parties to seek Lebanese dialogue, Qatari minister to visit Iran
Naharnet/July 18, 2023
The five-nation meeting held in Doha by representatives of the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt has devised “a roadmap for the coming period,” MTV reported on Tuesday. “The conferees agreed to follow up on and enhance the outcome of the visits of French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian to Lebanon and the region’s countries, in coordination with the visits of the Qatari envoys,” the TV network added, noting that the five countries have also agreed to “exchange information.” “It was clear in the meeting that Qatar was the most prepared for the meeting and for following up on its results, with Qatari minister Mohammed al-Khulaifi presenting a joint paper by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. that included a clear plan aimed at reaching a Lebanese dialogue under the ceiling of the Lebanese parliament and with international and regional sponsorship,” MTV said. MTV also revealed that the Qatari minister “will soon visit Tehran and meet with officials there to put them in the picture of the results and discussion of the five-party meeting.” The five nations will also seek to address “the Christian objection to holding a dialogue conference” on the presidential crisis, the TV network added.

LBCI Sources: No Iranian involvement in Lebanese quintet meetings; national dialogue to follow constitutional election of president
LBCI/July 18, 2023
LBCI sources have confirmed that there is no Iranian involvement in the Lebanese Quintet meetings. Furthermore, political figures found obstructing the presidential election will face sanctions. According to the sources, national dialogue will only take place after the election of a President in accordance with constitutional norms, presided over by the elected President.

Pro-Hezbollah paper voices pessimism after 'escalatory' Doha statement
Naharnet/July 18, 2023
Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper on Tuesday criticized a statement issued by the five-nation group on Lebanon as “escalatory” and “a declaration of a new tutelage” over Lebanon. The statement “resembled a mourning of the French initiative and a near-termination of the mandate granted by the U.S. to Paris in the presidential file,” al-Akhbar said. The statement perhaps “declared the end of French presidential envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian’s mission,” the daily added. “Informed sources have questioned whether Le Drian will visit Beirut again, seeing as his visit has become unnecessary, and should he make it this month as had been decided, it will be marred by a lot of tension,” the newspaper said. “The threats contained in the statement contradict with the positive developments that the region has recently witnessed and will have negative responses and results in the Lebanese scene, pushing the political forces, especially Hezbollah, to further inflexibility,” al-Akhbar added. Informed sources meanwhile told the daily that Le Drian told the conferees that “there are major disagreements among the political forces and impossibility to reach consensus without an international intervention or an agreement sponsored by the participating countries.” “The U.S. and Saudi sides voiced objection against the French envoy’s call for dialogue among the Lebanese with Arab-international sponsorship, considering that it will not lead to a result and might end up in a place targeting the system and leading to drastic changes in it, something that Saudi Arabia strongly opposes,” the sources said. The sources added that the closing statement was “a Saudi formulation par excellence” and that “it was Riyadh’s representative in the meeting who proposed the idea of imposing sanctions before it was endorsed by the Americans and the French.” “The Qataris and the Egyptians agreed without supporting the idea,” the sources said.

Al-Rahi follows up on latest developments with Diman visitors
NNA/July 18, 2023 
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi, on Tuesday welcomed at his Diman residence Police Chief, Brigadier General Marwan Sleilati, with whom he broached the country’s security situation. Sleilati also briefed Al-Rahi on the security forces’ dauntless efforts to boost national security. The Maronite Patriarch later discussed educational and academic affairs with head of the Lebanese Maronite Order, Abbot Hadi Mahfouz, who asked for the patriarch's blessing, wishing him a "good stay in the Holy Valley."

Abu Samra questions Salameh and left him under investigation
LBCI/July 18, 2023
Judge Charbel Abu Samra, the first investigating judge in Beirut, questioned the Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh, in response to the public prosecution's appeal against him, his brother Raja, and his assistant Marianne Al-Hawik. They are accused of "embezzlement of public funds, forgery, money laundering, illicit enrichment, and tax evasion," according to the National News Agency. The interrogation took place in the presence of Salameh's defense lawyer and the head of the cases department at the Ministry of Justice, Judge Helana Iskandar, who previously acted as the representative of the Lebanese state in the case against them. At the end of the session, Salameh was left under investigation, and the session was adjourned until next Tuesday to question Raja and Marianne in the same case.

Bou Saab says Geagea against 'traditional' dialogue but open to consultations
Naharnet/July 18, 2023
Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab met Tuesday with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to discuss with him the possibility of holding a dialogue between parties or parliamentary blocs over the presidential file. "Geagea is open to any consultation, communication or agreement with all parties without exception," Bou Saab said after the meeting. But the LF leader is not convinced of a "traditional" dialogue table, he added. Amal and Hezbollah have been calling for a dialogue although they officially say they would not stop supporting their presidential candidate, Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh. French Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived last month in Beirut for talks with Lebanese leaders in an attempt to break the presidential impasse. On Sunday, French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo said Le Drian's mission is very clear, it is "to create conditions for a peaceful dialogue between the Lebanese parties who do not speak to each other."Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said last week he would not waste time on a vain dialogue with Hezbollah and asked Le Drian not to call for it.

Negotiations with depositor who stormed Chehim branch of Credit Bank wind up
NNA/July 18, 2023
Negotiations have ended with a depositor who stormed earlier on Tuesday the Chehim branch of Credit Bank. The negotiations were led by the security forces, who managed to convince the depositor to hand a grenade that was in his possession.
The depositor then surrendered and handed himself in to Chehim police station after being promised to be given a sum of his bank funds.

BDL vice governors tell MPs they won't give up their responsibilities
Naharnet/July 18, 2023
The Central Bank’s four vice governors – Wassim Mansouri, Bashir Yakzan, Salim Chahine and Alexander Mouradian – on Tuesday met in parliament with a number of MPs. “We’re awaiting the list of demands that they want from the government,” MP George Adwan said after the meeting. “The Sayrafa platform was opposed by them and to them its continuation would be totally far from transparency,” Adwan added. “We will demand that confidentiality be lifted off the Central Bank’s records,” Adwan said. He added that the vice governors told lawmakers that their latest statement was aimed at drawing the attention of the caretaker Cabinet and that they will not give up their responsibilities. “The vice governors had sent the governor memos in which they warned him of the risks of the financial policy and the subsidization policy,” Adwan said.

Judge Abu Samra resumes Salameh's interrogation
Agence France Presse/July 18, 2023
Central Bank governor Riad Salameh showed up Tuesday for an interrogation session at the Justice Palace before Judge Charbel Abu Samra. Last week, Abu Samra questioned Salameh and adjourned the interrogation until this week. On Monday, Judge Gabi Shaheen ordered the precautionary seizure of the property of Salameh, a judicial official told AFP. Salameh has been the subject of a series of judicial probes both in Lebanon and abroad into the fortune he has amassed during some three decades in the post. In March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg seized assets worth 120 million euros in a move linked to a probe into Salameh's wealth. In February, Lebanon charged Salameh with embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion as part of its own investigations. The domestic probe was opened following a request for assistance from Switzerland's public prosecutor, who is looking into more than $300 million in fund movements by Salameh and his brother. Salameh is wanted in France and Germany, and the Interpol has issued a Red Notice pursuant to the arrest warrants. Lebanon does not extradite its nationals but Salameh could go on trial in Lebanon if local judicial authorities decide the accusations against him are founded.

Lebanon judge seizes central bank chief's properties
Agence France Presse/July 18, 2023
A Lebanese judge has ordered the seizure of embattled central bank governor Riad Salameh's properties pending a local investigation into his wealth, a judicial official told AFP. Salameh has been the subject of a series of judicial probes both in crisis-hit Lebanon and abroad into the fortune he has amassed during some three decades in the post. "Judge Gabi Shaheen ordered the precautionary seizure of the property of the Governor of the Central Bank, Riad Salameh," a judicial official told AFP on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media. "The seizure included luxury real estate and apartments owned by the governor in Beirut, Mount Lebanon and Batroun, in addition to a number of cars," the official added. The decision prevents Salameh, whose mandate expires at the end of the month, from disposing of any of these properties, "by selling them or transferring their ownership to other people," until the local probe is completed. If the charges against Salameh are dropped, "the property seizures will be lifted, but if he is convicted, then the property will be confiscated... and sold at public auction for the benefit of the Lebanese treasury," the official said. In March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg seized assets worth 120 million euros ($135 million) in a move linked to a probe into Salameh's wealth. In February, Lebanon charged Salameh with embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion as part of its own investigations. The domestic probe was opened following a request for assistance from Switzerland's public prosecutor, who is looking into more than $300 million in fund movements by Salameh and his brother. Salameh is wanted in France and Germany, and the Interpol has issued a Red Notice pursuant to the arrest warrants. An Interpol Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant but asks authorities worldwide to provisionally detain people pending possible extradition or other legal actions. Lebanon does not extradite its nationals but Salameh could go on trial in Lebanon if local judicial authorities decide the accusations against him are founded, an official previously told AFP.

Lebanon's banking crisis intensifies as Association of Banks voices alarm over persistent attacks
LBCI/July 18, 2023
The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) issued a statement expressing concern over recent attacks targeting bank branches and employees, describing it as the most dangerous phase in Lebanon's history. It stated that on Monday, rumors circulated about banks planning to close their branches, prompting the banks to deny the claims to safeguard the interests of depositors and ensure the continuity of services. However, the attacks have persisted, appearing to be coordinated efforts to force banks into closure. Additionally, the association criticized the leniency of the state and its institutions in dealing with the assailants despite the threats posed to the lives of bank employees. It suggested that such leniency encourages the attackers to continue their actions as if the objective is to force the banks into an indefinite closure. ABL stated, "This is not how systemic crises, which the state bears responsibility, should be addressed. Nor is this how depositors can recover funds lost due to years of misguided policies." The banks warned that, given the ongoing attacks, particularly those targeting employees and customers inside branches, they cannot continue their operations as if nothing is happening. Consequently, they may be compelled to reinstate previous regulatory measures if the assaults persist to avoid any adverse consequences. The association emphasized that adopting rationality and enacting necessary laws to protect the rights of depositors is the only path toward an effective solution.

Kanaan says MPs have every right to look at forensic audit report
Naharnet/July 18, 2023 
Free Patriotic Movement MP Ibrahim Kanaan asked Tuesday caretaker Finance Minister Youssef al-Khalil for a copy of the Alvarez & Marsal forensic audit report. The Finance Ministry had last month denied accusations that it has “hidden” the report, claiming that the report is just a draft, that it belongs to the Lebanese government and not the Finance Ministry and that it is confidential. "The report is a preliminary forensic audit report and not a draft," Kanaan said, adding that the agreement with A&M allows the Minister of Finance to share the report "with any authority forming part of the Client without the prior approval of A&M." "Parliament is the higher authority in the Lebanese state and the only representative of the Lebanese people. It has every right to look at all the financial accounts," the FPM MP said. On Monday MP and Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel also asked al-Khalil to send the report to Parliament.

