English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 02/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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15 آذار/2023

Bible Quotations For today
Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.
Mark 16/15-20: “‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 01-02/2023
Hezbollah members accused of deliberately killing an Irish soldier in southern Lebanon: Judicial source to AFP
Tenenti: Indictment in case of murder of Private Rooney is important step toward justice
US Considers Imposing Sanctions on Lebanese Officials
Report: U.S. might sanction Berri, 18 other officials over presidential void
France Faces Crisis of Presidential Candidates in Lebanon
Al-Rahi says Paris, Vatican asked him to talk to all components
Berri says won't open parliament in absence of 'serious nominations'
Change MPs hold talks with opposition, to meet Azour soon
Exploring the consequences of electing a president regardless of sectarian affiliations
Will PSP endorse Azour for presidency?
Jihad Azour gains momentum in parliamentary race: A clash of numbers and uncertainties
Port blast victims' relatives demand justice, two months before anniversary
Rajwa Al-Saif shines in Elie Saab's design on her wedding day to Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan
#OurWorldOurPlayground: LBCI's Campaign Spotlights Three Lebanese Teams Competing on the Global Basketball Stage
Berri discusses security situation with Army chief
Iraq doubles amount of fuel for Lebanon to 160,000 tons per month in response to request of Minister of Energy
KSA Ambassador meets with Rabab Sadr
Raya Daouk first Lebanese woman elected to head a prestigious institution covering touristic and cultural aspects of the Middle East
Choucair hands Egyptian Ambassador copy of ‘Kulluna Li Beirut’ Gathering’s document
Khalil: Measures taken in cooperation with IMF form foundation for structural transformation

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 01-02/2023
Israel Launches ‘Firm Hand,’ Says Not Related to Iran
Iran executions spike by 76% with 142 people hanged in May: Report
IAEA: Monitoring Devices Return to Some Iranian Sites
Raisi: Strengthening Deterrence is Top Policy Priority for Iran
US Imposes Sanctions Against Those Perpetuating Violence in Sudan
UNHCR: More Than 100,000 Flee to Chad from Sudan Conflict
Syrian FM to Visit Iraq on Saturday
Hussam Edin Aala Appointed as Syria’s Ambassador to AL
Saudi Foreign Minister Meets with Russian Counterpart
US Says Ready to Resume Sudan Mediation Once Parties 'Serious'
Russia 'thwarts' attack on border as three killed in Kyiv
Fresh Russian Bombardment of Ukraine’s Capital Kills at Least 3 People, Wounds Others
France and Germany Are Split Over Ukraine’s Appeal to Join NATO
Putin no longer has the money or the kit to sustain a high-tech modern war
Poland slams vote questioning Hungary holding EU presidency
House OKs debt ceiling bill, sends Biden-McCarthy deal to Senate
Canada sanctions Moldovan oligarchs, politicians over Russian links

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 01-02/2023
A Latent Problem for Erdoğan/Kevork Yacoubian/Carnegie MEC/June 01/2023
When Iran Challenges Azerbaijan, Israel Benefits!/Huda al-Husseini/Asharq Al Awsat/01 June 2023
Turkish ‘Princess’ Vows that Islam Will ‘Break the Western Cross’/Raymond Ibrahim./June 1, 2023
China's CCP: World's Most Dangerous Transnational Criminal Organization/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute./June 1, 2023
Authoritarian Redux /Charles Elias Chartouni//June 01, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 01-02/2023
Hezbollah members accused of deliberately killing an Irish soldier in southern Lebanon: Judicial source to AFP
LBCI/June 01/2023
The military judiciary accused on Thursday five members of Hezbollah, one of whom is in custody, of intentional murder in the attack on a patrol of the Irish battalion serving in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon, which resulted in the killing of an Irish soldier, a judicial source told Agence France-Presse. The indictment issued by the First Military Investigative Judge, Fadi Sawwan, accused individuals affiliated with Hezbollah of "forming a criminal group and executing a single criminal project."He confirmed that the actions of the detained individual, Mohammad Ayyad, and four fugitives from justice fall under the fifth paragraph of Article 549 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which states that "if a crime is committed against a public official while performing their duties, or in connection with their duties, or because of their duties, the perpetrator shall be punished by death."The decision, which spans thirty pages and was seen by the Agence France-Presse, concludes that the individuals mentioned are guilty of "intentional murder." They have all been referred to the military court for trial. Judge Sawwan also handed a copy of the indictment to the UNIFIL force.

Tenenti: Indictment in case of murder of Private Rooney is important step toward justice
LBCI/1 June 2023
Spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Andrea Tenenti announced that "the first military investigating judge has issued today the indictment in the case of the attack on UNIFIL peacekeepers on December 14, in which Private Sean Rooney, an Irish peacekeeper serving with UNIFIL, was killed." "This is an important step towards justice, and we continue to urge accountability for all those involved in the crime. Attacks on men and women serving the cause of peace are grave crimes that cannot be tolerated. We look forward to achieving justice for Private Rooney, his injured colleagues, and their families," he added.

US Considers Imposing Sanctions on Lebanese Officials
Washington: Rana Abtar/1 June 2023
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf has said the US was considering the possibility of imposing sanctions on some Lebanese officials over the failure to elect a new president. During a Senate committee hearing on the Middle East, the top US diplomat for the region expressed the Biden Administration’s “enormous frustration” over the current situation in Lebanon. Leaf said Washington was “working collaboratively with several regional partners, European partners, to push the Lebanese Parliament to do its job.”“The elected representatives of the Lebanese people have failed to do their jobs. The Speaker of the Parliament has failed to hold a session since January to allow members to put candidates forward for the presidency, to vote on them up or down, and to get a choice to get to elect a president,” according to Leaf. Leaf responded to a question by Sen. Cynthia Chaheen on whether sanctions should be contemplated, saying, “We are looking at it. Yes, we are.” She further affirmed, “We are engaging with the diaspora. I meet regularly with members of the Lebanese Parliament who come through town.” “In the face of growing instability, Lebanon’s political class must urgently overcome their differences and commit to advancing the interests of Lebanon’s people,” Congressmen Mike McCaul and Gregory Meeks said in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “We also call on the Administration to use all available authorities, including additional targeted sanctions on specific individuals contributing to corruption and impeding progress in the country.” They called on the Lebanese Parliament to “break through months of intransigence to urgently elect a new president who is free from corruption and undue external influence.”

Report: U.S. might sanction Berri, 18 other officials over presidential void
Naharnet/1 June 2023
Nineteen Lebanese officials, including Speaker Nabih Berri, might be sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department if a president is not elected this month, Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported Thursday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf had reportedly warned Wednesday that her country might impose sanctions on Lebanese officials if they continue to obstruct the election of a new president. Berri on Thursday reiterated that he will not call for a presidential election session in the absence of “at least two serious nominations,” although the opposition and the FPM had confirmed an agreement on the presidential nomination of former minister of Finance Jihad Azour.

France Faces Crisis of Presidential Candidates in Lebanon
Beirut: Thaer Abbas/Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
French President Emmanuel Macron met on Tuesday with Lebanon’s Patriarch Beshara Rai at the Elysee Palace and showed “remarkable hospitality” in a bid to assure the Lebanese, mainly the Maronite Christians, that France will always be their “caring mother”. Through the distinguished reception of Rai in the courtyard of the Elysée Palace, Macron wanted to display a message to Lebanon’s Christians that his country is still committed to support them, despite the divergence with the majority of the Christian forces over the presidential file. French diplomats are often criticized at events and meetings for the mismanagement of the Lebanese file. Some speak of “disregard” and others of French “neglect” of the Christians, while some go so far as to describe the French proposal to elect former minister Sleiman Franjieh as “treason.” A senior French diplomat acknowledges this reality, but describes it differently. He said: “Their primary concern is to fill the vacuum at the top state post." According to the diplomat, France believes that the election of a president is the first step to revive the country’s constitutional and government work, which has been disrupted since Nov. 1, 2022, when President Michel Aoun left office without the political parties being able to agree on a successor. The diplomat went on to say that the French chose Franjieh over the vacuum at the top state post, but were not insisting on him. “We will work with any president that [the Lebanese] agree upon, because the next stage is the most important,” he underlined, pointing to the need to launch political reform and work with the World Bank to develop a road map that would help the country to overcome its financial crisis. The French are aware of the importance of the opposition forces reaching an agreement over the name of a candidate. They consider the election of the president an absolute priority. The French diplomat continued: “The most important matter is to preserve the institutions, and the presidency is the key.” During their meeting, Macron and Rai agreed that the “political and constitutional impasse was the biggest obstacle facing the country.”
They both stressed the need for Lebanon to elect a new president as quickly as possible. There was also an agreement, according to the French diplomat, that France continues to support the Lebanese educational sector, which is essential to preserve the country. Since 2020, France has offered about 90 million euros for Francophone Christian schools, where the majority of students are Muslims. Other points that Macron and Rai emphasized include the necessity of preserving “the health system and food security for the Lebanese, strengthening the judiciary, and expediting the investigations into the Beirut port explosion,” the French diplomat told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Al-Rahi says Paris, Vatican asked him to talk to all components
Naharnet/1 June 2023
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Thursday announced that France and the Vatican have asked him to talk to all of the country’s “components” regarding the presidential file. “We will talk to everyone without exception, even to Hezbollah, and the efforts will start today,” al-Rahi told a delegation from the Press Syndicate. “The parliament speaker must call for an (electoral) session two months before the end of the (president’s) term, but we’re characterized with violating the constitution,” al-Rahi lamented. “We have become a mockery to the nations because of some politicians, and no one has the right to tamper with the people’s fate or destroy Lebanon,” the patriarch decried. Noting that he sensed “relief over the Christian consensus over a presidential candidate” during his visits to the Vatican and France, in reference to Jihad Azour’s nomination, al-Rahi said the Vatican and Paris told him that “the understandings have started and must be expanded.”“What I understood is that there is an agreement by the Christian components over a candidate and I acted accordingly, because Lebanon cannot bear anymore. The people are hungry and emigrating and the displaced (Syrians) are worsening the burden on the country,” the patriarch added. “They have agreed on Jihad Azour … and what’s important is for the rest of the components to endorse him,” al-Rahi went on to say.

Berri says won't open parliament in absence of 'serious nominations'
Naharnet/1 June 2023
Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday stressed that he will not call for a presidential election session in the absence of “at least two serious nominations.”“Parliament’s doors have not and will not be shut in the face of a presidential election session should at least two serious presidential nominations be announced,” Berri said in a statement, emphasizing that “distortions and threats” against him are “of no use.”The opposition and the Free Patriotic Movement have recently said that they have agreed on ex-minister Jihad Azour as a presidential candidate, but the FPM is yet to officially endorse him, arguing that there should be consultations over “the program and the election mechanism.” The FPM has also argued that Azour should be a “consensus” candidate and not a candidate aimed at “confronting” the Hezbollah-led camp.