Lebanon Holds Onto Plan to Return Syrian Refugees Back Home
Asharq Al Awsat/July 18/2023
The Lebanese cabinet has stuck to its plan to discuss with Damascus the repatriation of Syrian refugees, despite the decision of caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib not to head a ministerial delegation commissioned to tackle the issue with Syria, Lebanese ministerial sources told Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday. They said a solution to this issue is under discussion to continue the work of the Lebanese ministerial committee commissioned to address the refugee crisis. The sources said the ministerial committee will operate even after Bou Habib said he would not head the delegation to Syria. “The solution will be either by appointing another minister to head the delegation or tasking the committee to carry out its work bilaterally, or in other words to task concerned Lebanese ministers to hold direct meetings with their Syrian counterparts,” they said. The sources denied any political obstacles to the cabinet’s plan to solve the Syrian refugees crisis with Damascus.Meanwhile, Lebanese parties continued to express rejection to the European Parliament vote in favor of a resolution supporting the continued presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The Free Patriotic Movement called on its supporters to protest outside the Delegation of the European Union in downtown Beirut at 6:30 pm Tuesday. MP Adib Abdel Massih spoke about meetings he and a number of Lebanese deputies held during a recent visit to Europe. Abdel Massih said he was not surprised by the decisions of the European Parliament regarding the Syrian refugees.
The deputy called on the Lebanese parties and spiritual leaders to unite and demand the implementation of Lebanese laws with regard to foreign labor, border control and residency. He said Lebanese authorities should be strict in applying the laws and then place a plan to move all refugees in border camps in preparation for their deportation to safe areas in Syria. “The Foreign Minister should also file a complaint with the Arab League and the United Nations, and to request the Security Council or the General Assembly to decide on this sovereign matter that exposes Lebanon to dire and dangerous consequences, especially since Lebanon has not signed the Refugee Treaty of 1951,” Abdel Massih said. He warned that the number of refugees will exceed Lebanon’s population in 2030, saying the direct and indirect costs of refugees on the Lebanese economy is about $46 billion over 10 years. “It is approximately 20 percent of the GDP, while the public debt will exceed 550 percent of the GDP in 2027, not to mention an unemployment rate that exceeds 40 percent and an average of 7 out of 10 people who cannot cover their health bill of medicines and hospitalization,” Abdel Massih said. In return, he noted, refugees have full health coverage and social benefits that will increase their birth rate in Lebanon.

Lebanon takes proactive measures against cholera: Health Minister chairs national committee meeting
LBCI/July 18, 2023
Caretaker Public Health Minister Firass Abiad led a meeting of the National Committee tasked with combating cholera. This proactive step was prompted by information received from the World Health Organization regarding the increasing number of cases in neighboring countries and the potential risk of the disease reemerging in Lebanese territory, similar to what happened last year. Representatives from the Ministries of Interior and Agriculture, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, partner civil society organizations, and the Ministry of Public Health technical team attended the meeting. The meeting reviewed the on-ground situation, focusing on maintaining preventive measures and ensuring clean water supply and sewage treatment. Additionally, the readiness of hospitals, laboratories, and various healthcare facilities at all levels was assessed. Minister Abiad emphasized the importance of continued collaboration with international partners to secure electricity supply for water pumping stations and sewage treatment plants. He also stressed providing the necessary sanitizers for distribution to municipalities, water institutions, and distribution tanks. He stated, "International organizations, particularly those concerned with the affairs of refugee individuals, have a responsibility to continue securing an environment that ensures the health and minimizes any side effects on the host country." Furthermore, the Minister of Public Health reaffirmed the ministry's commitment to conducting regular examinations for suspected cases and performing the necessary tests to ensure the safety of drinking and wastewater.

Investment collaboration: Lebanese-French cooperation agreement to help companies invest in both countries
LBCI/July 18, 2023
Former minister Mohammad Choucair signed a cooperation agreement with the President of the Lebanese-French Chamber of Commerce, Gaby Tamer, and the Director-General of the ESA Business School, Maxence Duault, at the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture of Beirut and Mount Lebanon headquarters. The agreement aims to assist companies from both countries invest in each other's markets. To facilitate this cooperation, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture of Beirut and Mount Lebanon has allocated a dedicated office in Sanayeh. This office will enable French companies to benefit from the applied services provided by the chamber to its members. Meanwhile, the French-Lebanese Chamber of Commerce will secure the necessary jobs for the project. The group also works to facilitate matters for Lebanese companies seeking to enter the French and European markets. In this context, Choucair praised the agreement, which laid the foundation for a qualitative leap in Lebanese-French economic relations, particularly in enhancing cooperation and interaction between the private sectors of both countries. He considered signing this agreement at this stage as responding to the urgent needs of the Lebanese economy in terms of attracting investments and facilitating matters for Lebanese companies interested in investing in France and Europe. Duault, in turn, welcomed the agreement, considering it a crucial step to consolidate French-Lebanese economic cooperation within the framework of the historical relations between the two countries. He emphasized that this aligns with the French interest in Lebanon and its various levels of economic engagement. Tamer hoped it would activate investments between the two countries and enhance the partnership between the Lebanese and French private sectors. He emphasized, "We are facing an exceptional opportunity to activate bilateral investments, and we must take advantage of it."

Smartphone shipments continue to decline as secondhand and premium markets thrives
LBCI/July 18, 2023
The smartphone market has been in decline for the last few quarters, and that’s not surprising given global economic condition. A pair of reports from analytics firms Counterpoint and Canalys suggests that the trend is continuing, even though there are signs of recovery in the future. The reports note that buyers are still looking for cheaper options, either through the refurbished market or companies offering discounts for their older models to clear stocks. The smartphone market has registered a decline for the eighth straight quarter with an 8% year-on-year dip, according to a report by analytics firm Counterpoint. Canalys’ report suggests that the dip for Q2 2023 was 11% with a streak of six quarters of negative growth. Samsung led the pack because of strong sales of its mid-range Galaxy A series. While Apple held the second spot, the iPhone maker had the biggest Q2 market share ever, according to Counterpoint. China-based incumbents Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo took third, fourth, and fifth spots. Both Canalys and Counterpoint reports noted almost similar market shares for these phone makers.

No winners as Netanyahu and Nasrallah goad each other into war
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/July 18, 2023
Just over 40 years ago my family fled our homeland, along with many thousands of others, as the Israeli army swept through southern Lebanon and up into Beirut. It would be many years before Israel vacated the regions it captured. Recent tensions are a reminder that there are many areas that Israel’s invading forces never left. Following that 1982 invasion, Israel’s Defense Minister Ariel Sharon personally oversaw hideous massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, along with brutal actions against Lebanese civilians. These culminated in events such as the 1996 Qana massacre during Israel’s Operation Grapes of Wrath, when an artillery barrage (called in by a certain Naftali Bennett) on a UN compound killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians and mutilated many more. In 2006 there was a reprise of such brutality against an apartment building in the same area, with 26 dead and calamitous destruction of homes.
We may loathe Hezbollah for a host of excellent reasons, but the movement does tap into the fundamental truth that millions of Lebanese, Palestinians and Arabs have lost everything at the hands of Israel. They cannot simply forgive and forget, particularly when Israel continues dispossessing those still clinging to their homes.
One reason for never forgetting such atrocities and crimes against humanity is to stir us into restraining reckless actors from recreating the escalatory conditions that will allow their recurrence, resulting in death and terrible suffering for millions more innocent people. With agreement this year over Israel-Lebanon maritime borders, attention has returned to the contentious issue of land borders — particularly in disputed locations such as Ghajar, Shabaa Farms and Ras Al-Naqoura
Lebanese citizens will not accept occupation of a millimeter of their land, but these are matters that governments are mandated to address. It doesn’t help our cause for a discredited militia to unilaterally drag the country to war over such causes, whatever their merit.
Hezbollah perhaps has ten times the firepower it had in 2006, but this is still dwarfed by Israel’s destructive capabilities, particularly if Western allies intervene on its behalf. If Hezbollah incites the youth of Jenin and Gaza to throw rocks and fire home-made rockets in order to ignite a wider regional conflagration, Israel’s response will be yet more decisive, probably serving as a pretext for reoccupation of areas of southern Lebanon.
Nasrallah is emboldened by the scent of weakness, indecision and chaos wafting across from the Israeli side of the border, in the form of mass civil disobedience in protest at Netanyahu’s attempts to eviscerate the judiciary.
The community of Ghajar has for many years been a closed military zone , despite Israel’s promises in 2010 to withdraw from northern areas of the village. Whether Ghajar is Lebanese, Syrian or both, it certainly isn’t Israeli. Israel similarly has zero right to the occupied Golan Heights, or any of the Palestinian territories occupied under force of arms, despite building illegal settlements the length and breadth of these territories to render compromise impossible.
Hezbollah set up two tents in protest at Israel’s wall-building provocations at Ghajar. In a speech marking the anniversary of the 2006 war, Nasrallah pledged not to allow Israel to consolidate its hold over these disputed areas. “Liberating Ghajar is the responsibility of the Lebanese people, state and resistance,” he said. Already this year Hezbollah has staged numerous attempted incursions into Israel, along with ostentatiously inviting Iranian VIPs to make border inspection visits. In April, 34 rockets were fired into Israel, and Hezbollah last week made a show of removing equipment from an Israeli observation post.
The Israeli and American air forces last week staged joint exercises, in a signal of shared perceptions of the continued military threat from Iran and its proxies. Meanwhile Israel’s army carried out a conspicuous military drill on the border, provocatively simulating an attack on Bint Jubail, the scene of bitter clashes in 2006. As students in pre-civil war Lebanon, we spent our holidays rebuilding homes and schools in Bint Jubail, following Israeli retaliation for Palestinian rocket firing — a reminder of how long local people have suffered such perpetual violence.
Even if neither side desires wholesale war, both parties apparently believe it suits them to massively inflame tensions to distract attention from domestic political woes. Hezbollah grapples with ever-growing unpopularity, especially as it can indefinitely throw spanners in the works of processes such as the election of a president, but has no affirmative vision of its own for extracting Lebanon from its dire predicament.
One senior Israeli security figure commented that Nasrallah had been “toying with a powder keg” and “no longer has deep-seated concern about a possible escalation into a day or a few days of limited fighting. It might even be good for him.”
Nasrallah is emboldened by the scent of weakness, indecision and chaos wafting across from the Israeli side of the border, in the form of mass civil disobedience in protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to eviscerate the judiciary. A recording was leaked of an unhinged rant by Netanyahu after elite military divisions went on strike, with hundreds of senior military reservists considering resigning en masse. An Israeli poll revealed that 67 percent of Israelis feared civil war —Israelis at war with themselves, let alone conflict with Hezbollah or the Palestinians.
Lebanese authorities and the citizens they represent sincerely believe that justice is on their side when it comes to contested border locations. Lebanon’s claims should therefore be asserted through arbitration and international justice, irrespective of Israel’s hostility to global institutions that have repeatedly called out its illegal behavior. Lebanese land is sacred, but so are Lebanese lives — despite Nasrallah gambling so cheaply and recklessly with the latter.
If we are to patriotically assert Lebanon’s right to Ghajar and Shabaa Farms, let’s be equally patriotic in liberating all of Lebanon from economic ruin, political dysfunction, cultural meltdown, malign foreign interference, and the tyranny of over-mighty militias.
• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 18-19/2023
Israel’s President to Meet Biden as Concerns Over Settlements, Judicial Overhaul Continue
Asharq Al Awsat/July 18/2023
President Joe Biden on Tuesday is hosting Israel's figurehead president Isaac Herzog at the White House, as they seek to sustain ties despite US concerns over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's controversial plans to overhaul his country’s judicial system and ongoing settlement construction in the West Bank. Herzog's visit comes a day after Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone and invited him to meet in the US this fall, although the president expressed reservations about several of Netanyahu's hard-right coalition's policies. Netanyahu’s government is pushing forward with judicial changes that have sparked widespread protest in Israel and he also has authorized the construction of thousands of new housing units in the West Bank. Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist parties, say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of unelected judges. Opponents say the plan will destroy Israel’s fragile system of checks and balances and move the country toward authoritarian rule. Herzog has appealed for a compromise that has thus far proven elusive. Many American Jewish groups and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concerns about the plan. During his visit, Herzog is set to meet with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and congressional leaders. On Wednesday he will become the second Israeli president, after his father Chaim Herzog, to address Congress. His speech will mark Israel’s celebration of its 75th year of independence. Herzog’s visit comes weeks after Israeli forces carried out one of their most intensive operations in the West Bank in two decades, with a two-day air and ground offensive in Jenin, a militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank. Senior members of Netanyahu’s government have been pushing for increased construction and other measures to cement Israel’s control over the West Bank in response to a more than year-long wave of violence with the Palestinians. US officials have broadly supported Israel’s right to defend itself from militant attacks, but have also urged restraint to minimize harm to civilians, and have lobbied against additional settlements that would further diminish the chances of securing a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinians. The Biden administration declined to say whether Biden would host Netanyahu at the White House — as the Israeli leader has hoped — or in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly. White House visits are typically standard protocol for Israeli prime ministers, and the delay in Netanyahu receiving one has become an issue in Israel, with opponents citing it as a reflection of deteriorating relations with the US. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden again on Monday expressed concern to Netanyahu over the judicial plan — as he did when they last spoke earlier this year — and urged the “broadest possible consensus” over the legislation that has been pushed by Netanyahu and his hard-line coalition. Kirby said during the call Biden also expressed his “ironclad, unwavering commitment” to Israel’s security and that the two leaders discussed Iran’s nuclear program and regional security issues. Biden also “expressed concern” over Israel’s continued settlement growth in the West Bank and urged Israel to take steps to preserve the viability of a two-state solution with Palestinians. Biden, Kirby said, also welcomed steps by the Palestinian Authority to reassert security control in Jenin and other areas of the West Bank and moves by Israel and Palestinians to move toward another round of direct talks. Progressive lawmakers, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar have pledged to boycott Herzog's address in protest of Israel's policies. Herzog's visit comes days after Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the influential 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, sparked outrage for calling Israel a “racist state,” including criticism from House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. Jayapal later said she was criticizing Israel's government, not its existence as a country. Kirby said Biden was glad she apologized. “We think an apology was the right thing to do,” he told reporters Monday. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim all three territories for a future independent state. Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and claims it as part of its capital — a claim that is not internationally recognized. It says the West Bank is disputed territory whose fate should be determined through negotiations, while Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Two years later, the Hamas movement overran the territory.