Change MPs hold talks with opposition, to meet Azour soon
Naharnet/1 June 2023
Representatives of the Lebanese Forces, Kataeb and Tajaddod blocs and a number of Change MPs held a meeting Thursday to “devise the appropriate mechanisms for reaching a presidential agreement among and with other blocs with which they have intersected over a common presidential candidate,” al-Jadeed TV said.The conferees discussed “how to publicize this intersection when it happens in order to push for ending the presidential vacuum,” the TV network added. Change MPs will meanwhile hold a meeting in parliament on Thursday evening to “discuss Jihad Azour’s nomination,” al-Jadeed said. “MP Halima Qaaqour will boycott the meeting because she rejects Azour’s nomination,” al-Jadeed added. Moreover, a number of Change MPs will soon hold Zoom meetings with Azour, TV networks said. “As part of their conditions, the opposition blocs will ask Azour to prevent sectarian quotas in ministries and will argue that the finance portfolio should not always be allocated to Shiites and that the interior portfolio should not always be allotted to Sunnis,” Change bloc sources told al-Jadeed. “The opposition blocs will ask Azour to guarantee that a one-third-plus-one share would not be granted to any camp,” the sources added.

Exploring the consequences of electing a president regardless of sectarian affiliations
LBCI/1 June 2023
One of the scenarios that could occur in the presidential elections is the election of former minister Jihad Azour without any Shiite votes, for example, or the election of Sleiman Frangieh without any Druze votes, for instance. Would we really have a president described as non-confessionalism? What would be the consequences of that? The Constitution does not mention any sectarian distribution of the deputies who elect the president. Furthermore, the voting process is secret, so when counting the votes, it is impossible to determine the voter's identity or sect for a particular candidate. The winner becomes the president by virtue of the Constitution. However, objectors can oppose him and refuse to cooperate with him or challenge the result and request the annulment of the elections. They can submit a request for objection supported by one-third of the members of the Parliament to the Constitutional Council within 24 hours after the announcement of the results. A majority of seven votes must make the decision within three days from the appeal submission date. Constitutional sources state that objections can be made based on violating the conditions imposed by Article 49 of the Constitution regarding the legality of the electoral process. This includes the election date, the call for elections, vote counting, the integrity of the election, and the issues of quorum and majority. However, according to these sources, if confessionalism is used to justify the objection, it may hold little chance before the Constitutional Council.

Will PSP endorse Azour for presidency?
Naharnet/1 June 2023
The Progressive Socialist Party will soon discuss the nomination of former minister Jihad Azour, PSP MP Wael Abou Faour said. The lawmaker said all the bloc's MPs will vote for the same candidate. "Azour is not a confrontational candidate and we were the first to suggest his name," Abou Faour said.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea had confirmed Wednesday that an agreement was reached between the opposition and the Free Patriotic Movement on Azour’s presidential nomination. He said that Azour could get more than 65 votes but doubted that Speaker Berri would call for an electoral session before the Shiite Duo's candidate Suleiman Franjieh secures 65 votes. "The other camp doesn't have the right to impose Franjieh and to refuse all other names," Abou Faour said, adding that Berri might, under pressure, call for a session but quorum might not be secured. "U.S. sanctions threats could speed up the presidential election," Abou Faour said. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf had reportedly warned that her country might impose sanctions on Lebanese officials if they continue to obstruct the election of a new president.

Jihad Azour gains momentum in parliamentary race: A clash of numbers and uncertainties
LBCI/1 June 2023
Candidate Jihad Azour quickly garnered more votes within the parliament than candidate Sleiman Frangieh. Through a simple calculation, Azour secures approximately 68 votes compared to Frangieh's 45, with 15 deputies who have yet to decide or may choose to submit a blank ballot.
How?
Jihad Azour has the support of:
Strong Republic Bloc (The Lebanese Forces) with 19 deputies.
If we include the entire Strong Lebanon Bloc (The Free Patriotic Movement), it accounts for 17 deputies.
The Kataeb Party with four deputies.
The Tajadod Bloc with four deputies.
The Democratic Gathering with eight deputies.
The Tashnag Party with two deputies, excluding George Bouchikian.
In addition to eight Change deputies: Marc Dagher, Michel El Dawayhi, Wadah Saddeq, Najat Aoun, Melhem Khalaf, Paula Yaacoubian, Yassin Yassin, and Elias Jaradah. Independent deputies include Ghassan Skaf, Jean Talouzian, Bilal Hashimi, Ihab Matar, Nabil Bader, and Imad El-Hout.
On the other hand, Frangieh has the support of:
The Shiite deputies, totaling 27.
In addition to the deputies of the Shiite duo: Yanal Soleh, Hashem Qassem, Melhem Al-Houjairi, and Michel Moussa.
The Independent National Bloc with four deputies: Tony Frangieh, William Tohmeh, Michel El-Murr, and Farid Khazen.
The National Accord Bloc: Faisal Karami, Adnan Traboulsi, Hassan Murad, Mohammed Yahya, and Taha Naji.
- Jihad As-Samad and Abdul Karim Kabbara.
- George Bouchikian.
- Ahmed Rostum and Haider Nasser
If we talk about Maronite and Christian support, MP Jihad Azour has 80% support from Christian deputies, compared to only 9% for Sleiman Frangieh.
He also has 87.5% support from the Druze community, while Frangieh has no Druze support. Among the Sunnite deputies, the support is divided, with 37% siding with Frangieh and 33.35% supporting Jihad. However, the Shiite community fully supports Frangieh, with 100% of its deputies, including the Shiite duo, endorsing him, which raises the problem of confessionalism. As for the undecided deputies, they are Ahmed Al-Khair, Walid Al-Baarini, Mohammed Sleiman, Sajih Attieh, and Abdel Aziz As-Samad from the Moderation Bloc, in addition to the Sidon-Jezzine Bloc and its three deputies, Jamil Aboud, Neemat Ephrem, and Michel Daher, as well as four deputies from the Change Bloc, namely Ibrahim Mneimneh, Firas Hamdan, Halima Kaakour, and Cynthia Zarazir. These numbers indicate the intensification and uncertainty of the battle. On paper and in terms of votes, Jihad has surpassed the absolute majority that could lead him to the Baabda Presidential Palace in the second round of any session. However, the convening of the session is dependent on Speaker Berri's call for it. Even if Berri extends the invitation, the 45 supporters of Frangieh can obstruct the quorum of the session in its first or second round.

Port blast victims' relatives demand justice, two months before anniversary
Naharnet/1 June 2023
Relatives of the Beirut port blast victims rallied Thursday in front of the Justice Palace to demand justice for their loved ones. They said they will rally every Thursday, as they burned tires to protest the obstruction of the blast's probe. "We are preparing an organized and large protest for the third anniversary of the blast," William Noun -- whose brother, a fireman, was killed in the devastating August 4, 2020 blast -- said. The investigators into the Beirut port blast had attempted to question a former premier and four ex-ministers over the tragedy, but the probe was repeatedly obstructed before being suspended.

Rajwa Al-Saif shines in Elie Saab's design on her wedding day to Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan
LBCI/1 June 2023
The world eagerly awaited the arrival of Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah of Jordan and Ms. Rajwa Al-Saif to celebrate their wedding at Zahran Palace in Jordan. The bride chose a signature design by Lebanese designer Elie Saab for her wedding day. She wore a long-sleeved, fitted white dress adorned with a decorative train and a plain long veil.

#OurWorldOurPlayground: LBCI's Campaign Spotlights Three Lebanese Teams Competing on the Global Basketball Stage
LBCI/1 June 2023
The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) has acquired exclusive broadcasting rights in Lebanon for major international and continental championships until 2025 through an agreement with FIBA. As part of its preparations for a busy season, LBCI will launch a campaign on June 1st to support and inspire Lebanon's three national basketball teams. These teams are set to compete in three upcoming international tournaments: the Lebanese women's team in the FIBA Women's Asia Cup, the Lebanese U19 team in the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup, and the Lebanese men's team in the FIBA Basketball World Cup. The promotional campaign, with the slogan "#OurWorldOurPlayground," will be showcased on screen, on LBCI's website, and on digital platforms. The campaign aims to unite the Lebanese community both within the country and abroad, rallying their support for the competing teams across the three world championships because "success is our playground," "sports is our playground," along with "art, culture, fashion, and science..." LBCI's campaign encompasses various elements, including promotional clips, special TV shows produced in cutting-edge studios, and in-depth newscast coverage. This coverage will feature exclusive interviews, unique stories, and reports involving renowned experts and male and female players supporting Lebanon's presence on the global sports map, with its three national teams holding significant positions. For example, the Lebanese women's team will be the sole Arab team competing against China, South Korea, and New Zealand in the first stage of the FIBA Women's Asia Cup in Sydney, Australia, starting June 26th. On the other hand, the Lebanese U19 team will compete against Slovenia, Madagascar, and the USA in the first stage of the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup commencing on June 24th in Hungary. Lastly, the Lebanese men's team will participate in the FIBA Basketball World Cup starting on August 25th in Indonesia, where it will confront Latvia, Canada, and France in the tournament's first stage.

Berri discusses security situation with Army chief
NNA/1 June 2023
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Thursday met at the Second Presidency in Ain El-Tineh with Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, with whom he discussed the security situation and affairs related to the military institution.
Speaker Berri also welcomed in Ain El-Tineh, media figure Thaer Abbas, who presented him with his new publication, "Modern Turkey".

Iraq doubles amount of fuel for Lebanon to 160,000 tons per month in response to request of Minister of Energy
NNA/1 June 2023
Caretaker Minister of Energy and Water, Dr. Walid Fayyad, on Thursday received a letter from the Iraqi Oil Marketing Organization affiliated to Iraq’s Oil Ministry, informing him to proceed with doubling the monthly amount of fuel oil allocated to Lebanon under the valid agreement, from 80,000 to 160,000 tons, starting July. This step comes after the consultations and meetings conducted by Caretaker Minister Fayyad with the Iraqi side, the last of which was in May with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and Iraqi Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani, and the subsequent decision of the Iraqi Council of Ministers. This increase in the quantity provides an opportunity to double the electric power supply generated by the production plants operating on gas oil and fuel, in order to meet the needs of the Lebanese for electricity during the summer.

KSA Ambassador meets with Rabab Sadr
NNA/1 June 2023
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Bukhari, on Thursday said via Twitter: "A meeting full of 'common word' affirmations with Mrs. Rabab al-Sadr, who is entrusted with the legacy of scholar Moussa al-Sadr, who adopted dialogue as an approach for Lebanon's salvation.”

Raya Daouk first Lebanese woman elected to head a prestigious institution covering touristic and cultural aspects of the Middle East
NNA/1 June 2023
Mrs. Raya Daouk won the Ivo Andrič European Cultural Prize as part of the activities of Italia è cultura, a prize honoring her work in the preservation and enhancement of Lebanese heritage and the protection of ancient sites and houses in Lebanon. As a result, Raya Daouk was elected president of the International University of the Mediterranean during a grand ceremony that took place in Palermo, Italy.
The creation of the International University of the Mediterranean is the first stage of an international cooperation project in the fields of culture, science, civil society and new technologies. It is indeed the first time that high representatives of institutes, the academic world, civil society, scientific and industrial research in Greece, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Ireland, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, whose Ministry of Culture was represented by two emissaries, decided to create a scientific, educational and multicentric structure which would have centers in several countries around the Mediterranean.
During the ceremony which was attended by Archbishop Michele Pennisi as a representing of His Holiness Pope Francis, Ms. Daouk gave a speech that will be taught in the field of cultural communication, in which she stressed that "we have come from afar to celebrate together in this magical city steeped in history, a hymn to culture. Culture is very strongly linked to the beauty of the soul, and our culture has no dimension or price, it is there or it is not!" And she added: “All our people have dreams, the same dreams of happiness. We will be able to help them realize some of these dreams through culture with loyalty and pride,” adding, “Put aside our differences and use them to compose a sublime mosaic that would serve as an example for future generations." Daouk underlined that “Our countries, so enchanting with the strength of contrasts, the violence of worries and the sweetness of the art of living, mutilated by wars, are not made to die, but rather to reinvent life. We don't forget our tragedies, we reintegrate them into our memory”. She reiterated that “through culture, we could think, fight together to act better. We have come to sow this seed which will become the grand tree of our future”, adding: “We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our children”. Ms. Raya Daouk, President of APSAD, an organization which for years has done valuable work restoring and enhancing ancient sites and houses in Lebanon, is a woman who has made culture a vehicle for peace and prosperity throughout the Middle East.
The honorary president of the new organization is Professor Mounir Bouchenaki, former director of the division of culture and the list of cultural heritage, former deputy director general for culture of UNESCO and former director general of ICCROM, and who also received an honorary degree from the Jean Monnet University of European Studies in Gorazde for his excellent work in these fields. The lawyer Renzo Persico, president of the Costa Smeralda Consortium, a tourist destination that has represented for more than twenty years, excellence in world tourism and is a true point of reference on how to reconcile modern perception with natural and cultural heritage of territory, was elected vice-president of the international organization. The board also includes Dr. Gihane Zaki, world renowned Egyptologist, former director of the Egyptian Academy in Rome and parliamentarian, Professor Antonio Palma from the University of Palermo, and Professor Salvatore Messina, Rector of the Jean Monnet University of European Studies in Gorazdi. It is worth noting that this is the first time that a Lebanese woman has been called upon to lead an institution of such high level which encompasses the cultural, touristic and educational aspects of technological innovation, business and new jobs creation in this vast territory.

Choucair hands Egyptian Ambassador copy of ‘Kulluna Li Beirut’ Gathering’s document
NNA/1 June 2023
Head of "Kulluna Li Beirut" (We are all for Beirut) Gathering and former Minister Mohammed Choucair, on Thursday visited Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Dr. Yasser Alawi, at the Egyptian Embassy, and discussed with him the general situation and the latest developments in the country. Choucair, according to a statement from his office, briefed Ambassador Alawi on the launch of the "We are all for Beirut" Gathering and its future program, and handed him a copy of the Gathering’s document and objectives.
The Egyptian ambassador wished the Gathering success in achieving the desired national goals.

Khalil: Measures taken in cooperation with IMF form foundation for structural transformation
NNA/1 June 2023
Caretaker Minister of Finance Youssef Khalil affirmed on Thursday that the measures taken in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, whether in terms of legislation or decisions, though they require further steps, form a foundation for a structural transformation that revitalizes public administration and establishes the basis for reform-oriented budgets that we began implementing in 2022. He considered that this budget opened the door to establishing a unified exchange rate for public finances and enhancing the financing capabilities of the treasury. He stated today, "We are working on completing the 2023 budget, which we strive to make reform-oriented, based on the recovery and revival plan, in order to contribute to economic recovery, promote social justice, and achieve sustainable development." He also pointed out that raising the customs dollar to the current level has provided the treasury with significant revenues that have helped mitigate deterioration and enhance some financial and monetary stability. Khalil's remarks came during the opening of the second meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Arab Institute for Planning in the presence of its Director-General, Dr. Badr Malallah, and his deputy, Dr. Waleed Abdul Moula. -- LBC

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 01-02/2023
Israel Launches ‘Firm Hand,’ Says Not Related to Iran
Tel Aviv: Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
The Israeli army has launched ‘Firm Hand,’ a large-scale two-week drill across the country, simulating a potential multi-front war. According to the military, the drill was pre-planned and did not stem from any recent security assessments or tension with Iran. General Michael "Erik" Kurilla , Commander of US Central Command, arrived in Israel on Tuesday for a three-day visit as part of a wider tour of the region. Kurilla arrived a day after the Israeli army kicked off the military exercises, which he was set to observe. He started off his visit at Unit 504, the HUMINT (human intelligence) unit of the Israeli army’s Intelligence Directorate (J2), where he was briefed on the unit's latest operations, as well as plans for the future. Israeli army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi led an operational panel during which the commanders discussed cooperation between the military and the US Armed Forces and the strengthening of joint operational capabilities. The ‘Firm Hand’ exercise will simulate a multi-front conflict in the air, at sea, on land and in the fields of cybersecurity. The exercise will test the Israeli military's ability to prepare for a prolonged campaign on multiple fronts. A military source said the drill would include the Air Force conducting simulated “strategic” strikes deep in enemy territory in an all-out war scenario, and the Navy carrying out mock offensive and defensive actions. The Israeli army said troops from the standing and reserve army, from nearly all units, would participate in the exercise.

Iran executions spike by 76% with 142 people hanged in May: Report
Beatrice Farhat/Al Monitor/June 01/2023
A new report reveals that Iran carried out 307 executions in 2023 as rights groups' pleas fall on deaf ears.
A new report on Thursday has revealed alarming figures for Iranian executions this year, a killing spree that rights groups say is intended to intimidate the Iranian people. In May alone, at least 142 people were executed in the country, the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said in its report. The number, which averages to over four people executed per day, is the highest monthly figure in the country since 2015. At least 307 people have been executed this year, a 76% increase compared to the same period last year, the report showed. In the report, IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam called on the international community to urgently intervene to stop the country’s “killing machine,” writing, “The purpose of the Islamic Republic’s intensification of arbitrary executions is to spread societal fear to prevent protests and prolong its rule.” Executions have surged in the Islamic Republic after anti-regime protests erupted across the country last September in response to the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. Authorities responded to the protests with a violent crackdown, killing hundreds and arresting thousands. The judiciary has issued several death sentences in relation to the protests, but many have been sentenced for other violations, including drug and blasphemy offenses. The IHR report found that at least 78 people were executed last month for drug-related offenses. “Imposing the death penalty for drug offenses is incompatible with international human rights norms and standards,” UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a press release last month. Last week, a rare public execution was carried out in front of a large crowd in the city of Maragheh, in East Azerbaijan province. The man, who was not identified in the press, was arrested five years ago and charged with corruption and prostitution. State media outlets shared images and videos showing the convict standing next to two executioners while blindfolded. He was then photographed hanging from a crane by a rope around his neck. Rights groups were quick to denounce the public execution, describing it as a “medieval” practice. “Today’s public execution and its publication by state media shows the true horrifying face of a government that’s trying to prolong its reign with cruelty, humiliation and intimidation of society,” Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement last week. Earlier in May, three protesters were hanged in a prison in the central city of Isfahan, despite pleas from relatives and rights groups. The three men were reportedly tortured to force their confessions. Last week, authorities postponed the execution of a 22-year-old man held in a prison in Shiraz city, in Fars province, following calls to stop the death penalty. Amnesty International had warned about the imminent execution of Hossein Shahbazi, saying that he was convicted of a crime he committed when he was a minor. The UK-based group denounced the “grossly unfair trial” he was subjected to in January and said his confessions were obtained under torture. Iran is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, according to Amnesty.

IAEA: Monitoring Devices Return to Some Iranian Sites
London: Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran has reinstalled some monitoring equipment initially put under the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, which Iran removed last year. The director of the UN agency, Rafael Grossi, said in two quarterly reports that the agency was "awaiting Iran's engagement to address" issues, including installing more monitoring equipment announced months ago. The monitoring equipment included surveillance cameras at a site in Isfahan, where centrifuge parts are made, and monitoring equipment at two declared enrichment facilities, according to the two confidential reports addressed to IAEA member states.
Undisclosed sites
Regarding the ongoing investigation of traces of uranium in three undisclosed sites, the agency said that Iran had provided a "satisfactory answer" on one of them to explain the presence of particles there. The report stated that the agency has no further questions, and the issue is no longer pending. Iranian media said Tuesday that it settled two disputed cases with the IAEA, one related to finding traces of uranium at the Marivan site in Abadah, in Fars province. The Marivan site is the first of three locations to be addressed under a work plan Iran, and the IAEA agreed upon last March. It was not reported in the 2015 nuclear deal talks. Iran also announced a settlement over the IAEA's discovery of traces of 83.7 percent enriched uranium at the Fordow facility earlier this year.
- Iran stockpile
The IAEA reports confirmed that Iran continues to violate the restrictions imposed on its nuclear activities, and its total stockpile of enriched uranium continues to grow and is now 23 times the 202.8-kg limit set by the 2015 deal, at 4.7 tons. The permissible limit in the agreement is 202.8 kilograms.
Iran's stock of enriched uranium has enriched to up to 60 percent to 141.1 kilograms since February. Last October, the IAEA estimated that Iran possessed 62.3 percent of uranium of the 60 percent uranium. Back then, experts said Iran's stockpile was enough to make one bomb if it decided to do so. After relations between Iran and the West deteriorated, Tehran limited its cooperation with the agency and removed surveillance cameras from some facilities. It also gradually reneged on most of its commitments within the framework of the agreement concluded in 2015 between Tehran and the US, France, the UK, Russia, China, and Germany after then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal. The US State Department said it has "full confidence" in the IAEA and that President Joe "absolutely committed to never allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon," according to the Associated Press.
"We appreciate the IAEA's extensive efforts to engage Iran on longstanding questions related to Iran's safeguards obligations," the State Department said. "We have made clear that Iran must fully uphold its safeguards obligations."