Israelis stage 'day of resistance' against judicial overhaul
Associated Press/July 18, 2023
Israeli protesters blocked highways and gathered outside Tel Aviv's stock exchange and military headquarters on Tuesday in the latest countrywide demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned judicial overhaul. The latest "day of disruption" came as longtime allies of the prime minister pushed a contentious piece of legislation through a parliamentary committee ahead of a vote expected next week. Additional protests are planned throughout the day. Demonstrators, many of them military reservists, created human chains and blocked one of the entrances to the Kirya, Israel's military headquarters in central Tel Aviv. Outside the Tel Aviv stock exchange, demonstrators ignited smoke bombs, drummed and chanted, and held up signs reading "save our startup nation" and "dictatorship will kill the economy."Others demonstrated outside the headquarters of the Histadrut, Israel's largest labor union, demanding the organization calls for a general strike — a move that could paralyze the country's economy. Protesters scaled scaffolding outside the building and hoisted reservist protest flags. The labor union had called a strike in March, a move that contributed to Netanyahu freezing the judicial overhaul. Itai Bar Natan, 48, CFO of an Israeli start-up, said he was angry enough to climb the scaffolding and wave the flag that read "Brothers in arms." "This government is totally insane. We are afraid for our democracy, for everything we've built — that's why we are all here fighting," Natan said. "The settlers in the West Bank, the economy, the corruption — it's all part of the same thing." Netanyahu heads the most ultranationalist and religiously conservative government in Israel's 75-year history. He proposed a series of drastic changes to the country's judiciary shortly after taking office in December. His government took office in the aftermath of the country's fifth elections in under four years, all of them regarded as referendums on his fitness to serve as prime minister while on trial for corruption. The weekly mass protests led Netanyahu to suspend the overhaul in March but he decided to revive the plan last month after compromise talks with the political opposition collapsed. The proposed laws would grant lawmakers greater control over the appointment of judges and give parliament the power to overturn high court decisions and pass laws impervious to judicial review. The bill making its way through parliament this week would eliminate the Supreme Court's ability to strike down government decisions it deems unreasonable. Judges used that "reasonability clause" to annul a key Netanyahu ally's appointment as interior minister after accepting a plea deal for tax evasion in 2021. He and his allies say the measures are necessary to curb an over-activist Supreme Court comprised of unelected judges. Critics say the judicial overhaul will concentrate power in the hands of Netanyahu and his allies and undermine the country's system of checks and balances. They also say Netanyahu has a conflict of interest because he is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes.

Israeli protesters block highways, train stations as Netanyahu moves ahead with judicial overhaul
JERUSALEM (AP)/Tue, July 18, 2023
Tens of thousands of protesters on Tuesday blocked highways and train stations and massed in central Tel Aviv during a day of countrywide demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul plan.
The protests, now in their seventh month, have taken on a sense of urgency in recent days as Netanyahu and his allies in parliament march ahead with the program. The first bill in the package – a measure that seeks to limit the Supreme Court’s oversight powers – could become law as soon as next week.
The unrest also cast a shadow over a visit to the White House by Israel’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, who was invited to Washington to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary. Herzog, a political centrist, has been involved in behind-the-scenes efforts to broker a compromise on the judicial overhaul, which has strained relations between Netanyahu and President Joe Biden. In a meeting with Biden in the Oval Office, Herzog acknowledged that Israel was “going through a heated debate as a society.” But he said that debate shows that Israeli society is “strong and resilient.” He added that the country should seek an “amicable consensus.”Biden, who has criticized the overhaul plan, said that the U.S. commitment to Israel was strong and the bond between the two countries was “unbreakable.”Netanyahu and his allies say the overhaul is needed to rein in the powers of an unelected judiciary – particularly the Supreme Court – that they believe is overly interventionist in government decisions. Their opponents, representing a wide cross section of Israeli society, say the plan is a power grab by Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies that will destroy the country’s fragile system of checks and balances. They also say the prime minister, who is on trial for corruption charges, and his allies are motivated by various grievances against the justice system.
Late Tuesday, protesters thronged outside the U.S. diplomatic offices, packed the central square of Tel Aviv and crippled the city's main highway. Police on horseback galloped among the crowds, trying to clear them away.
Earlier, protesters gathered outside Israel’s stock exchange and military headquarters. Business leaders have repeatedly warned that a weakened legal system will deter foreign investors. Reservists in key military units, including fighter pilots and cyber warfare agents, have threatened to stop reporting for duty.
Demonstrators, many of them reservists, created human chains and blocked one of the entrances to Israel’s military headquarters in central Tel Aviv.
Protesters flooded train stations during afternoon rush hour. Many blew horns or held up blue and white Israeli flags. Outside the Tel Aviv stock exchange, demonstrators ignited smoke bombs, drummed and chanted, and held up signs reading “save our startup nation.” “We came to the stock exchange because this is the symbol of what this craziness of dictatorship is doing to Israel’s economy,” said protester Tzvia Bader. “We’ve become a third world country. There is no chance for our economy.”A group of 161 reservists signed a letter to the commander of the Israeli air force saying they would not report for duty, and that the overhaul was “leading to dictatorship.” Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, warned that a refusal to report for duty “harms the army and the security of the state of Israel.”The Israel Medical Association also announced that doctors would hold a two-hour strike in protest of the legislation on Wednesday. Emergency operations will proceed as normal, said Dr. Hagai Levine, a former head of Israel’s association of public health doctors. Police said at least 45 people were arrested on public disturbance charges. Netanyahu heads the most ultranationalist and religiously conservative government in Israel’s 75-year history. His overhaul plan has exposed wide rifts in Israeli society – largely based on religious and economic differences. Netanyahu’s allies are motivated by an array of grievances against the court system. His ultra-Orthodox allies, for instance, fear the courts will strip away exemptions that allow young religious men to skip otherwise compulsory military service in order to pursue seminary studies. Others have spoken out against rights for LGBTQ+ people, while several Cabinet ministers are hard-line settler leaders who remain furious about Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and accuse the courts of siding with Palestinians. The protesters, on the other hand, are largely members of Israel’s secular, middle class who believe the government is planning to clamp down on their way of life and on the country’s liberal traditions.
The coalition took office in December after winning the country’s fifth election in under four years. That election, like the previous four that ended in deadlock, were referendums on Netanyahu’s fitness to serve as prime minister while on trial. The weekly mass protests led Netanyahu to suspend the overhaul in March but he revived the plan last month after compromise talks with the political opposition collapsed. The Israeli parliament gave initial approval last week to a key portion of the overhaul that would prevent the Supreme Court from striking down decisions it finds “unreasonable.” Netanyahu's coalition spent Tuesday rejecting 26,000 objections to the bill filed by opposition lawmakers. The law is meant to serve as a safeguard against corruption and improper appointments to key positions. But Netanyahu’s allies look at it as an infringement on the powers of elected officials. The judges invoked the clause earlier this year when they said the appointment of a veteran politician to the Cabinet was unreasonable because of his past conviction for accepting bribes and plea bargain over tax offenses. The bill has already received preliminary approval in parliament and is scheduled to receive formal approval next week unless Netanyahu decides to freeze the legislation. Other proposed laws in the overhaul would grant lawmakers greater control over the appointment of judges and give parliament the power to overturn high court decisions and pass laws impervious to judicial review.
The protests continued as Herzog landed in Washington. He was to address Congress on Wednesday. The visit has drawn attention to Biden’s refusal so far to invite Netanyahu to the White House. Such visits are standard protocol for Israeli prime ministers. But Biden has said he is unhappy with Netanyahu’s new government – both because of the overhaul and because of rapid expansion of West Bank settlements, built on occupied lands claimed by the Palestinians. Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone on Monday and invited him to meet in the U.S. this fall. But he did not say whether the meeting would take place at the White House or a more neutral location, such as the United Nations General Assembly.

Iran declares 'efficient deterrence' against any military strike
Al-Monitor/July 18/2023
Iran has in recent years shown off its military advancements, particularly its drones and ballistic missiles, shrugging off Western worries that it is escalating tensions in an already volatile Middle East. Iran's top officer said on Tuesday that his country has gained sufficient military prowess to make its foes forego the option of a military strike against the Islamic Republic. "It's been years since they have stopped talking about the military option," said the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, in an interview with Tasnim news agency. Enumerating "criminal" foes, including the United States and Israel, Bagheri said they have also come to the conclusion that "a ground battle against the Islamic Republic will be doomed in failure." Despite engaging in on-and-off diplomacy with Tehran over the past decade, the United States has warned that "everything remains on the table" in its treatment of threats posed by the Islamic Republic's nuclear and missile programs. Iran's No. 1 foe, Israel, has been more open in such rhetoric, threatening to strike specific Iranian nuclear sites. "We have achieved sustainable and efficient deterrence," the Iranian commander claimed, repeating a notion based on which Iran has attempted to justify its military activities. Most notably, when it comes to ballistic missiles and combat drones, Tehran says the projectiles and aircraft are developed for "deterrent" purposes. The argument, however, has failed to convince Western adversaries, who fear such advancements are a growing menace to stability in an already restive Middle East. Israel and the United States have also been irked watching Tehran forge military alliances with its regional partners. As recently as March, Iran held a joint exercise with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, where a leading Iranian naval destroyer appeared to be rubbing shoulders with its Chinese and Russian peers, the Nanning and Admiral Gorshkov. The hard-line commander made the comments after overseeing artillery and reconnaissance equipment at a military base run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran's northwest. "We are closely watching the enemies," he said, boasting about Iranian forces being "at the pinnacle of their preparedness at borders as well as in extra-territorial operations." Last month in the same region, the IRGC engaged in a weeklong operation targeting exiled Kurdish militants based in the rugged mountains of neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan. Tehran alleges that those groups are linked to Israel and are adding fuel to the unrest that engulfed Iran after the death in police custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in September 2022. Despite outright condemnation from both Baghdad and Erbil, Iran has on multiple occasions bombed the Kurdish opposition's bases well inside Iraqi soil with deadly missile and drone strikes since then, and has not taken off the table the threat of a ground incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to oust those groups. Only last week, Bagheri issued an ultimatum to Iraqi authorities, asking them to "disarm" the Iranian Kurdish opposition by Aug. 20.  Otherwise, he warned, "We will take the matter into our own hands with even tougher action."

Saudi Arabia signs major deal with Turkey to acquire Baykar drones
Al-Monitor/July 18/2023
ANKARA — Turkey and Saudi Arabia have signed five deals to boost cooperation in economic, defense and energy during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to the Gulf powerhouse, Turkish officials announced Tuesday. The Turkish presidency's communications directorate said one of the deals was signed between the Turkey's leading drone Manufacturer Baykar's CEO Haluk Bayraktar and Deputy Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud without elaborating further, but the latter said the deal involves two acquisition contracts and that it aims to enhance the readiness of the kingdom's armed forces and bolstering its defense and manufacturing capabilities. CEO Haluk Bayraktar described the deal as “the biggest defense and aviation export contract” in Turkey’s history, in a Twitter post. He added that the deal includes the exportation of the Akinci TIHA, a high-altitude long-endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicle. Erdogan announced in 2021 that Saudi Arabia had been interested in purchasing Baykar drones and also in setting up a manufacturing plant for the joint production of the drones. The Kingdom has been the eight country which purchased Akinci combat drones from Baykar. Baykar also manufactures Bayraktar TB2 drones that have been exported to 30 countries. Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Morocco and Iraq are among the countries in the Middle East and North Africa that purchased Bayraktar TB2 drones. Four NATO and two European Union member states also bought them. The export revenue of the company, which is owned by the family of Erdogan’s younger son-in-law, exceeded $1.15 billion in 2022, according to Baykar’s website. Bayraktar TB2s came under limelight first in the Libyan conflict when the Tripoli-based government repelled the eastern-based forces led by Khalifa Hifter during a siege of Tripoli. The drones also acted as a game changer in the conflict in 2022 between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh territory. But it was Russia's war on Ukraine that brought international fame to the TB2 drones; the armed drones have turned into one of the main pillars of the Ukrainian army’s defense. The Turkish Presidency’s Communication Directorate said that other agreements between the two countries included promoting direct investments between the countries, the defense deals and another one to increase energy ministry cooperation.
Erdogan traveled to the Saudi city of Jeddah on Monday for the first leg of his three-day Gulf tour that marks the first regional trip since his reelection. He met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Speaking just before departing for Saudi Arabia, the Turkish president said boosting joint investments and trade ties between Turkey and Gulf countries would be the main focus of his visit. The Turkish government is scrambling to draw Gulf dollars in a bid to ease Turkey’s foreign currency crunch, as the country’s current account deficit widened to nearly $8 billion in May and $60 billion over 12 months.  Nearly 200 businessmen are accompanying Erdogan on his tour and are also set to meet with their Gulf counterparts during the visit, to increase cooperation between Turkish and Gulf companies. In addition to Erdogan's meetings, Turkish industry, trade and other ministers also met with their counterparts during the visit. Erdogan is scheduled to travel to the Qatari capital Doha following his meetings in Saudi Arabia and will wrap up his Gulf tour in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday.

Work on Israel-Saudi land bridge has begun, Israeli Foreign Ministry confirms
Al-Monitor/July 18/2023
An official from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed to Al-Monitor that work has begun on a trade corridor project connecting the country to Saudi Arabia, and that it will operate even if diplomatic ties between the two countries are not officially normalized. Ynet reported on July 7 that Israel and the United States were working on a plan to establish a continuous trade land bridge connecting Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, leading from the Persian Gulf straight to Israel's seaports. The outlet cited senior Israeli officials, but until now there had been no official word on the project. Israel Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat confirmed that the government was working on the project, which will start in the UAE, pass through Saudi Arabia and then end in the seaports of Israel. It is planned to later expand to Bahrain and Oman, Ynet reported. “We're working on it. We do not have a deadline for completion,” Haiat told Al-Monitor, adding that it could be completed by the end of the year. There have been a series of reports suggesting that Israel and Saudi Arabia are slowly inching closer to restoring ties, three years after Israel signed the Abraham Accords with several Gulf states. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told Al-Monitor in May that the two countries could reach a breakthrough by the end of the year. “This project can work even without official normalization (the same way the flights over Saudi Arabia work),” Haiat added. Although Saudi Arabia is not a party to the Abraham Accords, since the agreement was signed in 2020, the kingdom has allowed Israeli airlines to use its airspace for flights to and from the UAE and Bahrain. Authorization for flights extending to other destinations was not granted until July 2022. The planned land bridge route will facilitate the transfer of goods in trucks between the countries and is expected to facilitate trade for the entire region. It will also enable tourist movement. Asked how much trade the planned corridor is likely to facilitate each year, Haiat said, “This can make the trade between the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea faster and cheaper.”Al-Monitor has contacted the Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry and US State Department for comment.  Currently, trucks transporting goods between Israel and the Gulf can cross the Allenby Bridge that links the West Bank city of Jericho to Jordan, but they face lengthy wait times due to bureaucratic procedures such as driver charges and paperwork. Goods can also be shipped through the Suez Canal and then to European ports, which also is expensive. Ynet reported that the new trade bridge could save up to 20% in shipping costs and speed up trade to two or three days from several weeks, citing a study conducted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the US government.

Turkish lira hits record low, losing 2% amid concerns of smaller rate increase
Al-Monitor/July 18/2023
The Turkish lira tumbled to a record low on Tuesday, losing more than 2% of its value against the dollar amid market concerns that the central bank might raise interest rates this week by less than previously expected.  As of 4:15 p.m. Istanbul time, the lira was 26.99 against the dollar, 2.4% less than Monday’s close of 26.3505. The currency has weakened by more than 30% this year amid high inflation and moves to increase interest rates to highs, making the second-largest devaluation against the dollar to the Argentine peso.  Turkey’s central bank is expected to raise its policy rate by 500 basis points to 20% this week to further curb inflation, according to a poll by Reuters. The current rate, which was last hiked up 6.5 percentage points on June 22, stands at 15%. The increases in interest rates mark a U-turn from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policy of keeping interest rates low, even as inflation rises. Bloomberg reported that state-run banks, which have frequently sold dollars to prop up the lira in periods of turbulence, have not been doing so recently, citing traders who remained anonymous. After Erdogan held onto power after a decisive general election in May, he appointed a new central bank governor, Hafize Gaye Erkan, and a new treasury and finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, in a bid to regain investor confidence and revive the flow of international investment to ease Turkey’s foreign exchange crunch. Erdogan is visiting the Gulf countries this week in a bid to secure funding to help Turkey’s ailing economy. He arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Monday, where he met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as other Saudi officials.

European Parliament rebuffs Turkey's NATO-EU trade-off
Al-Monitor/July 18/2023
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to trade Sweden’s NATO bid for Turkey’s European Union membership was rebuffed by the European Parliament (EP) Tuesday, with a new report underlining that the two processes were unrelated. The European deputies called on the EU to start a reflection process to find an “alternative and realistic framework” in substitution for Turkey’s EU accession process. The EP report urged Turkey “to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership in the Turkish Grand National Assembly as early as possible,” saying that delaying it would only play into Russia’s hands. EP members acknowledged measures taken by the Turkish authorities to prevent the re-exportation to Russia of goods covered by EU sanctions, but it urged them to go further to ensure that Turkey “stops being a hub for entities and individuals that wish to circumvent such sanctions.”
A press release on Tuesday from the EP Foreign Affairs Committee said EP members underlined that the NATO accession process of one country cannot be linked to the EU accession process of another. A parliamentary source told Al-Monitor that this was a new amendment to the report, implying that the wording came after Erdogan made the linkage between Sweden’s NATO bid and Turkey’s long-standing bid for EU membership.
“We have recently seen a renewed interest from the Turkish government in reviving the EU accession process. This will not happen as a result of geopolitical bargaining, but when Turkish authorities show real interest in stopping the continuous backsliding in fundamental freedoms and the rule of law,” the EP’s Turkey rapporteur, Nacho Sanchez Amor, said after his report was accepted 47 in favor, none against, and 10 abstentions in the EP Foreign Affairs Committee. It will come before the general assembly in the fall.  Sanchez Amor, a fiery Spanish democratic socialist, has been a vocal critic of the press statement made by Erdogan, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the 11th hour at NATO’s Vilnius summit last week. Under the deal, Turkey promised to greenlight Sweden’s membership bid to NATO, and Sweden, an EU member, pledged to support Erdogan’s efforts to revive Turkey’s stalled accession. After Stoltenberg expressed his support for Turkey’s EU membership, Sanchez Amor responded with a scathing tweet, asking Stoltenberg whether he had been named EU enlargement commissioner. The EP report called Turkey “a country of strategic relevance in political, economic and foreign policy terms, a key partner for the stability of the wider region and a vital ally, including within NATO,” and reaffirmed the EU’s commitment to pursuing the best possible relations with its longest-standing candidate. It also urged the Turkish government, the EU and member states to “break the current deadlock,” and it called on the European Commission — the executive body of the 27-member bloc — to explore “possible formats for a mutually appealing framework.” Though the reports of the EP — the only directly elected body of the EU — are of advisory value, they may foreshadow the general line that the Commission and the European Council — the decision-making body of the union that is made up of relevant ministers or heads of member states — would take. Sanchez Amor’s statement today is timed to air the deputies’ views before the EU foreign ministers take up ties with Turkey at a lunch discussion on June 20.
The foreign ministers’ meeting follows the request of the EU leaders two weeks ago for the European Commission and EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell to come up with a comprehensive report on the “state of play” of EU-Turkey relations “with a view to proceeding in a strategic and forward-looking manner.” Erdogan’s efforts to breathe life into the country’s EU bid in Vilnius were met with a noncommittal approach from key member states and top Eurocrats, who kept referring to the report expected to come out in October. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has met since then with Borrell at the sidelines of an ASEAN summit but made no statements. A memo prepared by the EU’s diplomatic service ahead of the talks remains noncommittal. It underlines that Russia’s war against Ukraine “has raised Turkey’s geopolitical relevance.” It said that while recent policies have driven Turkey away from the EU, Turkey insists that EU accession is a strategic goal. The memo also maintains that the EU has a strategic interest “in a stable and secure environment in the Eastern Mediterranean” — a reference to EU members Cyprus and Greece — and calls on the members to reflect on how the EU can “actively contribute” to the speedy resumption of Cyprus settlement talks. Nikos Christodoulides, the newish president of Cyprus who used to be a diplomat in the EU, is eager to get the EU involved in a settlement on the divided island. But Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots on the north of the island are reluctant to have the EU involved. As EU foreign ministers discuss ties with Turkey, Erdogan will visit the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus where he will attend the ceremonies of Peace and Freedom Day, which marks the date Turkish armed forces landed on the north of the island in 1974 in the wake of a Greek junta-backed coup that aimed to unite the island with Greece. The island was split along ethnic lines, with the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus in the south and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, in the north. Turkey’s nonrecognition of the Republic of Cyprus, which became an EU member in 2004, is one of the stumbling blocks to Turkish accession and the modernization of the Turkish-EU Customs Union, which Turkey wants.  “The EU accession talks will not come back because Turkey is unlikely to recognize the Republic of Cyprus, amend its anti-terror law or reinstate the rule of law quickly. The EU will not move until these three stumbling blocks are dealt with,” said Marc Pierini, a former EU envoy to Turkey and a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe.  Pierini suggested that inviting Fidan and Economy Minister Mehmet Simsek to Brussels for in-depth talks would be a good starting point to see what the EU offers and how Turkey would react.
No accession without human rights
The EP report maintains that while they urge Turkey and the EU to break the current deadlock in ties, Turkey’s bid for membership cannot go further without Turkey taking serious steps to abide by EU laws, principles and obligations, particularly in respecting democratic values, the rule of law and human rights. The report draws a dark picture of the democratic backsliding in Turkey, saying that “a relentless crackdown on any critical voice, particularly ahead of and during the recent elections,” continued throughout 2023. It also expresses concern about the “lack of independence of the judiciary” and “serious restrictions on fundamental freedoms,” citing constant attacks on the fundamental rights of members of the opposition, lawyers, journalists, academics and civil society activists, Kurdish politicians, journalists, lawyers and artists, and “the constant targeting and harassment of LGBTI+ people.”