Raisi: Strengthening Deterrence is Top Policy Priority for Iran
London: Adel Al Salmi/Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi announced that strengthening deterrence is one of Iran’s priority policies, adding that Iran does not "wait for anyone's frown or smile" in determining the lines of its foreign policy. The president spoke at the closing ceremony of the meeting of the heads of the missions of Iran abroad. He indicated that the government's foreign policy calls for dealing with all countries based on justice. Raisi implicitly criticized the previous government headed by Hassan Rouhani without mentioning his name, defying the old assumption that the fate of countries worldwide is determined by a small number of powers with whom foreign policy decisions have to be coordinated. "In the past, some people thought that a few countries determined the future of countries in the world, and therefore, the lines of foreign policy should be aligned with them, but we believe that we should cooperate with countries according to their capacities and considerations."Raisi urged Iranian diplomats to accurately understand the current and required situation as part of "necessary" steps to bring about a shift in foreign policy. The president said the foreign policy apparatus is one of the crucial mechanisms for generating power for the country. "If we do not have a precise knowledge of the current and desired situation, we cannot take steps towards transformation,” he noted. Raisi warned against not joining "emerging" organizations such as the Shanghai Organization, BRICS, and the Eurasian Union, describing them as "future-building powers."Raisi described foreign policy in African countries, Latin American countries, and other regions from East Asia to Central Asia and Europe as essential fields for the activity of the diplomatic apparatus of Iran. The Iranian government's policy calls for cooperating with all countries interacting with Iran out of goodwill, but if "a country intends to be hostile to us, we will resist.""We are sure that the way to the country's progress is resistance, not surrender and retreat, and therefore we will never back down from our principles. Of course, at the same time, strengthening deterrence power is also one of our main work policies".Iran continues accumulating uranium enrichment by 60 percent, amid international fears that Tehran will change the course of its nuclear program towards developing nuclear weapons, which it denies. Earlier, Iran announced the manufacture and successful test launch of a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers. The commander of the Aerospace unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that his country is preparing to unveil a hypersonic missile soon.

US Imposes Sanctions Against Those Perpetuating Violence in Sudan
Washington: Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on companies it accused of fueling the conflict in Sudan. The US Treasury Department said in a statement it targeted two companies affiliated with Sudan's army and two companies affiliated with the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), accusing them of generating revenue from the conflict and contributing to the fighting. “Through sanctions, we are cutting off key financial flows to both the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces, depriving them of resources needed to pay soldiers, rearm, resupply, and wage war in Sudan,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the statement. “The United States stands on the side of civilians against those who perpetuate violence towards the people of Sudan.” Saudi Arabia and the United States have been leading efforts to try to secure an effective ceasefire in Sudan. Thursday's action marks the first punitive measures imposed under an executive order signed by US President Joe Biden in May that paved the way for new Sudan-related sanctions amid the fighting. The conflict, which broke out on April 15, has killed hundreds, displaced more than 1.2 million people inside Sudan and driven 400,000 others across borders to neighboring states, the United Nations says. Washington targeted Algunade, which it said is a Sudanese holding company controlled by RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and his brother; Tradive General Trading L.L.C., a front company controlled by RSF Major Algoney Hamdan Dagalo, another brother; Sudan's largest defense enterprise Defense Industries System; and arms company Sudan Master Technology. Washington also issued an updated business advisory to highlight growing risks to US business and individuals exacerbated by the conflict, including trade in gold from a conflict-affected area, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement. He added that visa restrictions were imposed on individuals in Sudan, including officials from both the army and RSF and leaders from the former Omar al-Bashir government. "The ongoing fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces is a tragedy that has already stolen far too many lives - it must end," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. "These measures are intended to hold accountable those responsible for undermining the peace, security, and stability of Sudan."
Sudan's army suspended talks with the rival paramilitary force on Wednesday over a ceasefire and aid access, raising fears the six-week-old conflict will push Africa's third largest nation deeper into a humanitarian crisis.

UNHCR: More Than 100,000 Flee to Chad from Sudan Conflict
Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
More than 100,000 people have fled violence in Sudan to neighboring Chad and the numbers could double in the next three months, the UN refugee agency said on Thursday. The near seven-week conflict has pushed Sudan into a humanitarian crisis and turned one of Africa's greatest cities - the three-part capital of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri on the confluence on the Blue and White Niles - into a war zone. "As the rainy season is coming within the next few weeks, we require massive logistics to move refugees from border areas... We need to establish immediately new camps and extension of existing camps," UNHCR Chad representative Laura Lo Castro said. One of the poorest countries in the world, Chad was already hosting close to 600,000 refugees before conflict broke out in Sudan in April. UNHCR said it needs $214.1 million to provide vital services to displaced people, in the country, which is currently 16% funded.

Syrian FM to Visit Iraq on Saturday
Beirut: Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Al-Mokdad is set to visit the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Saturday, Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper said on Thursday. Quoting unnamed sources, the paper said that during his visit the Minister will meet with Iraqi officials including Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, Prime Minister Mohamed Al-Sudani, his counterpart Fouad Hussein and Parliament Speaker Mohamed Halbusi. Discussions will reportedly focus on promoting bilateral relations between the two countries, and the latest developments in the region. Mokdad’s visit to Iraq comes amid “positive” developments in the region following the Arab League summit in Jeddah. The Arab League member states agreed to welcome Syria back into the Arab fold earlier in May after a 12-year suspension. Syrian President Bashar Assad attended the summit.

Hussam Edin Aala Appointed as Syria’s Ambassador to AL
Damascus : Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
Syria has appointed Hussam Edin Aala as its representative to the Arab League. A presidential decree was issued few months back to appoint Aala as Assistant Foreign Minister for European Affairs and International Organizations. Syrian state media reported on Wednesday that Aala would succeed Youssef al-Ahmad. who was the Syrian ambassador to the Arab League 11 years ago before suspending Syria’s membership. Syria retook its seat in the AL at the beginning of May after the Arab states foreign ministers approved this step during an exceptional meeting in Cairo. On May 19, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended the Arab summit that was held in Jeddah, Saud Arabia. Aala, 56, was Syria's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva for eight years. Before that, he was Syria’s ambassador was appointed as Syria’s ambassador to Spain. He further worked at the Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations between 1996-2001 and was later appointed as the director of the office of the foreign minister assistant in Damascus.

Saudi Foreign Minister Meets with Russian Counterpart
Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
The Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, met on Thursday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of the Ministerial Meeting of Friends of BRICS Group in Cape Town, South Africa.
During the meeting, the two sides reviewed aspects of friendship and cooperation between the two countries and ways to enhance and develop them in all fields. They also discussed consolidating bilateral and multilateral work regarding many fields of common interest.
During the meeting, Prince Faisal reiterated the Kingdom's position in support of all regional and international endeavors to find a political solution to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. The two sides also discussed the key issues raised in the Ministerial Meeting, held under the slogan "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.”The meeting was attended by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Multiple International Affairs, Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Rassi, the Saudi Ambassador to South Africa, Sultan Al-Luyhan Al-Anqari, and Director-General of Prince Faisal's office Abdulrahman Al-Daoud.

US Says Ready to Resume Sudan Mediation Once Parties 'Serious'
Khartoum: Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
The United States said Thursday it will only be ready to mediate a truce between Sudan's warring parties when they get "serious", after the army left negotiations and the latest ceasefire unraveled. The army on Wednesday blasted bases of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after pulling out of the truce talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah, accusing its rival of breaching the ceasefire meant to bring in aid. The United States said there had been "serious violations of the ceasefire by both sides". "Once the forces make clear by their actions that they are serious about complying with the ceasefire, the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are prepared to resume facilitation of the suspended discussions to find a negotiated solution to this conflict," a State Department spokesperson said. "These violations have led us as a facilitator of these talks to seriously question whether the parties are ready to take the actions needed to meet the obligations they have undertaken on behalf of the Sudanese people," he said.In both north and south Khartoum on Wednesday, troops loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan attacked key bases of the RSF led by commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, residents told AFP. One witness said there was "heavy artillery fire from army camps" in the capital's north, on the 47th day of a war that researchers said has claimed 1,800 lives. Another reported "artillery blasts on the RSF camp in Al-Salha" in southern Khartoum -- the largest paramilitary base and arsenal in the city. The attacks came two days after Saudi and US mediators said the warring parties had agreed to extend by five days the initial week-long humanitarian truce.

Russia 'thwarts' attack on border as three killed in Kyiv
Associated Press/1 June 2023
Moscow said Thursday it thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to "invade" its southwestern border as Russia pounded Kyiv with missiles, killing at least three people and wounding others, authorities said. Following a reported 17 drone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital in May, Russian forces hit the capital in the early morning with ground-launched missiles. The Kyiv City Administration reported one child was among the dead, and 10 people were wounded. The casualty toll was the most from one attack on Kyiv in the past month. The attack also damaged apartment buildings, a medical clinic, a water pipeline and cars. Earlier, the city government had said that two children were killed before revising the number to one. Ukraine's General Staff reported that the Air Forces intercepted all 10 missiles, which it identified as short-range ballistic Iskander missiles. Russia has repeatedly targeted Kyiv with waves of drone and missile attacks since the start of the invasion, but attacks against the capital have significantly intensified over the past month as Ukraine prepares for a counteroffensive. While most incoming weapons are shot down, many Kyiv residents are anxious and tired after weeks of sleepless nights listening to the sound of explosions. Ukraine's air defense has become increasingly effective at intercepting Russian drones and missiles, but the resulting debris can cause fires and injure people below. In Desnianskyi district, debris fell on a children's hospital and a nearby multistory building. Two schools and a police department were damaged. In another district, Dniprovskyi, a residential building was damaged by burning debris and heavy smoke arose, the blast wave blew out the windows, parked cars caught fire, and debris fell onto the roadway and courtyards. In Darnytskyi neighborhood, a water pipeline and a residential building were affected, and the explosive wave broke windows. After a woman was killed watching an aerial attack from her balcony earlier this week, Kyiv authorities urged residents to heed warning sirens and stay in shelters or other safe locations. "You've got to be vigilant, as ballistic missiles fly at incredible speeds. From the moment the alarm is announced to the rocket's arrival, you have only a few seconds!" they warned in a message to residents. Ukraine also claimed last month to have downed some of Russia's hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted as providing a key competitive advantage. On Wednesday, Russian forces carried out three aerial attacks over the south of Kherson region, along with missile and heavy artillery strikes on other parts of the region.

Fresh Russian Bombardment of Ukraine’s Capital Kills at Least 3 People, Wounds Others
Asharq Al Awsat/1 June 2023
Russian forces began June with a fresh aerial bombardment of Kyiv on Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding others, authorities said. Following up on a reported 17 attacks on the Ukrainian capital in May, mostly using drones, Russian forces hit the capital in the early morning with ground-launched missiles, damaging apartment buildings, a medical clinic, a water pipeline and a car, The Associated Press said. Kyiv City Administration reported three people were killed, two children among them, and 10 people were wounded. The casualty toll was the most from one attack on Kyiv in the past month.
After a woman was killed watching an aerial attack from her balcony earlier this week, Kyiv authorities urged residents to heed warning sirens and stay in shelters or other safe locations. Ukraine’s air defenses have become increasingly effective at intercepting Russian drones and missiles, but the resulting debris sometimes causes fires and injuries in buildings and on the ground. Preliminary indications were that Kyiv’s air defenses intercepted all incoming weapons early Thursday, and that the latest deaths and injuries were caused by falling debris. In Desnianskyi district, the debris fell on a hospital and a nearby multistory building. In another district, Dniprovskyi, a residential building was damaged by debris, parked cars caught fire, and debris fell onto the roadway. On Wednesday, Russian forces carried out three aerial attacks over the south of Kherson region, along with missile and heavy artillery strikes on other parts of the region.