Odesa port facilities damaged by Russian strike
Agence France Presse/July 18, 2023
A Russian overnight strike damaged port infrastructure facilities in southern Ukraine's Odesa, Kyiv's military said on Tuesday, hours after Moscow refused to extend a deal allowing the safe export of grain from the region. Six Kalibr missiles launched towards Odesa and 21 Iran-built attack drones approaching Odesa region were "destroyed" by air defences, Ukraine's military southern command said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the debris of the downed missiles and the blast wave from the downing damaged the port infrastructure facilities and several private homes," the southern command said. Ukraine's air force said a total of 31 drones were downed across the country out of 36 launched by Russia overnight. The Odesa region is home to maritime terminals that were key to the grain export agreement between Moscow and Kyiv that enabled the shipment of more than 32 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain in the past year. An "industrial facility" in the southern port city of Mykolaiv was also hit in the overnight attack according to local governor Vitaliy Kim. A fire had subsequently broken out before being extinguished, he said on Telegram, adding there were no casualties. Moscow's invasion last year saw Ukraine's Black Sea ports blocked by warships until the agreement, brokered by the UN and Turkey and signed in July 2022, allowed for the passage of critical grain shipments. Russia refused to extend the deal on Monday, sparking outrage from the United Nations, which warned millions of the world's poorest would "pay the price".
The Kremlin said it was exiting the deal, after months of complaining that elements allowing the export of Russian food and fertilisers had not been honoured. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Moscow's move would "strike a blow to people in need everywhere." "Hundreds of millions of people face hunger and consumers are confronting a global cost-of-living crisis. They will pay the price," he told reporters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was prepared to keep exporting grain via the Black Sea despite Russia's exit. "We are not afraid. We have been approached by companies that own ships. They said that they are ready" to continue shipments, Zelensky said. Moscow's withdrawal could see Russian ships once again prevent grain exports by blockading Ukrainian ports, as they did during the first months of the war in a move that helped drive up global food prices. The UN said a final ship carrying Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea was inspected in Istanbul on Monday, a few hours before the deal expired.
Crimea bridge blast
Moscow's withdrawal from the deal came hours after drones struck the only bridge connecting Russia's mainland to the annexed Crimea peninsula, a key supply line for Russian forces in the south of Ukraine. Kyiv's navy and SBU security service carried out the "special operation" using seaborne drones, a security service source told AFP. Russian authorities said a civilian couple was killed and their daughter wounded in the attack on the Kerch bridge, which was also damaged last year in a blast Moscow blamed on Kyiv. Moscow said the attack had nothing to do with its withdrawal from the grain deal. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned a "senseless crime" in televised remarks, vowing a "response" and calling for tighter security at the bridge. Local officials said traffic across the bridge had been halted and encouraged holidaymakers stranded in Crimea to drive home through occupied Ukraine.
Vehicle traffic was later "restored in reverse mode on the far right lane" of the bridge, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said.
'Weaponising food'
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen condemned Moscow's "cynical" decision, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia's "unconscionable" action was "weaponizing food". Guterres added that Russia's decision would not stop the United Nations' efforts to "facilitate the unimpeded access" to global markets of food and fertilisers from Ukraine and Russia. According to data from the Joint Coordination Centre that had been overseeing the agreement, China and Turkey are the main beneficiaries of the grain shipments, as well as developed economies. The deal has also helped the U.N. World Food Program bring relief to countries facing critical food shortages such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Yemen. The news had a limited impact on international wheat prices, which are down by nearly a quarter from one year ago. Guterres had been working hard to get the deal renewed and supported removing hurdles to Russia exporting its fertilisers.

US deploys nuclear-armed submarine to S. Korea in show of force against N. Korea
Associated Press/July 18, 2023
The United States deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea on Tuesday for the first time in four decades, as the allies warned North Korea that any use of the North's nuclear weapons in combat would result in the end of its regime.
Periodic visits by U.S. nuclear ballistic missile-capable submarines to South Korea were one of several agreements reached by the two countries' presidents in April in response to North Korea's expanding nuclear threat. They also agreed to establish a bilateral Nuclear Consultative Group and expand military exercises. The USS Kentucky, an Ohio-class submarine, arrived at the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday afternoon, South Korea's Defense Ministry said. It is the first visit by a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea since the 1980s, it said.
Defense Minister Lee Jong-Sup called the submarine's visit a demonstration of U.S. resolve in implementing its "extended deterrence" commitment, a pledge by the U.S. to use its full military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to protect its allies, the ministry said in a statement. He said the submarine's visit "shows the allies' overwhelming capability and posture against North Korea." During the Cold War in the late 1970s, U.S. nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines made frequent visits to South Korea, sometimes two or three times per month, according to the Federation of American Scientists. It was a period when the U.S. had hundreds of nuclear warheads located in South Korea. But in 1991, the United States withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's nuclear ambitions have taken on a new urgency after it threatened to use nuclear weapons in conflicts with its rivals and conducted about 100 missile tests since the start of last year. Last week, North Korea conducted a second test of a more mobile and powerful intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the mainland United States. After observing that launch, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to further strengthen his country's nuclear combat capabilities. Also on Tuesday, South Korean and U.S. officials held the inaugural meeting of the Nuclear Consultative Group in Seoul to discuss ways to strengthen deterrence against North Korea's nuclear threats. "Any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime," the two countries said in a joint statement after the meeting. President Joe Biden issued a similar warning after his summit in Washington with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in April. "Both sides affirmed that the NCG will play an integral role in discussing and advancing bilateral approaches, including guidelines, to nuclear and strategic planning and responses to (North Korean) aggression," the statement said. The consultative body is tasked with sharing information on nuclear and strategic weapons operation plans and joint operations. The U.S. will retain operational control of its nuclear weapons. U.S. officials say the group's establishment and other steps announced in April were meant to ease South Korean worries about North Korean provocations while keeping Seoul from pursuing its own nuclear program.
Earlier Tuesday, Yoon told a Cabinet meeting that the launching of the consultative group "will serve as an important starting point to establish a powerful, effective (South) Korea-U.S. extended deterrence," and that their alliance has been "upgraded with a new, nuclear-based paradigm." The meeting was co-chaired by U.S. National Security Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell and South Korean Deputy National Security Director Kim Tae-hyo. North Korea condemned the Biden-Yoon agreements in April, saying they proved the allies' extreme hostility toward the North. It threatened to further escalate its nuclear use doctrine in protest. In a statement Monday, Kim's powerful sister and senior adviser, Kim Yo Jong, warned that U.S. moves to reinforce its extended deterrence commitment to South Korea will make North Korea "go farther away from the negotiating table desired by (the U.S.)" and beef up its own military capability. "(North Korea) is ready for resolutely countering any acts of violating its sovereignty and territorial integrity," Kim Yo Jong said. "The U.S. should stop its foolish act of provoking (North Korea) even by imperiling its security."

The US military's most advanced fighter jets and a warship are going to work in the Middle East to stop Iran from seizing commercial ships
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/July 18, 2023
The US military is deploying fighter jets and a warship to the Middle East to deter Iran's forces. Iranian boats have repeatedly harassed and tried to seize commercial ships transiting the region. A Pentagon official said the new firepower will boost security and monitor international waters. The US military is sending an assortment of fighter jets and a warship on a new mission to the Middle East, bringing a firepower boost to the region after Iranian forces recently tried to seize several commercial ships in the area's strategic waterways. A Pentagon official said this week that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has authorized the deployment of F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, as well as the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, to the US Central Command's (CENTCOM) area of responsibility "to defend US interests and safeguard freedom of navigation in the region." The F-35, a fifth-generation stealth aircraft, is the US military's most advanced fighter jet. Citing two recent incidents of Iranian harassment in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman, Deputy Pentagon Spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters at a Monday briefing that "in light of this continued threat and in coordination with our partners and allies, the department is increasing our presence and ability to monitor the strait and surrounding waters." Singh said she believes some of the aircraft are already on their way to the region, and there is no timeline for the duration of their deployment. The Hudner and the accompanying fighter aircraft will join existing US military assets that were already deployed earlier this year to the Middle East to increase security in the region and deter Iranian forces. CENTCOM's area of responsibility encompasses several million square miles of land across or 21 countries in the Middle East and Central and South Asia. Iran's forces have attacked, harassed, or seized nearly 20 internationally flagged vessels in waters there since 2021, according to the US Navy. The two separate incidents that took place earlier this month are only the latest in a longstanding trend of Iranian provocations that has frustrated the US and its Western allies. Tehran's naval ships tried to capture two oil tankers on July 5 as they were transiting through international waters and even opened fire on one of them. The ship, however, did not suffer significant damage, and there were no casualties. Prior to this, Iranian boats harassed two internationally flagged vessels during two separate incidents in late April and early May, respectively. Navy officials said that the US in mid-May increased the number of ships and aircraft that patrol the area around the Strait of Hormuz — a narrow and important body of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula — after observing an "uptick" in Tehran's illegal capturing of commercial ships.
Screenshot of video captured of an Iranian naval vessel firing multiple long bursts of rounds from small arms and crew-served weapons during an attempt to unlawfully seize the commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman, July 5, 2023.
Screenshot of video captured of an Iranian naval vessel firing multiple long bursts of rounds from small arms and crew-served weapons during an attempt to unlawfully seize the commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman, July 5, 2023.US Navy courtesy photo "We call upon Iran to immediately cease these destabilizing actions that threaten the free flow of commerce through this strategic waterway of which the world depends on for more than one fifth of the world's oil supply," Singh said on Monday. The US and Iran have maintained a contentious relationship throughout the Biden administration, and Washington has repeatedly accused Tehran of threatening regional security in the Middle East and even harming American service members. Specifically, US forces stationed in Syria to fight the Islamic State have recently found themselves engaged in deadly exchanges of fire with Iran-backed militias.
These tensions led the US Air Force earlier this year to deploy aging but well-armed A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft to the Middle East, with a top commander saying that they will work to deter Iranian activity. In other measures designed to curb Tehran's harmful activity this year, the US and its Western partners have regularly raided small boats smuggling weapons from Iran to a brutal proxy war in Yemen, confiscating mountains of guns and ammunition.