France and Germany Are Split Over Ukraine’s Appeal to Join NATO
Natalia Drozdiak/Bloomberg/June 1, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- France is pushing for a concrete path for Ukraine to join the NATO military alliance, but Germany is urging more caution about discussing membership in light of Russia’s ongoing war. France’s wish “is that we clearly design a path with stages and progressions so that Ukraine can, when the time comes, join us in good security conditions,” Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said in an interview on the sidelines of a gathering of NATO counterparts in Oslo. “Will there be dates or a calendar, I’m not sure because there are still many points to discuss.”While Ukraine joining NATO is “not something for today,” Colonna said, “we need to do more than 2008,” referring to an agreement that year by allies that Ukraine would eventually join. By contrast, Germany’s Annalena Baerbock told reporters “it’s clear that we cannot talk about a new membership in the middle of a war.”The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is contending with how to deepen ties with Kyiv without immediately bringing Ukraine into the fold as a member, given that the bloc’s Article 5 security guarantees could draw allies into Russia’s war against the country. The top envoys are addressing the question of membership at their two-day meeting in Oslo, which started Wednesday, in advance of a NATO summit in July when leaders will sign off on a broader package of long-term support for Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for clear signals in support of his country’s membership at the July summit, urging allies to provide a more concrete perspective beyond the 2008 statement. But opinions differ about how specific allies should be. “Security guarantees are very important not only for Ukraine but also for our neighbor Moldova because of the Russian aggression in Ukraine and potential aggression in other parts of Europe,” Zelenskiy told reporters in Moldova on Thursday, at the start of a European Political Community meeting.
‘Coalition of Patriots’
Zelenskiy said he would discuss a “coalition of patriots” and “strong support on the battlefield.” Ukraine recently received “Patriot” air defense units from its western partners. Colonna’s comments come a day after French President Emmanuel Macron advocated for “a path toward membership” for Ukraine to NATO. The comments were a welcome surprise for Baltic nations, which have been pushing for a more concrete road map for Ukraine’s membership, according to an official from one of the countries. While the US has repeatedly backed the 2008 statement about Ukraine’s prospects and is looking to ensure a stronger political relationship with Kyiv, it’s unclear whether that will necessarily involve providing Ukraine with a timeline to membership, a senior US official said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday he’s “confident we will find consensus on the way forward and we’ve had good informal discussions already and we agree on core messages.” He added that “all allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of this alliance and Ukraine is moving closer to NATO.”
Upgrading Ukraine’s Ties
As part of the Vilnius package, allies are expected to upgrade the formal status of NATO’s relationship with Ukraine with a new NATO-Ukraine Council, allowing the country to directly take part in broader discussions about the alliance’s security. NATO leaders are also expected to agree to a long-term fund with a total of €500 million ($534 million) a year to help Ukraine with non-lethal aid and other support. The aim is to bolster Ukraine’s own defenses to deter Russia from attempting another invasion after the current war ends, with recent plans by allies to train pilots on F-16 fighter jets fitting into that long-term goal. The fund, among other things, would finance efforts to modernize Ukraine’s military, including by rebuilding military infrastructure or training soldiers on how to use and maintain modern equipment, thereby keeping readiness high. While the fund has already received hundreds of millions of euros this year, allies may struggle to provide the same level of support over the long term given that commitments are not locked in for future years.
Security Guarantees
Kyiv has also demanded effective bilateral security guarantees before it becomes a full member. Stoltenberg remarked recently that a commitment by a large ally could very closely resemble the Article 5 collective security commitments. Under the Kyiv Security Compact, a proposal drafted by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Zelenskiy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, allies would commit to enabling Ukraine’s self-defense with binding commitments to provide the necessary military and non-military resources. Macron appeared to back such a proposal Wednesday when he urged allies to provide Ukraine with “tangible, credible security guarantees” — somewhere between those similar to what is offered by the US to Israel and “full-fledged NATO membership.” Colonna said “numerous” countries are reflecting on what they could offer in terms of security guarantees and considering different formats. Ukraine is preparing a much-anticipated counter-offensive, armed with billions of dollars’ worth of European and US weapons. Kyiv may seek to launch the counter-punch ahead of the leaders’ summit in July, in an effort to convince allies that further military support is warranted.

Putin no longer has the money or the kit to sustain a high-tech modern war
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard/The Telegraph/Thu, June 1, 2023
Sanctions against Russia have been the unsung success story of the advanced democracies. Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage military war against Ukraine, and geo-ideological war against the liberal world, is being ground down systematically with each passing month. Earnings from Russia’s oil and gas exports fell by 52pc over the first four months of this year, and hydrocarbon rent is what funds two-fifths of the Kremlin’s budget. Last year, Putin had no difficulty financing his invasion from the windfall gains of the energy price spike, caused in large part by his own actions. He could raise pensions by 10pc and scatter enough money to shield Russia’s people from the hardship of the war. This year he will have to choose between guns and butter.
It was never going to be easy to blockade the world’s largest country, central to the international supply of grains, fertilisers, energy, and the gamut of critical commodities. Nor was it ever going to be possible to corral the global South without provoking a backlash and splitting the world into two camps.
Yet so far, the democracies have navigated this war with skill. I hesitate to talk of the “West” in this context because that plays to Xi-Putin propaganda. The Eastern democracies of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are also participating in the soft blockade. Europe has survived the loss of Putin’s gas in a better shape than most could have imagined a year ago, least of all Putin. Prices have collapsed to €25 MWh from a peak of €304 last August. They are not far above the median price of the last decade. The January TTF contract is €43.
We no longer have to fear a second and even more painful energy shock this winter. Gas storage tanks are already 75pc full in Germany and 74pc in Italy, at least 20 points higher than the seasonal norm. China’s stalled recovery has cratered Asian demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Tom Marzec-Manser from analysts ICIS said LNG cargoes are instead flooding into Europe at “record volume” Russia has lost all but a sliver of its European gas market, and lacks the pipelines to switch its West Siberian wells to Asia. Europe’s gas demand is henceforth on a rapid downward slope.
JP Morgan says last year’s shock forced a permanent shift in behaviour that has already cut gas needs by 5pc. The breakneck roll-out of wind and solar will mechanically slice it by another 20pc this decade. Yes, Russia is still selling near record amounts of oil. This is a feature, not a bug, of the G7’s $60 price cap, introduced last December. “The mechanism was designed to reduce export prices for Russian crude oil and petroleum products, not to reduce export volumes,” said the Finnish central bank. The purpose of the cap is to dry up Putin’s revenue stream without causing a global oil shock and a political uprising in Europe. It is working like a charm. The International Energy Agency says Russian Urals crude traded at average of $52 over the first quarter, half the level of a year ago and a $25-30 discount against Brent. The democracies control 90pc of the world’s tanker fleet through direct ownership or through financing and the P&I club that covers complex spill liability for shipowners, at $1 billion a shot. Without insurance you cannot take these floating firebombs through the Oresund or the Bosphorus, or enter most of the world’s ports.
Putin can export as much oil as he wants in G7-controlled ships so long as he complies. He vowed defiance, issuing a decree prohibiting the sale of Russian crude to any entity abiding by the G7 cap.
It was an implicit threat to withhold 4pc of the world’s supply of crude. In the end, Putin meekly complied. He does not have the money to sustain a long oil war, and he cannot risk permanent damage to his oil fields (already in trouble).
Putin is of course free to sell seaborne oil at any price to China, India, or any country using ships outside the G7 nexus. Trafigura says he has collected a “shadow fleet” of some 500 ships, drawing on a network of global shell companies using old tankers that operate with their transponders switched off.
Using this dark fleet comes at a stiff cost. Some 80pc of Russia’s tanker exports of crude and its products leave western ports in the Baltic and the Black Sea. The system was designed to supply Europe. The round-trip from St Petersburg to Hamburg takes six days. The round-trip to Shanghai takes 90 days, with freight rates, crew fees, and bunker fuel costs to match. There is a further snag: Russian ports cannot handle Suezmax supertankers. The oil has to be shipped in smaller Aframax tankers, and is then transferred to the big beasts at semi-clandestine spots, off Ceuta and off the Greek Peloponnese.
This may be an ecological nightmare but it is not a breach of sanctions – unless operations are a front for Greeks shipowners, as Ukraine alleges – but it is not a failure of G7 policy. It costs Putin an extra $12 a barrel to reach markets in Asia. Indian and Chinese traders then beat down the price, knowing that he is a distressed seller. “I doubt that Russia is netting more than $20 a barrel given their own cost of production,” said Prof Alan Riley from the Atlantic Council.
Putin cannot fund a war machine on this. Russia’s budget deficit for the first four months of this year ballooned to $40bn, blowing through the target for the whole of 2023. The country can no longer borrow abroad – not even China is stepping in with real money – and lacks a deep bond market at home. The Atlantic Council says the Russian treasury has managed to raise $12.5bn in OFZ bonds this year but at a punitive rate above 10pc.
The Kremlin is now shaking down its own oligarch base, forcing “voluntary” contributions. “Large firms are increasingly subject to the whims of those in power,” says the Finnish central bank.
The treasury has so far covered much of the deficit by running down its current account. This is unsustainable. Putin can raid the rainy-day welfare fund for a while, $155bn if you believe Russian data at this juncture, but much of it is in illiquid holdings, such as a stake of Sberbank. A crunch is coming.
Economic blockades can never win a quick war. But the G7 squeeze is degrading Putin’s war machine sufficiently to give Ukraine a fighting chance.
The US Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) estimates that Russia has lost up to 40pc of its pre-war tank fleet. It continues to lose 150 tanks a month but can produce only 20 a month at its UralVagonZavod plant.
Russia is drawing down on its Soviet reserve, with T64 and even T55 tanks appearing on the battlefield. It lacks the hi-tech components to upgrade these dinosaurs with accurate sights, causing a two kilometre loss of range.
It is the same story to varying degrees with artillery, rocket systems, helicopters, and electronic warfare. The shortage of high-quality bearings and microchips is holding back war repair and production.
Russia needs 30,000 basic chips a month to keep the show on the road: it makes only 8,000. It can buy chips from China but these have to be redesigned fundamentally to fit a technology system that evolved using chips from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices.
The CSIS says Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft are being held together with 17 components from old engines. KamAZ is again building antique 820 (V8) tractor engines because China’s Weichai cut off the supply of advanced engines for fear of sanctions. Russia no longer has access to the precision machine tools needed to sustain a cutting-edge war machine.
The Kremlin can continue to rely on the global black market to smuggle in key components. But it all takes time and money. Russia has neither as Ukraine prepares its counter-offensive. Sanctions are most assuredly working. Besides, there is no other moral choice.
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Poland slams vote questioning Hungary holding EU presidency
WARSAW (Reuters)/Thu, June 1, 2023
Poland rebuked on Thursday the European Parliament backing a resolution that questions Hungary's ability to hold the European Union presidency next year due to concerns about judicial independence. Despite a significant cooling of relations due to their different stances on the war in Ukraine, Poland and Hungary remain united in opposing what they see as undue interference from Brussels over reforms that critics say undermine judicial independence. "It is a clear violation of European rules in their most important form, that is treaty rules," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a conference in Moldova. "Destroying the entire way of managing the EU in this way is not only a road to nowhere, but it is a road to the abyss." The resolution, which was approved 442-114 with 33 abstentions, questioned how Hungary could hold the presidency "in view of incompliance with EU law and the values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union as well as the principle of sincere cooperation". According to a calendar agreed by all EU governments in 2016, Hungary is to hold the presidency of the bloc between July and December 2024. Hungary and Poland have long been at odds with the EU over multiple issues, such as the rule of law, media freedoms and LGBTQ rights. The EU has frozen billions of euros in funds for Budapest and Warsaw due to its concerns.Hungary could receive some 5.8 billion euros in free grants and a further 9.6 billion euros in cheap loans from the EU, but the bloc has suspended any payments until Budapest's nationalist government implements reforms to improve judicial independence and tackle corruption. On Tuesday, the European Commission and U.S. State Department voiced concern about a new Polish law they say could effectively ban, without providing proper judicial review, individuals deemed to have acted under Russian influence from holding public office. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief political aide Balazs Orban, who is not related, said on Twitter that Hungary was being "blackmailed by Brussels because of its antiwar position". Hungary has refused to provide any military equipment to its neighbour to help it fight off a Russian invasion, and Hungary has criticised EU sanctions against Moscow.

House OKs debt ceiling bill, sends Biden-McCarthy deal to Senate
Associated Press/June 01/2023
Veering away from a default crisis, the House approved a debt ceiling and budget cuts package late Wednesday, as President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy assembled a bipartisan coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans against fierce conservative blowback and progressive dissent.
The hard-fought deal pleased few, but lawmakers assessed it was better than the alternative — a devastating economic upheaval if Congress failed to act. Tensions ran high throughout the day as hard-right Republicans refused the deal, while Democrats said "extremist" GOP views were risking a debt default as soon as next week. With an overwhelming House vote, 314-117, the bill now heads to the Senate with passage expected by week's end. McCarthy insisted his party was working to "give America hope" as he launched into a late evening speech extolling the bill's budget cuts, which he said were needed to curb Washington's "runaway spending." Amid deep discontent from Republicans who said the spending restrictions did not go far enough, McCarthy said it is only a "first step."The package makes some inroads in curbing the nation's debt as Republicans demanded, without rolling back Trump-era tax breaks as Biden wanted. To pass it, Biden and McCarthy counted on support from the political center, a rarity in divided Washington. In a statement released after the vote, Biden said: "I have been clear that the only path forward is a bipartisan compromise that can earn the support of both parties. This agreement meets that test."
He called the vote "good news for the American people and the American economy." Biden had sent top White House officials to the Capitol and called lawmakers directly to shore up backing. McCarthy worked to sell skeptical fellow Republicans, even fending off challenges to his leadership, in the rush to avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default.
Swift passage later in the week by the Senate would ensure government checks will continue to go out to Social Security recipients, veterans and others and would prevent financial upheaval at home and abroad. Next Monday is when the Treasury has said the U.S. would run short of money to pay its debts.
Overall, the 99-page bill restricts spending for the next two years, suspends the debt ceiling into January 2025 and changes some policies, including imposing new work requirements for older Americans receiving food aid and greenlighting an Appalachian natural gas line that many Democrats oppose.
It bolsters funds for defense and veterans, and guts new money for Internal Revenue Service agents. Raising the nation's debt limit, now $31 trillion, ensures Treasury can borrow to pay already incurred U.S. debts. Top GOP deal negotiator Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana said Republicans were fighting for budget cuts after the past years of extra spending, first during the COVID-19 crisis and later with Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, with its historic investment to fight climate change paid for with revenues elsewhere. But Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus helping to lead the opposition, said, "My beef is that you cut a deal that shouldn't have been cut."For weeks negotiators labored late into the night to strike the deal with the White House, and for days McCarthy has worked to build support among skeptics. At one point, aides wheeled in pizza at the Capitol the night before the vote as he walked Republicans through the details, fielded questions and encouraged them not to lose sight of the bill's budget savings. The speaker has faced a tough crowd. Cheered on by conservative senators and outside groups, the hard-right House Freedom Caucus lambasted the compromise as falling well short of the needed spending cuts, and they vowed to try to halt passage. A much larger conservative faction, the Republican Study Committee, declined to take a position. Even rank-and-file centrist conservatives were unsure, leaving McCarthy searching for votes from his slim Republican majority.
Ominously, the conservatives warned of possibly trying to oust McCarthy over the compromise. One influential Republican, former President Donald Trump, held his fire: "It is what it is," he said of the deal in an interview with Iowa radio host Simon Conway. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said it was up to McCarthy to turn out Republican votes in the 435-member House, where 218 votes are needed for approval. As the tally faltered on an afternoon procedural vote, Jeffries stood silently and raised his green voting card, signaling that the Democrats would fill in the gap to ensure passage. They did, advancing the bill that hard-right Republicans, many from the Freedom Caucus, refused to back. "Once again, House Democrats to the rescue to avoid a dangerous default," said Jeffries, D-N.Y. "What does that say about this extreme MAGA Republican majority?" he said about the party aligned with Trump's "Make America Great Again" political movement.
Then, on the final vote hours later, Democrats again ensured passage, leading the tally as 71 Republicans bucked their majority and voted against it. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the spending restrictions in the package would reduce deficits by $1.5 trillion over the decade, a top goal for the Republicans trying to curb the debt load. In a surprise that complicated Republicans' support, however, the CBO said their drive to impose work requirements on older Americans receiving food stamps would end up boosting spending by $2.1 billion over the time period. That's because the final deal exempts veterans and homeless people, expanding the food stamp rolls by 78,000 people monthly, the CBO said. Liberal discontent, though, ran strong as nearly four dozen Democrats also broke away, decrying the new work requirements for older Americans, those 50-54, in the food aid program.
Some Democrats were also incensed that the White House negotiated into the deal changes to the landmark National Environmental Policy Act and approval of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline natural gas project. The energy development is important to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., but many others oppose it as unhelpful in fighting climate change. On Wall Street, stock prices were down. In the Senate, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell are working for passage by week's end. Schumer warned there is "no room for error."Senators, who have remained largely on the sidelines during much of the negotiations, are insisting on amendments to reshape the package. But making any changes at this stage seemed unlikely with so little time to spare before Monday's deadline.

Canada sanctions Moldovan oligarchs, politicians over Russian links
LBCI/June 01/2023
Canada is imposing sanctions on Moldovan oligarchs, business people and politicians over their connections to Russia and to prevent alleged Russian destabilization efforts in the region, the Canadian foreign ministry said on Thursday. The sanctions target seven individuals and one entity, the pro-Russian opposition Shor Party, the Canadian ministry said in a statement. The targeted individuals include the Shor Party's leader, exiled businessman Ilan Shor; former Moldovan parliament member Vladimir Plahotniuc and businessman Veaceslav Platon. The sanctions were announced as European leaders are meeting in Moldova in a show of support for the former Soviet republic, which has a pro-western government and denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Moldova's government has accused Russia of trying to destabilize the mainly Romanian-speaking country through its influence over the separatist movement in mainly Russian-speaking Transdniestria region of Moldova. "These targeted sanctions will serve to undermine Russia's ability to continue its unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine through Moldova, counter Russian destabilization efforts in the region and support the democratically elected Government of Moldova," the ministry said. Since the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, Canada has imposed sanctions on more than 1,900 individuals and entities.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 01-02/2023
A Latent Problem for Erdoğan
Kevork Yacoubian/Carnegie MEC/June 01/2023
Türkiye’s president has just won reelection, but events in northern Syria may prove more complicated than expected.
The general elections in Türkiye are now over, which is likely to provide more clarity with respect to how Ankara will deal with the situation in Syria in the coming months. While some have suggested that the reelection of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may mean he will try to maintain a status quo in his foreign policy, one thing that is likely to change is Türkiye’s relationship with nonstate actors in northern Syria.
A reason for this is the somewhat bewildering foreign policy reversals in which Türkiye has engaged in the past two decades. The Turkish approach has undergone repeated evolutions, from its “Zero Problems with the Neighbors” policy to active involvement, starting in 2011, in supporting the Arab uprisings, notably in Syria, with which Ankara previously had excellent relations. Additionally, what many attributed to Neo-Ottomanism—Türkiye’s economic, cultural, and political expansion into former Ottoman lands—has been replaced today with a more opportunistic and pragmatic foreign policy. In recent months, Erdoğan’s administration has sought to normalize relations with Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates after years of antagonism. This trend will probably continue, in Syria specifically. But Syria is also where the Turkish president’s difficulties are likely to increase.
The reason for this is that Erdoğan may well find himself caught between the mood of the Turkish electorate and that of the Syrian population hostile to the Assad regime in areas of northern Syria not controlled by Damascus. The fact that Erdoğan had to go through two rounds of voting to be reelected suggested that many Turkish voters sought a change of policy toward Syria, especially in light of the large Syrian refugee population in Türkiye. Therefore, it is unlikely that Erdoğan will reverse efforts to normalize with Syria, an attitude that will be reinforced by the poor state of the Turkish economy. Moreover, such pragmatism is only enhanced by Ankara’s intentions to pursue its balancing role in the region through its relations with Russia and the United States on the one side, and Iran and Saudi Arabia on the other.
Regarding Syria, any rapprochement with Damascus will force Erdoğan to maneuver carefully between the Assad regime and the Syria opposition. Throughout the past month, both Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the former Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Syrian National Army, a coalition of armed opposition groups that is closely aligned with Türkiye, have rejected the Arab League’s normalization of relations with the Assad regime, as they have a Turkish-Syrian dialogue. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s leader, Abou Mohammed al-Jolani, has suggested that the military approach is the only viable option to solve the Syrian conflict. The SNA leadership, in turn, has gone so far as to call the normalization process “criminal” for the Syrian opposition and people. The opposition in Idlib Governorate and other regions of Syria that have a Turkish presence is concerned by Türkiye’s rapprochement with Assad, as Ankara has long supported them in their fight.
Yet the repercussions of this anxiety go beyond that, and may affect who ultimately controls Idlib. The situation in Syria’s northern governorates is critical as tensions have risen between the Syrian National Army and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham for leadership of the anti-Assad opposition in Idlib. Nonstate actors have become major players in the Syrian conflict. Countries, such as Türkiye and Iran, have armed and supported forces on the ground, who, in turn, have constructed their respective identities and ideological beliefs.
For example, in the case of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, many have remarked that Jolani has sought to portray himself as a flexible leader, not a jihadi extremist, despite his organization’s antecedents as a branch of Al-Qaeda. His aim appears to be to affirm that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham can govern Idlib, while also projecting the image of a leader who is a real player in the Syrian conflict and someone frequentable for Western states.
Concurrently, there have been heightened strains within the Syrian National Army. Due to constant fragmentation, the force has become unreliable and weak in the face of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or even the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has exploited this disarray in the ranks of the Syrian National Army by imposing its will and administrative structure on the people of Idlib. As such, any normalization process between Ankara and Damascus will have to address these nonstate actors, whose presence is an obstacle to Syria’s territorial integrity.
This situation has presented an opportunity for Jolani to rally support for his own group and launch attacks against all those who oppose him, in an attempt to take control of the region and become a major interlocutor in any future dialogue over the Syrian conflict. From Ankara’s perspective, there is something positive in the fact that many of those in Idlib—local notables, tribal leaders, and the population at large—reject Jolani and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, seeing them at best as a lesser evil when compared to the Assad regime. This reaction will help create balance in the north, as opponents of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham have called for the opposition to unite around a common agenda of implementing Security Council Resolution 2254, which excludes organizations such as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the Islamic State group from any political process and calls for a transition in Syria under the supervision of the United Nations.
This situation may create complications for Erdoğan if he continues to normalize with Damascus. Türkiye would not only have to deal with the Assad regime but also with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its own presumptive allies inside Syria.
*Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