Arresting Vladimir Putin in South Africa would be 'declaration of war', says Ramaphosa
Natasha Booty & Will Ross - BBC News/Tue, July 18, 2023
South Africa has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to a summit in August
Any attempt to arrest Vladimir Putin when he visits South Africa would be a declaration of war against Russia, the country's president says. Cyril Ramaphosa made the warning with weeks to go before an international meeting happens in Johannesburg, to which the Russian president is invited. But if Mr Putin leaves Russian soil, he will be subject to an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant. South Africa is an ICC signatory and should therefore help in his arrest. Yet it has refused to honour that obligation in the past - allowing safe passage in 2015 to Sudan's then-President Omar al-Bashir who was wanted for war crimes against his own people. Mr Putin has been invited to South Africa in August, when the country hosts a summit for members of the Brics countries - an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. This bloc of fast-growing economies is seen by some as an alternative to the G7 group of advanced economies. South Africa's biggest opposition party, Democratic Alliance, has gone to court to try to force the authorities to carry out an arrest on Mr Putin should he set foot in the country. Court documents reveal that President Ramaphosa is firmly against any such move, stating that national security is at stake. "South Africa has obvious problems with executing a request to arrest and surrender President Putin," he said in an affidavit. "Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war. It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia." President Ramaphosa added that South Africa is one of several African nations holding talks with Russia and Ukraine "with a view of ending the war altogether", and that attempting to arrest Mr Putin would be counter-productive. Last month saw a peace mission to the European nations, where African presidents hoped they could bring Ukraine and Russia to the table together but ultimately failed. Much has been made of African nations' reluctance to back UN general assembly resolutions condemning Russia's war in Ukraine. Correspondents say the reasons range depending on the nation - be it South Africa's anti-apartheid ties to the Soviet Union, or Mali's present-day reliance on Russian Wagner mercenaries to fight jihadists. There are economic ties between Russia and African nations too, not least in South Africa. A sanctioned Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, is said to be one of the biggest donors to South Africa's governing party - the Africa

Russia ramps up its economic war with the West as it seizes local operations of 2 corporate giants
Jennifer Sor/Business Insider/Mon, July 17, 2023
Russia escalated its economic war with the West by seizing local operations of Carlsberg and Danone. They marked the second seizures of Western assets since the Kremlin unveiled a decree in April. The move is another form of retaliation against Western sanctions imposed on Russia. Russia escalated its economic war with the West by seizing the local assets of the Danish brewer Carlsberg and the French food company Danone, two multinationals that had been in the process of exiting the country. Their Russian operations are now under the temporary control of the government, according to a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday. It marked the second such seizure of Western assets after a decree in April cleared the way for the takeover of utilities owned by Germany's Uniper and Finland's Fortum. Carlsberg and Danone had both been looking to exit Russia by transferring ownership of their Russian-based operations. At the time both firms were seized, Carlsberg had already found a potential buyer, and said last month that the deal was awaiting approval from the Russian government. "The Carlsberg Group has been operating in accordance with local rules and regulations in Russia and finds this development unexpected," the firm said in a statement on Sunday. "The Group will assess the legal and operational consequences of this development and take all necessary actions in response." Meanwhile, Danone said it was "currently investigating the situation," and would take measures to "protect its rights as shareholder of Danone Russia, and the continuity of the operations of the business." To slow the exodus of Western firms out of Russia, the Kremlin previously mandated a steep discount for any firms trying to sell their local operations as well as an exit tax.
But the recent seizures of Western assets signal a continued escalation in Russia's economic war with the West, which imposed punishing sanctions on Moscow in 2022 for its war on Ukraine. Russia has also cut off key oil and gas flows to weaponize its energy supplies. At the moment, there are around 400 major multinationals that are still actively doing business in Russia, according to a study from the Yale School of Management. Meanwhile, 523 of the major firms in the study have permanently withdrawn from Russia, while 503 firms have temporarily suspended operations.

Wagner Fighters Executed for Refusing to Take Part in Mutiny
Allison Quinn/The Daily Beast/July 18, 2023
At least two mercenaries from the notorious Wagner Group were reportedly executed for refusing to take part in Yevgeny Prigozhin’s chaotic armed uprising last month. The bodies of the two men were discovered “with gunshot wounds” along a roadside in Russia’s Voronezh region on July 6, according to the local branch of the Investigative Committee. According to the Baza Telegram channel, both men were found in military uniform and near a vehicle loaded with weapons, but they had no form of identification on them. The circumstances behind their deaths became clear only when a 25-year-old suspect was arrested on Monday. He told investigators he was a member of Wagner and he had executed his two fellow fighters after they tried to back out of the mercenary group’s attempted insurrection, according to numerous reports. It was not clear if the suspect, identified as Yaroslav Shekhovtsev, had orders to carry out the killings. An armored column of Wagner troops had rolled through the Voronezh region en route to Moscow on June 24, with 75 of the military vehicles reportedly splitting off in the direction of Voronezh-45, a Russian army base housing nuclear weapons. Ukrainian intelligence has claimed the group “came close” to acquiring nuclear weapons during the short-lived mutiny, though the Kremlin cast doubt on that assertion. Nearly a month after the chaotic uprising sparked fears of Russia’s war against Ukraine turning into a full-blown civil war at home, the fate of the Wagner Group remains unclear.
Why Did Putin Let Prigozhin Walk Away? Shockingly, the Kremlin allowed mutiny mastermind Prigozhin to walk away after the group killed several Russian service members in their rebellion, shooting down several military helicopters on Russian soil. Prigozhin was granted safe passage to Belarus, where local authorities say Wagner fighters have begun training Belarusian troops in newly installed field camps. A Belarusian monitoring group on Tuesday reported Prigozhin’s private jet touching down in the country for the fourth time, suggesting he is still very much in charge of the mercenary group. In the wake of the mutiny, Vladimir Putin had held a meeting with Prigozhin and several Wagner commanders in which he tried to lure members of the group to join Russia’s regular army, though his offer was rebuffed, according to the Kommersant newspaper. His proposal for Prigozhin to be ousted in favor of another Wagner commander was also shot down.

Russian fighter jet flies dangerously close to US warplane over Syria
Associated Press/July 18, 2023
A Russian fighter jet flew very close to a U.S. surveillance aircraft over Syria, forcing it to go through the turbulent wake and putting the lives of the four American crew members in danger, U.S. officials said. The officials said the incident, which happened just before noon EDT on Sunday, was a significant escalation in what has been a string of encounters between U.S. and Russian aircraft in Syria in recent weeks. The intercept by the Russian Su-35 impeded the U.S. crew's ability to safely operate their MC-12 aircraft, the officials said, calling it a new level of unsafe behavior that could result in an accident or loss of life. In recent weeks, Russian fighter jets have repeatedly harassed U.S. unmanned MQ-9 drones, but the latest incident raised alarms because it endangered American lives. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a military operation, would not say how close the Russian jet got to the U.S. warplane. The MC-12, which is a twin-engine turboprop aircraft routinely used by special operations forces, was doing surveillance in support of operations against the Islamic State groups in Syria, the officials said. On multiple occasions in the past two weeks, Russian fighter jets flew dangerously close to MQ-9 Reapers, setting off flares and forcing the drones to take evasive maneuvers. U.S. and Russian military officers communicate frequently over a deconfliction phone line during the encounters, protesting the other side's actions. The U.S. is considering a number of military options to address the increasing Russian aggression in the skies over Syria, which complicated efforts to strike an Islamic State group leader earlier this month, according to a senior defense official. The U.S. was eventually able to launch a strike and kill the militant. The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, declined to detail the options under consideration, but said the U.S. will not cede any territory and will continue to fly in the western part of the country on anti-Islamic State missions. The Russian military activity, which has increased in frequency and aggression since March, stems from growing cooperation and coordination between Moscow, Tehran and the Syrian government to try to pressure the U.S. to leave Syria. There are about 900 U.S. forces in the country, and others move in and out to conduct missions targeting Islamic State group militants.

Biden invites Netanyahu to US despite concerns over judicial overhaul
Associated Press/July 18, 2023
President Joe Biden has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with him in the U.S. this fall, the White House said, even as he expressed ongoing concern about Netanyahu's controversial plans to overhaul his country's judicial system. Monday's phone conversation between the U.S. and Israeli leaders came one day before Israel's figurehead president Isaac Herzog is set to visit to the White House and as Netanyahu's government pushes forward with the judicial changes that have sparked widespread protest in Israel. The Biden administration declined to say whether Biden would host Netanyahu at the White House — as the Israeli leader has hoped — or in New York on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly. White House visits are typically standard protocol for Israeli prime ministers, and the delay in Netanyahu receiving one has become an issue in Israel, with opponents citing it as a reflection of deteriorating relations with the U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden again on Monday expressed concern to Netanyahu over the judicial plan — as he did when they last spoke earlier this year — and urged the "broadest possible consensus" over the legislation that has been pushed by Netanyahu and his hard-line coalition. Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-Orthodox and ultranationalist parties, say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of unelected judges. Opponents, who have held months of large-scale protests across Israel, say the plan will destroy Israel's fragile system of checks and balances and move the country toward authoritarian rule. Herzog has appealed for a compromise that has thus far proven elusive, as many American Jewish groups and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concerns about the plan. Kirby said during the call Biden also expressed his "ironclad, unwavering commitment" to Israel's security and that the two leaders discussed Iran's nuclear program and regional security issues. Biden also "expressed concern" over Israel's continued settlement growth in the West Bank and urged Israel to take steps to preserve the viability of a two state solution with Palestinians. Biden, Kirby said, also welcomed steps by the Palestinian Authority to reassert security control in Jenin and other areas of the West Bank and moves by Israel and Palestinians to move toward another round of direct talks. During his visit, Herzog is set to meet with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Congressional leaders, and will become the second Israeli president, after his father Chaim Herzog, to address Congress to mark Israel's celebration of its 75th year of independence.

Spain's early election could put the far right in power for the first time since Franco
Associated Press/July 18, 2023
Spain's general election on Sunday could make the country the latest European Union member swing to the populist right, a shift that would represent a major upheaval after five years under a left-wing government. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the early election after his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and its small far-left coalition partner, Unidas Podemos ("United We Can"), took a beating in local and regional elections. The center-right Popular Party emerged from the May 28 elections with the most votes. Polls for the general election have consistently put the PP in first place — but likely needing support from the far-right Vox party to form a government. Such a coalition would return a far-right force to the Spanish government for the first time since the country transitioned to democracy following the 1975 death of Gen. Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled Spain for nearly 40 years.
The Popular Party and Vox have agreed to govern together in some 140 cities and towns since May, as well as to add two more regions to the one where they already co-governed. Sen. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP's leader, has not ruled out a partnership at the national level.
Led by former PP member Santiago Abascal, 47, Vox opposes abortion rights, denies climate change and rejects the need for government to combat gender violence. Election polling indicates the party could finish third this weekend, a showing that would put Abascal in a kingmaker's role.
Nagore Calvo Mendizabal, a senior lecturer in Spanish and European Politics and Society at King's College London, said the likelihood of Vox entering government frames Sunday's parliamentary election "in terms of the future of democracy in Spain as being what is at stake." Vox's manifesto is virtually a "copy-and-paste of the tenets of the Franco regime," Calvo said. It promises, for example, a return to a highly centralized government by scrapping the 17 regions that came into being after Franco's death. Beyond Spain, a PP-Vox government would mean another EU member has moved firmly to the right, a trend seen recently in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Countries such as Germany and France are concerned by what such a shift would portend for EU immigration and climate policies, Calvo said.
Spain took over the EU's rotating presidency on July 1. Sánchez had hoped to use the six-month term to showcase the advances his government had made before a national election originally scheduled for December. Voter concerns over immigration and costs of living, as well as frustration with the EU's perceived interference in national affairs, often have been cited to explain increases in right-wing support in other countries. In Spain, however, the dominant issue is the "honorability" of the Socialist politician who has served as prime minister since June 2018, according to María José Canel Crespo, a political communication professor at Madrid's Complutense University.For most of the past year, the PP has pursued a hard-hitting media and parliamentary campaign on the need to defeat what it calls "Sanchismo," portraying the prime minister as a liar for his U-turns on major issues.
Sánchez said he would never form a government with Podemos, deeming it too radical, but then he did in 2019. Sánchez also said he would not pardon nine separatists who were convicted of sedition after pushing for the Catalonia region's secession — but then he did. The PP claims his minority government betrays Spain by aligning itself with extremists in Basque and Catalan regional parties that ultimately want independence. But the Socialist-Podemos coalition's biggest blunder came in what was supposed to have been one of its signature pieces of progressive legislation. A sexual consent law passed in October inadvertently allowed more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders to have their sentences reduced, and over 100 gained early release. Sánchez apologized and the law was amended to close the legal loophole, but the episode provided invaluable material for the right-wing parties and right-leaning media outlets. Sánchez "has made it easier for him to be perceived as a liar," Canel said, adding that he did not help his cause when he explained in a television interview that "Sanchismo" stood for evil, lies and manipulation. The 51-year-old prime minister also performed disastrously in the only televised pre-election debate with the PP's Feijóo, 61. Polling analyses show anti-Sánchez sentiment and the fear of Vox entering government has led some 700,000 Socialist voters switching to the PP, according to Canel. "The vote is not going to be about corruption or the economy. It will be motivated by a rejection of Sánchez," she said.
Sánchez first took office in June 2018 after winning a no-confidence vote that ended an eight-year run in government for the PP on the back of a major corruption scandal. He led a caretaker government until, after two elections in November 2019, he struck a deal with Podemos. Within months, Spain was one of the countries hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of both deaths and economic impact, severely testing the strength of the left-wing coalition government. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its knock-on financial effects tested it again. But heading into the May elections, Sánchez could boast of a growing economy, falling unemployment and inflation, pension and minimum wage increases, and the establishment of a minimum vital income. The government also negotiated a deal with the EU that allowed it to slash consumer energy costs driven up Russia's war in Ukraine. The various measures helped millions of people but apparently have not translated into voter loyalty. King's College London's Calvo thinks the right-wing's nationalist tactics have put Sánchez on the defensive, while his leftist coalition's laudably progressive policies have made the government seem out of touch. A factor that could upset poll predictions is Sumar, a new movement of 15 small left-wing parties, including Podemos, led by Spain's immensely popular labor minister, Yolanda Díaz. If it beats Vox for third place Sunday, Sumar could provide the Socialists with backing to form another coalition government. With the election taking place at the height of summer, millions of citizens are likely to be vacationing away from their regular polling places. But postal voting requests have soared, and officials have estimated a 70% election turnout.