When Iran Challenges Azerbaijan, Israel Benefits!
Huda al-Husseini/Asharq Al Awsat/01 June 2023
According to a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Azerbaijan became the second-largest importer of Israeli weaponry between 2018 and 2022. Purchasing 9.1 percent of Israeli arms exports, it came second to India, which purchased 37 percent. The Philippines (8.5 percent) was third. Israeli exports account for 2.3 percent of the global arms trade over this same period. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan ramped up energy exports to the State of Israel, supplying it with 40 percent of its energy needs since the Ukraine war broke out.
Alongside these pragmatic underpinnings, the close ties between the two countries also have a basis in history: Azerbaijan is home to the last remaining Jewish community in the Caucasus in Krasnaya Sloboda (Red Town), and it has also been home to a large Ashkenazi community (mostly in Baku) since the late 19th century. Cooperation between them has also had implications on both countries’ foreign policies more broadly, as made clear by the latest rapprochement between Israel and Turkiye. The 2010 Mavi Marmara incident created a major wedge between the countries, after the Israeli navy raided a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. In 2016, Turkiye and Israel reconciled on the condition that Israel pay around 20 million dollars in compensation to the families of the activists who had lost their lives. However, this agreement did not last long, as Turkiye cut ties with Israel in 2018 after the United States recognized Jerusalem as its capital.
The Abraham Accords supported by Washington, which saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalize relations with Israel in August of 2020, was another pivotal juncture in the politics of the region.
Turkiye’s initial reaction was negative. However, soon after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to sever ties with the UAE, Ankara and Jerusalem found themselves on the same side of the war that broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh. This conflict seemed to remind both countries of what they could accomplish together. By December 2020, Erdogan’s administration had woken up to the fact that its diplomatic spat with Israel left it in an awkward position. And after a decade of tensions, the Turkish government decided to change course and patch things up.
As part of its policy shift vis a vis Israel, Turkiye went as far as quietly accepting the Abraham Accords despite its initial condemnation of the agreement. Azerbaijan was well placed to act as a bridge in the normalization process. In December 2020, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov announced that Baku could mediate talks between Tel Aviv and Ankara. Hikmat Hajiyev, an advisor to the president of Azerbaijan, followed this up by declaring that Baku could host tripartite negotiations.
Bilateral relations were thus eased after over ten years of tensions. The visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Turkiye in March 2022, which was followed by visits by both nations’ foreign ministers, warmed relations further. In June of last year, Turkiye and Israel cooperated to foil an Iranian plot to kidnap Israeli tourists from Turkiye. Two months later, they announced that diplomatic relations had been fully restored. After that, in October 2022, a meeting between the defense ministers of Turkiye and Israel reinforced the normalization process. Indeed, Benny Gantz’s visit to Ankara was the first by an Israeli defense minister in more than a decade. Moreover, an Israeli team rescued 19 Turkish citizens after last month’s earthquake. Thanking Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Erdogan said that Turkiye would always remember the aid Israel had provided.
Azerbaijan has made Turkish-Israeli normalization a foreign policy priority. Given the repeated threats of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the enhancement of relations between its two closest allies could not have come at a better time for Baku. The escalation of tensions between Iran on the one hand, and Azerbaijan and Israel on the other, has strengthened the bilateral strategic partnership between the latter. Two weeks after the clashes that broke out on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited Azerbaijan, where he met with President Ilham Aliyev and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Zakir Hasanov.
The Abraham Accords, the rapprochement between Turkiye and Israel, and the tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran have added a new dimension to Azerbaijan and Israel’s partnership. Despite Israel having opened an embassy in Baku in August 1993, Azerbaijan had rejected Israel’s request that it do the same until recently, when it made a historic decision to return the favor nearly 30 years later. Azerbaijan had been hesitant because of concerns that doing so would upset fellow Muslim-majority countries and provoke Iran, which holds Israel responsible for the deterioration of relations between Baku and Tehran.
Under the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government, Azerbaijan and Israel’s cooperation reached new strategic heights. Yair Lapid called Azerbaijan a pivotal partner. Moreover, Israeli’s Defense Minister at the time, Benny Gantz, made a decisive visit to Azerbaijan, where he repeatedly emphasized the importance of “maintaining the strategic relations between the State of Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan” and “being mindful the changes underway in the Middle East following the Abraham Accords.” He and Azerbaijani officials also discussed Israel’s enhanced relations with Turkiye and other countries in the region and the world. The discussions he held during this visit could be said to have played a crucial role in paving the way for Azerbaijan’s decision to establish an embassy in Israel.
The change of government in Israel did nothing to undermine this strategic partnership. Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government has maintained close cooperation with Azerbaijan. On January 11, Ilham Aliyev appointed the first Azerbaijani ambassador to Israel, Mukhtar Mammadov. Last February, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met President Aliyev on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
While Tehran is clearly a larger and more powerful actor than Baku, it cannot put these geopolitical considerations to one side as it contemplates the prospect of a conflict between the two countries. Iran’s need to maintain positive ties with Turkiye and Russia, as well as its dependence on Azerbaijan for logistic services, should be at the top of its mind. Thus, the prospect of an armed conflict between the two countries seems far-fetched.

Turkish ‘Princess’ Vows that Islam Will ‘Break the Western Cross’
Raymond Ibrahim./June 1, 2023
Resorting to jihadist rhetoric, Esra, the daughter of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—who just gained another five years as president—recently attacked the West and Christianity.
In a tweet written, not in her native Turkish, but in Islam’s tongue, Arabic, the “first daughter” declared that “There is little left for the Islamic crescent to break the Western cross.”
This phrase is as universally understood by Muslims, as it is universally misunderstood by Westerners, and is, therefore, emblematic of Muslim continuity and Western confusion.
It has both a literal and figurative meaning.
Concerning the former, Muslims have been, quite literally, “breaking the cross” in keeping with their prophet’s commandment. Past and present, Muslims have destroyed and continue to destroy the crucifix—in cemeteries, on churches, on Christians—as a reflection of their animosity to the Gospel, specifically, that Christ was crucified, killed, and resurrected, three doctrines central to Christianity that Islam rejects.
Indeed, the June, 2015 cover of the Islamic State’s magazine, Dabiq, featured a Muslim breaking a cross off a church steeple, with the words “Break the Cross” underneath.
More figuratively, “break the cross” has always meant “defeat Christianity”—another thing that Muslims, past and present, have been fervently striving for—including, apparently, the ostensibly “secularized” daughter of Turkey’s president, a “sociologist” by profession.
In the past, Muslims managed, through violent jihad, to swallow up three-quarters of the original Christian world—including the Middle East, North Africa, and “Turkey” (Anatolia). They also temporarily conquered several other Christian territories (Spain, the Mediterranean, the Balkans), and continuously harried the rest (eventually even reaching Iceland for slaves and provoking a newborn American into its first war as a nation).
Back then, when Islam was a formidable force, Europeans fought tooth and nail to repulse the terrorists and safeguard their homeland’s faith and heritage.
Today, however, when Islam is weak and easily confined, the West finds itself bending over backwards to accommodate and take in more and more Muslim migrants—many of whom, rather than show gratitude, display Islam’s traditional contempt for and prey on “infidels.”
In short, whereas Muslims—including Turkey’s president and offspring—know well and strive to achieve the meaning of “break the cross,” Westerners, who for over a millennium had been on the receiving end of such animosity, until they managed to reverse the tide in the eighteenth century, are today, not only not doing anything about it, but facilitating it. In this sense, the assertion that “There is little left for the Islamic crescent to break the Western cross” is more reflective of the state of Christianity in the West than of Islam.

China's CCP: World's Most Dangerous Transnational Criminal Organization
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute./June 1, 2023
What is the world's largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China.
Beijing's primary goal is rule — not domination — of Planet Earth and the near parts of the solar system.
This expansive Chinese view has many implications, but one of them is that China's regime does not believe it is bound by the laws of the international community. China's regime, with this mentality, thinks that whatever it does by definition is within its right and therefore not criminal.
There are in China, for instance, over 700 million surveillance cameras in its SkyNet system, about one camera for every two residents. Those devices are being connected to one centrally controlled system as the regime stitches together a nationwide social credit system to monitor every person in the People's Republic.
Taxis and other vehicles also have government-installed cameras. The CCP has thought of everything. As a result, China is fast becoming totalitarian and a total surveillance state.
The Communist Party cannot run such a state and claim it does not know what is going on.
This means the CCP is responsible for the tens of thousands of Americans annually killed by fentanyl.... The result, Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution wrote, is "the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history."
TikTok... which Beijing effectively controls, glamorizes drug use. Yes, the wildly popular app has community guidelines prohibiting videos promoting drug use, but you can find clips with millions of views teaching kids how to take illegal drugs.
The Chinese gangs use burner phones and Chinese banking apps to move vast sums quickly, quietly, and securely through the Chinese state banking system. The Communist Party of China tightly controls all Chinese banks, and no one could transfer sums through their networks without the cooperation of the regime.
"At its core, the People's Republic of China is focused on gaining geopolitical leverage over countries in Central and South America to be used in an eventual conflict with the United States." — Joseph Humire of the Center for a Secure Free Society to Gatestone, May 2023
These are just a few of China's crimes as detailed in Frank Gaffney's new book, The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party & Friends for Crimes Against America, China, and the World. Unfortunately, American law enforcement prosecutes individuals when it should be prosecuting the Communist Party of China instead.
What is the world's largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China. The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a criminal of the most powerful and insidious kind. Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping attends during the China-Central Asia Summit in Xian, China on May 19, 2023. (Photo by Florence Lo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
China's regime is trafficking illegal drugs, protected wildlife, and humans. It is laundering cash and participating in ransomware attacks. It steals intellectual property. The ruling group, as a matter of state policy, murders people for their organs.
The Chinese state is not only a dangerous international actor, it is also a common criminal. Perhaps we should say it is an uncommon or state criminal, the most powerful and insidious kind.
What is the world's largest transnational criminal organization? At 96.7 million members, it is the Communist Party of China.
The Obama administration's "Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime," issued in 2011, defines "transnational organized crime" as "self-perpetuating associations" operating transnationally "for the purpose of obtaining power, influence, monetary and/or commercial gains, wholly or in part by illegal means." These organizations protect themselves "through a pattern of corruption and/or violence."
That describes the Communist Party to a T.
The only way the Party falls outside the Obama definition is that it does not have "economic gain" as its "primary goal."
Beijing's primary goal is rule — not domination — of Planet Earth and the near parts of the solar system. Xi Jinping is working to impose the Chinese imperial-era system in which emperors believed not only that they had the Mandate of Heaven to rule tianxia or "all under Heaven," but also were compelled by Heaven to do so. Moreover, China's officials beginning in 2017 publicly talked about the moon and Mars as sovereign Chinese territory, part of the People's Republic.
This expansive Chinese view has many implications, but one of them is that China's regime does not believe it is bound by the laws of the international community. China's regime, with this mentality, thinks that whatever it does by definition is within its right and therefore not criminal.
China, however, is one big crime scene. All transnational crimes committed in the Chinese state — even those not committed by state agents — are the CCP's criminal acts as well.
Why?
The People's Republic of China maintains the world's most sophisticated surveillance state. With the possible exception of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), no state knows more about the activities of its people.
There are in China, for instance, over 700 million surveillance cameras in its SkyNet system, about one camera for every two residents. Those devices are being connected to one centrally controlled system as the regime stitches together a nationwide social credit system to monitor every person in the People's Republic.
In addition, the regime uses the 1.69 billion cellphones — 0.97 billion of these are smartphones — for surveillance purposes. Taxis and other vehicles also have government-installed cameras. The CCP has thought of everything. As a result, China is fast becoming totalitarian and a total surveillance state.
The Communist Party cannot run such a state and claim it does not know what is going on. So, if large, organized criminal gangs continue operating in China, it is obvious these organizations have both the knowledge and approval of the party-state.
This means the CCP is responsible for the tens of thousands of Americans annually killed by fentanyl. Fentanyl is one of dozens of opioids Chinese gangs design and make in laboratories in China. The gangs then sell the precursor chemicals primarily to two Mexican cartels, which mix the Chinese precursors and then smuggle the fentanyl into the U.S. through a wide-open southern border. The result, Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution wrote, is "the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history."
As Ray Donovan, recently retired Chief of Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told Fox News Digital, "China is the lead nation for the production of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl and the Chinese chemical industry is the most unregulated industry in all of China."
Moreover, the Chinese surveillance state does more than just know and approve of the activities of the drug gangs, it also gives them diplomatic support. In early April, for instance, the Chinese foreign ministry publicly stated this: "There is no so-called illicit fentanyl trafficking problem between China and Mexico."
In addition, Chinese central government and Communist Party media outlets support the Chinese gangs. Even China's private companies participate in this propaganda barrage. TikTok, for example, which Beijing effectively controls, glamorizes drug use. Yes, the wildly popular app has community guidelines prohibiting videos promoting drug use, but you can find clips with millions of views teaching kids how to take illegal drugs.
Moreover, the Chinese gangs launder profits through the Chinese state banking system. Chinese "money brokers," working for Latin American drug lords, have quickly displaced rivals with, as a source told Reuters, "the most sophisticated form of money laundering that's ever existed."
The Chinese gangs use burner phones and Chinese banking apps to move vast sums quickly, quietly, and securely through the Chinese state banking system. The Communist Party of China tightly controls all Chinese banks, and no one could transfer sums through their networks without the cooperation of the regime. Beijing, not surprisingly, has not cooperated with American efforts to stop the fentanyl trafficking.
Why does the Communist Party resort to criminal activity? The regime apparently sees fentanyl as a way to increase its Comprehensive National Power, or CNP. CNP is an empirical framework, developed by the Soviets, to rank countries. China wants the No. 1 ranking, and one way of getting there is by decreasing America's ranking. Transnational crime, especially peddling fentanyl, comes in handy for that.
The Communist Party's ambitions, however, go beyond CNP rankings. ProPublica has tied Chinese money launderers, who moved Latin American drug cash, to Beijing's attempt to influence American politics. Li Xizhi, once China's leading money-launderer in the Western hemisphere, and associate Liu Tao launched "a high-rolling quest for political influence" that resulted in at least two meetings with a recent sitting American president, Donald Trump. This appears to have been a Chinese covert operation to penetrate American politics, as Li's political forays had almost nothing to do with his money-laundering business. Furthermore, it is increasingly apparent that Chinese authorities have decided to foster the drug trade in the Americas in order to destabilize the region and spread corruption as well as addiction and death. China's gangs do not just operate on the sidelines of society in Latin America and the Caribbean, they also corrupt the ruling elites — in other words, whole countries, as cited by Joseph Humire below.
In the Western hemisphere, China distorts business and politics. The results of Beijing's activities are more corruption, more conflicts, and more destabilization.
"At its core, the People's Republic of China is focused on gaining geopolitical leverage over countries in Central and South America to be used in an eventual conflict with the United States," Joseph Humire of the Center for a Secure Free Society told Gatestone. "This includes empowering autocratic leaders with ties to illicit actors in each country to change the incentives from a free enterprise system to an illicit enterprise system that relies on drug trafficking, human smuggling, contraband, illegal fishing, and other illicit activities."
These are just a few of China's crimes as detailed in Frank Gaffney's new book, The Indictment: Prosecuting the Chinese Communist Party & Friends for Crimes Against America, China, and the World. Unfortunately, American law enforcement prosecutes individuals when it should be prosecuting the Communist Party of China instead. Similarly, the U.S. Treasury on May 30 announced sanctions on 13 entities in China for the production of illicit synthetic drugs but failed to name the real culprit, the Party.
Criminality and lawlessness are inherent in the nature of China's communist state, which idealizes struggle and domination, and the continued criminality of its ruling group throws into question the world's basic assumptions about the Chinese system.
China's Communist Party is now threatening to engulf the world with its criminality. What is at stake, therefore, are the principles that hold modern society together.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Authoritarian Redux
Charles Elias Chartouni//June 01, 2023
The re-election of Erdogan, the unconditional rehabilitation of Assad and the hazards of the Saudi-Iranian condominium, the unraveling of Lebanon, the stalemated Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the authoritarian backlash in Tunisia and Algeria, the rekindled civil wars in Sudan, Libya and the unresolved Yemeni dilemmas …, make us wonder whether democracy and political liberalization have any chance in this part of the world, or they are foredoomed. None of the indicators seems to point in that direction, and the opportunities are forestalled in the visible range. We are still within the conventional scenario of Arab power politics shorn of any prospect of democratization, developmental concerns, negotiated conflict resolution, inclusive political and civic subcultures, and strengthened civil society platforms.
The negotiated arrangements between autocrats are unlikely to usher a new era, unless one endorses the self fulfilling prophecies and delusions of MBS, and gives credence to the bluffing of the predatory Iranian autocracy. The well seated entrenchments of Arab and Islamic authoritarianism, far from being questioned, are rebranded and sent back to the respective societies under the guise of spurious reformist adumbrations. The regional geopolitics are still under the spell of Sunnite-Shiite Cold Wars, foreclosed zones of influence, fraudulent Arab Community ties, oligarchic logrolling and fossilized political cultures. Therefore, conflicts within and between States, have nothing to expect so far, inasmuch as conflict resolution, reformed governance and geopolitical stabilization. Political actors have to rely solely on their political acumen, contextual emergencies, and ability to maneuver their way amidst the imbroglios of an imploded region. The mere reliance on the alleged transformation of the regional diplomatic landscape ushered by the Chinese arbitration between Saudi and Iranians, is quite misleading and hazardous.
The falsehoods of magic solutions and surreptitious diplomatic deals, turned out to be short lived and reminiscent of a sour past. Erdogan went back to his hackneyed political revanchism, bankrupted economic playbook and clientelism, revived ethno-religious animosities and conflicts, disruptive interventionism, and international meandering; Assad political gimmicks have been tested over time and never betrayed his unwillingness to engage the majority of the Syrian people in an open undertaking of political reconciliation, conflict resolution, political, economic and social reforms and the onset of a new political era. He is adept at political maneuvering and dissembling, blackmailing and procrastination, with no other goal but staying his course and expropriating power venues. The ostentatious coup d’état staged by Hezbollah in Lebanon has led to a systemic unraveling which questions the country’s survival, pluralistic cultural and societal textures, liberal Doxa, and consociational democracy. The gridlocked negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have killed a legacy of peace agreements, and the prospects of a Two States solution and overall normalization. The endemic instability which prevailed in Tunisia during the Arab Spring interlude, has led to an interim political authoritarianism that must be swayed by the politics of conditionality and their political, financial and socio-economic corollaries. Algeria is still dragging its dilemmas mapped on the interstices of a mythologized revolutionary past and its fallacies, a mismanaged economy, sturdy military entrenchments, Islamic radicalization and disgruntled youth. Egypt is still groping its way amidst explosive demographics and rapidly mutating social structures, mega-infrastructure projects, large scale economic projections, and a conflict ridden political environment, within and without. While Sudan is revisiting earlier conflicts grafted onto the personal rivalries of a heavy legacy of warlordism, Islamic authoritarianism, and the brutal demise of the fleeting democratic intermission. Conflicts in Iraq, Yemen and Libya testify to the stridence of ethno-political conflicts, the destructive impact of regional and inter-Islamic power politics on society, politics, and economics.
The paucity of political outcomes are quite sobering insofar as the future of the Iranian-Saudi negotiations and their purport, the dearth of their underlying political narrative and its pliability to the New Cold War ideological and strategic configurations, the marginality of the reformist agendas and their incidence on the nuts and bolts of daily political life. How long this threadbare diplomatic plot is likely to survive, and what would be the consequences of its failure, are the right questions to be asked before proceeding onto further strategic projections and political forecasting.