Egypt jails rights researcher Patrick Zaki for 3 years
Naharnet/July 18, 2023
Comment0W460An Egyptian court Tuesday sentenced rights researcher Patrick Zaki to three years' prison for "spreading false news", according to human rights defender Hossam Bahgat. Bahgat, who runs the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights where Zaki works, said no appeal is possible against the conviction over an article Zaki wrote on discrimination against Coptic Christians. Zaki previously spent 22 months in pre-trial detention until December 2021, and was again taken into custody Tuesday after the court ruling in Mansoura, 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of Cairo.

World braces for intensifying heat waves: UN issues alarming warning
LBCI/July 18, 2023
In a new warning to the world, mainly Europe, which is grappling with successive heat waves, the United Nations has urged nations to prepare for more intense heatwaves. Southern European countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece are experiencing unprecedented temperatures, raising concerns across the continent. Greece, in particular, recorded temperatures of 45 degrees Celsius on Monday and Tuesday, marking the worst heatwave in 35 years. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis highlighted the dangers by recalling the tragic loss of nearly a thousand lives due to a lack of air conditioning and air pollution during a similar heatwave. The wildfires ravaging Greece have further exacerbated the situation, engulfing dozens of villages, towns, and forests. Strong winds near Athens have made it difficult to control the fires, leading to widespread destruction. Moreover, these massive fires have destroyed homes and forced thousands to flee. Authorities have also evacuated hundreds of children from a summer camp near Athens, while orders to evacuate tourist resorts have been issued as the fires threaten to reach them. Unfortunately, the hope of containing the fires is rapidly diminishing due to water shortages.
In Italy, temperatures reached a scorching 46 degrees Celsius in the province of Taranto, southern Italy, surpassing the previous European record set in 2021 on the island of Sicily by more than 2.8 degrees Celsius. Authorities have designated 16 regions, including Sicily and Sardinia, as red zones, indicating the severity of the situation. Spain is also battling wildfires, with temperatures in Madrid soaring to 40 degrees Celsius. Residents have been advised to take precautionary measures to avoid the heavy smoke. Other regions, where temperatures have risen 15 degrees above the annual averages, are also at risk. The world must now prepare for more frequent and more severe heatwaves. The United Nations calls for urgent action to mitigate the impact of climate change as extreme weather events continue to wreak havoc on our planet. Nations must prioritize measures to adapt to these challenging environments and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent further escalation of such catastrophic events. As the effects of climate change intensify, countries must unite and take swift action to protect our environment, our citizens' well-being, and our planet's future.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 18-19/2023
The US Government's New 'Ministry of Truth': The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
Peter Schweizer/ Gatestone Institute/July 18, 2023
A new interim report from the House Judiciary committee highlights politically motivated mission creep where we might least have expected it: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
The agency went, for example, from, ensuring the digital security of American voting systems to censoring criticism of those systems.
After the Biden administration was sued in federal court, CISA outsourced its censorship operation to a non-profit group funded by CISA itself. The Judiciary Committee report charges that the outsourcing was an implicit admission that CISA knew that its censorship activities were unconstitutional. CISA, meanwhile, said that it out sourced material to another agency to "avoid the appearance of government propaganda."
There is more to see here, however, than just a thwarted attempt by a government bureaucracy to police the political speech of the American people in violation of the First Amendment. It is the use of funded or politically affiliated non-profit groups to do the government's dirty work for it.
This parallels the behavior of the Justice Department under then Attorney General Eric Holder during the Barack Obama administration. The Government Accountability Institute did research into the DoJ's pattern of using "consent decrees" to force private companies with threats of anti-discrimination lawsuits to donate funds to one or more designated non-profit organizations on a list helpfully provided by the Justice Department. These groups were largely "social justice warriors" who would then use the money to exert political pressure. This practice was immediately banned by the Trump administration when it took office in 2017, but that ban was quietly reversed by Biden four years later.
Not only that, but after the Biden administration took office, Vijaya Gadde -- the woman who, a few weeks before the October 2020 presidential election decided that Twitter should censor the New York Post's scoop about Hunter Biden's laptop -- became a member of CISA's "Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation" subcommittee. Gadde, you may recall, was unceremoniously fired by Elon Musk on his first day of owning Twitter.
According to a report in The Intercept, this committee in 2022 recommended that CISA closely monitor "social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.
What the Judiciary Committee's work so far has highlighted is the creation of "feedback loops": that an agency of the government can create and use advisory boards to go well beyond its statutory mission, giving it cover for exercising power Congress never meant it to have.
How many more federal agencies are doing similar things?
A new report by the House Judiciary Committee documents how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency "has facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries." The agency, under the administration of President Joe Biden and under the leadership of Jen Easterly
Mission creep is a serious problem in the federal government, and the ongoing investigations by House Republicans into "weaponization" of government misdeeds have shown how pervasive and deep the problem can be.
The FBI, Justice Department, CIA and even the Internal Revenue Service all look as we have seen, like tempting operatives for use against political opponents or to run interference for allies. But what about an agency that is supposed to protect us against cyber threats? A new interim report from the House Judiciary Committee highlights politically motivated mission creep where we might least have expected it: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
CISA, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, was created in 2018 with a simple, non-political mission statement: "To prepare for, respond to, and mitigate the impact of cyberattacks." As reported here previously, CISA works to prevent state-sanctioned hackers from attacking and compromising America's digital infrastructure. The agency exists to warn companies and government entities of pending computer vulnerabilities. It also works to stop ransomware attacks on American companies and their computer networks, and to minimize damage from cyber exploits by foreign and domestic sources. In short, CISA's mission brief was to watch out for attacks on our digital "boxes and wires."
Instead, as the House Judiciary Committee report documents, CISA "has facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries." The agency, under the administration of President Joe Biden and under the leadership of Jen Easterly, ramped up efforts to flag "misinformation and disinformation" on social media. According to documents the committee obtained only through subpoena, CISA considered the creation of an anti-misinformation "rapid response team" capable of physically deploying across the United States to stamp out what it would decide constituted such "misinformation." The agency went, for example, from ensuring the digital security of American voting systems to censoring criticism of those systems.
The internal communications of agency staff and members of its outside advisory group show they knew they were on thin legal ground. Members of CISA's advisory committee agonized that it was "only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work, " the report said.
After the Biden administration was sued in federal court, CISA outsourced its censorship operation to a non-profit group funded by CISA itself. The Judiciary Committee report charges that the outsourcing was an implicit admission that CISA knew that its censorship activities were unconstitutional. CISA, meanwhile, said that it outsourced material to another agency to "avoid the appearance of government propaganda."
Today, a look at the agency's website and Twitter accounts shows only its statutory activity – issuing warnings about ransomware attacks and "zero-day" exploits, warning about hardware vulnerabilities, and some educational advice for ordinary Americans on staying safe during their online activities. This is important work, as the US is under constant cyberattack from state-sanctioned, or state-tolerated, hackers operating from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. These hackers extort millions of dollars from companies and institutions through overt attacks that can cripple their networks and computers. Cyber criminals go in hard, looking for cash, while cyber espionage attacks attempt to go in quietly, harvesting secrets without detection. Stopping them at the firewall is a matter of national security.
So, to dilute that mission with a politically motivated dive into censorship is unconscionable and dangerous. The Judiciary Committee is right to pursue this inquiry to prevent CISA from going off the rails again, as their own mission pledges.
There is more to see here, however, and more to root out than just a thwarted attempt by a government bureaucracy to police the political speech of the American people in violation of the First Amendment. It is the use of funded or politically affiliated non-profit groups to do the government's dirty work for it. Note that when pressed by a pending lawsuit over its actions, CISA offloaded its "election misinformation" activity to a non-profit organization called the Center for Internet Security (CIS). It was this group, CIS, that served as a singular conduit for election officials to report what they alone determined were false or misleading claims about elections to the large social media platforms of Facebook and Twitter, according to the report.
This parallels the behavior of the Justice Department under then Attorney General Eric Holder during the Barack Obama administration. The Government Accountability Institute did research into the DoJ's pattern of using "consent decrees" to force private companies with threats of anti-discrimination lawsuits to donate funds to one or more designated non-profit organizations on a list helpfully provided by the Justice Department. These groups were largely "social justice warriors" who would then use the money to exert political pressure. This practice was immediately banned by the Trump administration when it took office in 2017, but that ban was quietly reversed by Biden four years later.
CIS enjoyed government funds for its work, much of which is focused on anti-cyberattack activity, as it should be. But its actions in enforcing censorship of "election misinformation" were revealed in the now-famous dump of internal chatter known as "the Twitter files."
Not only that, but the woman who in October 2020 made the fateful decision for Twitter to censor the New York Post's 2020 scoop about Hunter Biden's laptop, Vijaya Gadde, became a member of CISA's "Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation" subcommittee after the Biden administration took office. Gadde, you may recall, was unceremoniously fired by Elon Musk on his first day of owning Twitter.
Gadde was a member of this subcommittee, known as the "MDM Subcommittee," which also counted Dr. Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, and Suzanne Spaulding, a former legal adviser for the CIA. According to a report in The Intercept, this committee in 2022 recommended that CISA closely monitor "social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources."
The MDM committee's report urged the agency to take steps to halt the "spread of false and misleading information" and recommended that CISA stay up to date with the ongoing research on "debunking vs. pre-bunking" information that the committee tars as either unknowingly false (misinformation), deliberately planted by hostile foreign actors (disinformation), or what it termed "malinformation," defined in its report as "information that may be based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate."
What the Judiciary Committee's work so far has highlighted is the creation of "feedback loops": that an agency of the government can create and use advisory boards to go well beyond its statutory mission, giving it cover for exercising power Congress never meant it to have.
How many more federal agencies are doing similar things?
*Peter Schweizer, President of the Governmental Accountability Institute, is a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow and author of the new book, Red Handed: How American Elites are Helping China Win.
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Climate action is an insurance policy for the world
Gernot Wagner/Arab News/July 18, 2023
Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is here, and the effects are all around. Worse, today’s extreme weather events are just a preview of the pain that awaits humanity in the coming decades, almost regardless of how fast we manage to decarbonize the economy this year or next.
Such sobering observations tend to provoke arguments about the importance of “climate optimism.” Pessimism, after all, demotivates. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, not a nightmare, for the future his children would inhabit.
I typically join these calls for optimism. The accelerating pace of the clean energy race is heartening, as is the emergence of positive socioeconomic feedback loops to match all the negative ones associated with climatic tipping points. Still, while the pace of clean energy deployment is faster than it has ever been, the world overall is racing in the wrong direction: global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising.
So, how should we talk about this challenge, with these two dynamics tugging in opposite directions?
One answer is to embrace the language of risks and uncertainties. Not too long ago, those resisting climate action were the ones playing up the issue of uncertainty. The “merchants of doubt” — marginal scientists and other commentators in hock to the fossil fuel industry — focused on our lack of complete knowledge to challenge the strengthening consensus around anthropogenic climate change. Uncertainty was their friend. But for the rest of us, it is public enemy No. 1. The unknowns and unknowables are what make climate change such an urgent problem.
Over the past few decades, advances in climate science and economics have helped to quantify more climate-related uncertainties. This progress has been both helpful and alarming, because it has further underscored just how dangerous those uncertainties truly are.
Above all, it shows that we need climate action not only to keep relatively slow-moving averages from increasing further, but — even more importantly — to keep uncertainties in check. The floods, droughts, wildfires and other extreme climate-driven phenomena are what make the problem so costly. Conversely, climate policymaking that cuts off the tail end of the extreme weather distribution should be regarded as a major success.
Sometimes, this will literally mean taking out insurance against the worst phenomena. Insurance mandates, for example, would compel homeowners to account for the cost of floods and wildfires when deciding where to live. As the price of homeowner’s insurance rises in disaster-prone areas, mandates could become one of the most effective ways to encourage climate change adaptation.
Better technologies with ever-lower costs are likely to emerge as we rapidly climb the learning curve on clean energy solutions.
Similarly, investments in low-carbon energy sources are often best viewed as investments in resilience — and thus in decreased uncertainty. Lowering one’s average carbon footprint ought to be valued and appropriately rewarded. But whether you are installing solar panels on your roof, using a battery pack as backup storage or switching to a heat pump and induction stove, the biggest payoff comes in extreme circumstances, or the lack thereof.
The solar panels and battery packs will ensure that your lights stay on even if the grid goes down because of extreme weather. Similarly, a heat pump and induction stove will allow you to cut off your gas line and declare independence from future gas supply shocks that directly affect your heating bill (the indirect effect via the electric bill points immediately back to solar panels and battery packs, and it further reinforces the urgency to decarbonize the overall electric grid).
The cost of solar and all-electric appliances will only decline over time, whereas natural gas and oil markets will continue to fluctuate, owing to the vagaries of geopolitics and the global economy. A surefire way to prevent so-called fossilflation is to get off fossil fuels altogether.
What is true for homeowners is also true for whole economies. Less dependence on fossil fuels means less uncertainty. True, the clean energy transition also relies on potentially volatile commodities like copper, lithium and other critical minerals. But there are crucial differences between these and fossil fuels. For one, the millions of tons of material going into clean technologies are orders of magnitude smaller than the billions of tons of fossil fuels being burned every year. And still better technologies with ever-lower costs are likely to emerge as we rapidly climb the learning curve on clean energy solutions.
The trend lines support a cautiously optimistic outlook on the clean energy future. But there are plenty of hurdles still to overcome, many of them erected and propped up by fossil fuel incumbents trying to delay the inevitable. There is also plenty of climate-driven pain and destruction still in store. Things will get worse before they get better. But even if we can no longer prevent climate change, we can still mitigate it by minimizing the accompanying uncertainties. We must embrace these uncertainties for what they are: a wake-up call to prevent the worst. Climate risk is financial risk, and climate action is an insurance policy — for the world as much as for individual companies and for us as individuals.
• Gernot Wagner is a climate economist at Columbia Business School.
©Project Syndicate

EU’s pioneering green credentials face two-pronged attack
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/July 18, 2023
The philosophical roots of modern-day environmentalism can be traced back at least as far as the 19th century, to thinkers such as the US naturalist Henry David Thoreau. It was in North America too that green politics first took significant root, as conservation movements were founded, such as the Sierra Club in 1892, helping influence public and private sector leaders like President Theodore Roosevelt.
However, it is Europe that has in recent years been at the center of key sustainability megatrends. For instance, the EU was the first power in the world to introduce — in 2005 — a large-scale carbon trading system, which has helped set the policy agenda for many other governments around the world, from the Asia-Pacific to the Americas. This trajectory has only intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is growing momentum behind the European Green Deal project, with more than 50 major sustainability initiatives rolled out since the signature policy agenda was announced in 2019 by the Ursula von der Leyen-led European Commission.
As the EU seeks to become the world’s first major player to be climate-neutral — its target is by 2050 — its positioning at the forefront of such green agendas is helping to create a pathway for policy innovation, especially around the growing urgency of the energy transition. This is creating new incentives to transform the bloc into a more resource-efficient and competitive economy. One cornerstone of the EU’s green strategy is its taxonomy for sustainable activities — a sustainable finance framework and an important market transparency tool in which Europe is yet again a pioneer and world leader. The taxonomy helps direct investments toward the economic activities most needed for the transition, in line with the European Green Deal’s objectives. In short, it is a classification system that defines criteria for economic activities that are aligned with a net-zero trajectory by 2050 and broader environmental goals other than climate. The EU taxonomy allows financial and non-financial companies to share a common definition of economic activities that can be considered environmentally sustainable. In this way, it plays an important role in helping the 27 EU member nations to scale up sustainable investment by creating security for investors, protecting private investors from greenwashing, helping companies become more climate-friendly and mitigating market fragmentation.
Yet, while the European Commission continues to double down on this sustainability pathway, there is growing domestic and international discontent. On the latter, as the EU increasingly evolves into a global regulatory superpower, there is significant international concern about elements of its green agenda, including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which is part of the latest phase of reform to the EU’s carbon trading system.
The adjustment mechanism relates to imports of products in carbon-intensive industries. The goal is to prevent greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts being offset by increasing emissions outside EU borders through the relocation of production to non-EU countries, where policies applied to fight climate change are less ambitious, or increased imports of carbon-intensive products.
The EU is facing a huge election year in 2024, when the cost-of-living crisis may take center stage.
China, whose bilateral trade with the EU was in the magnitude of $850 billion in 2022, is one of the biggest critics of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, with Beijing arguing that it is inconsistent with international trade principles and rules. It asserts that this mechanism will discriminate against imported products and limit market access, especially from developing World Trade Organization member nations.
However, discontent within the EU regarding the bloc’s green agenda has captured more headlines recently. The timing of this backlash reflects not just the challenging economic landscape Europe has faced since the pandemic and the outbreak of the Ukraine war, including high inflation. In addition, the bloc is facing a huge election year in 2024 with the European Parliament ballots, in which the cost-of-living crisis may take center stage.
One of the initial big signs of green discontent came earlier this year, when Germany, the EU’s largest economy, delayed a deal to ban new internal combustion engines in the EU by 2035. Then the other traditional twin motor of the bloc, France, called for a pause on EU environmental regulation, saying that now is the time for the EU to implement existing rules before adopting new ones.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been particularly concerned by America’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, fearing it will expose European firms to unfair competition from North America, not to mention from developing countries that have significantly lower environmental standards. Other national leaders have also expressed concerns, including in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Romania, Ireland and Poland.
Most recently, green discontent has focused on the EU’s nature restoration law, which will require member states to introduce measures restoring nature on a fifth of their land and sea by 2030. The intent is to reverse the decline of Europe’s natural habitats, more than four-fifths of which are deemed as being in poor health. The right-of-center European People’s Party, the largest body of lawmakers in the European Parliament, opposes the measure, asserting that it will endanger food security and undermine the economics of the agricultural sector. After a big lobbying campaign, the proposal was only narrowly adopted by the legislature earlier this month, by 336 votes to 300.
The EU may, therefore, be at a key pivot point with its green strategy. The domestic political backlash may significantly subside if the bloc enjoys a new period of sustained economic growth after the 2024 election cycle. However, international criticism of key supranational elements of this agenda, such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, may only grow if the bloc’s influence as a regulatory superpower continues to increase.
• Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

Militias Do Not Build States or Civilizations
Daoud Al-Farhan/Asharq Al Awsat/July 18/2023
The militias across the region have turned into factories manufacturing new militias. It is a profession for those without one.
These militias were initially combat or security brigades and evolved to become special operations groups or armed factions with structures similar to those of gangs. They are often tasked with providing security for vital facilities or highly-placed individuals in charge of sensitive dossiers. Indeed, it is commonplace for unstable regimes, quasi-failed states, and corrupt governments to solicit the services of armed militias to carry out unlawful operations and provide what security they can to state facilities.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spearheaded the militias operations in Syria during the war, including those of prominent factions like Jaysh al-Mahdi, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Saraya al-Khorasani, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataeb Imam Ali, Iraqi Hezbollah, and Al-Zainabiyoun. In turn, each of these factions branched out into dozens of factions that operate on Iraqi and Syrian territory, along the Iraqi-Iranian border, and on oil rigs on the waters of the Gulf and Basra.
Before he was assassinated by the United States, Qassem Soleimani had been working on developing and structuring Iraq’s so-called Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The PMF is better armed than Russia’s Wagner Group, but it is also less experienced, disciplined, and well-trained. Some reports suggest that the man in charge of the PMF had intended to bring it under the government’s control, whereby it would determine the tasks of the PMF and where PMF forces were deployed.
The so-called Coordination Framework - an organization loyal to Iran - sought to increase the number of PMF forces to 238,000, which would mean a 95 percent increase in the number of militias funded by the state.
Before we heard about the Wagner Group, there was Blackwater - a notorious militia affiliated with the US military. It played a destructive role in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion. Established in 1997 by businessman and former US Navy officer Erik Prince, Blackwater initially provided private security and training services. However, it gained its notoriety for the crimes it committed against Iraqi civilians, including the killing of 14 Iraqi civilians, including two children, in 2007.
Life or 30-year prison sentences were handed to four of the mercenaries implicated in this massacre. However, former US President Donald Trump pardoned them, infuriating the Iraqi people. Consequently, the company was forced to change its name to “Academi.” This is a multinational group that includes forces from Colombia, South Africa, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Chile, and other countries.
As for the Russian Wagner business, it initially took the guise, in 2018, of a gold exploration company operating in Sudan. It has come up frequently during the ongoing civil war in Sudan. Its operatives across Africa provide support and security services to Russian mining companies and their associates. Russia has been accused of using Wagner to take control of natural resources in Africa and fill the void left by the departure of the European colonialists who had been in the continent since the 18th Century. And Wagner does indeed seek to influence the politics and personal conflicts of countries like Libya, Sudan, Mali, and Madagascar. These transnational militias have become “mercenary armies.” They are like the local militias in Iraq, which are knee-deep in the swamp of corruption, money laundering, and drug trafficking there. PMF militias have also assassinated many patriotic activists for their rejection of Iranian hegemony over Iraq’s institutions.
If you look into Lebanon’s political history between the 1950s and 1980s, you will not find terrorist groups or militias like Hezbollah, which has morphed into a state within a state.
A strong state does not rely on militias. Rather, it seeks political solutions, stability, development projects, and prosperity. This is the course taken by Mahathir Mohamad, the renowned Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Lee Kuan Yew, who was the prime minister of Singapore for three decades. Under Lee, Singapore went from being a modest port to a country brimming with lights, towering cranes, massive cargo ships, and an extremely busy airport. Indeed, the airport is so active that passenger flights circle its airspace for over an hour before finding a safe landing spot.
The founder of modern Singapore believed that a dignified leader must rule with an iron fist. He famously said: “Why don’t we crush opposition before it begins? Once it emerges, it will become very hard for us to crush it.”
In summary, militias do not build nations or civilizations, nor do they allow for fair and equitable relations with other countries. Indeed, what they do is aggravate state corruption, assassinate and terrorize rivals, and undermine efforts to foster citizenship and national civic identity.